Director of Public Prosecutions v Cream

[2024] VCC 781

IN THE COUNTY COURT OF VICTORIA

AT MELBOURNE

CRIMINAL DIVISION

 Revised
Not Restricted
Suitable for Publication

Case No. CR-24-00149

DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROSECUTIONS

v

MATTHEW CREAM

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JUDGE:	HER HONOUR JUDGE HOGAN
WHERE HELD:	Melbourne
DATE OF HEARING:	10 May 2024
DATE OF SENTENCE:	31 May 2024
CASE MAY BE CITED AS:	DPP v Cream
MEDIUM NEUTRAL CITATION:	[2024] VCC 781

REASONS FOR SENTENCE
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Subject:

Catchwords:              One charge of armed robbery – 28-year-old offender with significant criminal history – Childhood of dysfunction and disadvantage – Diagnoses of Mild Intellectual disability – Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and learning difficulties – Long-term substance abuse – History of non-compliance with rehabilitative dispositions – Offending only shortly after being released from serving a term of 5 years and 3 months’ imprisonment for an armed robbery – Prospects of rehabilitation very guarded.

Legislation Cited:      Confiscation Act 1997, Sentencing Act 1991.

Cases Cited:Bugmy, Verdins.

Sentence:                  Total Effective Sentence of two and a half years with a non-parole period of 10 months.
s6AAA: Four years’ imprisonment with a non-parole period of three years.

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APPEARANCES:	Counsel	Solicitors
For the DPP	Mx C Rattray (Plea) Mr A Taghar (Sentence)	Solicitor for the Director of Public Prosecutions
For the Accused	Mr L Barker	SLKQ Lawyers

HER HONOUR:

1Matthew Cream, you have pleaded guilty to one charge of armed robbery, which carries a maximum penalty of 25 years’ imprisonment.

2The circumstances of your offending are set out in the Summary of Prosecution Opening on Plea.[1]

[1]Exhibit “A”

3At 2.57am on 11 November 2023 you drove a vehicle into the BP service station at 1262 Calder Freeway, Calder Park.  Your de facto partner, Dannielle McGrath, was sitting in the front passenger seat.  You and she got out of the car, and your victim, who was the sole attendant at the service station at the time, opened the main door so that you and Ms McGrath could enter.

4Ms McGrath walked up to the console area, where the victim was behind the counter.  You were walking through the aisles of the store while Ms McGrath negotiated the purchase of a packet of cigarettes and a cigarette lighter.  She indicated to you that you would have to pay, and you then walked to the exit, stating that you were going to get your wallet from the car.  You opened the front passenger side door of the car and retrieved a small black bag.  CCTV footage shows you concealing some item in the right-hand side of your shorts before you again went through the doors and entered the service station.  You walked to the fridges and selected two 1.5‑litre bottles of Mount Franklin water.  When you moved towards the console, your victim asked you to come to the third till, which was the furthest from the entrance door.  You followed your victim’s direction. You then pulled out a hammer, which you had been concealing in your shorts, and pointed it towards your victim, demanding that he hand over the cigarettes and lighter, which he did.  You then demanded “Give me the fucking cash”, to which the victim replied “No.”  You then moved to the right side of the console area where there is safety glass. In the CCTV footage which was shown during the plea hearing[2] you can be heard saying “I’ll fucking smash you, you fucking dog.”  You are seen to raise the hammer as though you might strike the glass, but, in fact, did not do so.

[2]Exhibit “B”

5The victim moved into the manager’s room, away from you.  You then retrieved the small black bag which you had earlier put on the counter, and the water bottles, and grabbed two Red Bull energy drinks from the fridge, before you left the service station with Ms McGrath. In all, you stole a packet of cigarettes, a lighter, two bottles of water and two cans of Red Bull during the armed robbery.  I here interpolate that Ms McGrath was not charged as a co-offender for the armed robbery.

6Three days after the armed robbery, police were called to Grosvenor Street, Balaclava, to investigate a report that there was a male loitering in the area with a hammer.  They located you standing in the doorway to a unit on Grosvenor Street with a hammer in your hand.  You shut the door, and police retreated.  Subsequently, you were persuaded by police to comply with directions.  You presented yourself at the front door of the unit, and police seized a hammer and a black satchel bag from you.  It became apparent that you had used 30-40 millilitres of GHB and, after you were arrested, your condition deteriorated, and you were conveyed to the Alfred Hospital by ambulance.  You were discharged three days later on 15 November 2023, and police conveyed you to the Metropolitan Remand Centre.  You have remained in custody on remand until the present time.

