Director of Public Prosecutions v Baker (a pseudonym)
[2022] VCC 2225
•7 December 2022
| IN THE COUNTY COURT OF VICTORIA AT Melbourne CRIMINAL DIVISION | Revised Not Restricted Suitable for Publication |
| THE DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROSECUTIONS |
| v |
| JASON BAKER (a pseudonym) |
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JUDGE: | HIS HONOUR JUDGE MULLALY | |
WHERE HELD: | Melbourne | |
DATE OF HEARING: | 3, 4, 5, 10, 11, 12, 13 and 14 October 2022; and 21 November 2022 | |
DATE OF SENTENCE: | 7 December 2022 | |
CASE MAY BE CITED AS: | DPP v Baker (a pseudonym) | |
MEDIUM NEUTRAL CITATION: | [2022] VCC 2225 | |
REASONS FOR SENTENCE
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Subject: CRIMINAL LAW – Sentence
Catchwords: Trial – Sexual Offending – Incest – Indecent act or sexual activity with a child under the age of 16 – Sexual assault of a child under the age of 16 – Sexual assault of a child aged 16 or 17 under care, supervision and authority – Moral culpability – Standard sentence – Serious Offender – Cumulation – Totality – Proportionality – Rehabilitation – Denunciation – Deterrence.
Legislation Cited: Sentencing Act1991 (Vic) s 5(2F),s 5A(1)(b) and s 6E.
Cases Cited: DPP v Dalgleish (a pseudonym) [2017] 349 CLR 37; R H McL v The Queen [2000] HCA 46; 203 CLR 452; Gregory v The Queen [1983] 151 CLR 566.
Sentence: Total effective sentence of 13 years and nine months and a minimum non-parole period of nine years and three months.
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APPEARANCES: | Counsel | Solicitors |
| For the Crown | Ms E. Ramsay | Office of Public Prosecutions |
| For the Accused | Dr T. Alexander | Emma Turnbull Lawyers |
HIS HONOUR:
1 Jason Baker,[1] on 14 October 2022, a jury returned verdicts of guilty of each of eight charges on indictment L12289368.1. The charges were, not in order:
[1] A pseudonym.
(i) Two charges of incest being Charges 3 and 8.
(ii) Two charges of an indecent act or sexual activity with a child under the age of 16, being Charges 1 and 2.
(iii) One charge of sexual assault of a child under the age of 16, Charge 4.
(iv) And three charges of sexual assault of a child aged 16 or 17 under care, supervision and authority, being Charges 5, 6, and 7.
2
The maximum terms set by a parliament are as follows. For incest,
Charges 3 and 8 – 25 years imprisonment. For an indecent act or sexual activity with a child under the age of 16, Charges 1 and 2 – 10 years imprisonment. For the sexual assault of a child under 16, Charge 4 – 10 years imprisonment. For the sexual assault of a child 16 or 17 under the care, supervision and authority – 5 years imprisonment.
3 Turning to the circumstances of your crimes as were accepted by the jury. I say that because the jury verdicts of guilty on each of the eight charges, indicates that the jury accepted the allegations and evidence of the victim.
4 The victim of your dreadful sexual crimes was your daughter. You commenced to abuse her when she was just nine years old. Your first offending behaviour was to make her watch you masturbate while also making her watch the pornography you were using as you masturbated. This debasing conduct occurred regularly, two to three times a month, in a number of rooms in the family home. The victim was often dragged or pulled into a room and made to endure this awful behaviour. You only let her leave after you ejaculated.
5 At a point when the victim was about 12, you stopped using pornography but you continued masturbating in front of her. The period of time this offending took place was from the time the complainant was nine until she was 16. The criminal conduct was necessarily divided into two charges as the governing legislation changed on 1 July 2017.
6 Of importance for sentencing purposes is that the two charges are course of conduct charges. That means the offending was regular and part of a course of conduct.
