CDirector of Public Prosecutions v Mrse

[2020] VCC 1369

IN THE COUNTY COURT OF VICTORIA Revised
Not Restricted
Suitable for Publication

AT GEELONG
CRIMINAL JURISDICTION

CR 20-00768

THE QUEEN

v

DAMIR MRSE

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JUDGE:	HIS HONOUR JUDGE MULLALLY
WHERE HELD:	Geelong
DATE OF HEARING:	23 July 2020
DATE OF SENTENCE:	31 August 2020
CASE MAY BE CITED AS:	CDPP v Mrse
MEDIUM NEUTRAL CITATION:	[2020] VCC 1369

REASONS FOR SENTENCE
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Subject:
Catchwords:
Legislation Cited:
Cases Cited:
Sentence:

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APPEARANCES:	Counsel	Solicitors
For the Commonwealth	Mr J. Manning	Office of Public Prosecutions
For the Accused	Ms S. Kermath	MK Law

HIS HONOUR:

1Damir Mrse, on 5 November 2019, at around 1.30 pm you engaged in a conversation on the social media platform, Kik.  This social media platform is one that does not require information such as the user's mobile phone service details.  Thus, there is a heightened degree of anonymity.  It is, in my experience, reasonably popular among young users.

2The conversation you commenced was with another user you believed was a young female.  It was in fact an undercover police officer who was a member of the Joint Anti Child Exploitation Unit.

3From the outset you asked and were told that the female was aged 15.  You then immediately turned the conversation to sexual matters.  Within the conversation you sent four photographs of your erect penis.  The conversation has been set out by the prosecution in a comprehensive summary of facts and circumstances which was exhibited on the plea.

4In summary, you encouraged the putative victim to engage in sex with you.  The conversation concluded at 2.36.  The conversation was the basis of Charge 1, being a charge of procuring a person believed to be under the age of 16 for sexual activity, and the images you sent was the basis of Charge 2, being a charge of transmitting an indecent image to a person believed to be under the age of 16.  You have pleaded guilty to those two charges.

5As it turned out, at almost the same time on 5 November 2019, that is from
2.03 pm, you engaged in a second conversation with another undercover operative who was also posing as a 15 year old girl.  You sent three of the same photographs during this conversation.  The conversation was sexual, directed to encourage the putative victim to have sex with you.  It was the basis for the more serious charge of grooming a person believed to be under the age of 16 for sexual activity, and a second charge of transmitting an indecent communication to a person believed to be under the age of 16. This conversation ended at 2.48 pm. 

6Both conversations were crass and disturbing.  Knowing the young age of who you thought was a female, you were keen to engage in sex with her. 

7There were two other charges on the indictment.  The first of those related to your application to join Victoria Police.  The application requires a statutory declaration to be sworn that the information in the application was true and correct.  You swore a statutory declaration on 27 November 2019.  You failed to include any details as required of your Kik account and use.  You provided full information regarding your Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat accounts.  Your last use of Kik was on 25 November 2019, just days before you swore the statutory declaration.  You were charged and pleaded guilty to the State offence of making a false declaration.

8After enquiries with Kik, your identity was ascertained.  In March 2020 police executed a search warrant on your home address.  You were not home.  Computer and phone equipment were seized.  You were contacted and ultimately interviewed later that day.  You made a no comment record of interview.  The police seized another phone from you.  On that phone it was discovered that you had searched on Google using the enquiry, 'Child Pornography Gaol Time'.  You had also deleted your Kik account.

9The computer equipment seized from your house was forensically examined and what was revealed was you had downloaded child abuse material.  This material was classified using the accepted methodologies.  You had 1017 child abuse files, being both images and videos.  Broken down into the categories, there were 888 Category 1, 46 of Category 2, five of Category 3, nine at Category 4, six, at Category 5 and 63 of Category 6.  You pleaded guilty to the Commonwealth charge of possessing child abuse material obtained or accessed using a carriage service.  It is to be noted that this Commonwealth offence carries a maximum term of 15 years', longer than the State charge of possession of child pornography.

10In determining the appropriate sentence in cases of this kind it is particularly important to determine the gravity of the offending conduct, as well as consideration being given to the unique personal circumstances of the offender.