7You are presently aged 29 years, having been born in February 1995.  You come before the court with many pages of prior court appearances dating back to 5 March 2014.  You have a host of prior convictions for dishonesty offences, including many thefts, burglary, two armed robberies and an aggravated carjacking; assaults, including assault with a weapon; property damage offences; driving offences; and offences of breaching bail.  On some three occasions you have contravened Community Correction Orders given to you, some of which involved judicial monitoring and participating in services specified in a Justice Plan.  Other than that, you have been sentenced to many terms of imprisonment.  In fact, you had only been released from custody a few weeks prior to the offending for which I must sentence you, after apparently serving the total of a five years and three month sentence of imprisonment imposed by his Honour Judge Carmody in the County Court on 30 March 2021.

8A number of neuropsychological and psychological reports, ranging in date between 2010 and 2024, were tendered on your behalf at the plea hearing.  It is apparent that you have had a neglected and dysfunctional upbringing.  Both of your parents appear to have engaged in polysubstance abuse, and your father served a number of terms of imprisonment before he ultimately died in 2008. From the time you were aged three years, you were removed from your parents’ care by the Department of Human Services, and placed in many different foster homes until the age of 13 years, following which you were placed into departmental residential care or other placements at several location from ages 13 to 16 years.  You apparently suffered abuse of various types whilst in foster homes.  Your movement from one state care placement to another resulted in you attending multiple primary schools, before you were expelled in Grade 5 for fighting with other students.  Since then, your only experience of education has been during brief periods in youth detention.

9When you were aged 15 years, Dr Rani Jacobs, psychologist with Child and Adolescent Neuropsychology Services, assessed you as having a mild intellectual disability.[3]  In particular, you had a slow speed of processing and were easily distracted, and your capacity to learn new information visually was poor, albeit that it improved when information was presented verbally, provided it was simple.  She assessed you as becoming overwhelmed by large amounts of information and demonstrating an inability to plan and organise your approach to more complex problems.  She noted that your reading skills were below the level necessary for functional literacy, and she supported an application for Intellectual Disability Services, which was approved on 24 December 2010.[4]

[3]Exhibit “1”

[4]Exhibit “2”

10It is apparent that you have engaged in alcohol and illicit drug abuse since an early age.  A history given to Ms Rebecca Fakhri, psychologist, as detailed in her report dated 6 March 2024,[5] notes that you commenced using alcohol at age 12 and were consuming it daily from age 14 or 15 to age 18.  You also began using cannabis at age 12, but, by age 16, heroin became your drug of choice, and you would use three or four points daily until the age of 24, as well as having used methylamphetamine sporadically since 2017 and, from time to time, GHB and benzodiazepines mixed with alcohol.  Your only periods of abstinence from substance abuse have been whilst you have been in custody.[6]

[5]Exhibit “7”

[6]Exhibit “8”

11Over the years, you have been diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder (in 2007); a mild intellectual disability (2010); and depression and anxiety at age 12 or 13 years, for which you were prescribed Seroquel.  You have not been compliant with treatment for ADHD since 2013 or 2014, and have suffered bouts of paranoia apparently associated with illicit drug use, necessitating treatment with Quetiapine.  You have also been on a methadone program over the years.

12In May 2018 you were assessed by Dr Linda Borg, neuropsychologist[7] . Unlike Dr Rani Jacobs, she did not consider that you have an intellectual disability, but rather a developmental learning disability.  She found you had a full-scale IQ of 67, but considered that variability between verbal comprehension and processing speed and perceptual reasoning was such that the full-scale IQ was not a reliable indicator in your case.  She did note that your reading abilities were within the impaired range.  She found that your mental processing speed was below the 1^st percentile, and you would struggle to follow conversations at a day-to-day pace or to attend to multiple conversations simultaneously.  You showed moderate deficits in working memory, but she considered that these were the consequence of your attention span and mental processing speed, as opposed to pure memory deficit.  Although she noted that your impairments were such that you had limited ability to determine cause-effect relationships with language-based information, she considered that your capacity to monitor and regulate your behaviour, as well as awareness, were intact, and that you had sufficient memory capacity to be able to learn from consequences. She noted that formal measurement of response inhibition failed to reveal any impulsive tendencies.

