Judge backs drugs row Dad

[bongme]

Hi

This is London

16th May Thursday 2002

A judge has rescinded a £250 compensation order imposed on a father who assaulted a man he claimed had been selling heroin to his son.

Judge David Griffiths, sitting at Southampton Crown Court, said it had been "inappropriate" to make businessman Roger Dorrington, 48, pay the money to 24-year-old James White.

Dorrington admitted assault occasioning actual bodily harm on Mr White in June last year. The compensation order sparked outrage, with Dorrington insisting he would not pay it because the money would have gone towards drugs.

Bongme

[bongme]

hi

Attack compensation order was wrong

Thursday, 16 May, 2002

A father who was ordered to pay compensation for attacking a man he believed supplied his sons with drugs, has had the order quashed.

Roger Dorrington from the New Forest admitted assaulting James White in June last year and was ordered to pay him £250.

But at a sitting of Southampton Crown Court on Thursday, the compensation order was rescinded by Judge David Griffiths.

The judge, who made the original order, said he now believed it would be "inappropriate" to make Mr Dorrington pay the money to 24-year-old Mr White.

The original punishment handed out to Mr Dorrington had been attacked by the Conservative MP for New Forest West, Desmond Swayne, who said it was an insult to "justice and democracy".

Defence lawyer Giles Curtis-Raleigh told the court that Mr Dorrington believed Mr White had been selling drugs to his sons Nicholas, 20 and Joseph, 21.

The court heard that Mr Dorrington had previously banned Mr White from his home but found him on his property when the attack took place.

Mr Curtis-Raleigh said: "If that be right, in my submissions it cannot be right for the court to hand money over to someone who will put it into the murky world of class A drugs."

Community punishment

Judge Griffiths told the court: "In the particular circumstances of this case a compensation order was not appropriate.

"I acknowledge now I should not have made that order and I rescind it."

Speaking afterwards, Mr Dorrington said: "I am happy with the situation and the judge's comments, that's all I have got to say."

He will, however, still have to carry out 100 hours community punishment.

Bongme