Director of Public Prosecutions(Cth) v Long
[2017] VCC 1306
•12 September 2017
| IN THE COUNTY COURT OF VICTORIA AT MELBOURNE CRIMINAL DIVISION | Revised Not Restricted Suitable for Publication |
Case No. CR-17-00111
| COMMONWEALTH DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROSECUTIONS |
| v |
| BO LONG |
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JUDGE: | HIS HONOUR CHIEF JUDGE KIDD | |
WHERE HELD: | Melbourne | |
DATE OF HEARING: | 6 September 2017 | |
DATE OF SENTENCE: | 12 September 2017 | |
CASE MAY BE CITED AS: | DPP(CTH) v LONG | |
MEDIUM NEUTRAL CITATION: | [2017] VCC 1306 | |
REASONS FOR SENTENCE
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Subject: Criminal law – Sentence.
Catchwords: Charges of import and possess tobacco with intent to defraud revenue – Total amount of revenue evaded above $700,000 – Operated as independent self-employed contractor – Importation by small parcel post – Importation method had a level of professionalism – No priors – Risk of deportation – Three young children in Australia.
Legislation Cited: Customs Act 1901 (Cth); Crimes Act 1914 (Cth).
Cases Cited:R v Saleh [2015] NSWCCA 299; Young v The Queen [2016] VSCA 149; Hussein v The Queen [2016] VSCA 212; R v Zhang [2017] SASCFC 5; Nei Lima Da Costa Junior v The Queen [2016] VSCA 49; R v Verdins (2007) 16 VR 269.
Sentence: Total effective sentence of 27 months’ imprisonment, with 12 months to be served immediately before release on recognisance of $2000 to be of good behaviour for 24 months.
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APPEARANCES: | Counsel | Solicitors |
| For the CDPP | Mr T. Crouch | Ms A Pavleka, Solicitor for Public Prosecutions (Cth) |
| For the Accused | Mr R Edney (Plea) Ms G. Boe (Sentence) | Doogue O’Brien George |
HIS HONOUR:
1 Bo Long, you have pleaded guilty to two charges, contrary to the Customs Act 1901 (Cth). Charge 1 was importing tobacco products with the intention of defrauding the revenue, contrary to s.233BABAD(1). Charge 2 was possessing tobacco products knowing that the goods were imported with intent to defraud the revenue, contrary to sub-section 2 of that provision. The maximum penalty for each charge is ten years’ imprisonment.
2 You are currently aged 39 years, having been born on 1 May 1978. You were 37 and turned 38 during the period of offending.
Summary of offending
3
I turn first to the summary of the offending. Your offending is detailed in
Exhibit 1, being the summary of the prosecution opening. The facts contained in the opening were accepted by you through your counsel and represent the facts I will sentence you on.
4 In summary, in respect of charge 1, between 8 March 2016 and 9 September 2016, you imported a significant amount of loose tobacco and cigarettes by post and evaded revenue in the amount of $681,325.
5
For this purpose, you had opened 12 PO boxes in your name around the northern suburbs. Between these dates, 385 international mail articles containing loose tobacco or cigarettes sent from China, addressed to an alias at one of the 12 PO boxes, were intercepted by the Australian Border Force. I will refer to them as the “ABF”. The total amount of revenue you evaded by failing to pay Customs duty and GST on these items was
$557,806.
6 On 8 and 9 September 2016, the ABF executed search and seizure warrants on each of your PO boxes and located and seized a total of 98 mail articles containing tobacco products. These parcels had been sent from China addressed to one of your aliases. The tobacco seized weighed 94 kilograms and were approximately 112,744 cigarettes. The total amount of revenue evaded was $123,519.