[7]Exhibit “3”

13Subsequent to the report of Dr Borg, Ms Carla Lechner, psychologist, conducted an assessment of you in December 2018.[8]  She considered that you met the criteria for a Major Depressive Disorder and Complex Developmental Trauma resulting in emotional and behavioural dysregulation.  She noted Dr Borg’s conclusion that your profile was not in keeping with an intellectual disability, but, in an addendum to her report, noted that, “with an overall intelligence quotient under 70, [you] therefore [have] an intellectual disability within the meaning of the Disability Act 2006”.[9]  Ms Lechner’s report and addendum are silent on whether she even administered the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale to you.

[8]Exhibit “5”

[9]Ibid p. 7-8

14Ms Fakhri’s report, which was overly lengthy and, at times, very generic, also, does not mention having administered any tool measuring your intellectual capacity, but rather focused upon “brief tools” to assist in diagnosing depression and symptoms of anxiety, as well as an 18‑item self-report tool for diagnosing and distinguishing between Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, enabling her to conclude that you meet the clinical threshold for the latter as well as the criteria for the former.  Ms Fakhri seems to have simply accepted that you suffer an intellectual impairment. She concluded that such impairment “reflects a level of moral immaturity due to poor neurological development resulting in psychological limitation such as impaired understanding of consequences, increased impulsiveness, disproportionate emotional arousal and deficiencies in decision-making abilities.”[10] I note that a number of these conclusions, particularly concerning ability to learn from consequences and impulsiveness are at odds with Dr Borg’s assessment.

[10]Exhibit “7”, p 16, para 125.

15Ms Fakhri diagnosed you as suffering a sedative, Hypnotic, Anxiolytic (GHB) Disorder of moderate severity in early remission in a controlled environment. She also diagnosed you as suffering a Stimulant Use Disorder (Amphetamine Type) which is severe, in early remission in a controlled environment. Ms Fakhri considered that your history of severe drug-related problems placed you in the high-risk range for harmful substance use at the time of offending. She stated:

“Mr Cream’s use of substances alone (my emphasis) increases his propensity for impulsive, aggressive, reactive, and irrational behaviour when under the influence, particularly with his underlying mental health conditions.”[11]

[11]Ibid p. 11, para 94

16She went on to conclude:

“It is likely that Mr Cream would have exerted more control over his behaviour had he not been using substances in the period preceding the offending period.  As stated above, substance use can heighten the impulsivity and immaturity present in developing young adults.”[12]

[12]Ibid p. 16, para 127.

17I must say that I found Ms Fakhri’s report difficult to follow in that there were some internal inconsistencies. For example, she stated at one point:

“He displayed poor insight and judgement at the time of the assessment, identifying few factors related to his behaviour, however positively, he expressed motivation with regard to reducing his substance use and distancing from negatively influencing peers”.[13]

Yet, later, when dealing with HCR.20 Risk Factors, she stated the following:

“Insight - Mr Cream displayed positive insight into his mental health and the significant impact that his substance use has had on his behaviour. He has awareness, understanding and appreciation of factors and processes that have increased his violence, including substance use and association with negative peers and appears to be at a stage of readiness to address these issues”.[14]

Still later, she stated:

“Mr Cream’s instability, lack of insight and limited personal support appear to be perpetuating his substance use, and his violence appears to have escalated. Although Mr Cream displayed insight with regard to his situation and substance use being problematic, the imminence and severity of his risk is increased by his unwillingness to accept the role of his untreated mental health and substance use on his disinhibited behaviour and comply and engage with professional services and plans.”[15]

[13]Ibid p.7, para 67.

[14]Exhibit “7”, page 10, para 91 (C1).

[15]Ibid, page 12, para 96.

18Ms Fakhri later stated that your intellectual impairment had “to some degree” contributed to your offending[16] but went on to suggest that, based upon a statistical study by T.E Moffit in 1993, you are “at a critical point where, with the right support, intervention and engagement (your) offending may remain ‘adolescence limited’ as opposed to (you) becoming a ‘life course persistent offender.’”[17] I frankly found this to be of limited utility given the complex constellation of factors in your case.

[16]Ibid, page 13, para 106. 

[17]Ibid, page 13, para 107.

19I prefer the careful, and more scientific analysis of Dr Borg, neuropsychologist, to both Ms Lechner and Ms Fakhri, psychologists who appear not to have administered any test for assessing cognitive capacity, but accepted that you had an intellectual impairment based on an assessment by Dr Rani Jacobs when you were 15 years old, in circumstances where Dr Jacobs had noted that it was difficult to get you to persist with assessment tests.[18] Nevertheless, it seems that historically you have been accepted as suffering a mild intellectual disability and, on 6 September 2019, you were accepted for eligibility for a package pursuant to the National Disability Insurance Scheme for various services amounting to $36,551.85.[19]  Your counsel stated that you had not accessed such services, as you had mostly been in prison, and no one had followed them up on your behalf.

