US tracking Devonian’s drinking ‘is ridiculous’

A JUDGE has called the decision to have a British criminal’s sobriety tag monitored by a company in America “utterly ridiculous”.

Judge David Evans learnt of the move after the offender Andrew Steer, who was put on a monitoring tag in December, was brought back to Exeter Crown Court for allegedly tampering with it.

Steer, 32, from Brixham, South Devon, was put on a tag as part of a two-year community order after he admitted two assaults causing actual bodily harm to his partner. He was fitted with a GPS trail monitor and an alcohol abstinence monitoring tag.

The probation service alleged he failed to comply with the GPS tag on three dates in February and the sobriety tag five times in January. He is also alleged to have missed a probation session. Steer denies tampering with the device and said the tag had registered interference falsely as it was fitted too loosely.

Ms Evie Dean, defending, said the tag had failed to respond correctly because Steer had lost a lot of weight in prison and it did not fit around his ankle properly.

Mr Thomas Faulkner, prosecuting, said the monitoring company was based in Colorado and the data about the alleged breaches was held there.

On being told it will take six weeks to get a statement from the company and that any future hearing will have to be at 2pm to accommodate the time difference, Judge Evans said: “What government genius came up with that?”

He adjourned the case to a later date.