Director of Public Prosecutions v Gonzalez
[2010] VCC 21
•22 October 2010
| IN THE COUNTY COURT OF VICTORIA | Revised |
AT MELBOURNE
CRIMINAL DIVISION
Case No. CR-09-01462
| DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROSECUTIONS |
| v |
| JOHN GONZALEZ |
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JUDGE: | Her Honour Judge Hampel | |
WHERE HELD: | Melbourne | |
DATE OF HEARING: | 28 September 2010 | |
DATE OF SENTENCE: | 22 October 2010 | |
CASE MAY BE CITED AS: | DPP v Gonzalez | |
MEDIUM NEUTRAL CITATION: | [2010] VCC 21 | |
REASONS FOR SENTENCE
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Catchwords: Sentence – trafficking – large commercial quantity pseudoephedrine – possession for purposes related to trafficking – possession precursor chemicals – amphetamines – guilty plea – course of conduct – desirability of being able to impose aggregate sentences
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APPEARANCES: | Counsel | Solicitors |
| For the Crown | Mr G Slim | Paul O’Connor |
| Office of Public Prosecutions | ||
| For the Accused | Mr J Hannebery | Elizabeth O’Dea Patrick W. Dwyer |
HER HONOUR:
1 John Gonzalez, you have pleaded guilty to 14 counts relating to possession of drugs and precursor chemicals. Depending on the quantity of each individual drug or chemical found, you have been charged with and pleaded guilty to counts of either trafficking in a large commercial quantity of a drug of dependence, trafficking in a drug of dependence, possession of a drug of dependence or possession of precursor chemicals.
2 In 2007, you were working for a company by the name of Stericorp. Stericorp was authorised to dispose of pharmaceutical waste. The police raided your home on 18 December 2007 and found there a vast quantity of pseudoephedrine in cold and flu tablets. They had been delivered to Stericorp for disposal in accordance with the terms on which pseudoephedrine in cold and flu tablets and other chemicals are allowed to be possessed or must be disposed of. Also found were varying but lesser quantities of other drugs of dependence, mainly, if not wholly taken, from the stocks of drugs delivered to Stericorp for destruction, and precursor chemicals used in the manufacture of amphetamines.
3 The drugs were found dispersed over various parts of the property, including in the house itself, in the garage, in the car port, in the boot of your car and in the backyard area of the home. Also found in the course of the search were notebooks containing information in respect of the manufacture of amphetamines, empty blister packs, which, from their labelling, had previously contained pseudoephedrine or other of the drugs of the nature of those found, and some records indicative of or suggestive of trafficking activity, recording what appeared to be sales of various quantities of various drugs to various people for varying amounts.
4 All 14 counts to which you have pleaded guilty are put on the basis of your possession of these drugs for purposes of trafficking. The actual counts, quantities and maximum penalties are these:
5 Count 1 is the major count that you face. That is a count of trafficking in a large commercial quantity of pseudoephedrine. The amount of pseudoephedrine found was 17.4 kilograms. 750 grams is the amount that is the minimum amount for a large commercial quantity. So this is 23 times the amount that constitutes a large commercial quantity. I was told that that amount would expect to yield 7.8 to 13 kilograms of methylamphetamine, or 685,414 doses worth $1 each. The maximum penalty for trafficking in a large commercial quantity of a drug of dependence is life imprisonment.
6 You also pleaded guilty to three counts, Counts 2, 4 and 5, of trafficking in a drug of dependence. The three drugs were methylamphetamine, morphine and diazepam. The maximum penalty for trafficking in a drug of dependence is 15 years' imprisonment.
7 So far as the methylamphetamine was concerned, seven grams was found. The trafficable quantity is three, so it is just over twice the trafficable quantity. So far as the morphine is concerned, 22.8 grams was found. The trafficable quantity is two grams. That means over 11 times the trafficable quantity. And so far as diazepam is concerned, 12.13 grams was found, the trafficable quantity being two grams; therefore, something in the order of six times the trafficable quantity.
8 There were six counts of possession of drugs of dependence, Counts 3, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 14. Those drugs were methadone, oxazepam, alprazolam, lorazepam, flunitrazepam and methylphen. The maximum term of imprisonment for possession of these drugs of dependence is five years' imprisonment.
9 The quantities found of these drugs were less than the quantities found in respect of the drugs that I previously referred to. So far as the methadone was concerned, 60.7 grams. So far as oxazepam was concerned, 15.49 grams, and the alprazolam, 0.56 of a gram. The lorazepam, 0.1 of a gram, the flunitrazepam, 0.1 of a gram, and the methylphen, 600 grams.
10 The methylphen was significantly over the amount that constitutes a trafficable quantity. Two grams is the trafficable quantity for that. The quantity of oxazepam and alprazolam were both just above the trafficable quantity. The other three drugs were below the trafficable quantity.
11 The final four counts, Counts 10, 11, 12 and 13, were counts of possession of precursor chemicals: iodine, phosphorous, acetic anhydride and benzyl chloride. The maximum penalty for possession of those drugs or those precursor chemicals is five years.