11As to your two offences that arise from the two overlapping conversations on Kik with who you thought were young females, it is important to note that the offending was on the one afternoon over a period of 78 minutes or thereabouts.  You did not seek out the recipient again.  As stated, the conversations were immediately explicit, had an aspect of persistence and generally were shameful.  The disgusting photos you sent were the same in both conversations.  It is not mitigatory that the victim was in fact an undercover police officer.  The objective gravity remains as you were using the internet and the Kik platform in the belief that the other person in the conversation was a real 15 year old girl.  You were engaged in procuring and grooming because of this belief.  It is always serious offending to try to introduce or secure sexual activity with a child.  It is paramount that vulnerable children are protected from adult men seeking to satisfy their own personal sexual inclinations on the internet.

12Also, the gravity of these offences it not diminished by the fact that there was never a meeting or acts done in person or online.  Such factors would have involved other offending and do not mitigate the particular offences that I must sentence you for.

13The swearing of the statutory declaration connected to your application for entry into the police force, by failing to include information about the Kik platform that you had just weeks before committed procuring and grooming offences on, is concerning, but it was not connected to, or an endeavour to facilitate any further sexual offending.  It was a cover-up of sorts because you have always wanted to join the police force and had met roadblocks in the past.  I will say more of this later.

14The possession of the child abuse material is particularly troubling.  It reveals a dark aspect of your character.  Law abiding members of our community are bewildered by those who foster the abuse of children by engaging in downloading these dreadful pictures and videos.  These are real children being sexually defiled and degraded in a horrid fashion.  The harm is very real.  This vast criminal enterprise of sexual abusers survives and sadly flourishes because men like you view and download the vile product.  At all points and at all levels within the justice system this offence must be condemned and denounced for the serious criminality of the offenders like you who use the internet for this sort of exploitation.

15In your case your library was just over 1000 images and videos and well below the vast numbers sadly so often seen in this type of offending. You simply downloaded this child pornography which is the offence.  It was not more, such as further distribution by you or sales by you for your own profit.  Your Google search of “child pornography gaol time” after you learnt of the police raid, makes clear that you knew of your own high moral culpability.

16This offending is serious, though plainly there are much more serious examples of all of these sexual offences.  That said, it cannot be considered that this was simply immature, minor sexual offending.  It was considered in the downloading and possession of the child pornography and could not be seen as anything other than grave conduct.  What flows from that is that the heightened need to give weight to the sentencing purposes of denunciation and deterrence.  However, I must keep well in mind your circumstances, why you fell into this behaviour, and your prospects for reform.

17As to your own personal circumstances, you are now 23 and thus still youthful.  You were born in Croatia and came to Australia with your parents when three years old.  At first you lived in the Wodonga area.  Your mother and father separated after a year or so post-migration and, it seems, due to your father's drinking and psychological abuse.

18Your mother re-partnered and you moved with her to the Geelong area for some time.  Her partner passed away two years ago.  You spent a number of years to about the age of 21 during your adolescence with your father in Wodonga.  You remain very close, however, to your mother and a sister, who wrote helpful letters to the court, setting out your family circumstances and emphasising your better qualities as well as your deep shame at the crimes you have committed.

19You have many siblings and step-siblings living in Geelong, Melbourne and Wodonga.  You completed school to Year 12 without any educational or behavioural problems.  You did not take up post-secondary studies.  You were first unemployed then did labouring and factory work.  At age 21 you moved back to Geelong, residing with your mother.  You were keen to join the police force.  Your first application was not successful due to inadequate life experience.  The second application faltered as you injured your shoulder playing sport and had to undergo surgery and rehabilitation.  Your third application was on foot as discussed, in relation to Charge No.5, the false declaration.

20You did a course in pathology collection and secured work at Geelong Hospital where your mother and sister worked and still do.  You moved into working as a nursing assistant only to lose that job when this offending became known.  You impressed your supervisor at the workplace and he wrote a personal letter of support.  You formed an important relationship which ended in the period surrounding your offending.  It was said that you did not cope well with the breakup and took up online chat and dating.

