Director of Public Prosecutions v Cooper
[2018] VCC 2134
•12 December 2018
| IN THE COUNTY COURT OF VICTORIA AT MELBOURNE CRIMINAL DIVISION | Revised Not Restricted Suitable for Publication |
Case No. CR-18-00614
CR-18-00837
CR-18-01467
| DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROSECUTIONS |
| v |
| SAMUEL COOPER |
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JUDGE: | Her Honour Judge M. Sexton | |
WHERE HELD: | Melbourne | |
DATE OF HEARING: | 26 July 2018 | |
DATE OF SENTENCE: | 12 December 2018 | |
CASE MAY BE CITED AS: | DPP v COOPER | |
MEDIUM NEUTRAL CITATION: | [2018] VCC 2134 | |
REASONS FOR SENTENCE
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Subject: Criminal law – Sexual Offences
Catchwords: Agreement for Provision of Sexual Offences by a child – Using a carriage service to menace, harass or cause offence – Using a carriage service to transmit indecent communications to a person under 16 – Failing to comply with reporting obligations
Legislation Cited:
Cases Cited: R v Clarkson (2011) 32 VR 361 – Adamson v R [2015] VSCA 194
Sentence: TES: 6 years imprisonment with a non-parole period of 4 years. Registered Sex Offender for life. Forfeiture and Disposal Orders granted.
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APPEARANCES: | Counsel | Solicitors |
| For the DPP | Ms R. Harper for plea Ms R. Fitzpatrick for sentence | OPP |
| For the Accused | Mr S. Gardner | Warren Graham Murphy |
HER HONOUR:
1 Samuel Cooper, you have pleaded guilty to Commonwealth and State charges on two indictments.
2 I sentence you on the basis of the Prosecution Opening[1] which was read out in court. In general terms, between January 2016 and November 2017, you contacted people on social media who were, or who you believed to be, underage females, which was contact that you were required to report to the Sex Offenders Register because of your status as a registered sex offender. You made offensive remarks to some; to others you transmitted indecent material; in the case of two underage females, you supplied them with drugs and groomed one for sexual activity; and in the case of two others, you offered to enter into an agreement to provide them with cash or drugs in exchange for sex. You also possessed child abuse material, being an image of one underage female with whom you had online and physical contact.
[1] Exhibit A – Prosecution Opening
3 It is necessary for me to set out the offending relating to each charge, but I will attempt to summarise as briefly as I can.
4 On indictment number H13080354 (the first indictment):
5 Charge 1 is a State offence of offering to enter into an agreement for provision of sexual services by a child (maximum of 15 years’ imprisonment). This is a rolled up charge relating to two females where the offences occurred 14 months apart. You contacted them via Facebook. The first female, aged 17 years, was advertising a mobile phone for sale. Over four days in January 2016, instead of purchasing her phone, you offered her money to engage in a range of sexual penetration activities. She eventually responded that she would have sex with you for $500 but you replied that if she did not do what you wanted, there was “no deal”. You contacted the second female, aged 16, in March 2017, and immediately began sending her messages about meeting up for sexual activity, and this messaging happened on a number of occasions dispersed over six days between March and July 2017. In response to you asking her age, she told you she was nearly 18. On the second day of contact, you offered to give her a computer worth $1000, in the context of the messages you were sending about meeting up for sexual activity. Later you variously offered her $1000 for sex, asked if she wanted to earn $500, and asked if she wanted to “puff & play”, which appears to be a reference to smoking cannabis and having sex. Both females stopped replying to you but you persisted in your messaging to them.
6 Charge 2 is a Commonwealth offence of using a carriage service to menace, harass or cause offence (maximum sentence of three years’ imprisonment). It is a rolled up charge relating to sexually explicit and offensive messages sent to 22 Facebook users between 31 December 2016 and 26 October 2017. Some messages included photographs of your erect penis, and of you masturbating. All of the recipients purported to be females, with those whose ages were listed on Facebook being aged 16 or 17 years. Other than one who swore at you, none of them replied to you, including not answering your attempts to video call some of them. You sent one female photos of herself in bathers, which photos you took from her Facebook account. In my view, this type of contact, beyond messaging, had the potential to be of concern to her, and had a menacing quality.