7 In respect of Charge 2, on 25 August 2016, the ABF executed a search and seizure warrant at your home and work address and a storage unit in Heidelberg, locating further tobacco products. At your home address, the ABF located and seized tobacco products weighing 2.8 kilograms and approximately 9,640 cigarettes of various brands. At the storage facility leased in your name, the ABF located and seized 18 cartons of one brand of cigarettes and 270 packets of another brand. You possessed these items knowing that they had been imported with the intention of defrauding the revenue. The total amount of revenue evaded on these items was $23,694.
8 In all, the total amount of revenue that was defrauded was $705,019.
9 Police seized your mobile phone at this time. The phone was later analysed and details of PO boxes and tracking numbers and images of tobacco and cigarettes were located. A large number of text messages between May 2016 and August 2016, relating to the importation of tobacco were also located. These messages contained discussion in Mandarin about parcels that had been seized, concealment methods and delivery arrangements.
10 You were arrested and charged on 25 August 2016. You remained on bail until your plea hearing, when I remanded you into custody. This is the first time you have been in custody.
11 You engaged in three interviews with the ABF, two on the day of your arrest and one a couple of days later. You made a number of admissions across these interviews, including that you had keys to all of the 12 PO boxes and that you had imported only small parcels, because “everyone knows you would go to gaol straightaway for importing big ones”. You said that you told your contacts in China to stop sending the tobacco products after May 2016 and you were not sure why they kept sending them.
12 I will return to you records of interview later. On 18 May 2016, you were visited by the ABF and you received a formal warning about the illegality of your conduct. The ABF provided you with correspondence which advised that there was a requirement to pay duty and tax on imported tobacco and cigarettes and outlined the penalties for failing to do so.
Legal principles
13 I turn to the legal principles. In sentencing you today, I must have regard to s.16A of the Crimes Act 1914 (Cth).
14 Some of the legal principles which emerge from the intermediate appellate authorities[1] in relation to this offending are as follows:
·The maximum penalty of ten years’ imprisonment for the relevant offence was effectively increased five-fold in 2012, in order to address this specific offending conduct, namely the illegal importation of tobacco and tobacco products.
·Serious examples of this offending are considered sufficiently grave as to warrant a sentence of immediate or full-time imprisonment.
·The offence is effectively one against the revenue and accordingly, any offending must be viewed in the context of taxation and similar offences and guidance taken from sentences imposed in these matters. This offending is not victimless. The revenue must be protected to enable Government to provide for the community.
·The principle of general deterrence is a particularly relevant sentencing consideration.
[1]R v Saleh [2015] NSWCCA 299 (‘Saleh’); Young v The Queen [2016] VSCA 149 (‘Young’); Hussein v The Queen [2016] VSCA 212 (‘Hussein’); R v Zhang [2017] SASCFC 5 (‘Zhang’).
15 The same authorities also indicate that that the factors relevant to an assessment of the seriousness of this offending include:
·The role of the offender, the amount of tax that was defrauded and the scale of the enterprise. These are all relevant to an assessment of the objective gravity of the offending.
·In assessing the role of the offender, in particular, it is important to identify whether the defendant was a principal organiser of the criminal operation, or merely acting on the instructions of others.
·The sophistication of the offending, or lack thereof, is also relevant.
·The period over which the offences or offence were or was committed is relevant.
·The quantity of the tobacco imported and/or possessed and the amount of duty defrauded or evaded is also relevant.
·Equally the authorities make reference to whether the loss of revenue has been repaid.
Gravity of offending and your role
16 I turn to an assessment of the gravity of your offending and your role. I must assess the gravity of your overall offending and your role in it.
17 It is true that this operation did not involve the quantities of tobacco that we see in some of the cases which come before the courts. Your counsel also submitted that detection was inevitable and that your offending was unsophisticated. Some aspects of it, no doubt, were simplistic and are redolent of a cottage industry type operation: the aliases used by you on the packages were simply variations of your name, you opened the PO boxes in your own name, the method of delivery you used, small domestic postal parcels, was by itself fairly unremarkable, your method of offending also continued unchanged after you received the warning from the ABF in the month of May, the storage unit was also rented in your name. You acted alone, this was not
a syndicate-type enterprise.