21You are currently involved in a relationship which commenced in December 2019.  That is before the discovery of your child pornography.  You have benefitted from this relationship.  Your partner remains very supportive of you, notwithstanding the charges.  I have read and taken into account her positive letter.  Accordingly, you have significant support which will be ongoing and of benefit to you in your rehabilitation.  It seems to me clear that the pathway to reform has already commenced.

22The psychological assessment done by Mr Healy, who was engaged for medico-legal purposes but then provided you with some treatment, revealed that you have an IQ of 100, precisely average.  He thought in reaction to these charges you have some indications of raised depression and anxiety, all understandable.

23As to your risk of sexual offending, it was put as low to medium.  Given your reaction to this offending and its level of gravity I am of the view that your risk is closer to low than medium.  There remains for me real concerns that arise from your interest in child pornography, involving material of a child, plainly very young, and distressed, being sexually abused by an adult male.

24As I have mentioned more than once, you have expressed deep remorse and shame at your conduct.  Your own letter to the court is replete with expressions of remorse.  Your plea of guilty is also evidence of remorse.  Your sentence is much less than it would otherwise have been because of your plea of guilty.  I do add into the mix that you have lost your chance of securing the career that you have set your mind on as a police officer. But just on the topic of remorse, the prosecution submitted that it was more directed at your own predicament than the insight into the degradation of young children.  I do think that there is a need for you to gain greater insight into the abusive impact on victims.

25Your youth and the fact that you are a first offender is important.  I have applied the principles set out in Azzopardi v The Queen and R v Mill and thus have given reduced weight to general deterrence or as much reduced weight to general deterrence as can be justified.  However, general deterrence remains an important matter.  Young men have to understand that the ease and anonymity of the internet in gaining access to children or child abuse material and to enable grooming of children, if used in that way, will lead to stern punishment.

26As is well understood with young first offenders, all options should be considered to avoid the punishment of last resort being imprisonment.  I have embarked on anxious consideration of all aspects of this sentencing task but in the end the gravity of the offending involving procuring and grooming children and the downloading of horrid child pornography, is such that, in my view, I have no other option. As was made crystal clear by Stapler J in the important appellate decision in the Western Australian case of Collier, where he said the following:

'It is important to say, as clearly as one can, that adult persons who make use of the internet to locate and make contact with children so as to procure them to engage in sexual activity can ordinarily expect to receive a term of immediate imprisonment.  As with the offences concerning possession of child pornography, there is a paramount public interest in protecting children from sexual abuse'.

27There are many other similar appellate decisions expressing the same principles in a number of States including here in Victoria.  I refer to D'Alessandro and the decision in Garside.  In Garside the Court of Appeal said of offending of this kind committed by a first offender with previous good character, the following:

'The respondent could call in aid a number of mitigating factors including: his lack of prior offending; age, family support; and remorse; and prospects for rehabilitation.  These factors were relied upon by the respondent before the sentencing judge to justify mercy, but the authorities to which we have referred, demonstrate that such factors must be given less weight than they ordinarily would in sentencing for possession and access to child pornography, as such offenders generally have similar backgrounds and are of prior good character'.

28I add that the same has been said in the Court of Appeal decision of Gajjar with respect to offences of procuring. 

29In my view, the principles guiding sentencing youthful first offenders and the principles of parsimony are best accommodated in this case by the Commonwealth sentence allowing for a period of recognisance release. 

30I have further mitigated the sentence of imprisonment by reason of the more onerous conditions of imprisonment as a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic.  There are no visits and longer and more regular lockdowns.  You will be worried about your mother, whose health you have looked after in the past and you will be concerned for her, making prison more onerous.

31Having regard to the matters listed in s.16A(2) of the Commonwealth Sentencing Act and all other relevant matters and all available sentences, together with s.5 of the Sentencing Act of Victoria, I impose the following sentences:

in respect of Charge 1, 12 months;

in respect of Charge 2, three months;

in respect of Charge 3, 16 months;

in respect of Charge 4, three months;

in respect of Charge 5, one month;

in respect of Charge 6, 12 months.

