ECSTASY-CASE NEWSMAN MUST BE JAILED

Darren McDonald must be not be allowed home detention. So flawed is
Justice Marion Frater's stated reason for entertaining an application,
so malignant is this country's drug culture and so errant is the
former TV3 newsreader's demeanour that he must be imprisoned.

McDonald's eight-month jail sentence on drug charges is reasonable
enough, given the extent of his criminal behaviour; he was found
guilty of one charge of offering to supply Ecstasy, and one charge of
conspiring to supply methamphetamine. But there is no reason his
application to serve his sentence at home should be granted.

And there are compelling arguments why it should be
denied.

Justice Frater gave McDonald leave to apply for home detention on the
grounds that his fame would make him a target for drug dealers in prison.

His sentence should be deferred, she said, because of his high profile
and "the acknowledged availability" of drugs in prison.

In effect, McDonald's status has garnered him preferential treatment.
That can never be right.

Indeed, it would take a particularly cogent argument even to start to
justify it.

Justice Frater's reasons come nowhere near that. If drugs are
available in prison - about one in five inmates tests positive in
random testing - they are, quite obviously, no less accessible outside.

McDonald's profile will make him a magnet for drug dealers wherever he
is, and he could be tempted wherever he lives.

There is, however, a greater likelihood that his behaviour can be
monitored, and his rehabilitation tackled effectively, in prison.

Further, Justice Frater's leniency pays no heed to the increasing
damage being wrought by methamphetamines such as P. The drug, which
can be relatively easily manufactured locally, makes users paranoid,
aggressive and uncaring of the circumstances and consequences of their
behaviour.

Already it has been implicated in several prominent court cases,
including that of William Bell, who smoked P before murdering three
people at the Mt Wellington-Panmure RSA Club. So alarmed have police
become about dealing with irrational criminals using P that they have
asked for lightweight, covert body armour to protect themselves.

The police must have the backing of the judiciary in their efforts to
combat this scourge.

Sentencing has to reflect the severity of the problem.

That makes it especially important that McDonald, whose job as a
television newsreader made him a role model, should receive no special
treatment. As Justice Frater noted, high-profile, intelligent and
successful people like him give the impression that drug use is okay.
In other words, their behaviour carries more significance than that of
John and Janet Citizen, especially in terms of its influence on young
people.

How, then, can that same profile justify a degree of lenience that is
unlikely to be granted others?

McDonald has also demonstrated himself unworthy of such treatment. He
smiled as he walked on bail from the High Court on Friday. He smirked
for much of the time during his appearance on TVNZ's Sunday programme.

His attitude was one of defiance.

There is little evidence of the remorse, contrition and acknowledgment
of guilt that are the staple accompaniments of judicial compassion.
McDonald seems not even to conceive that his addiction, arrest and
conviction have left his career in tatters.

He appears more intent on telling how getting high and reading the
news to thousands of viewers was "fun".

That attitude can only be described as uncaring, given the emergence
of methamphetamines as a significant, and traumatic, problem.

It should also be counterproductive. Those who glory in the drugs
culture can expect no leniency, no matter how low-level the scale of
offending. Quite simply, McDonald does not deserve a jail break.