A judge today signalled a tough approach to people who commit breaches of sentences of home detention.
They can expect remands in custody for sentence - especially for multiple breaches, Judge Philip Moran said in Christchurch District Court.
He then remanded Dwayne Tapine, 22, in custody until sentencing on March 25 after he admitted two breaches of home detention, the Christchurch Court News website reported.
The judge said that Tapine had already been convicted for an earlier breach of an eight month home detention sentence he got in July last year for two burglaries.
Tapine was living at home on the domestic purposes benefit. His home detention was being monitored with an electronic anklet.
On Christmas Eve he left the address at 9.42am, which was 18 minutes before the allowed time.
He said he left early to attend a course which had been organised by Work and Income New Zealand.
On January 14, he left his home between 11pm and midnight.
Defence counsel Steve Hembrow said he went outside to smoke a cigarette and ended up at the far corner of the section - presumably out of range of the monitor's base station in the house.