7 Once you had stopped using pornography when masturbating in front of the victim, you then started to sexually touch her. She was maturing and you began touching her on her vagina. That conduct escalated and the first time you penetrated your daughter's vagina, an act of incest, was when she was aged just 12. This was Charge 3.
8 You continued your sexual abuse of her, which moved onto include you using your tongue to lick her vagina. The first time you did this, or used your tongue, was Charge 4. The victim then was 14 or 15 years old.
9 You continued your abuse, including an occasion touching her on the vagina after you had first demanded she come to your bedroom. When she did not comply, you went and physically picked her up and took her screaming to your bedroom to sexually assault her. This touching was Charge 5.
10 You then simulated sexual intercourse by rubbing your penis over her vagina while she and you were clothed. This was Charge 6.
11 The final charges were from an occasion when you stopped the victim leaving the house to go to see her friend. When she told you she wanted to go, you told her chillingly, 'Not yet'. You then dragged her screaming to your bedroom where you got her on the bed so you could touch her vagina and then you penetrated your vagina with your finger. These were Charge 7 of sexual assault and Charge 8, incest.
12 You will be punished for the eight crimes, your eight crimes, that you committed. No more and no less. It is part of the prosecution case, which I say was accepted by the jury, that other than the course of conduct charges, the individual charges were not isolated incidents. The overall context is of continual sexual abuse. But again, I emphasise, you were charged with and found guilty of the individual charges on the indictment and you will be sentenced for those crimes only.
13
What I have been referring to is your regular abusive conduct, which means I do not see your offending as it is set out in the eight charges or the
six individual charges, as a one off. The individual acts of incest,
Charges 3 and 8, were the first and last of regular similar incidents. So too was the incident of you of using your tongue. It was the first time that conduct occurred. It was repeated thereafter.
14 That was the broad context of your years of sexual abuse. That is what the victim in her victim impact statement referred to as her cruel treatment at your hands as she grew up. I will refer to the victim impact statement shortly.
15 One matter I raised during the plea was a matter I have referred to in past sentences, and that is, although we in the court and more broadly, our community, have become more aware of the reality of sexual abuse in families, we still need to be vigilant, especially those in the courts, that we do not become immune to the horror of what has been done to each victim or the dreadful impact on them and their families.
16
The final report of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to
Child Sexual Abuse commenced with these compelling words which I believe need to be re-stated and never forgotten. And I quote:
The sexual abuse of a child is a terrible crime. It is the greatest of personal violations. It is perpetrated against the most vulnerable in our community. It is a fundamental breach of the trust that children are entitled to place in adults. It is one of the most traumatic and potentially damaging experiences and can have lifelong adverse consequences.[2]
[2] Commonwealth, Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, Final Report (2017) 5.
17 Your crimes have left a legacy of psychological damage on the victim, on her mother and her twin brother, who all articulated the extent of what they now endure in powerful victim impact statements. I am required to take into account, in a measured way, the impact of your crimes on the victim, which includes her mother and twin brother.
18 The victim wrote, or commenced with 'For as long as I remember, I have suffered the detrimental aspects of what my dad did to me. It's something that's never gone away and I don't think it will ever truly leave me entirely'.[3] She goes on to say that it is with her every single day. She says 'My dad took everything from me. I lost my innocence, my voice and myself'.[4] She says writing or reflecting on what happened is one of the hardest things that she has had to do. But she refuses to be voiceless.
[3]Victim Impact Statement of Victim, dated 14 November 2022.
[4] Ibid.
19 She writes:
I was a child when this started, so I've grown up carrying the weight of what he did to me. Holding and repressing it for so long. I am not the girl I would have been if I had had a good childhood, if this had not happened to me. I know that. I have struggled for years to be truly happy and I know this is a direct link to my dad. How could I ever be happy and normal knowing what happened to me by someone you are supposed to love and trust. That being in the back of your mind constantly. It never leaves me. It never will.[5]
[5] Ibid.