18 Overall, however, I assess your offending as reasonably calculated, industrious and organised. You opened and maintained multiple separate PO Boxes in different locations. You imported multiple small parcels, indeed in the hundreds. You used different methods of concealment. The method of importing small parcels was adopted so as to evade detection by the authorities. As much is apparent from the method itself and confirmed by your text messages and indeed by your admission in one of the records of interview. You also rented a storage facility for the purpose of storing the tobacco products.
I agree with the prosecution submission that the fact that this operation involved the importation of small packages, as distinct from large-scale commercial importations, should not obscure the fact that the enterprise was characterised by a degree of professionalism. The offending under Charge 1, being the importation charge, was also protracted and persistent, involving as it did,
a course of conduct which continued for some six months, from March to September 2016.
19 The offending was committed for financial gain. You were a heavy user of cigarettes and your enterprise supplied this habit, but it is not in issue that your primary motive was one of financial gain or profit. I have not been told about how much you made or intended to make. I infer that the financial gain was or would be sufficiently rewarding to make engaging in this risky behavior worthwhile.
20 The amount of excise evaded in total was not insubstantial. As I said earlier,
a total of some $705,000.
21 This was not a small enterprise.
22 As to the characterization of your role, you operated as an independent
self-employed importing agent or contractor, engaged in a tobacco importation enterprise. You are to be contrasted with someone simply taking instructions from others, such as an employee within a syndicate. You operated your enterprise within a milieu, where there were multiple independent overseas suppliers and multiple independent buyers in Australia.
23 You received a formal warning from ABF on 18 May 2016, regarding your tobacco importation. You were informed of the penalties applicable. Undeterred, you persisted with your offending. That you did so, demonstrates a level of contempt of the law on your part and makes the offence more serious. I will return to this below when I come to examine your personal circumstances at the time of the offending.
24 For all of the above reasons, I regard this as a serious example of this offending, though not in the higher or most serious category of this offending.
Personal circumstances
25 I turn to your personal circumstances. As I have noted, you are now 39 years old.
26 You were born in Shanghai, China, but are now a permanent resident in Australia. You were an only child and you have a good relationship with your parents, who still live in China. You remain in regular contact with them. You grew up in modest, working class and somewhat itinerant circumstances. Following an accident at work, your father struggled with his mental health and attempted suicide. At times there was conflict between your parents because of your father’s issues.
27 You completed primary and secondary school in Shanghai. After you finished school, you completed a Diploma of Hotel Management and a Bachelor of Arts at Shanghai International University, majoring in English studies.
28 Since your late teens, you have been a very heavy smoker. In your late 20s, you were smoking around 100 cigarettes per day.
29 You applied for a student visa and arrived in Australia in 2007. You were 28 years old and settled in Melbourne. You completed a TAFE course in pastry cooking and started working in a French restaurant in Box Hill. Your then employer sponsored you to become a permanent resident.
30
You married your wife Marina, who is also Chinese, in 2009. You met while working at the Box Hill restaurant. Your counsel told me that your wife’s family were not happy about the marriage, because you were judged to be from
a lower social class.
31 In 2010, you purchased a café in Heidelberg with the financial assistance of your wife’s parents. You turned the café into a Chinese restaurant, which you have run ever since. You and your family live behind the restaurant. You have found running the restaurant an exhausting experience. You worked long hours, around 70 hours per week. You have continued to run this business while you have been on bail, that is, up until recently.
32 You and your wife have three young children, aged six, three and two. Your children were all born in Australia and are Australian citizens. You have a very close relationship with your children and have been anxious at the prospect of being separated from them for the first time.
33
In the period leading up to this offending, you experienced significant difficulties in your marriage and it eventually became a toxic and destructive relationship. I have been told that there has been pressure from your wife’s family, particularly your mother-in-law, about your limited financial circumstances.
I was informed by your counsel that your mother-in-law, who has lived with you, has been hypercritical about your inability to properly provide for your family.