7 Charge 3 is a Commonwealth offence of using a carriage service to transmit indecent communications to a person under 16 (maximum sentence of seven years’ imprisonment). It relates to messages you sent to a 15 year old, including again sending photos of her in bathers, which photos you took from her Facebook account. I repeat that this type of contact had the potential to be of concern to an underage female. You also sent her a video of you masturbating, which is the specific conduct the subject of the charge. She did not respond to any of your messages.
8 In 2009, you were convicted and sentenced for two charges of sexual penetration of a child and as a result became a registered sex offender under the Sex Offenders Registration Act. Charges 4-17 are State offences of failing to comply with reporting obligations (maximum sentence of five years’ imprisonment). The charges relate to the female children with whom you had contact on Facebook, which, as a registered sex offender, you were obliged to report. Apart from some of the females the subject of Charges 1, 2 and 3, there were another seven females aged between 13 and 16 years who you made contact with via Facebook.
9 Charges 18-22 relate to two females aged 15, NK and RW, who lived in a regional city in New South Wales. You first contacted NK via text message in August 2017, and remained in contact with her. You told her falsely that you were aged 20. In November 2017, you arranged with NK and RW to drive from your home near Melbourne to where the girls lived in New South Wales, and bring them back to your home. This contact is the subject of State charge 18 - grooming for sexual conduct with a child (maximum sentence of ten years’ imprisonment).
10 You drove there, met them, provided them with cannabis, which you all then smoked, and then drove them to a motel in another regional city in New South Wales. There you booked a room in your own name. Both girls went into the bathroom and while they were there, you sent RW text messages, including a photo of your erect penis. Via text, she rebuffed your sexual suggestions. This contact is the subject of Commonwealth charge 19 - using a carriage service to groom a person under 16 (maximum sentence of 12 years’ imprisonment). Although this offence was committed in New South Wales, Commonwealth law permits this court to hear the charge and sentence you.[2]
[2] Section 68 Judiciary Act – where an accused has pleaded guilty to a federal offence in a committal proceeding for sentence in the County Court.
11
The next day, you drove back to your home, purchasing some cannabis on the way. On arrival in your home town, you supplied each girl with methylamphetamine (ice). This is the subject of State charges 20 and 21 - supplying a drug of dependence to a child (maximum sentence of 15 years’ imprisonment). Charge 22 is another State charge of failing to comply with your obligation to report your contact with these two girls (maximum sentence of
five years’ imprisonment).
12 The girls stayed in your van while you went to work. Your mother discovered them there, and told them to leave and go home, but the girls refused. Your mother went to your workplace, confronted you about the girls, and advised you she was going to call the police. Your father offered to pay for their train tickets home, but you declined his offer. Instead you took the girls to the home of a friend, telling people falsely that the girls were aged 18. Eventually, the girls contacted family and friends in their home city, and Victorian police were notified. Your van was searched and a computer was seized; you were arrested and interviewed. You provided police with access to your Facebook account.
13 On indictment No.J11832080 (the second indictment):
14 The two charges relate to a 15 year old female, SM, who you contacted via social media in August 2017. SM initially said that she was aged 18, but later told you – on your enquiry - that she was 17. As I said, she was in fact, 15. You told her you did not mind if she was younger than 18. You told her falsely that you were aged 22. You exchanged text messages and arranged to meet up with her in the regional city in Victoria where she lived. You did meet with her, and in fact spent a night with her in your van. SM was riding a bike, and talking of needing to be home by 9 pm or 10 pm, so it is open to conclude that you were well aware that she was aged less than 17. You sexually penetrated her, but that is not the subject of a charge, and you therefore will not be sentenced for that act. State Charge 1 on this indictment is failing to comply with your obligation to report your contact with her (maximum sentence of five years’ imprisonment).
15 Before you met up, you asked her to send you photos of herself, and sent her two photos of your erect penis. That also is not the subject of a charge, and you therefore will not be sentenced for that act. At your request, she sent you a photo of herself in her underwear, then one of her buttocks, and lastly, a photograph of her genitalia partially covered by underwear. This last, single image is the subject of State Charge 2 on this indictment, of possessing child abuse material (maximum sentence of 10 years’ imprisonment). You continued to contact her, requesting more photographs, and sent her photos of yourself naked. The contact with SM began at the same time as the contact with NK (August 2017), continued after you had spent the night with SM, and stopped the day you went to pick up NK and RW in NSW (November 2017).
