Chevoux v Tasmania

[2015] TASCCA 5

[2015] TASCCA 5

COURT:        SUPREME COURT OF TASMANIA (COURT OF CRIMINAL APPEAL)

CITATION:                 Chevoux v Tasmania [2015] TASCCA 5

PARTIES:  CHEVOUX, Samantha Ashley
  v
  STATE OF TASMANIA

FILE NO:  802/2014
DELIVERED ON:  5 March 2015
DELIVERED AT:  Hobart
HEARING DATE:  5 March 2015
JUDGMENT OF:  Tennent, Porter and Estcourt JJ

CATCHWORDS:

Criminal Law – Appeal and new trial – Appeal against sentence – Grounds for interference – Sentence manifestly excessive or inadequate – Aggravated armed robbery involving actual and threatened violence.

Aust Dig Criminal Law [3521]

REPRESENTATION:

Counsel:
             Appellant:  K Baumeler
             Respondent:  D Coates SC
Solicitors:
             Appellant:  Butler McIntyre & Butler
             Respondent:  Acting Director of Public Prosecutions

Judgment Number:  [2015] TASCCA 5
Number of paragraphs:  29

Serial No 5/2015

File No 802/2014

SAMANTHA ASHLEY CHEVOUX v STATE OF TASMANIA

REASONS FOR JUDGMENT  COURT OF CRIMINAL APPEAL

TENNENT J
PORTER J
ESTCOURT J
5 March 2015

Order of the Court

Appeal dismissed.

Serial No 5/2015

File No 802/2014

SAMANTHA ASHLEY CHEVOUX v STATE OF TASMANIA

REASONS FOR JUDGMENT  COURT OF CRIMINAL APPEAL

TENNENT J
5 March 2015

1. On 5 March 2015, an appeal by the appellant against her sentence was dismissed. These are my reasons for forming the view that I did on that day.

2. The appellant pleaded guilty to one count of aggravated armed robbery on 23 June 2014. A pre-sentence report was sought and she was remanded in custody to await that report. On 4 August 2014 she was sentenced to serve a term of two years' imprisonment with a non-parole period of one year. The sentence was backdated to 23 June.  The learned sentencing judge also made an order that the appellant be subject to 12 months' probation on release from custody. On 8 September 2014, an appeal against that sentence was filed. The sole ground of appeal is that the sentence was manifestly excessive. For reasons which have not been explained the appeal has only now come on for hearing at a time when the appellant has served nearly nine months of the 12 month non-parole period.

Comments on passing sentence

1. The comments on passing sentence of Pearce J set out the facts which gave rise to the charge against the appellant and his reasons for imposing the sentence that he did. Those comments were in the following terms:

   "Samantha Ashley Chevoux pleads guilty to aggravated armed robbery.  She is jointly charged with a male co-accused who I will call W.  In late 2012 or very early 2013 the defendant met the complainant, Paul Thorp.  Not long afterwards she, without justification, formed the impression that Mr Thorp was responsible for vandalism at the house she was then living in at Mayfield.  She told W, whom she had met only weeks earlier, of her problem.  On 25 January 2013, encouraged by W, and motivated by retribution and an irrational desire for some sort of compensation, she sent a message on social media to Mr Thorp inviting him to her house.…