A Defendant in New Zealand has been made to read to a judge in court a comment that he made on Facebook calling the judge a "cunt" with an "old face an saggy chin".

Troy La Rue was due to appear in New Plymouth District Court to be sentenced for unpaid traffic fines totalling more than $6000. However La Rue had discovered before the hearing that Judge Allan Roberts would be retiring and decided to post the following on Facebook:

     

La Rue found himself facing Roberts in court that Friday. During the sentencing, Roberts brought the Facebook post to La Rue's attention and demanded that he "read it out loud ... word for word".  After forcing La Rue to repeat the comment before the court, Roberts inquired "who are you talking about when you talk about, "The fucking old cunt with the saggy old chin"." After trying to evade the point, Roberts admitted the comment referred to the judge and duly apologised.

  Roberts prepares to sentence
 

The judge then dished out a bollocking, noting that La Rue was "hardly a picture" himself and slapped him with 300 hours' community work. When La Rue offered a further apology, the judge responded that the damage was done and signed off by saying he didn't "give a toss".

However, this week La Rue has successfully appealed the length of the sentence on the grounds that Roberts may have been influenced by the Facebook post when meting out the punishment, and will now have to do 200 hours instead.

 

Tip Off ROF

Comments

Anonymous 22 April 16 14:02

Note to judges everywhere: when handing down a hefty sentence to a cheeky defendant, make it clear that despite the provocation, the court has to remain impartial and level-headed and you have applied the tariff in accordance with the guidelines and ignored the defendant's contempt towards the court. That way, this temeritous farquar gets his arse kicked and has no sympathy on appeal... a 100 hour reduction. Tch.