16 You have a relevant criminal history, beginning in 2008 when you were aged 28 years. You were convicted and fined for cultivation, possession and use of cannabis and possession of hashish. In 2009, you were sentenced to a term of imprisonment for two charges of sexual penetration of a child under 16. In 2012, 2014 and 2016, you were convicted of a total of eight charges of failing to comply with reporting obligations, and in 2016, you also received a three month term of imprisonment and a community correction order for 18 months for attempting to procure sexual penetration by fraud and stalking.
17 Not only are these previous offences all highly relevant to my sentence of you today, but it is an aggravating feature of the offending for which I am sentencing you that it was all committed during the period you were on a community correction order. Further, your criminal history means that my sentencing of you must seek to act as a deterrent to you committing further offences, even though prison terms in the past have not achieved that purpose.
18 The offending itself is serious. Over a period of nearly two years, you persistently preyed on a large number of underage females using social media. The internet makes it all too easy for sexually deviant people like you to access girls for your own sexual gratification. Further, you followed through with personal contact with three of them, who were not emotionally or socially mature enough to realise the danger they were placing themselves in. The law exists to protect underage females from themselves, as well as from those, like you, who are sexually, and therefore criminally, attracted to underage girls and seek to take sexual advantage of them.
19 Although I have no Victim Impact Statements from any of your victims, when it comes to children, who are people aged under 18, it is presumed that they suffer harm from a sexual offence being committed against them. The harm can be long term and serious, and both physical and psychological[3], and include future harm[4]. Even though a large number of your victims was aged 16 or 17, I act on the presumption that some harm has been, or will be, caused to some or all of them at some stage by your disgusting words and actions.
[3]R v Clarkson (2011) 32 VR 361, 368 [26], 371 [33]
[4]Adamson v R [2015] VSCA 194, [56]
20 Against this serious offending, I must take into account certain matters in your favour. The first of these is your plea of guilty. You are entitled to have that taken into account in your favour and I do so. In the circumstances of you indicating your intention to plead guilty to an appropriate indictment while your case was still in the committal stream of the Magistrates’ Court, I treat your plea as an early one. Further, you have saved the community the time and expense of a trial or trials, and for the charges where the victims are identified, you have saved them from the ordeal of giving evidence. That is always an important factor in cases involving child sexual abuse.
21 Further, the fact that you provided the police with access to your Facebook account on the day you were arrested, and that you agreed to the Commonwealth offence you committed outside of Victoria being heard in this proceeding, are signs of your willingness to facilitate the course of justice.
22 I accept that your plea of guilty is a sign of some remorse and contrition, and I treat your consent to the forfeiture and disposal of considerable assets, being your van, three computers, a computer tower and a mobile phone, as a further sign of remorse. However, given your criminal record, including offending while undergoing sentence for previous sexual and reporting obligations offences, and your lack of insight into your offending, I do not consider you are totally remorseful.
23 The next matter in your favour is the unwavering support from your parents. This is vital to your prospects of rehabilitation. They are not blindly supportive of you, as can be seen from their reaction to finding the two girls from New South Wales in your van, but they are not giving up on you, despite the potential damage to their personal reputations and the shame you have probably brought on them in the small town in which they live. You need to find a way to repay their love and support. Not re-offending would be a good start, but since 2008, you have continued on the path of criminality.
24 I take into account your personal circumstances. You are now aged 39 years. As I mentioned earlier, your criminal record began when you were in your late 20’s. Before then, you had been in a number of long term intimate relationships, had grown up in a stable law abiding family as the youngest of four siblings and had very good continuous employment[5].
[5] Exhibit 1 – Defence submissions
25 This employment included working with one of your brothers for a number of years, and regaining that employment after your first period in prison. However, you lost that job on being arrested again in 2015. The one positive factor is that after your period in custody, where you worked in the kitchen, you became interested in pursuing that, and through your parents, some friends generously offered you employment in their restaurant, and you worked in their kitchen for three to five months until your arrest for these offences. Those employers provided a reference indicating that they would re-employ you on your release from this prison sentence[6]. That is outstanding support, and stability in employment is a factor to be encouraged, even if it did not prevent you from engaging in drug taking and sexual offending in 2016 and 2017.
