Unconditional prison sentence for young robber

A 19-year-old man robbed a person of the same age along with three other men. The robbery took place on a Friday evening in a school building in Skien that was not in use. The aggrieved person was beaten, threatened with knives, and deprived of clothes, hashish and an iPhone, among other things.

The Court of Appeal sentenced the robber to one year of imprisonment. The defendant appealed against the sentence to the Supreme Court. He argued that it would be sufficient to impose community service, which means that the convicted person must perform unpaid work for voluntary organisations or public employers in his spare time.

The Supreme Court concluded that an unconditional prison sentence had to be imposed. As a general rule, the courts should be reluctant to impose community service in cases where considerations of general deterrence are prominent, which is the case for robberies. According to practice, perpetrators who have reached the age of 18 can only exceptionally receive community service instead of unconditional imprisonment in such cases. The fact that the robber was in education and would lose his apprenticeship if he has to serve in prison was not sufficient to deviate from this principle.

After taking into account that the defendant was just over 18 years old when the act took place and that he had a withdrawn role in the robbery, the Supreme Court set the sentence to 10 months of imprisonment.

Read the judgment from the Supreme Court (Norwegian only) (PDF)