JUDGES OUT OF TOUCH, TRUST SAYS

Some judges are out of touch with the devastating impact methamphetamines
have on young people, says a group pushing for tougher sentences.

The Sensible Sentencing Trust said the eight-month jail sentence given to
former TV3 newsreader Darren McDonald, 36, on drugs charges was too light.

McDonald walked out of the High Court at Auckland on Friday on bail after
Justice Marion Frater gave him leave to apply for home detention.

He had earlier admitted one charge of offering to supply Ecstasy and one
charge of conspiring to supply methamphetamine.

McDonald told TV One's Sunday programme last night that he took his first
Ecstasy pill at the age of 21, and claimed that in recent years he had
developed a $1000-a-week methamphetamine or "P" habit.

Garth McVicar, of the trust, said Justice Frater had failed to recognise the
seriousness of the drugs charges and where the country was heading with its
increasing drug problem.

"We see it every day now, particularly when you are involved, as we are
involved, in the results and horrors of it," he said.

"It is a shame some of these judges aren't understanding the results and the
ongoing trauma it causes."

Mr McVicar said dealers were pushing the drugs on to younger and younger
people.

He said methamphetamines, such as P, were some of the worst and most serious
mind-altering drugs available, particularly as many users became extremely
violent.

Many judges did not appear to understand that.

"Anybody who is out there and selling that stuff and making it available to
our kids ...

"Surely we have got to send a message saying we are not going to accept it
and eight months doesn't sends that message, whoever the guy is, however
famous he is," Mr McVicar said.

He was at the Court of Appeal hearing in July for convicted triple-murderer
William Duane Bell, who had three years trimmed from his 33-year non-parole
sentence for killing three people at the Mt Wellington-Panmure RSA in
December 2001.

Bell was a user of P.

"I was absolutely astounded that those Appeal Court judges hadn't done their
homework on Bell."