[6] Exhibit 4
26 What could bring someone of your background to be committing such disgusting offences against underage females, some of whom were potentially vulnerable for reasons other than their age? There were some early problems: after your primary schooling in eastern Victoria, you came to Melbourne to board at secondary school from Year 9. You found the school challenging academically, and formed bad friendships in which apparently you were introduced to cannabis use. You were caught using that drug and suspended for six months. You did not return to that school. You went back to school in eastern Victoria, completed Year 10, and then left formal education. You were apparently a good football player, a talent that led you to attempt schooling in Melbourne, but an injury which required surgery halted the prospect of playing at a higher level.
27
It is relevant to detail your drug use history at this point. After commencing cannabis use at the age of 16 in the mid-1990’s, you have had periods where you did not use, but you resumed after periods in custody, and for most of your recent use, since 2015, you have consumed cannabis at the rate of about
2 grams per week. You have experimented with MDMA, ecstasy, LSD, and used synthetic cocaine for up to two years before your first period of imprisonment in 2009. In 2013, you began using methamphetamine with your then girlfriend, but after that relationship ended, your use increased, until you were no longer able to afford it following loss of your employment upon your arrest in 2015. However, you were consistently using methamphetamine and cannabis during the period of the offending for which I am sentencing you[7].
[7] Exhibit 2 – Report dated 25 July 2018
28
Two significant childhood incidents were referred to by your counsel. At the age of ten, you suffered a near fatal electrocution. Your parents describe changes in you from that time. An assessment was conducted by
Dr Helen Clausen[8], neuropsychologist, but on testing in 2018, she found you consistently performed in the average range; your executive function, memory, language and visuospatial skills were normal; and there was no evidence of a pervasive deficit in attention. While she noted that she was unaware of literature pertaining to the psychiatric outcomes for an adult of electrocution sustained as a child, and that this was beyond her expertise, she also noted you do not have, and have never had, the neurological and neuropsychological impairments documented to be associated with electrocution. It seems no link can be drawn between that experience and your criminal behaviour, and there is no acquired brain injury. In fact, Dr Clausen also concluded that there was no evidence on testing to suggest that you are impulsive, or are impaired in your ability to self-monitor.
[8] Exhibit 3 – Report dated 19 July 2018
29 The second childhood incident is a period of sexual abuse that you suffered when you were 12 years old, perpetrated by a male neighbour who was six to seven years older than you, for a period of about five months. He also coerced you into stealing from your parents, as well as himself breaking into their home. He was arrested for that burglary; however, as is now recognised as common, you did not tell anyone about the sexual offences against you. You have never received treatment for it.
30
You have received treatment for your own sexual offending from
Ms Pamela Matthews, a clinical and forensic psychologist, who provided a report to the court[9]. Ms Matthews examined you on four occasions in October and November 2015, and saw you for a number of counselling sessions thereafter, between December 2015 and June 2017, being before and after your court appearance in April 2016 for the sexual and stalking offences. You were in custody for four months on those charges and released on a community correction order for 18 months which included a condition to engage with and act on the lawful directions of Ms Matthews.
[9] Exhibit 2 – Report dated 25 July 2018
31 You clearly failed to do that, as the offending for which I am sentencing you began in January 2016, with the most of the offending occurring from August that year. On reviewing you in July 2018 for the plea before me, Ms Matthews asked you why you had committed the further offences, and why you had lied to her in counselling. Your responses are troubling: that you know it is wrong, but still do it anyway; that you get enjoyment or a thrill out of doing the wrong thing and gamble on not being caught; that you did not pause to think of the consequences or employ the strategies learned in counselling; and that you did not understand the severity of it.
32 I reject that last proposition. As Ms Matthews has stated[10], in each counselling session, she canvassed with you sexual behaviour, registry reporting, work[11], the risks of re-offending, and family relationships. You cannot have failed to understand the severity of your actions in persistently contacting underage girls for your sexual gratification, in breach of your reporting obligations and your community correction order, and in actually meeting up with three of them with the intention of furthering your sexual purpose.