20 She goes on to say she has great difficulty trusting generally and is hypervigilant if she comes across men or is in situations where she might come across men. It restricts her socially significantly. She speaks about the deep psychological effects. That is, she struggles to sleep. She struggles to stay asleep when she falls asleep. The nightmares she has have not stopped. She has had to be prescribed medication to help with sleep and the nightmares.
21 Beyond this and in the daylight hours, as it were, she has developed panic attacks due to the trauma of what happened to her. It is both night and day she wakes or has panic attacks. They last short or long periods. They crush her physically. They happen whenever. If she is with friends at the shopping centre, playing sport. She could not complete her Year 12 exams because of traumatic panic attacks. She concludes 'This directly affected my quality of life'. She was unable to continue with an appetite or to eat. She lost lots of weight. Her body, well, physically she has struggled to get back to a healthy lifestyle. She has social anxiety, she does not feel worthy which is desperately unfair. And feels self-conscious. She often turns down plans or does not do things with friends because of anxiety. What you did to her, she writes, affects her romantic relationships. She struggles to have the intimacy she should be able to have with her partners or with her partner, she gets triggered, and has flashbacks.
22 She wrote a poem and a letter. The letter that she wrote was so that you would be confronted with reality. She wrote:
You sexually abused me for as long as I can remember. You, my father, you hurt me, you abused a child. You abused your daughter and like every other child and daughter, they depended on their father for security.[6]
[6] Ibid.
She says at the end of a letter, which I have read again.
Today I return to you the shame. Your indecency. Your guilt. None of it belongs to me. Today I give back the horrible, inhumane crime you have committed to a child so that you feel the weight of your action for the rest of your life.[7]
[7] Ibid.
23 The victim's mother also set out a poem and then wrote:
How do you love again, trust again, when your husband betrayed you in the worst possible way? Emotionally, I don't know who I am anymore. I feel empty, lost, broken, not worthy of anything or anybody. I trusted you as my husband and the father of our children. How does someone harm their own child? You were supposed to protect us. You took that trust and abused it.[8]
She has unfairly, as many parents or carers of victims, a feeling that they somehow should have known or should have been able to protect. You have caused that feeling in your ex-wife, obviously everything that was caused was caused by you. And she has no blame whatsoever.
[8]Victim Impact Statement of Victim’s Mother, dated 14 November 2022.
24 She grieves the loss of her eldest son. They went from being a family of five to three. She is, 'Devastated and angry that you destroyed our family and our relationships. We are broken'.[9] She does not sleep well, she has nightmares, migraines, vertigo. She has watched her daughter suffer from the sexual assault that she endured for years. She sees how deeply hurt she is. She sees the anxiety, the social anxiety, the depression, the mood swings, the anorexia, the suicidal thoughts, the trauma. She has been involved when her daughter, the victim, has been admitted to hospital several times.
[9] Ibid.
25 She grieves the loss of her daughter's childhood. She should have been happily playing with other children rather than having the empty look in her eyes. The victim's mother says, at the end of her victim impact statement:
Now I need to find the strength and energy to start again. Show my children we can rebuild and have a home full of love, happiness and good memories. I am going to rise above this and show my children what I have always practiced and said.[10]
And I quote 'Be the better person'.[11]
[10] Ibid.
[11] Ibid.
26 The victim's twin brother was also affected. He wrote that now that he is 19, and three years on after finding out what had happened, he is still trying to find himself, work himself out. It destroyed the family. He struggles socially, he struggles to get out of bed, he struggles to keep friends and hold a job. He feels as a child he never belonged and was an outcast. He says you were never a father to him. He feels as though his education was interrupted. He has had to see clinicians, psychologists and psychiatrists. He says he knows with the support of his mother and his family, he will get through this but it will take a long time. He says that he is broken. And he has many sad days but he does not want to let you win. He wants to show his mother and his sister, what a man should be.