[18]Exhibit “1”, page 1.

[19]Exhibit “4”

20Mr Cream, the offending behaviour for which I must sentence you shows an unhappy resemblance to your offending behaviour in the past.  When His Honour Judge Carmody sentenced you on 13 September 2019 on one charge of armed robbery[20], he noted that that offence, committed upon an attendant at a United Service Station in the early hours of the morning on 25 January 2018, occurred only a few weeks after you had been released from serving a previous period of incarceration. On 30 March 2021, His Honour Judge Carmody sentenced you[21] for breaching the Community Correction Order which had been part of the sentence he imposed in 2019, as well as for further offences of armed robbery (again, at a service station in the early hours of the morning) and other dishonesty offences, including aggravated carjacking, within a period spanning 10-20 days from your release from custody on 1 January 2020.

[20]Director of Public Prosecutions v Matthew Cream [2019] VCC 1494.

[21]DPP v Cream [2021] VCC 366

21His Honour had expressed concern about you being institutionalised. I note that this was also raised by Ms Lechner in her report dated 18 December 2020. She had referred to you suffering Major Depressive Disorder and Complex Developmental Trauma, as well as a Stimulant and Opioid-use Disorder. She noted that you struggled to cope with life in the community which lacks structure, routine and support. She considered that your complex and traumatic upbringing meant that drug use had become a means of blocking out emotional distress, and you lack the skills to even think about how to live your life differently.  She considered your immature and egocentric thinking style, which focuses upon immediate needs without regard for long-term outcomes, and your developmental trauma, intellectual disability, and other diagnoses, all combine to result in chronic emotional dysregulation.  She considered that, when you are unable to manage your anxiety in the community, you immediately relapse into drug-use and offend.  I share the concern that, although you are not yet 30 years of age, you may well already be institutionalised.

22I understand from you and your counsel at the plea hearing that, after Judge Carmody sentenced you on 30 March 2021 to a total effective sentence of five years and three months, with a non-parole period of three years, you were not released on parole.  It is unclear to the Court whether you actually applied for parole and your request was declined, or whether you simply elected to serve the entirety of your sentence. In any event, over the past 10 1/2 years, you appear to have spent not much more than one year in total in the community.  I have already expressed concern that history has repeated itself, in that you committed the offending for which I must sentence you very soon after being released from serving that sentence.  You immediately connected with old associates and began your long-term habit of abusing illicit drugs.  Unfortunately, it is difficult to accept that your prospects of rehabilitation at this stage are very optimistic. Indeed, your own counsel described them as poor. Sadly, I think that is a realistic assessment. You have a complex array of cognitive, and mental health and substance abuse issue and have shown a lack of capacity to engage with services to assist yourself. The court has not been informed about any rehabilitative courses undertaken by you in custody. You have a history of non-compliance with ADHD medication, as well as mood stabilising medication albeit that currently, whilst in custody you are apparently taking anti-depressant medication and engage with a psychiatric nurse. You have a history of self-harm and suicidal ideation and have apparently twice been admitted to hospital for drug overdoses (in 2019 and 2023). I note that shortly after I remanded you on 10 May 2024 you were taken to hospital because you overdosed on Seroquel medication belonging to another prisoner, albeit that you counsel in an email to the court disavowed that this was a suicide attempt.[22]  This shows that you are a vulnerable person who appears to not have developed any strategies for dealing with stress.

[22]Exhibit 9, Email dated 25 May 2024 from Defence Counsel, Luke Barker.

23You have never worked in the community albeit that you have a job doing some gardening presently in custody. You are no longer in a relationship with Ms McGrath.  It seems that the only pro-social support you have is Ms Anne Cream who, was a partner of you late father, who established a relationship with you when you ceased to be in state care at the age of 16 years.   She apparently keeps in touch with you and has telephoned you each week when you have been in custody.  She lives in Ballarat and came to Melbourne to support you at the plea hearing.  Unfortunately, it appears that you did not make contact with her after being released from custody before you committed the armed robbery on 11 November 2023. Except for the contact with Ms Cream by telephone, you have not had any contact with anyone in the community outside of the prison and have received no visitors, which makes your time in custody very lonely.

