An Ashmont woman who refused to do 300 hours of court-ordered community service has had her sentence upped by a magistrate.
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Paige Hannah De Jong, 24, was given the community service order after she was convicted of obtaining financial advantage by deception.
Her victim, the court heard, was De Jong’s ex-partner’s grandmother.
Magistrate Christopher Halburd said that, if she was not sentenced to some form of jail, De Jong would have gotten away with breaching the court order.
“This is the lady who was given a community service order and didn’t want to do it, was given another opportunity to do it, and still didn’t do it – a 300-hour community service order is quite serious,” Mr Halburd said.
“And Magistrate Kennedy said, if I remember correctly, ‘you can go to jail, but I’ll suspend it,’ and now she’s breached it, so the question now is how she serves that sentence.”
De Jong came into breach of her suspended sentence when she was caught driving with an expired licence.
However, after hearing that De Jong had paid the money back to the elderly woman and was now focusing on preparing for the birth of her first child, Mr Halburd gave her one more chance to serve her sentence in the community.
“I note that the victim of the matter is here in court, you’ve paid the money back, you seem to be growing up, and that’s probably because you’re about to become a parent yourself,” he said.
“It’s just a pity you didn’t realise a bit sooner that there’s a way to behave when a court orders you to do something.”
De Jong was sentenced to seven months’ jail to be served by way of an intensive correction order as well as a reduced 26 hours’ community service work and a $400 fine.
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