Christchurch’s courts rang to the sound of a waiata as a woman who stole brass plaques from a cemetery was told she had committed “an affront to all things sacred and decent”.
The waiata was part of a moving process where four family members read victim impact statements detailing their hurt and disgust at the removal of the plaques from Springston Cemetery, to be sold as scrap metal to get money to feed a meth addiction.
Gail Maree Wickes, 41, was tearful at times during the sentencing process that described how a long term methamphetamine addiction had wrecked her life.
The mother of three has lost the care of her youngest daughter and now she has been jailed for 26 months for a theft that Christchurch District Court Judge Jane Farish repeatedly called “despicable”.
Judge Farish told her that methamphetamine had become a plague on society.
“In the last six months I have seen a huge number of women not dissimilar to yourself, where they have lost every because of methamphetamine. It is about time we did something very serious to eradicate it from the community.”
The court was told that Wickes was not the ringleader for the theft of the 37 plaques in late April or early May, but she has never said who else was involved. She handed herself in to the police a few weeks after they began investigating.
She admitted the theft charge, as well as charges of possession of a pipe for smoking cannabis, unlawful possession of knuckle-dusters, possession of cannabis, and two charges of breaching bail.
Family members told of how upset they were to find the graves desecrated. They said it was “sad and gut-wrenching,” and one woman said the crime was “an affront to all things sacred and decent”.
The families told of parents or grandparents who had fought overseas, in North Africa, and Italy including the Battle of Monte Cassino, and told Wickes directly that they had fought for the freedoms everyone – including her – enjoyed today.
The Canterbury RSA District President Stan Hansen told Wickes of the “total disgust at your pathetic and selfish disrespect of those who served this country so you can be free”.
He said dignity had been restored with the plaques being replaced after the names had been filed off when they were sold for brass scrap, but the cost was almost $34,000.
He urged the judge not to send Wickes to a drug rehabilitation programme while on home detention or intensive supervision, because it “would not suffice”.
Defence counsel Sunny Teki-Clark urged the Wickes be allowed to go to rehabilitation. He said: “She has had a real taste of where her addiction and life-style choices are going to lead her, if she continues as she was.”
He told the court that Wickes’ own grandfather had served in the military.
Wickes has been in custody since June and Judge Farish noted that meant she was now clean of drugs.
But she said she had to take into account the magnitude of the theft, the cost of putting it right, and the level of harm that had been done.
She decided on a sentence of 26 months which was outside the range for home detention. But even so, Wickes would be able to go through a rehabilitation programme in prison. The Parole Board will decide on the date for her release.
The judge said it was not possible to order the full amount of the cost of replacement, which Wickes would not be able to pay, but she ordered her to pay $5000.
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