24I accept that your deprived background has adversely affected you, and that the consequences of such a traumatic upbringing during crucial neurodevelopmental stages is known to be enduring.[23]  Layered upon this are your cognitive deficits, particularly in relation to verbal processing, as well as ADHD, so that you have a learning disorder. This has been compounded by limited education rendering you functionally illiterate.  I accept that you do have a Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and a Major Depressive Disorder and Generalised Anxiety Disorder, however the picture is complicated by your long term substance abuse.

[23]Bugmy v The Queen (2013) 249 CLR 571

25In Ms Fakhri’s report, she noted that, at the time of the offending for which I must sentence you, you were under the influence of alcohol, GHB and methamphetamine and had not slept for nine days.[24]  This makes the application of limbs 1 to 4 in R v Verdins[25] somewhat problematic, particularly given that she stated that, had it not been for you being drug-affected, it is likely  that you would have exerted more control over your behaviour. I find that I am unable to be satisfied on the balance of probabilities of a sufficient causal nexus between your intellectual and other mental health conditions and your impaired mental functioning at the time of the offending. Ms Fakhri found that you did not display violent attitudes per se, but your substance use led you to violent behaviour when under the influence of drugs and you displayed insight about the significant impact that substance use had on your behaviour.[26] Nevertheless, I find that there should be some moderation of your moral culpability due to the lasting effects of your childhood trauma, which has resulted in you suffering a Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and I take into account as part of your personal circumstances your underlying anxiety, depression, mild intellectual disability and ADHD.

[24]Exhibit “7”, page 6, paragraph 52.

[25](2007) 16 VR 269.

[26]Exhibit “7”, page 10, H9 and C1.

26This is a difficult sentencing task. On the one hand, your moral culpability is reduced because of your disadvantaged and traumatic upbringing, but, on the other hand, you have demonstrated yourself to be an ongoing danger to society.  Indeed, Ms Fakhri assessed you as being at a moderate to high risk of violence.  I consider that this is likely to continue to be the case unless you manage to somehow get control over your long-term substance-abuse problem and get some assistance with your learning disability to enable you to navigate life in the community more effectively and achieve some vocational skills.  Thus far, rehabilitative dispositions aimed at assisting you have been to no avail.  You have contravened 3 Community Correction Orders and shown a tendency to quickly offend shortly after being released from custody. Of course, the latter is related, not only to your long-term substance abuse, but, also, to a serious lack of support when you are in the community, which means that you reconnect with drug-using associates.

27You well know that armed robbery is a serious offence.  Although there is no victim impact statement, there can be no doubt that it would have been very frightening, indeed, for the attendant at the service station, all alone on duty in the very early hours of the morning, to be approached by you swearing aggressively, with a hammer in your hand threatening to “smash him”.  Although you did not actually do other than raise the hammer, nobody should have to cope with this terrifying, uncivilised behaviour in their workplace or in any situation.  Your victim was in a particularly vulnerable situation, and, unhappily, armed robberies committed on soft targets like your victim are very prevalent. Members of the community who work in these vulnerable situations need to know that the law will protect them. In sentencing you, there is still a need for denunciation and emphasis upon general deterrence, which means that in sentencing you the Court must send a message to others in the community who are minded to commit similar armed robberies, that this anti-social violent behaviour simply will not be tolerated and will be appropriately punished.  In the light of your long history of offending, which includes violent offending like armed robberies and aggravated carjacking, there needs to be some emphasis upon specific deterrence as well.  

28In assessing the gravity of your crime, I accept that there was no great degree of pre-planning or sophistication in the way you went about committing this crime.  You were readily identifiable on the CCTV footage as you were not disguised in any way.  Indeed, the upper part of your body was unclothed and you were not wearing shoes.  You appear to have a somewhat shambolic presentation and are drug affected.  Although it was clearly frightening for your victim, you did not engage in gratuitous violence and the crime was committed very quickly and not drawn out in a way that would add to your victim’s ordeal. Hence, although by its nature an armed robbery is a serious offence, your offending lacks a number of aggravating factors which are often present in the commission of this prevalent crime.

29In sentencing you, I take into account that limbs 5 and 6 in Verdins’ case apply.  Your cognitive deficits, particularly your deficit with respect to verbal processing, as well as your ADHD, untreated Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and depression and anxiety, make serving a term of imprisonment more onerous for you than for other offenders who do not have your complex array of problems.  I also accept that, there is a serious risk of imprisonment adversely affecting your mental health.  Both of these factors mitigate the sentence to be imposed.

