‘Enjoy wonders of Taranaki’, offender told

Thinking a group with a dog was chasing him, a man climbed onto the roof of a school and began banging on it to bring attention to himself, smashing through a skylight.

But rather than stopping, an intoxicated Troy Peter Gilchrist carried on smashing six more skylights on the roof of the St John Bosco School in Fitzroy on January 27.

But after being sentenced yesterday, Judge Chris Sygrove suggested he could use his last few days of freedom to ‘‘enjoy the wonders of Taranaki’’.

Defence lawyer Kylie Pascoe told the New Plymouth District Court Gilchrist had been drinking at an address when he left and, thinking he was being followed, went onto the school grounds.

Thinking he had to try and get away from a dog he believed was with the people he thought were following him, he decided to climb onto the school roof and began banging on it to draw attention to himself and get the attention of neighbours and the police, but broke through the skylight.

‘‘After that he has continued to break others up on the roof.’’

The broken skylights set off the alarm at the school around 2:30am which alerted police, with neighbours also calling in to report the suspicious behaviour and police arrested Gilchrist as he was leaving the school. Pascoe said while Gilchrist had previous convictions and a problem with alcohol in the past, he had since worked on his problems and had turned his life around.

His girlfriend, who he had a 7-month-old baby with, was also in court to support him.

Pascoe suggested a period of home detention, where Gilchrist and his girlfriend would be staying with her parents who were supportive of him since he had changed his life.

Gilchrist would also be able to look after their baby when his girlfriend started work.

Sygrove agreed with Pascoe when he sentenced Gilchrist to two months imprisonment which was converted to one month home detention. However, the case came back before Sygrove later when the probation officer told him the GPS signal at Gilchrist’s address wasn’t strong enough to support a home detention sentence but community detention, which is monitored using radio waves, was a possibility.

Sygrove decided to deal with the issue then instead of postponing it and sentenced Gilchrist to a lesser sentence of one month community detention, which would start on July 25.

Gilchrist then asked what he could do for the four days. Sygrove replied he could relax, or ‘‘enjoy the wonders of Taranaki’’.

But he sternly warned him not too get into trouble again. ‘‘We don’t want to see you back in here,’’ Sygrove told Gilchrist.