32The effect of the orders that I will announce in respect of cumulation will be to have a sentence of two years with a recognisance release with conditions after serving nine months in prison.  That is to be formally achieved by the following orders:

Charges 1, 2 and 4 start today, 31 August 2020;

Charge 6 starts on 31 December 2020;

and Charge 3 starts on 30 April 2021.  Thus it will go to 31 August 2022, two years from today.

Charge 5, the State offence, starts today and is concurrent with the Commonwealth offences.

33The recognisance release is in the sum of $500 and the requirement is that you be of good behaviour and do an offender's course supervised by the State Community Corrections Office over the period of the recognisance release, which will be 15 months.  Had you pleaded not guilty to these offences and been found guilty of them I would have imposed a sentence of three years and there months with a non-parole period of two years and six months.

34You must be registered on the Child Sex Offences Register.  As I understand it, it is just for Charges 1, 2, 3 and 4, though I query, Mr Manning, what role Charge 6 has in it, but nonetheless the period in respect of how long you must be registered is set by parliament so I have no discretion and it is for a period of life.

35In respect of orders for forfeiture there is some dispute.  I do not intend to make orders but ask for the parties to negotiate and come to an agreed position, but if not, if there is no agreed position I will have the matter of the forfeiture of computer items and the like listed for determination.  What has to be established is what is sought by the accused, if it is not the hardware but things on it, then that has to be precisely set out, what content that is, and why.

36Mr Manning, can I start with you?  Does the announcement of orders in the Commonwealth sentencing achieve the outcome that I wish to?

37MR MANNING:  Yes, Your Honour, I believe so.

38HIS HONOUR:  Thank you.  With the recognisance release documentation you will need to send that to the court; is that right?

39MR MANNING:  Yes, Your Honour, my instructor's actually preparing it right now and momentarily (indistinct) email and through to Your Honour's associate.

40HIS HONOUR:  Thank you.  My associate, do you know who that is?  Is that - that has altered.

41MR MANNING:  Yes.  Not Your Honour's usual associate as I understand.

42HIS HONOUR:  Yes, thank you.  Mr Manning, is it a requirement, I cannot remember, it is distant since I have done a Commonwealth offence, that the accused has to sign the recognisance release?

43MR MANNING:  Yes, Your Honour.

44HIS HONOUR:  All right.  Can I do that by taking his oral consent to that?  I can in multiple other State offences.

45MR MANNING:  Yes.  I do not know the answer.  I do not see an impediment to it.  I will confirm my instructions on that but I do not see any particular issue with that approach.

46HIS HONOUR:  It will just drag things out here, as you could understand.

47MR MANNING:  I understand, yes.

48HIS HONOUR:  Yes, all right.  Ms Kermath, it is usual that documents are placed in the hands of your client but it is not going to be easy.  We have to get them from the Commonwealth.  We have to have them downloaded, which I hope they are being done now.  We have to print them out and then he has to sign them.  I take it he would consent to the recognisance release in the terms and do a sex offenders course.  How that is achieved is really for the Office of Corrections once the pandemic sorts itself out, and he has to be of good behaviour.  The recognisance release is $500.  Just explain to him that means that should he breach it then he is liable to be dealt with for the period of time that it is effectively held in suspension, together with the loss of $500.  He does not pay that now, all right.  Is there any other orders?  Thank you, Ms Kermath.

49MS KERMATH:  Thank you, Your Honour.

50HIS HONOUR:  Is there any other orders?  The forfeiture of the computer equipment has got - I mean I have heard what Ms Kermath said about it, that there are other items on it that are personal to him he wants to keep and so on.  I think if you just sort that out and see whether some things can be downloaded and provided to him and the hardware put to one side or whether you go to the business of clearing out all the child pornography and giving it back to him, I do not know how it works.

51MR MANNING:  Your Honour, the legislation is quite strict about the application for forfeiture and the factors that it relates to.  I have instructions that Victoria Police, though, have the resources to, if it has been requested.  However, having said that, it might be worthwhile if my learned friend perhaps articulates, as Your Honour has suggested, the precise content sought.

52HIS HONOUR:  Yes.

53MR MANNING:  And subject to the scale of that it might be something subject to further negotiation.  If not the matter could be relisted.