12 The quantity that you possessed of each of those was significantly above the trafficable quantity. There was 8.7 kilograms of iodine, a trafficable quantity being 25 grams. There were 636.6 grams of phosphorus, the trafficable quantity being ten grams. There was three litres of acetic anhydride, the trafficable quantity being 100 millilitres, and there was 870 millilitres of benzyl chloride, the trafficable quantity being 50 millilitres.
13 In reciting the maximum penalties for these offences, I have referred only to the terms of imprisonment. Parliament also prescribes that fines can be imposed instead of or in addition to the sentences of imprisonment. In the circumstances in which you come before me, the fines are not viable sentencing options; certainly not viable on their own, and I do not consider it appropriate to fine you in addition to imposing terms of imprisonment, that being the appropriate overall penalty put by both the Crown and acknowledged by Mr Hannebery in the course of his plea submission.
14 All of the drugs were drugs that were taken from your employer at the time, Stericorp - drugs that had been delivered to it for destruction. Save perhaps for the amphetamine; I was not sure about that. In the time after your arrest, and during the time that these charges were pending before the courts, you had indicated to the psychologists to whom you had been referred or to whom you had referred yourself for counselling or for assessment, that you had permission to take those drugs.
15 That position was not maintained on your plea. Having regard to the nature of the drugs, their value on the black market, the purposes of a chemical waste destruction business such as Stericorp's, the vast quantity of drugs and the diverse range of drugs found in your possession, it was realistic that that position was not maintained. And indeed, in the course of the plea, Mr Hannebery acknowledged that the drugs were taken from your employer constitutes a breach of trust, and that that was a matter relevant for sentencing purposes, in particular relevant to the weight to be given to general deterrence.
16 The drugs had been stored throughout your home. There was no suggestion of safe storage of any of those drugs, and the home was occupied not only by you but also by your wife and your two young children.
17 In the period between being charged and shortly before the plea, you told the psychologists and other mental health experts who assessed you or to whom you were referred for counselling that you were a compulsive hoarder. They expressed opinions that related to a longstanding anxiety condition of yours, and that may have been linked to either obsessive compulsive disorder itself, or obsessive compulsive symptoms, but falling short of the disorder. There were some suggestions in some of the reports, particularly the earlier ones, that your offending may have been due to or a manifestation of this compulsive hoarding.
18 Whatever may have been your habits in respect of compulsive collection or hoarding, and whatever may have been a connection between anxiety and compulsive or other hoarding behaviour, I am satisfied that your possession of these drugs in these circumstances was not a manifestation of that. The nature of the drugs, the sheer quantity of them and the diverse of range of them all point overwhelmingly to the way in which the Crown case was put, and which by your pleas of guilty and your acceptance of the summary of the circumstances you now admit, that your possession of the drugs of dependence and precursor chemicals was possession for the purpose of sale, and therefore trafficking.
19 Not surprisingly, as a result of the discovery of these drugs in your home, you lost your job at Stericorp. You were remanded in custody and spent six months in custody before your release on bail. That was the first time in your life that you had been in custody.
20 The matter has wended its way slowly through the court processes since you were charged in December 2007, in large part due to the nature of the charges, the need to analyse the drugs and the fact that it was a contested trial until the plea negotiations in the week before the trial was due to start finally led to a resolution of the matter the day before the listed hearing date.
21 You are clearly entitled to a reduction in the sentence that otherwise would have been imposed upon you by reason of your pleas of guilty. Although it is what we would call a court door plea, done immediately before the trial was due to start, it still clearly has a utilitarian value and you are entitled to the benefit of that. The matter clearly had to be prepared as a contested trial, and that involved testing of the drugs to confirm their nature and amounts, analysis of the contents of the notebooks, as well as evidence of searches and the other physical evidence necessary to establish when the Crown is put to proof in a matter such as this. Notwithstanding that, you have saved the time and cost of an actual trial that estimated to be for two weeks, and you have finally accepted and acknowledged your guilt. For both of those matters, you are entitled to and will receive a benefit.
22 By s.6AAA of the Sentencing Act, I am required when I impose sentence on you to indicate the sentence that would have been imposed but for your pleas of guilty. I will do that after I have actually pronounced the sentences that you will be required to serve.
23 You come before the court as a 38-year-old man, married with two young children. You have been in Australia since the age of 11. Your family came here from the Canary Islands. They have settled here and Australia has been your home since then, and you regard yourself properly and understandably as an Australian.
24 You completed your schooling here satisfactorily and you have been in constant employment since you left school, but for the period that you served on remand. Consistently with that, since your release on bail, you have returned to employment, initially employment with your brother, and then after six months of that, independent employment again as a factory manager in a manufacturing business. Your employers have known of the pending charges, so you have been frank about that with them, and that, together with your history of consistent and hard work since leaving school, indicate a consistency of approach and a solidity of approach to life at odds with the behaviour that brings you before this court.