27 These victim impact statements are compelling vindication of what the courts have known and the Royal Commission said, that sexual abuse is one of the most traumatic and damaging experiences and it can have lifelong adverse consequences.[12] I must, however, not be overwhelmed by the consequences and the gravity of these crimes. These are important matters, the victim impact statements, but I must consider that, among all other relevant matters that go to inform my instinctive synthesis of what is a just and appropriate sentence for your crimes.
[12] Commonwealth, Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, Final Report (2017) 5.
28 As with the impact of your crimes on the victims, I am required by the Sentencing Act1991 (Vic) to assess the gravity of your crimes and your moral culpability. In my assessment of the gravity of your crimes, I consider the following factors as important – they reveal that these were serious examples of these sexual crimes.
29 You were the victim's father. You had a special and trusted role to protect and nurture her. You comprehensively and egregiously breached that trust. In addition, you breached the trust you owed to the victim's mother. You betrayed what your wife was entitled to expect of you as her partner and joint parent of the victim. You exploited times when your wife was out of the house working and forging her career, when you were the one responsible for looking after the victim and her brothers. This aspect of your offending was deplorable.
30 You also breached the trust the community has that parents will nurture and protect and not use a child as a sexual object for some incomprehensible and perverse form of gratification. Thus your conduct in a wider sense, is an attack on important social values. Your punishment must be of an order to reassert the place of decency and the true role of a parent and a father.
31 A second factor is the young age of the victim. When you commenced your vile behaviour, she was just nine and only 12 when you commenced to penetrate her. It only has to be said for the gravity of your sexual crimes to be exposed.
32 Third, the victim was, as a child, vulnerable. Your exploitative conduct had the effect of destroying the victim's sense of an enjoyable, memorable childhood. As is well known in these courts, a dysfunctional childhood becomes a heavy weight that stunts the development of self-esteem. Childhood is rightly a highly valued and important time in someone's life. Your conduct deprived your daughter of a happy, innocent childhood.
33 Fourthly, a further factor is the protracted and relentless nature of your abuse. It went on for years.
34 Next, there were on some occasions, elements of force involved to drag the victim screaming on occasions, and resisting, dragging her to endure another episode of abuse.
35 Next, with respect to Charges 1 and 2, I must follow what is required by s 5(2F) of the Sentencing Act1991 (Vic) and the appellate decisions regarding sentencing someone for course of conduct crimes. I must ensure that my sentence meets the full context of this ongoing course of conduct. I must also make a general assessment of the number or frequency of the incidents.
36 On the evidence, the regularity of when you would compel the victim to watch you masturbate was two to three times a month for around seven years spread over the two charges. There was less of this type of offending as time went on. Therefore on any measure, these two charges were protracted and serious examples of the two sexual offences pleaded as a course of conduct.
37 It must also be noted that while these offences, Charges 1 and 2, and the other offences set out in Charges 4, 5, 6 and 7 are not penetrative offences. They remain serious crimes and violations of the victim's right to her bodily integrity, and importantly, her right to involve herself in intimacy and sexual experiences of her choice, at a time of her choice, when she was mature enough and ready and with a person or partner of her choice So your masturbation while compelling her to watch you and your groping and licking and touching of her, they are not penetrative, but they remain serious and reprehensible violations of her bodily integrity and her autonomy – her right, as a child, not to be exposed to pornography or your selfish acts of masturbation to the point of ejaculation and your touching of her.
38 As to your moral culpability, plainly, it is very high. You knew what you were doing was plainly so very wrong but you went ahead. Even in those times when you could hear her screams and you had to use force to overcome her resistance. How you could do what you did, much less to continue to violate your daughter in such circumstances of her resistance and distress is simply bewildering. No right minded member of our community could begin to understand why you would act as you did. Your conduct reveals that you have no proper sense of decent values. You put your sexual gratification above all else, including the obvious distress of your own daughter. What you have done reveals the self-centred and dark side of your character.
39 You of course, do not accept any of this. As is your right, you ran a trial. The jury verdict and the vindication of the victim means for you, there is no benefit to you which is afforded to the remorseful and the contrite. You are not more harshly punished, but you do not have any of the substantial mitigatory benefits that are rightly given to those who admit their wrongdoing and express remorse and empathy for the victim.