54HIS HONOUR:  Yes.  And how long - have I got - is there a period of time in which a forfeiture order must be made?

55MR MANNING:  There is but, from memory, we are well within that.

56HIS HONOUR:  Yes, yes, all right.  Make yourself aware of what the timeframes are, Ms Kermath, and get the negotiations happening and we will relist the matter should there be anything further.  I am just going to pause for a moment here and just ask my tipstaff, who is here, whether - whoever the associate - Ms Phillips, you are on line.  Can you make sure that you send the recognisance release to my tipstaff here, Mr Lawrie.

57ASSOCIATE:  Sorry, it is actually Ms Carlin of the Commonwealth DPP, and I will (indistinct) that through right now.

58HIS HONOUR:  That is right.  It is going directly there.  So if you could send it to my tipstaff.  He is in court.  We might be able to print it and get the job done.

59ASSOCIATE:  Yes, Your Honour.

60HIS HONOUR:  Apologies for the delay.  It causes stress I know, Ms Kermath, but there is nothing much I can do in these times.

61MR MANNING:  Your Honour, there was also an application for a forensic DNA sample.

62HIS HONOUR:  What's your attitude to that?

63MS KERMATH:  Your Honour, he has got no prior history but it is - - -

64HIS HONOUR:  I know that.  Is there some particular other than the gravity of the offending and his prospects?

65MS KERMATH:  Of rehabilitation.  Well, Your Honour, it is entirely up to - sorry, Your Honour.

66HIS HONOUR:  I think in a situation where anonymity, sexual assault and endeavours to procure are plain enough, that an order pursuant to s.464ZF will be made.  I do so on the basis of the gravity of the offending and it is in the interests of justice that the order be made.  So I need to explain to Mr Mrse that at a particular time, while you are in custody, the authorities will seek to take a forensic sample from you.  You do not have to stand.  Stay where you are.  A forensic sample.  That is a scraping from your mouth, right.  They will take that to secure DNA from you and put it on a database.

67ACCUSED:  They can take whatever they want, Your Honour.

68HIS HONOUR:  Yes, I understand, but the point that I now have to make clear to you, because the law says this.

69ACCUSED:  Sorry.

70HIS HONOUR:  That if you do not cooperate at the time, then they are authorised to use reasonable force to get that sample.

71ACCUSED:  No, (indistinct).

72HIS HONOUR:  It is just a scraping of your mouth.  Thank you very much.

73MS KERMATH:  Thank you, Your Honour.

74HIS HONOUR:  So that document does not require his signature.  So let us see whether this recognisance release is here.

75MR MANNING:  I understand that it has just been emailed, Your Honour.

76HIS HONOUR:  Thank you.

77MR MANNING:  One final matter.

78HIS HONOUR:  Yes.

79MR MANNING:  In terms of the obligation and paperwork Your Honour is quite right about Charge 6.  So I did check that this morning.

80HIS HONOUR:  Yes.

81MR MANNING:  And it is not (indistinct) listed as a Category 2 offence.  I suspect as a result of the recent amendment in September last year it seems that it is a gap.

82HIS HONOUR:  It certainly is.  I mean - - -

83MR MANNING:  One could - - -

84HIS HONOUR:  We all know that those that have different circumstances where they engage in one off actual physical contact with someone who they consider their partner, they go on the list and they should not be there because they are not a danger to anyone.  Someone looking up child pornography and downloading it is, and they - - -

85MR MANNING:  Which is (indistinct words) as the new Commonwealth offence does not seem to add it in the State legislation.

86HIS HONOUR:  Well, it should.

87MR MANNING:  I agree.

88HIS HONOUR:  I have railed against the mandatory aspects, as many of my colleagues have on the sex offenders register, that it has captured people that it should not, and I will do exactly the same for those that it does not capture when it should.

89MR MANNING:  No issues from me, Your Honour.

90HIS HONOUR:  Thank you.  What is required in respect of that documentation relating to the sex offender's register is, in essence, under the State Act, I have to tell Mr Mrse that - or give to Mr Mrse documentation which will ultimately be given to him, and it may be in the cells, but he has to get documentation, so the process is as clunky as.  I give him documentation, signing that I have given to him, and he signs documentation saying that I have given it to him, but that is neither here nor there.  It is the content of the documentation that is critical.  That is the responsibilities that he has to register in respect of the sex offenders registry at the - once he is released.  So again I am going to speak to you,
Mr Mrse.