34 I am told that you and your wife remained in an unhappy marriage, partly because you were constrained by your limited financial means. You have all been living together behind the restaurant. While the restaurant has been established for a number of years, the profit margin was not great and you were not in a position to leave.
35 In May this year, your wife filed for divorce. Your wife intends to remain in Australia with your children. I will return to this matter.
Plea of guilty and remorse
36 You have pleaded guilty at the earliest practical opportunity.
37 You receive credit for the objective utilitarian benefit through the saving of time and resources associated with the running of a contested trial.
38 I accept that your entry of the plea of guilty, indicated as it was at an early stage, is also representative of some evidence of remorse and a willingness to facilitate the course of justice.
39
Your counsel also relied upon your acceptance that you must be punished by
a term of imprisonment and also upon the statements made by you to a forensic psychologist, Dr Matthew Barth.
40 Dr Barth, whose report was exhibited on your plea, said you admitted your guilt openly and that you were clear in your intention to plead guilty to the charges. Dr Barth said you expressed remorse for your offending. You told Dr Barth,
“I am sorry for taking money from the State, it was very dishonest.”
41 Counsel for the prosecution submitted that any assessment of your remorse should be viewed in the context of the comments you made during your interviews with the ABF, where you persistently sought to downplay your conduct. I agree that this is so. Your conscience did not move you to desist from this wrongful behaviour when the authorities warned you in May 2016. Further, you engaged in these three interviews with the authorities, that is, the ABF. Your first two interviews took place on the 25 August 2016. Despite
a subsequent four days for reflection, you were still not completely forthcoming or frank in your third interview, conducted on 29 August 2016. For example, you still claimed that you only wanted the tobacco for personal use. You hardly showed yourself to be a man who was completely contrite or completely ashamed of his own conduct, despite making some admissions. I conclude that you did not demonstrate complete remorse during those interviews.
42 In the end, the question of remorse is one of degree. While your remorse was obviously not immediate and could not be assessed at a high level, I accept that you have developed some remorse, mostly late in the piece.
Mental health issues
43 I turn to your mental health issues. You have been diagnosed with an adjustment disorder with depressed mood and nicotine dependence. You have been treated as a voluntary outpatient at the North East Mental Health Service since October 2016. Your treatment commenced following an attempt to take a large number of Panadol tablets, which was an attempt at self-harm.
44 You have experienced low mood, difficulty sleeping and intermediate suicidal thoughts. You have been prescribed anti-depressant medications, Mitrazapine and Quetiapine. A report of psychiatric registrar, Dr Lior Chait, at North East Mental Health Service, confirms these matters. Dr Chait opines that you have a good prognosis if you continue with your medication and psychotherapy.
45 Since October 2016, you have also engaged in regular therapy sessions with clinical psychologist, Elspeth Orchard. Two reports of Ms Orchard were exhibited on your plea. You presented as very depressed with suicidal thoughts when you first saw Ms Orchard, but she reports that you no longer see suicide as an option. You do, however, continue to experience depressive symptoms and to struggle with the thought of losing your children, in the event of deportation and with the shame and hardship you have brought to your family.
46 You have also been assessed by forensic psychologist, Dr Matthew Barth and a report of Dr Barth, as I said earlier, was exhibited on your plea. You reported to Dr Barth that your first experienced depressive symptoms around 2010. These symptoms have been exacerbated over last three years, in the context of the high demands of running a restaurant, financial stresses and your marriage breakdown. Notwithstanding medication and therapy, you continue to suffer ongoing depressed mood. During this period, your cigarette habit has remained hazardously high, although Dr Barth reports that you have reduced your intake in the last six months.