30Your plea of guilty to the offence at a fairly early stage entitles you to a discount on the sentence which otherwise would have been imposed.  You have facilitated the course of justice, saved your victim having to give evidence and spared the time and cost to the state of running a criminal trial.  Whilst a plea of guilty may, in itself, be indicative of remorse, I find that the evidence of this is limited.  You did tell Ms Fakhri that you “felt bad” for the victim, albeit that you had no memory of the offending.  I give little weight to this.  I note that when you saw the psychologist, Ms Lechner in November 2020 in relation to the matters for which His Honour Judge Carmody sentenced you, you told her that you felt pretty bad about the offending because it was pretty violent. Back then, also, you had no memory of exactly what had occurred.  It is difficult to accept that you have true contrition, but as a matter of fairness, that assessment should be viewed in the light of your disadvantaged background and complex mental health issues. 

31As a child you did not receive the love and nurturing of parents, as all children should be entitled to receive. You suffered exposure to dysfunctional, drug-addicted early parenting and multiple placements with foster families and institutional care from the age of three to sixteen years, while all the while your neurological development was being adversely affected by the trauma of such lack of stability and, in some instances, actual abuse.  This dreadful childhood has not equipped you with good examples of behaviour to help you navigate your way through life.  Your learning disability, ADHD, Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and longstanding depression and anxiety have caused you psychological distress and, coupled with your illiteracy and lack of vocational skills, you have led a meaningless existence with no worthwhile focus and a dependency upon illicit substances.  All of these factors, coupled with the fact that your first term of imprisonment was imposed just after you turned 19 years of age and that you have spent so much time in custody over the last decade, make this a profoundly sad and depressing case. 

32It is now 17 years since you were diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder and about the same period since you were diagnosed with depression and anxiety.  It is some 15 years since you were found to have a mild intellectual disability.  Your personal lack of resources and lack of support in the community, coupled with your increasing dependence upon abusing substances, have meant that you have failed to engage with treatment whilst in the community and, indeed, failed to be deterred by many sentences of imprisonment.  It is a terrible thing for a person of your age to have had so little joy and fulfilment in your life.  Because of the complexity of your cognitive deficits and multiple mental health issues, including untreated trauma from your childhood, and your entrenched substance abuse problem, you really need to be treated by a multi-disciplinary team.   It is hard to see how there will be any progress in your life if you do not get some improvement in your literacy skills and some meaningful engagement to bring about successful treatment for your substance dependence.  Only then, is treatment for your other complex mental health problems likely to be effective. 

33There is no sentence of which I can think of that can ensure that these needs are addressed.  Your counsel has conceded that the only appropriate sentence is one of imprisonment involving a head sentence with a non-parole period.  All I can do is stress to custody authorities that, if you do not get some assistance in a concerted rehabilitative way, then chances of you avoiding what Ms Fakhri has assessed as a moderate to high risk of re-offending in the same way are likely to be very poor.  I am obliged to denounce your conduct and give some emphasis to general and specific deterrence and just punishment, even though it is abundantly clear that earlier sentences of imprisonment have failed to prevent you reoffending, as indeed have community-based dispositions.  I must operate on the basis that the head sentence I impose may have to be fully served by you. 

34The granting of parole is clearly a matter for the Adult Parole Board.  It is my very firm view that, unless you get a period of close supervision and support in the community upon your release from custody, then nothing in your life is likely to change.  Unless this occurs, it is almost inevitable that you will continue to lead a chaotic lifestyle, abusing substances because you have no meaningful focus in your life, and, thus, you will be a menace to the community by committing further offences and be returned to prison time and time again.  That is a tragic and very depressing statement to have to make.

35On one charge of armed robbery, you are convicted and sentenced to be imprisoned for a period of two and a half years.  I direct that you serve a period of 10 months before becoming eligible for release upon parole.  I declare a period of pre-sentence detention of 202 days to be time reckoned as already served under the sentence imposed this day.

36Pursuant to s6AAA of the Sentencing Act, I state that, had it not been for your plea of guilty, the sentence imposed would have been four years’ imprisonment with a non-parole period of three years.

37Upon conviction for a Schedule 1 offence, namely, armed robbery, and being satisfied that property (one hammer, one black satchel bag, one black pair of shorts and one pair of shoes) was used or intended to be used in conjunction with the commission of the offence, I order, pursuant to s78(1) of the Confiscation Act 1997, that such property be forfeited to the State. I further direct that it be placed in the custody of the Chief Commissioner of Police and be held by him until 28 days from this date or the conclusion of any appeal proceedings where it may be tested and/or analysed and then destroyed.