91By reason of the legislation and no other, you have to go on the sex offender's register.  What is required of you is set out in documentation and it is quite detailed, it is quite onerous, but most importantly, the consequences if you do not do it are quite serious.  You will breach the recognisance release, you will face other penalties in the courts.

92The requirements upon you are considerable.  More than many think.  You have to keep the authorities, Victoria Police, advised of many, many aspects of your life.  Your car, your job, who you are living with and things, but it goes beyond that to internet things.  Any internet identity you have, wherever it changes.  It might be a gaming internet name, it might be some other platform unrelated to anything that could be conceived of as sexual offence.  Just going on line and having a platform in a sporting exchange or something.  Those sorts of things have to be advised to the authorities.  Breaches of that are often brought about by young people just not thinking because it is so much part of their life to just do different things on the internet and so on and so forth, but you must keep the police advised of it.  All right.  That is all set out in the documentation that you will receive.  Is that being sent on as well or - we have got it now.  We have got that now.  I will sign the document to say that I have given it to him.  How this is going to be achieved is - is that gentleman telling - - -

93VOICE (from the body of the court): (Indistinct words).

94HIS HONOUR:  Thank you.  I will not ask you to take this down.  My staff will - - -

95MS KERMATH:  I have got gloves, Your Honour.

96HIS HONOUR:  No, all right.  Someone with gloves on, go and give it to him and stay there until he signs it and take it back with your gloves on and take them off, whatever.

97HIS HONOUR:  So you just sign at the point that you are about - it seems - you can go down the back.

98MS KERMATH:  I can go up there.  I can use my pen.

99HIS HONOUR:  I would not do that.

100MS KERMATH:  No?  All right, sorry, Your Honour.

101HIS HONOUR:  Unless you are going to throw it away.

102MS KERMATH:  All right.  Sorry about that.

103HIS HONOUR:  Which we will.  We just have to be - - -

104MS KERMATH:  You have got to be careful.

105HIS HONOUR:  Obviously there is - is there a recognisance release?  All right.  We take one page back, he takes the bulk of them that sets out his obligations.  I have the page that he signed.  There are more documents to come.

106MS KERMATH:  Yes, Your Honour.

107HIS HONOUR:  I receive back one page.  If you want to keep the others that are his that is a matter for you, Ms Kermath.

108MS KERMATH:  You only need one page?

109HIS HONOUR:  Yes, that is right.

110MS KERMATH:  As Your Honour pleases.

111HIS HONOUR:  So that page, having been signed, it will be forwarded to - kept on our file and forwarded to the Chief Commissioner or Police.   I am just waiting for one last documentation.  You are in touch with your instructor that will indicate that it has been sent, Mr Manning?

112MR MANNING:  The recognisance release order?

113HIS HONOUR:  Yes, yes.

114MR MANNING:  Yes, Your Honour, I understand it has.

115HIS HONOUR:  All right.  I will just - we need to receive it here, all the way down to Geelong.

116MS KERMATH:  To Geelong.

117MR MANNING:  Yes, Your Honour, I will follow that up.

118HIS HONOUR:  So my tipstaff needs it.  Mr Lawrence will need email system.  Can I just add one other thing, Mr Manning?

119MR MANNING:  Yes, Your Honour.

120HIS HONOUR:  There has been requests from the media in respect of receipt of an opening as well as an indictment.  The indictments, no doubt, can easily be forwarded to them in the work that they do.  The opening is a little different because it does contain both - well, Annex A will not be sent to them, and the conversations which are explicit I am just uncertain about and whether they reveal methodologies too much as well.  They are probably not that secret, the methodologies, but is there a capacity to forward to the court an opening, an unrestricted opening that takes those conversations out?

121MR MANNING:  Yes, we can do that.

122HIS HONOUR:  And just say what it is.  You know, that these - that conversations then occurred over a period of time that were probably what I said in my sentence.  Explicit.

