Serial public nuisance pest’s last chance to stay out of prison
A CHRONIC alcoholic with a history of public-nuisance offences has again appeared in a North Queensland court.
Christopher Allan Catchinda, 52, pleaded guilty in the Ingham Magistrates Court on Thursday to committing a public nuisance following a series of drunken encounters with police on Thursday, May 5.
Police prosecutor Senior Constable Erin Collis said Ingham police were dealing with a group of intoxicated individuals at 12.15am.
She said police warned the defendant to tip out the rum and coke he was drinking from a can but he refused, instead launching the contents toward police but missing them despite only being a metre away.
“A short time later the defendant was observed walking down the middle of Herbert St, part of the Bruce Highway, yelling out to police but they couldn’t understand what he was saying,” she said.
“They told him to get off the road, which he ignored.”
Senior Constable Collis said Catchinda again caught up with police outside Saint Vincent de Paul where he had picked up a donated bag of clothing. At this point Catchinda was arrested.
Senior Constable Collis said the defendant was already on a onemonth suspended prison sentence for public-nuisance offending.
Defence lawyer Margaret Crowther said her client, a chronic alcoholic, was grossly inebriated and had no recollection of the events.
She said her client’s offending was at the lower-end of the spectrum and did not involve violence. Magistrate Scott Luxton took note
Catchinda’s nine-page criminal history, which included dated terms of imprisonment. Catchinda was jailed for two weeks and the suspended prison term activated but immediately paroled for six weeks.
Mr Luxton said the court was giving Catchinda yet another opportunity to avoid serving actual time in jail but that it had run out of patience.
“You turn up for another publicnuisance offence and there is an inevitability about where this is headed in terms of penalty with you serving actual time in custody,” he said.