Man Appears In Court On 2004/2006 Charges

The long arm of the law reached back seven years yesterday morning to pick up 44-year-old George’s resident Roger Spencer. Mr Spencer was arrested, held in Police custody, and brought to Plea Court to face charges involving a $500 unpaid balance on a fine that resulted from a traffic offence in 2004.

Mr Spencer then faced two more old charges. A traffic offence from riding an unlicensed motorbike in March 2007, a charge for which he had not attended Court. Mr Spencer pleaded guilty to these two matters.

Magistrate Juan Wolffe, sitting in for the senior Magistrate, gave Mr Spencer until 19th October to settle the $500 outstanding and then fined Spencer $250 for the second matter with that fine due to be paid by 5th November 2011.

The last in the triad of charges was sparked by a charge of possessing 0.62 grams of cocaine in Paget on 13 September 2006; which had happened after a routine Police check.

Initially Mr Spencer pleaded not guilty to this charge and got a trial date of 15th December 2011. Just before Plea Court ended, he asked if he could change his plea. Magistrate Wolffe allowed that and Mr Spencer pleaded guilty to the charge of possession.

Mr Spencer explained to Magistrate Wolffe that he had been going through a bad patch and was having serious personal and other problems. Mr Spencer said that he had not used drugs since 2007, had managed to get his life back in order and deal with his personal issues, and wanted to put all this behind him.

Saying that he had taken all the circumstances and evidence into consideration, Magistrate Wolffe then decided that he would grant Mr Spencer a six month Conditional Discharge on the drugs possession charge.

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Category: All, Court Reports, Crime