123MR MANNING:  Yes, that sounds fair.  We can do that.

124HIS HONOUR:  All right.  Is that satisfactory to your client?

125MS KERMATH:  That is satisfactory, Your Honour.

126HIS HONOUR:  All right.  Well, I will make available to the media a restricted opening if they need that, beyond what I have already said in my documentation.  All right, there is a recognisance release that has got to be signed.  I signed that.  I am the only one not wearing gloves but there it is.  So what occurs here is it is to be signed before the judge's associate but that is not needed.  It can - I will sign it once it comes back for a second time as he can do it in front of me.  All right.  So there is a part of the recognisance release that requires him to sign it.  You can see that there.  Thank you.

127MS KERMATH:  Thank you, Your Honour.

128HIS HONOUR:  Just sign this.  This is your recognisance release.  It is effectively to be of good behaviour.  It might be considered a suspended sentence.  If you breach it there is the other 15 months.

129MR MANNING:  Your Honour, just while we are waiting.

130HIS HONOUR:  Yes.

131MR MANNING:  Did Your Honour want any difference to paragraph 23 of the opening as well?  It just sets out the standard categories from one to six and the descriptions of the types of material that fall within - - -

132HIS HONOUR:  No, no, they are publicised and well known.  That is - no.  People have got to understand exactly what they are.

133MR MANNING:  Yes, Your Honour.

134HIS HONOUR:  That is no difficulty.  It is what is described in Annex A and what he said.

135MR MANNING:  I understand, thank you.

136HIS HONOUR:  And what the police officers said which reveal their - as much as anything, their skills and their methodologies.

137MR MANNING:  Yes.

138HIS HONOUR:  All right, that recognisance release is signed.  That will be provided to the solicitors in due course and provided onwards to Mr Mrse.  We need to file all that, all right.  He can get a copy to take away if we can photocopy it.  All right.  That, I think, brings the matter to an end with the recognisance release signed.  I will sign the 464ZF in chambers and they will be provided to the parties in due course.  The forfeiture will await further discussion.  Is there anything else?

139MR MANNING:  No, Your Honour.

140HIS HONOUR:  Ms Kermath?

141MS McLAY:   Your Honour, it is Ms McLay, Your Honour.

142HIS HONOUR:  Yes.

143MS McLAY:  Can you just check that recognisance order actually has how many months in para.1?

144HIS HONOUR:  Fifteen.  It does.  It says 15 months.  Thank you.

145MS McLAY:  Thank you.

146HIS HONOUR:  Yes.

147MS KERMATH:  Your Honour, if I can say something?  Mr Mrse, this is his first time in custody, as Your Honour is aware.

148HIS HONOUR:  I am keenly aware of that.

149MS KERMATH:  And I am - I will have to state to Your Honour that I am concerned of his - of any self-harm that he could inflict on himself.

150HIS HONOUR:  Of course, and so they will take complete and utter control of all that.  There are experienced prison officers here.  He is stressed.  I know that.

151MS KERMATH:  Yes.

152HIS HONOUR:  I am not going to delay his stress any more by debates that might occur in the Magistrates' Court - - -

153MS KERMATH:  Thank you.

154HIS HONOUR:  - - - as to orders as to notes on files, because they do these things at high volume.  Mr Mrse, the difficulties will confront you from the beginning, I do not doubt that, but you will be given as much help as you can by the people here and transferred to a prison.  Your barrister will come downstairs and talk you through this and, unfortunately, there cannot be face to face visits.  You will be in a time of quarantine because everyone coming into the prison system is.  You will be provided with capacity to have telephone calls and the like thereafter.  All right.

155MS KERMATH:  Thank you, Your Honour.

156HIS HONOUR:  Thank you.  Mr Mrse can be taken downstairs.  Thanks very much to counsel for their assistance and I would get down there as quick as I can.

157MS KERMATH:  I will, Your Honour.

158HIS HONOUR:  Thanks very much, Ms Kermath.

159MS KERMATH:  And I have got the pen.  You can do what - - -

160HIS HONOUR:  Yes, throw it away.

161MS KERMATH:  I will dispose of that.

162HIS HONOUR:  Do not worry about that.

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