40 I will return in more detail to the purposes of sentencing, but before doing so, I will refer to your personal circumstances. You are now 52. You were raised in the northern suburbs of Melbourne. You went to Year 10 at school before doing an apprenticeship in hairdressing. However, your working life has been in the construction industry. Over a period of 18 years or more, you have impressed your employers and your co-workers. Your work history is to your credit.
41 Your parents are both deceased and you instruct that your father was physically abusive causing you to leave home at 15 to live with your grandparents. It seems around that time, that is when you were in your late teens, your parents and sister moved to New South Wales. You remained in Victoria with your grandparents.
42 You were married in 1990 at the age of 20. You instruct that there were financial pressures that impacted on the marriage and there was a sense or some evidence that the marriage was in difficulties prior to your sexual abuse being exposed in late 2019. However, in your wife's evidence at the trial, it was clear that she was prepared to continue in the marriage. It was your sexual abuse of the victim that brought the marriage to an end.
43 There are, as I have outlined, three children of the marriage. The victim, her twin brother and an older brother. All gave evidence in the trial and the devastation to each of their young lives was clear enough. It has been made even clearer in the victim impact statements. Your oldest son has supported you throughout. He is now by himself, without any support in the community, as he is by choice, no longer connected to his mother or siblings.
44 The medico-legal psychological report secured by your lawyers indicates that you have no issues with mental illness. You have no prior criminal history which is to your credit. A number of your friends and work colleagues stand by you. I have read and re-read their sincere letters. They have seen good aspects of your character and are in shock that you, behind the doors of the family home, would behave in such a dreadful way. Unfortunately, that is not an uncommon feature of persistent, familial sexual abuse. A different, likeable, normal side is presented to the wider world. The reality at home is much darker.
45 As noted, your eldest son remains supportive. You will do prison harder because you will be anxious about him. It is hoped he can accept your criminality and find some connection with his mother or siblings, or in any way find a reconnection with his mother and siblings. Of course, as I have said, the fractures in the family are entirely of your making.
46 In terms of your personal circumstances, or any other subjective aspect relevant to sentencing, there is little that mitigates, though I do not underplay that you have no prior convictions and had good character up until the point of the jury finding of guilt. Your ongoing risk to the community upon your release from prison is hard to measure. You deny the offending, as is your right. You have no insight or remorse that may be foundational to reform or an amelioration of risk. Facilitating your rehabilitation remains a sentencing purpose, but it must yield to other sentencing purposes in the circumstances of this case. The only tool I have to aid your rehabilitation is to allow for a period of potential parole. However, if and when you are granted parole is for others, not the court.
47 As to other cases or comparable cases, I have considered those that were referred to by the prosecution and your counsel and others. Each case is, as is so often said, a unique set of circumstances that calls for individualised sentencing. In that task, I must instinctively synthesise all relevant factors, guided by the purposes of sentencing set out in the Sentencing Act1991 (Vic). I must regard the matters that I must take into account that are also set out in the Sentencing Act1991 (Vic), but no factor dominates, including current sentencing practices, or sentences imposed in other cases.
48 There are some newer features now in our Sentencing Act1991 (Vic) that must be added to the sentencing task. The final charge of incest was committed after the amendments to the Sentencing Act1991 (Vic) creating a standard sentencing regime. Incest is categorised as a standard sentencing offence. The length of the standard sentence for this crime is 10 years. The fact of the crime being a standard sentence is a matter that I must, and I have, considered.
49 The standard sentence of 10 years is a legislative guide post. Just as is the maximum term. The relevant part of the Sentencing Act1991 (Vic) says:
The period specified as the standard sentence for the offence is the sentence for an offence that, taking into account only the objective factors affecting the relative seriousness of the offence, is the middle of the range of seriousness.[13]
As I have noted, the objective factors affecting the relevant seriousness of the last charge of incest, that is the breach of trust, the use of force in the face of resistance and the high moral culpability in all the circumstances of that crime, all lead me to a conclusion that the offence is a serious example of the standard sentencing offence of incest.
