Forgive Us Our Trespasser

I'm almost a week late with this post, for reasons which will unfold. In fact it's two weeks since I last posted and it has been frustrating, but it's good to be blogging again.
Importantly for my family, the saga of the midnight school incident, which began as the 'Weekend Police Drama' in May 2006, was finally concluded last Tuesday, 13 March, 2007. The police, by way of the prosecutor, at the hearing which was listed for 'contest mention' at the Dandenong Magistrate's court, dropped the charge of burglary (which had grown out of the charge of trespass with intent to steal), and offered Gordon a Diversion Plan on the charge of trespass. We agreed to the Diversion on trespass. This took less than two minutes in a discussion in court 2. We then waited 40 mins. for the court co-ordinator to call us for interview and paperwork which he would present to a magistrate for approval. We then waited 90 minutes to be called before the magistrate who read through the Diversion Order. We were finished.
It's over. We have to drop in a money order made out to Visy Care Centre to the value of $150 by the 4 June. They wouldn't take cash there and then, it has to be a money order or bank cheque. Of course the whole thing was a waste of everyone's time and money. Ever since the original charges were laid last November we had tried to negotiate with the police to accept the trespass and have the 'intent to steal' dropped but nothing doing, we had go along with the mindless, grinding, inflexible system which drew the thing out. Either that or plead guilty to burglary. The lesson I learnt is how easy it is for the vulnerable in society to be walked over. When I think about the circumstances it's a complete lack of understanding that the matter was proceeded with at all. Gord has pleaded guilty to trespass and it's on his police record. So be it, no big deal, he was trespassing. Really he wasn't full bottle on the concept of trespass. It was probably a hard lesson he had to learn as he grew older and had more freedom, such as owning a car and being able to drive where he pleases day or night. He'd never put a foot wrong before and hasn't since and I'm sure he won't in the future. His lesson has been that there are consequences to actions and this includes being somewhere at the wrong time. I'm sure the lesson was learnt the night of his apprehension and interview, and has been reinforced by the the stress he's endured over the last 5 months from the time he first received the summons to the final conlusion.
It was 1.00pm when we left the Magistrate's court so we luched at the Dandenong Plaza and did some clothes shopping afterwards.