The federal government's special envoy for remote communities has shared a deeply personal letter reflecting on her son's long struggle with methamphetamine addiction.

Lingiari MP Marion Scrymgour wrote about her son Richard's battles with drugs after he appeared in a Darwin court for the second time in four months. He pleaded guilty to stealing $500 worth of groceries and to driving an unregistered and uninsured vehicle.

Earlier this year, Richard Scrymgour also pleaded guilty to assault after headbutting a female friend during an argument on Boxing Day 2024.

"There was no excuse for what he did, just as there have been no excuses for offences he has committed in the past," Ms Scrymgour said.

"By way of partial explanation, there is the fact that a man now 43, someone who once was a proud and dependable worker, someone with many children and now grandchildren, who he should be looking after, struggles with and succumbs to drug addiction."

In April, defence lawyer Jackson Meaney told the court Mr Scrymgour had "struggled with addiction to prohibited drugs for most of his life" and had attended numerous funerals in a short time. It was noted that the father of 10 has eight prior assault convictions, along with other breaches.

"Mr Scrymgour is very much a recovering drug addict," Mr Meaney said.

In her letter, Ms Scrymgour, who was the first Indigenous woman to be elected to the Northern Territory legislature, reflected on the challenges of being both a mother and a public figure.

She said it was her role to "express to him my anger and frustration when he stoops low, to be there when the fair weather friends and family leave him where he has fallen, to try and pick him up from the ground on which he lies (no matter how unsympathetic I may feel about it)".

"There may be no end to this journey — I don't at the moment see any light at the end of the tunnel," she said.

"So, where to from here? Not just for me but for all the many families trying to make sense of and navigate a pathway through the methamphetamine scourge?

"The answer is that I don't know. I certainly don't claim to have any special insight or capacity to fix things just because I am an elected member of Parliament. If anything, at a family level that makes it harder — because I am away so much and can't always follow through on an intervention or be consistently present to prevent backsliding."

Ms Scrymgour acknowledged that her son's offending attracted media attention because of her role, but said that was something she accepted as part of public life. She expressed hope, however, that her son would one day overcome the "scourge" of methamphetamine addiction.

This week, he received a three-month suspended sentence and a nine-month good behaviour order. The NT News reported Judge Greg MacDonald's scathing comments on Mr Scrymgour's record, saying his grandfather Jack Scrymgour would be "disgusted in [his] dishonesty".

"That is true," Ms Scrymgour reaffirmed. "He [Jack Scrymgour] worked hard his whole life and had no time for lawbreakers.

"But what is also true is that Richard's grandmother, my mother, would have been heartbroken if she was still alive. She was the person who Richard was closest to in life. The absence of her shame and her love makes a road to recovery all that much more difficult."

Ms Scrymgour stressed that she has always supported victims of crime and would continue to do so, saying law and order is about "protecting the vulnerable".

"But I also need to do more, I need to do better, to assist those family members who are up for it throughout the Territory, especially older mothers like me, to salvage addiction-scarred human beings who, without help, will end up hurting themselves and others," she said.