MP raps judge for teen's 12-month sentence

Waiariki MP Te Ururoa Flavell. Photo / APN

Waiariki MP Te Ururoa Flavell has criticised a Rotorua judge for sending a teenager to prison for 12 months for breaching a sentence of home detention.

Last week Judge Phillip Cooper sentenced Mere Ohlson, 17, to jail after she breached her home detention by cutting off her ankle bracelet and leaving the address where she was supposed to be serving her sentence. She was arrested four days later.

Mr Flavell said he was shocked at the sentence and the judge had other options including sentencing the teenager to some form of rehabilitation instead of spending $100,000 of taxpayers' money to keep her in prison.

However, Sensible Sentencing Trust Rotorua spokesman Peter Bentley said Mr Flavell was wrong and anyone who breached home detention should be immediately imprisoned.

Ohlson was initially sentenced in September to six months' home detention and 200 hours' community work for her part in the robbery of Jeram's Superette in March.

Ohlson went into the store with two others pretending to have a gun and demanding cigarettes and cash from the owner's son.

The son pressed a panic alarm under the counter. As the trio ran from the shop one of them stole a packet of Pineapple Lumps from the counter.

- APN