A 20-YEAR-OLD man who drove a car without insurance, refused to obey a police officer and failed to turn up to court has been jailed for nine weeks.
Sean Brandon de la Haye committed the offences while serving a community service order imposed in March, the Magistrate’s Court heard.
Outlining the new offences, legal adviser Paul Lee, prosecuting, said de la Haye was captured on CCTV on 20 May driving out of a petrol station despite having no insurance.
After being shown the footage by a police officer, he admitted driving without insurance but failed to attend the Magistrate’s Court on 4 September as he had left the Island.
At 2.30am on 30 October de la Haye was seen by the police outside the Royal Yacht Hotel at the Weighbridge, behaving in a threatening way and racially abusing a Romanian man. He failed to move on when officers told him to and was arrested for refusing to obey an officer. De la Haye, who has a number of previous convictions, was not charged with abusing the man.
Advocate Mike Preston, defending, said his client had a difficult family background and described him as “a young man who has gone off the rails in the last year”.
Of the driving offence, he added: “The CCTV shows that it was a bright, sunny day and there is no evidence of poor driving.”
Relief Magistrate Peter Harris told de la Haye: “This could all have been dealt with much more easily if you had not left the Island in the summer.”
He said he was taking account of his guilty pleas and young age but noted that non-custodial sentences had not worked in the past, and warned him: “Your record is piling up.”
As well as the nine weeks in youth custody, de la Haye was banned from driving for three months.