[13]Sentencing Act 1991 (Vic), s 5A(1)(b).
50 It is in my view, at least, in the middle of the range of seriousness. Although I have myself come to that conclusion based on all the material that I am entitled by the statute to consider, I note that your counsel did not submit that such a conclusion was one that I could not, or should not, come to in this case. The standard sentencing does not cap or collar the sentencing discretion. It does not fix the just and appropriate sentence. It is a guide post. In this case, given what the High Court in DPP v Dalgleish,[14] and the cases in the Court of Appeal that have followed DPP v Dalgleish have said of the crime of incest, it is in my view, for this example of the crime of incest, a sentence, that is the standard sentence is a sentence after a trial that must, and justifiably so, be a stern sentence of many years of imprisonment.
[14]DPP v Dalgleish (a pseudonym) [2017] 349 CLR 37.
51 A sentence for this crime, that is what parliament has fixed as the standard sentence, is a sentence that I consider as taking into account the important guide post, is a sentence that I see as at the middle of the range. I cannot see, taking into account all matters in the broad instinctive synthesis that a lower or higher sentence is justified.
52 Also, a not so new sentencing matter in the Sentencing Act 1991 (Vic), is the serious offending provisions that must be applied at a point when you have been sentenced to a term of imprisonment for two offences. That is for the next offences, 3 to 8 thereafter. It is not in any dispute that all of your offences must be met with terms of imprisonment. Thus on Charge 3, you will be sentenced as a serious offender, or as it was once known a serious sexual offender.
53 The work of the serious sexual offender provisions is to elevate the sentencing purpose of protection of the community to the primary sentencing purposes. Also, because you are a serious sexual offender, the principles of totality, cumulation and concurrency must be applied differently to you than others who are not serious offenders. Parliament's intent is expressed in the provisions of s 6E of the Sentencing Act1991 (Vic), that sentences of imprisonment are to be cumulative on each other unless I otherwise order or direct. The tension between these statutory provisions and the Common Law principle of totality have been recognised by our High Court and the Court of Appeal in Victoria.
54 What the High Court said in R H McL v The Queen,[15] and what the Court of Appeal said in Gregory v The Queen,[16] have guided me in respect to ensuring that parliament's intent is not ignored or undermined while ensuring, nonetheless, a proportionate overall sentence. Some of the offences, such as Charges 5 and 6 and then 7 and 8, occur in one incident with one form of sexual assault following quickly upon another. I will not ignore this in the analysis of the totality of your offending. Likewise and within the context and constraints of the serious offender provisions, I have paused and reconsidered the offending, the orders for cumulation and the sentence so as to be sure that the overall sentence is proportionate to your offending.
[15]R H McL v The Queen [2000] HCA 46; 203 CLR 452.
[16]Gregory v The Queen [1983] 151 CLR 566.
55 The fixing of a non-parole period is by reference to all relevant factors and is, in the end, what I consider justice requires in terms of certain incarceration. I have kept in mind you may have to do every day of your sentence, that is the head sentence. As I said, if and when you are granted parole, is for others, not the court.
56 I have taken into account that in these times prison is more onerous as the corrections authorities necessarily impose restrictions, or re-impose restrictions, so as to manage the risks arising from the pandemic.
57 As to all the purposes of sentencing, what is clear, is that significant weight must be given to denouncing your dreadful crimes. My denunciation on behalf of the community is in order that proper and cherished values are re-asserted. The denunciation must not just be by words in these reasons for sentencing, but also in the practical imposition of years of imprisonment. You must be punished by being in prison because of the deep harm you caused. Also a very important sentencing purpose is to yet again, reinforce the message of deterrence to anyone who might contemplate entering the dark realm of child sexual abuse. The message is that many years of imprisonment await.