Context to offending
47 Your counsel relied upon the fact that this offending was committed in
a particular context, namely, in a destructive domestic setting, against the background of significant financial pressures and whilst you were experiencing a number of emotional and interpersonal issues. You told Dr Barth that, in this context, you became reckless and destroyed yourself. Dr Barth observed:
In summary, [your] offending served the purpose of attempting to achieve
a significant level of financial stability and success, as a means of overcompensating for [your] fragile self-esteem and also providing a solution focussed and very dysfunctional method of alleviating the personal and emotional issues in [your] life, particularly in [your] marriage.
48 Perhaps the high point of your reckless indifference to your situation is highlighted by the fact that you continued to offend in the face of a warning from the authorities.
49 Dr Barth concluded that your insight into the motivations for your offending remains at a formative or incipient level, however, you have expressed your desire to participate in treatment to address the issues and reduce your risk of recidivism. As I stated above, Dr Chait opines that you have a good prognosis if you continue with your medication and psychotherapy.
50 None of this, that is, the evidence concerning your mental state and the context to the offending, was relied upon as an excuse for your offending, or in support of any Verdins-type argument as to your moral culpability, rather, it is offered as an explanation for the offending. It is submitted that this offending is not unexplained and if your mental health and low self-esteem issues can be addressed and treated, this bodes well for your future prospects. I will take it into account in this way.
Good character and prospects of rehabilitation
51 I now turn specifically to your good character and to your prospects. You have no prior convictions. You have no subsequent or pending matters. Since your arrival in Australia in 2007, you have had a very good employment history. You have a real capacity for hard work.
52 Notwithstanding the difficulties in your marriage, you have been and remain
a good father to your three young children. Clearly their presence in your life will represent an incentive to not re-offend.
53 There are many factors which are favourable to your prospects. However, I am left with a sense of unease by your downplaying of your role in your interviews with the authorities and by your persistence with this offending, despite having been clearly warned by the authorities. Your prospects also depend upon you continuing to develop insight into your offending and the contextual reasons for it. You will need to address these issues successfully, so that you do not resort to re-offending of this kind in the future, should you again find yourself facing financial instability in a difficult domestic setting. Any sentence I must impose upon you must specifically deter you from re-offending in the future.
54 I find that you have reasonable prospects of rehabilitation.
Application of Verdins Principle 5
55 Your counsel submitted your mental health condition was relevant to Verdins Principle 5[2], namely that your mental health condition and depressive symptoms may mean that the sentence of imprisonment that I will impose, will weigh more heavily on you than on someone who was in normal health.
[2]R v Verdins (2007) 16 VR 269.
56 Dr Barth opines that your:
ongoing depressive symptoms, limited coping skills and a history of suicidal ideation, are likely to make [your] experience of incarceration more burdensome than an individual who does not suffer with [your] current mental health issues. [You] would be at significant risk of further deterioration in [your] moods in the immediate aftermath of sentence.
57 I accept that Verdins 5 is enlivened and I will give it weight.
58 Initially it was submitted that both Verdins principles 5 and 6 applied. However, your counsel conceded during the course of submissions, that only Verdins principle 5 was relevant. In any event, I am unpersuaded that the evidence establishes that there is a serious risk that imprisonment will have a significant adverse effect on your mental health. Dr Barth talks about a deterioration in the immediate aftermath of sentence, but is silent about the longer term impact during your imprisonment. There is also no clear evidence that your condition cannot be properly monitored or treated in prison. Indeed, there is evidence from Ms Orchard, psychologist, that further delay in your case, as distinct from imprisonment, would be very detrimental to your mental health.
Risk of deportation
59 I turn to the question of deportation. As I have already noted, you were born in China, but are now a permanent resident of Australia. Following conviction and sentence in respect of these charges, you face the real possibility of being deported. The procedure likely to be followed was outlined in a legal letter exhibited at your plea. While there is no certainty about what will happen to your immigration status, I certainly accept that you do face the real prospect of being deported.