[10] Ibid
[11] Which I take to be a reference to employment
33
Ms Matthews undertook a comprehensive assessment of your risk of
re-offending on different instruments, having regard to the combination of online and contact offending, and reached the overall conclusion that your estimated risk of re-offending in a similar way is high. On my own assessment, as part of the sentencing exercise, I also find that your risk of re-offending is high.
34 Ms Matthews considered you to meet the minimum three of the six diagnostic criteria for Dissocial Personality Disorder, in that you evidence a gross and persistent attitude of irresponsibility and disregard for social norms, rules and obligations; an incapacity to form enduring relationships, although no difficulty in establishing them; and an incapacity to experience guilt, or profit from experience, particularly punishment. She also considered that you meet the diagnostic features for Borderline Personality Disorder.
35 Ms Mathews is of the view that your own childhood sexual abuse, where you report being intimidated into performing sexual and antisocial acts, has had some impact in the development of your sexual offending and the form it takes, which she said tends to be both exploitative and denigrating of your victims, thereby, in her view, mimicking or repeating aspects of your own abuse.
36 Overall, she expressed the opinion that your offence behaviour is “a product of paraphilic sexual interest, methylamphetamine use, and personality features, with methylamphetamine use being an exacerbating factor to interactive personality features and deviant sexual interest”[12]. She concluded that your prospects for rehabilitation are poor, given your past response to treatment and supervision in the community. I accept all her opinions.
[12] Exhibit 2 – Report dated 25 July 2018
37 Despite her conclusion as to your prospects for rehabilitation, she found that your risk of re-offending has the potential to be reduced by intensive long-term treatment that targets your offence specific behaviour, history of sexual abuse, “relatedness” to others and substance use. She also considered that more intensive supervision in the community is required to reduce the risk.
38 My own view is that your prospects for rehabilitation are indeed poor, and I strongly encourage those who need to consider your treatment needs before, during and after your current imprisonment to follow the recommendations of Ms Matthews. Your insight into your offending is very low, and seems limited to understanding that your drug use reduces impulse control and increases recklessness[13], remembering Dr Clausen’s finding that, on testing when not using drugs, you are not impulsive, nor are you impaired in your ability to self-monitor. In my view, you have no insight into your paraphilic attraction to post pubertal females.
[13] Exhibit 2 - Report dated 25 July 2018 p10; Exhibit 3 - Report dated 19 July 2018 p2
39 However, I agree with your counsel that your prospects for rehabilitation are not bleak. Your rehabilitation, if successful, will protect the community from you in the future, and enable you to be a productive member of society. However, there is a huge amount of work for you to do to get to that point.
40 I note that Ms Matthews referred to depression which you have suffered in the past, and depression reactive to your current imprisonment, but no submission is made that you will not cope with prison again. In the past, you have worked while in prison, and I expect that you will do so again. You keep physically active in custody, and also, to your credit, help illiterate prisoners write letters and fill out forms. You have almost daily phone calls with a family member and your parents make the trip to visit you every Saturday. As at July 2018, you also spoke often by phone to the girlfriend you met in the small town in which you were living with your parents before your arrest, and this had continued despite her returning to Thailand when her visa expired, she being a Thai national.
41 I take into account that offences involving the sexual exploitation of children call for a sentence that will deter others from committing such offences in future. The question is what the appropriate length of imprisonment is for your offending and your circumstances.
42 I have taken into account the matters in s.16A of the Commonwealth Crimes Act, and in the Victorian Sentencing Act, some of which I have specifically addressed.
43 Before I finally turn to the sentence there are two other matters I need to deal with. The first is that as a result of my sentence today, you again become a registrable sex offender.Charges 1, 3, 18 and 19 on the first indictment are class 2 offences, and you have previously been convicted of two charges deemed to be a single class 1 offence. You will be required within seven days of your release from custody to report your personal details and again begin a regime of annual reporting required by the Sex Offenders Registration Act and be otherwise subject to the Act for the rest of your life.
44 The second matter is that you are to be sentenced as a serious sexual offender on Charges 1 and 18 on the first indictment, and Charge 2 on the second indictment because of your previous sentence of imprisonment for sexual penetration of a child.
