Clive Barratt, aged 29 of King’s Lynn, Norfolk yesterday became the first offender who is to be electronically tagged under the Home Secretary’s new ‘house arrest’ experiment.
Barratt was sentenced yesterday by King’s Lynn magistrates to wear the tag from next Monday between the hours of 8am and 8pm, seven days a week for the next three months.
The sentence means if he leaves his home the electronic box attached to his ankle will break a circuit and send an automatic message through his telephone to the monitoring company indicating that he has breached the terms of his curfew.
Barratt was convicted of three separate counts of shoplifting, was found to be in possession of cannabis worth 98 pence and had already breached the terms of his bail. A 24-hour curfew order which had been imposed on him had been broken within a couple of days.
He is believed to have many previous convictions for shoplifting.
Barratt is the first offender to be sentenced to wear the electronic tag since the experiment was started in Norfolk, Reading and Manchester four weeks ago.
The start of the nine months experiment had to be delayed when three Home Office officials tried the equipment in Manchester.
One went to the pub, a second went shopping while the third just wandered the streets. However in none of the cases did the monitoring equipment register that the official had left the premises.
The Home Detention Curfew Programme was rolled out across England and Wales in January 1999
