KEY POINTS:
The Court of Appeal has upheld a High Court decision to quash a Youth Court order that the parents of a young person pay $10,000 reparation for his offending.
The original order had been made by Judge Gregory Ross when he ordered the parents of 'J' to pay reparations for their child's offences.
J had been before the Youth Court on numerous occasions and amongst myriad lesser charges, there were many serious burglaries, car conversions and unlawfully getting into a motor vehicle type charges.
There had been 11 family group conferences, many of them to consider the issue of reparation because of victim losses and damage caused.
Judge Ross said damage was likely to be more than $100,000.
"This is J's share of loss or damage; on many occasions the offending has been carried out in concert with others."
There were dozens of victims.
In October 2005, while he was on bail which involved him being at his parents' house subject to curfew, J and a co-offender burgled a farmhouse and stole items worth up to $80,000, including cash, firearms and a 42 inch plasma television set.
Early the following morning, his father saw J and others with firearms outside his house. He told J he did not want the firearms at his house and J was to remove them immediately.
In February 2006, J was sentenced in relation to a number of offences, including the farmhouse burglary and a reparation order was sought by the owner.
Following a hearing on that issue, Judge Ross granted a reparation order for $10,000 against J's parents.
He found that in the circumstances, the parents should have been more proactive and he noted particularly that the father should have told police J was absent from the parents' home, at least when he knew J was out with his friends, with firearms.
But that order was overturned by Justice Jill Mallon in the High Court when J's parents appealed.
She said it would not be reasonable to order reparation against a parent under section 283(f) of the Children Young Persons and Their Families Act 1989, in the absence of fault, nor would it be reasonable to make such an order in the absence of a causative link between the parents' fault and the offending.
The police were given leave to appeal on the question: Was Justice Mallon wrong to find that a reparation order could only be made against a parent under section 283(f) of the act if both of the following conditions were satisfied - the parent was at fault and there was a causative link between the parents' fault and the child's offending.
The Court of Appeal said it was persuaded that Justice Mallon was in error in elevating parental fault and causations to preconditions to the making of an order against a parent under section 283(f).
But the court said it was satisfied that Justice Mallon was correct when she found Judge Ross had put too much emphasis on the fault of J's parents since they had no obligation to proactively contact police.
The appeal against Justice Mallon's decision quashing the reparation order was dismissed.
- NZPA