45 As a result of your status as a serious sex offender for sentencing on those three charges, I am required to regard the protection of the community from you as the principal purpose for which sentence is imposed on those charges. In order to achieve this purpose, I have the power to impose a sentence greater than is proportionate to each offence. However, the prosecution do not seek that, and I do not intend to do that.
46 It is also necessary for the sentence I impose on each of those three charges to be wholly cumulative on all other charges unless I order otherwise, because of your status as a serious sex offender. I have also had regard to the limits the serious sex offender sentencing regime places on the application of the principle of totality[14]. In all the circumstances, I have decided to order less than total cumulation for Charges 1 and 18 on the first indictment, and Charge 2 on the second indictment.
[14]HMcL v R (2000) 174 ALR 1, [76]; Gordon [2013] VSCA 343, [74]; Hopson [2016] VSCA 303
47
The prosecution conceded that your plea of guilty was an early one, that the offence in Charge 2 on the second indictment was at the lower end of seriousness for an offence of possession of child abuse material, and that the offences rolled up in Charge 1 on the first indictment were constituted by an offer to enter into an agreement for sexual services and no actual agreement or exchange took place. On the other hand, it was submitted that your overall offending was over a protracted period, was serious, and involved a large number of victims. It was submitted that your behaviour towards NK, RW, and SM, the three 15 year old victims you drove many kilometres to meet, was predatory. Your relevant criminal history, propensity for drug use, limited insight, history of non-compliance with court orders, and high risk of
re-offending was relied on to submit that your prospects of rehabilitation are guarded, and that the purposes in sentencing you are to provide general and specific deterrence, punish you and denounce your offending behaviour, and protect the community from you, especially given your status as a serious sex offender in respect of underage females.
48
On your behalf, it was conceded that the principles of general deterrence, denunciation and just punishment loom large in your case, and that specific deterrence is obviously a matter of some weight, while protection of the community from you is very relevant. It was submitted that rehabilitation remains as a relevant principle in sentencing you, and while your risk of
re-offending is assessed as high, it was submitted that it is not in the highest category of ‘very high’; that you have some insight and average cognitive ability, and the support you have, together with intensive treatment and supervision on your return to the community, can enhance your prospects of rehabilitation in a man not yet aged 40 years. It was submitted that the structure of the sentence should allow for the intensive supervision and treatment you require, and that totality remained a relevant consideration, with orders for partial concurrency submitted to be required in this case.
49 I have taken the submissions into account, and made findings as referred to throughout these submissions. There is no alternative to a term of imprisonment on all State charges. A term of imprisonment on each of the Commonwealth charges is appropriate to the severity of each charge in all the circumstances, and ensures that you are adequately punished.
50 Stand up, please.
51 You are convicted and sentenced as follows:
52 On indictment number H13080354 (the first indictment):
53
On Charge 20 (State) on the first indictment, supply child with drug of dependence – three years’ imprisonment. That sentence starts today
12 December 2018 and is the base sentence on this indictment;
54
On Charge 21 (State) on the first indictment, supply child with drug of dependence – three years’ imprisonment. That also sentence starts today
12 December 2018;
55 On Charge 18 (State) on the first indictment, grooming for sexual conduct of a child - 28 months’ imprisonment. That sentence starts on 12 February 2020;
56
On Charge 1 (State) on the first indictment, agreement for provision of sexual services by a child - 18 months’ imprisonment. That sentence starts on
12 April 2021;
57 On Charges 4-17 (State) on the first indictment, fail to comply with reporting obligations under the Sex Offenders Registration Act – aggregate sentence of nine months’ imprisonment. That sentence starts on 12 April 2022;
58
On Charge 22 (State) on the first indictment, fail to comply with reporting obligations - three months’ imprisonment. That sentence starts on
12 November 2022;
59 On Charge 19, (Commonwealth) on the first indictment, use carriage service to groom a person under 16 years – 30 months’ imprisonment. That sentence starts on 12 December 2020, on the expiration of the State non-parole period;
60 On Charge 3, (Commonwealth) on the first indictment, use carriage service to transmit indecent communication – 24 months’ imprisonment. That sentence starts on 12 December 2021;
61 On Charge 2, (Commonwealth) on the first indictment, use carriage service to menace, harass or cause offence – 18 months’ imprisonment. That sentence starts on 12 December 2022.