58 I have given primacy to the need to protection of the community by imprisonment that incapacitates you. Your rehabilitation is, as I have said, not overlooked. But as I have also said, it must yield to other sentencing purposes.
59 The sentences that I impose, doing the best I can, are as follows:
Ÿ For Charge 1, indecent act with a child under the age of 16, a course of conduct offence, you are sentenced to three years imprisonment.
Ÿ For Charge 2, the sexual activity in the presence of a child, a course of conduct charge, you are sentenced to two years imprisonment.
Ÿ For Charge 3, incest, you are sentenced to eight years imprisonment.
Ÿ For Charge 4, the sexual assault of a child under the age of 16, that is the event of licking her vagina, you are sentenced to two years imprisonment.
Ÿ For Charge 5, the sexual assault of a child aged 16 or 17 under care, supervision and authority, you are sentenced to one year imprisonment.
Ÿ For Charge 6, the sexual assault of a child aged 16 or 17 under care, supervision and authority, you are sentenced to one year imprisonment.
Ÿ For Charge 7, the sexual assault of a child aged 16 or 17 under care, supervision and authority, you are sentenced to one year imprisonment.
Ÿ And for Charge 8, incest, the standard sentence offence, you are sentenced to 10 years imprisonment which is the base of the sentence.
60 As for the orders of cumulation, I will otherwise order, other than full cumulation, because to do so would create a sentence that would sit as an outlier. Indeed, the cumulation is moderate despite or in spite of the sentencing serious offender legislation. But it is necessary to ensure a proportionate total sentence.
61
I order that one year of Charge 1, two years of Charge 3, six months of
Charge 4 and three months of Charge 6 are cumulative upon each other and upon Charge 8, the base sentence. This gives a total effective sentence of
13 years and nine months and I fix a minimum non-parole period of nine years and three months.
62 What is the PSD, I should have asked?
63 MS RAMSAY: It is 54 days, Your Honour.
64 HIS HONOUR: You have already served time in prison since you were remanded. It is 54 days. That number of days having been reckoned, I now declare that it is part of the sentence that I have just imposed.
65 I also declare that for Charges 3 to 8, you are sentenced as a serious offender.
66 I further order, as a consequence of the offences that you have committed, the nature and how they are categorised under the Sex Offenders Registration Act2004, I order that you register on the Sex Offenders Register. And remain on that register for life.
67
There will be documents that will be provided to you, Mr Baker, that you have to sign. Effectively what documents you are provided with, will indicate to you the very significant responsibilities that you have upon release to register as a sex offender and the very significant responsibilities that you have to remain on that register with all the information required. Also set out in that document is the serious consequences if you do not abide by the requirements of the
Sex Offenders Register.
68 Ordinarily, those documents would be provided to you here in court. That cannot occur. What I have to do, Dr Alexander, is indicate in this virtual hearing that I have explained as best I can what those documents are, or the importance of them. It is the detail that is set out in those documents that is important and it is necessary that his lawyers explain to him what that all means. And I take it from how this proceeds, unless I hear otherwise, that he would sign a document that if he were in court, effectively says I have given him a document and I sign and he signs. I sign a document to say I have given it to him and he signs a document to say he has been given it. So I take it there is no difficulty with that, given it is in this virtual hearing.
69 DR ALEXANDER: No.
70 HIS HONOUR: All right. That is all then transferred. It is not for the court to manage. It is transferred to the Chief Commissioner of Police. All right. If there is nothing further and if the orders for cumulation are added up, the mathematics, which makes me anxious at times, if that is where it has added up, then I can ensure that I do not have to adjust for a mistake.
71 MS RAMSAY: They add up to me, Your Honour.
72 HIS HONOUR: Thank you.
73 DR ALEXANDER: And me.
74 HIS HONOUR: Thank you. If there is nothing further, again I thank counsel for their considerable assistance and the people involved for the dignity that they have shown.
75 MS RAMSAY: As Your Honour pleases.
76 HIS HONOUR: Thank you.
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