Extra time for jail tirade

Man’s prison term extended after trashing court cell

A CRIM who threw a tantrum in the cells of the Supreme Court, dismantling a toilet and smashing windows, has been handed a jail term for his efforts but will still be set free from Holtze in August.

Jeremiah William Childs, 21, pleaded guilty to property damage in Darwin Local Court after last year pulling apart the flush mechanism of the toilet in his cell and throwing a metal part around the cell.

Childs broke all the windows in the cell and his offending was filmed on court security cameras.

He also pleaded guilty to a string of property offences stemming from a late night break-in at the United service station at Noonamah, during which he brandished a star picket and rode off on a motorbike without a helmet while unlicensed.

Childs has been behind bars since November and was in February sentenced in the Supreme Court to unlawfully causing serious harm to his father, having thrown a 3m length of pipe at him like a spear, hitting him in the gut and causing massive internal bleeding which could have proven fatal were in not for surgery.

The courts have previously heard that Childs had dabbled in methamphetamine, and stabbed himself in the back the first time he got high on the drug.

The second time he used the drug coincided with the near-fatal attack on his father.

Childs’s lawyer, Travis Jackson, said his client was a young man who had fessed up to police as soon as he was caught.

Judge Greg Cavanagh said Childs was “practically a first offender” and agreed with Justice Peter Barr’s previous assessment that Childs was a low risk of reoffending if he kept off the grog and drugs.

Mr Cavanagh sentenced Childs to four months in jail for the petrol station break-in, and three weeks for trashing the court cell, to be served at the same time as his suspended sentence for the pipe attack on his dad.

He did not order Childs pay for the repair job on the court cells, the cost of which was not detailed in court.