62 On the second indictment (Indictment No J11832080), you are convicted and sentenced as follows:
63 On Charge 2, (State) on the second indictment, possess child abuse material – 12 months’ imprisonment. That sentence starts on 12 December 2023 and is the base sentence on this indictment;
64 On Charge 1, (State) on the second indictment, fail to comply with reporting obligations under the Sex Offenders Registration Act - three months’ imprisonment. That sentence starts on 12 January 2024.
65 The effective sentence on the second indictment is 12 months’ imprisonment.
66 The effective State sentence on both indictments is four years eight months’ imprisonment. I direct that you serve two years of the State sentence before becoming eligible for State parole.
67 The effective Commonwealth sentence on the first indictment is three years and four months’ imprisonment. I direct that you serve two years of the federal sentence before becoming eligible for federal parole. If you are released on federal parole, the balance of the sentence will be served in the community subject to the conditions of parole. Any such parole order may be amended or revoked. If you fail without reasonable excuse to fulfil the conditions of parole, the parole may be revoked and you may be ordered to serve the balance of the sentence in prison. The purpose of fixing that non-parole period is to provide for a period of supported rehabilitation in the community, if you are considered to be suitable.
68 The effect of the orders for commencement of sentences on all charges is a global sentence on both indictments of six years’ imprisonment. The global non-parole period is four years’ imprisonment.
69 I declare that the period of time you have already spent in custody is 401 days not including the day of sentence, 12 December 2018. Pursuant to
s.16E Crimes Act (Commonwealth) and s.18(4) Sentencing Act (Vic), these are to be deducted administratively from the sentence.
70
I declare that you have been sentenced as a serious sex offender on
Charges 1 and 18 on the first indictment and Charge 2 on the second indictment, and direct that this be noted in the records of the court.
71 As a result of my sentencing you, you continue as a registrable sex offender under the Sex Offenders Registration Act. As I have said, Charges 1, 3, 18 and 19 on the first indictment are class two offences, and as you were previously convicted of registrable offences, you will be required within seven days of release from custody to report your personal details and continue the annual reporting for the rest of your life. You will now be provided with a form which notifies you again of your reporting obligations, which you must adhere to, or you will continue to receive longer and longer sentences for failure to do so. I do not require the prisoner to sign again, but perhaps Mr Gardner might accompany my associate to have Mr Cooper receive that document.
72 Thank you.
73 I have made the forfeiture and disposal orders, which I have noted are agreed to by the prisoner and they can be handed down.
74 I will not indicate what my sentence would have been for the Commonwealth charges but for the plea of guilty, until legislation specifically requires it for federal offences, or an authority binding on me, states that it is required.
75 However, if you had not pleaded guilty to the State charges, but had been found guilty after a trial, the sentence I would have imposed on those offences alone is six years’ imprisonment with a non-parole period of four years.
76 Yes, just take a seat for the moment, Mr Cooper.
77 I acknowledge the assistance of the Commonwealth DPP and Mr Gardner in setting the start dates for the sentences. It was a complicated sentence. I hope that it is correct, but of course I will receive information if it is not, and I am of course able to correct the sentence, pursuant to the Sentencing Act if so.
78 And I did not during the course of the sentence, other than by looking at them, acknowledge Mr Cooper's parents yet again in court, but I do so now.
79 Thank you, Mr Cooper may be removed. I beg your pardon, just before that. Yes, Ms Fitzpatrick.
80 MS FITZPATRICK: Yes, Your Honour. Yesterday Your Honour's Associate was good enough to draw my attention to outstanding summary charges, which I accidentally overlooked. There are two charges of unlawful assault which are not being pursued. So I filed a notice indicating that they had to be withdrawn.
81 HER HONOUR: Yes, thank you. So I just note that for the record, and this will be noted on the record, that summary Charges 7 and 9 have been withdrawn.
82 MS FITZPATRICK: Yes, Your Honour.
83 HER HONOUR: Thank you. I thank counsel for their assistance and I will adjourn until 9.30 tomorrow.
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