60 Your counsel submitted this is a relevant matter in sentencing you, because that prospect will bear upon the impact that the sentence of imprisonment will have on you during your incarceration. [3] This expectation will make the burden of imprisonment greater for you than for someone who does not face such a risk. The burden is likely to weigh heavily on you, in circumstances where you have three young children who are Australian citizens and who will remain in Australia. I take this matter into account in mitigation. This burden cannot be entirely separated from the Verdins 5 point ,which I have already found in your favour.
[3]Nei Lima Da Costa Junior v The Queen [2016] VSCA 49 [25].
First time in custody
61 Finally, I take into account this is your first time in custody and away from your children.
Sentencing practice
62 I turn to the question of sentencing practice. Four intermediate appellate decisions were referred to me by the parties, which generally inform sentencing patterns and possibly a range of sentences against which to examine my proposed sentence in those four cases and I will put the full citations in my settled reasons. Those were Saleh, Young, Hussein and Zhang.[4] I have had regard to them. Of course they are not precedents to be followed, unless capable of being distinguished and as with all cases, there are differences in the factual basis of the offending and also the personal circumstances of the offenders.
[4]Saleh [2015] NSWCCA 299; Young [2016] VSCA 149; Hussein [2016] VSCA 212; Zhang [2017] SASCFC 5.
63 By way of example, I make the following brief observations in relation to the gravity of the offending in these cases:
·On one view, your offending appears noticeably less serious than that of Young and Hussein. The quantities of tobacco involved and tax evaded in Young and Hussein and the general scale of the offending was significantly greater than your case. Young also pleaded not guilty and was a Customs agent. Yet neither Young nor Hussein was sentenced upon the basis that he was the importer and each played a more supporting role in the respective enterprises. In your case, you were the importer, you worked for yourself and not under instructions and you continued to offend, despite having been warned by the authorities. The offending in Young and Hussein occurred over a relatively short period of time, whereas your offending occurred over some six months.
·There are obvious similarities between your offending and that of Zhang. That said, while the amount of tax evaded in Zhang is less than your case, his operations were more sophisticated than your offending. In Zhang, a number of the PO boxes were opened in false names using other persons' identity cards. Zhang also involved significantly more separate parcels and more PO boxes than your case and the involvement of another offender.
·Overall, these examples do indicate that serious instances of offending of this kind will generally be met with a sentence which involves an immediate term of imprisonment, of short to moderate duration. Beyond that, it is difficult to identify any further pattern. There are not many appellate decisions and on their face, the sentences themselves are not always readily reconciled. For example, the sentence is Zhang is higher than those imposed in Young and Hussein, despite the offending in the latter two cases being on a significantly larger scale.
Concurrency, cumulation and totality
64 While there is no overlap in the tobacco, which is the subject of the import and possess charges, both charges are obviously related in time and subject matter. Both arise out of the same illicit tobacco enterprise. A significant degree of concurrency is justified and indeed required by the principle of totality.
Sentencing
65 Taking all of the above principles and matters into account, I propose to sentence you as follows.
66 Mr Long, if you could please stand.
67 I will announce what I propose to do and then I will ask whether the sentence is technically correct, before I formally come to pronounce the orders.
68 On Charge 1, I propose to convict and sentence you to 24 months' imprisonment.
69 On Charge 2, I propose to convict and sentence you to six months' imprisonment.
70
I will direct that the sentence on Charge 1 is to commence today, that is,
12 September 2017.
71 I will direct that the sentence on Charge 2 is to commence 21 months after the commencement of the sentence on Charge 1.
72 This will make for a total effective sentence of 27 months.
73
I will direct that you be released after 12 months' gaol, upon you entering into
a recognizance of the sum of $2,000, to be of good behaviour for a period of two years.
74 I will also declare that six days’ imprisonment has already been served under this sentence and I direct that this fact be entered into the record. That period of time does not include today.
75 Now, I will come to explain what the recognizance release order is in a moment, but, Mr Crouch, the terms of the orders that I have announced, they are technically - I just want to find out if they are technically correct.
