Their letter to the court
We as parents have brought him up to know the difference between right and wrong, and for the past 18 months he has chosen on many occasions to choose the wrong option. Over the past few months he has shown a great deal of contempt to the Police, the Courts, YOS and worst of all us, his parents.
He seems to believe if he tells people what they wish to hear they are stupid enough to believe it. Where as to us his constant answer is ‘nothing’s going to happen, I’ll be out in the morning’. Once he knows he is under breach, his attitude is, ‘fine I may as well go and do anything and everything wrong I can do’.
As parents we do not want to believe that he has gone down this pathway, but he has. It would be with a very heavy heart knowing that he could be locked up away from the rest of the family. However, it would also give us peace in knowing that where he is, he is safe and away from possible harm, ending up seriously harmed or worse.
He is at the moment predominantly controlled by drugs, albeit it’s only cannabis (may not be) for present, the next step is only a short distance away.
We do feel that giving him another form of young offending service order is pointless, he has blatantly flouted the rules by being in breach on numerous occasions, and it has been proven that the Courts and YOS are not willing to give him any sanctions over it. It feels like he gets a slap on the wrist and told, ‘go be free again’.
If we are going to be fully honest, we believe that he needs a custodial sentence to maybe wake him up to the real world.
He can be a lovely, hard-working young man, but he’s at the point where he needs to realise that his actions do have proper consequences, regardless of his age, otherwise you are going to be seeing a lot more of him as he gets older.
Please do not fail our son, please act now. Let’s hopefully get him on the right track with a shock to the system.
If you do feel a custodial is the correct action we will do our utmost to move away from the area to hopefully give him a fresh start, away from the interfering factors, when he is released. Then it is fully down to him if he wishes to pursue his life on the wrong side of the law. But at least we all tried.
The bottom line is, we love our son wholeheartedly, however we do not like what he has become and the pathway he is choosing or seemingly chosen. We do believe that all in this courtroom today pretty much agree with us from a public point of view, maybe not legal.