76 MR CROUCH: Yes, Your Honour. I think you may have misspoke and said it was six months of PSD.
77 HIS HONOUR: Did I? Well it is six days.
78 MR CROUCH: Yes.
79 HIS HONOUR: All right. But apart from that - - -
80 MR CROUCH: Apart from that, yes.
81 HIS HONOUR: All right. Well look, before I make the order, Mr Long, I will explain to you the purpose and the effect of the proposed recognizance order and the consequences that may follow if you, without reasonable excuse or cause, fail to comply with the conditions of the proposed order.
82 The purpose and effect of the recognizance order is to grant you conditional freedom, after you have served 12 months' imprisonment.
83 It requires you to be of good behaviour for a period of two years after your release. If you commit a further offence in breach of the recognizance to be of good behaviour in that two year period after your release, then unless you can show a reasonable excuse for committing a further offence or offences, you will be dealt with for that breach and re-sentenced. You may have to pay $2,000 and you may have to serve immediately the remaining term of imprisonment, which in your case would be 15 months. I should also tell you that you, or an authorised person, may apply to the court to vary or discharge the recognizance, in accordance with s.20AA of the Crimes Act1914 (Cth).
84 Mr Crouch, does that adequately cover the explanation for the recognizance release?
85 MR CROUCH: Yes, Your Honour. To clarify, it was $2,000 - - -
86 HIS HONOUR: Yes.
87 MR CROUCH: - - - was the recognizance amount?
88 HIS HONOUR: Yes, $2,000.
89 MR CROUCH: Yes.
90
HIS HONOUR: All right, Mr Long, I now formally pronounce the orders that
I proposed before.
91 On Charge 1, you are convicted and sentenced to 24 months' imprisonment.
92 On Charge 2, you are convicted and sentenced to six months' imprisonment.
93 I direct that the sentence on Charge 1 is to commence today.
94 I will direct that the sentence on Charge 2 is to commence 21 months after the commencement of the sentence on Charge 1.
95 This will make for a total effective sentence of 27 months.
96 I will direct that you be released after 12 months' gaol or imprisonment, upon you entering into a recognizance of the sum of $2,000, to be of good behaviour for a period of two years.
97 You may be seated, Mr Long.
98 Is there anything else arising out of that, counsel?
99 MR CROUCH: No, Your Honour. There is just the matter of the form.
100 HIS HONOUR: The actual form, yes.
101 MR CROUCH: Which needs to be signed and - - -
102 HIS HONOUR: Yes. So, do we prepare that, or you prepare that?
103 MR CROUCH: No, I prepared a copy just now, Your Honour.
104
HIS HONOUR: All right. And that is signed - that needs to be signed by
Mr Long?
105 MR CROUCH: It is signed by both you and the offender.
106 HIS HONOUR: Yes. All right.
107 So, Mr Long, I am now signing the orders that I have just pronounced.
108
So the order will now be handed to you, Mr Long. You will need to read
a section of it, which states that you have had explained to you the purpose and effect of this order, the consequences that may follow, if you fail without reasonable excuse to comply with the conditions of the order and that this order may be discharged or varied under s.20AA of the Crimes Act. The form also states that you agree that you are bound in accordance with this order and that you agree that you have been given a copy of this order.
109 All right, so if you can read that section when it is shown to you and satisfy yourself that you are happy with that and then you will be asked to sign it.
110 Counsel, if you want to approach him, you can.
111 MS BOE: Yes, thank you, Your Honour.
112 OFFENDER: I have signed it, Your Honour.
113 HIS HONOUR: Thank you, Mr Long.
114 Yes, all right, the document's now been signed by Mr Long. Is there anything else?
115 MR CROUCH: No, Your Honour.
116 HIS HONOUR: All right. Yes, if Mr Long could be taken away please.
117 Thanks for attending, counsel.
118 MS BOE: Thank you, Your Honour.
119 MR CROUCH: As Your Honour pleases.
120 HIS HONOUR: Adjourn the court please. Sine die.
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