25 You have a number of previous convictions, but none in the last ten years, and indeed, the ten year old offences relate to counts of acting as a crowd controller not in conformity with the terms of your licence. It is 15 years since you were dealt with for other criminal offences not of a regulatory type but more of a criminal type. You have been before a court once since being charged with these offences, but for matters which arose before the commission of or the charging with these offences.
26 Your previous convictions, and the matter that you have been being dealt with whilst this matter was pending, are of little significance to these charges. They are minor, relatively few in number, and apart from the roughly contemporaneous matter, which had one count of possession of amphetamine and one of driving whilst disqualified, none of your previous offences were drug-related. None of your offences, apart from the amphetamine and the drive whilst disqualified, occurred after you settled, married and had your family. They are significant, therefore, only as showing you do not come before the court as a first offender, and in that sense you are not entitled to be regarded as a person of exemplary character.
27 They do show, up until this time though, what could properly be characterised as youthful offending, maturity consistent with the acceptance of responsibility of marriage and family responsibilities and consistent with the pattern of employment that I have already referred to, until drug use started to impair the way you led your life, and clearly significantly affected your judgment and your moral values.
28 The matters that were relied upon in your favour by Mr Hannebery were these. There has been a significant delay between your arrest, the laying of the charges and the matter being dealt with. It is nearly three years since the police raid. Although that delay is to some significant extent caused by the fact that you have exercised your right to plead not guilty until just before the court door, the delays associated with the delays in the lists, both in the Magistrates' Court and in this court, the delays associated with analysis of drugs in matters such as this, nonetheless mean that you have had three years of this matter hanging over your head unresolved and your family have had three years of this matter hanging over them unresolved.
29 The psychiatric and psychological reports submitted before me indicate that you have been diagnosed as suffering an adjustment disorder, with a mixed disturbance of emotion and behaviour. What that means in effect, in my view, is nothing more or less than the significant but unsurprising phenomenon of the reaction to being confronted by what you had been doing, by being charged, the consequences of being charged, pending trial and now, as it turned into a plea, the plea and the consequences of that.
30 There had been, in 2007, some other matters relied upon. In the course of your employment with Stericorp, not as a result of any poor work performance on your part, but it would appear a restructure due to financial constraints within Stericorp, a restructure that had led to your being what you considered as demoted. The position that you had held was removed or declassified. You continued to do in effect the same duties but with a lesser status and lesser pay.
31 That was obviously upsetting and you felt a loss of status and a lack of recognition for the work you were doing as a result of that. It is something unfortunately that happens to a lot of people in workplaces, particularly when employment can become a little tight. As your pleas recognise, it is no excuse or justification for the behaviour that you engaged in, and if it was thought by you for a time to be some form of rationalisation or justification, it smacks of an immaturity of judgment at odds with the maturity that you had otherwise shown up until then in your life.
32 Probably of more significance was the fact that for a long period you had been actively involved in bodybuilding, and through that had abused steroids and had also abused amphetamines. It is beyond me why grown up men who should know better start to abuse steroids. It is beyond me how they do not understand the effect that they have on them physically, the effect that they have on them physiologically, and the effect that the drug abuse has on their families and those around them. It is a very different situation to a vulnerable child who is exposed to drugs such as cannabis or heroin or amphetamines at a time when they are not old enough to make mature judgments, and when their social or other circumstances make their lives distressed and unhappy and they look to those drugs as a solace. I just cannot understand why sensible grown men start to use steroids.
33 In any event, you did, and it is clear that you became caught up in that cycle of continuing steroid abuse and then amphetamine abuse, partly to keep you going, partly to assist you to suppress your appetite. Again, rationally, seen from a perspective when you are no longer using, this makes absolutely no logical sense, they are clearly bad and irrational decisions, or bad decisions rationalised for reasons that really do not stack up against the other things that you had going for you in your life.
34 But nonetheless there was this period of amphetamine abuse, there was this period of steroid abuse, and then there was a period of obvious distress when your training partner took his own life. All of those obviously mean that the stabilities that you had around you were not enough to keep you making sensible judgments. I can accept that your judgment was clouded and that you found it easier to rationalise what you were doing. But of course, and as Mr Hannebery very sensibly acknowledged in the way he put his plea, this does not suggest that your reasoning was impaired to the extent that one could say you were suffering from any mental impairment. It explains, but does not excuse or justify, your behaviour.
35 Coming back to then what happened after these circumstances that coincided with your offending and then looking at the three years between your being charged and now, despite the obvious oppressive effect of such a period of delay you have done your best to use that time well since your release on bail. You have gone back to full time employment and you have clearly tried to re-establish your trust with your wife, and your children, and to do what you can to remedy for them the harm that you have caused and will continue to cause them as a result of this.
36 Mr Hannebery also referred to the fact that in this three years you had engaged with counselling, and that was an indicator of an attempt to use your time well to show a desire to change things. I accept that in part, but in part the counselling reports indicate that you were still putting out the compulsive hoarder account as an explanation or justification for your actions, and so insofar as you were continuing to rationalise or justify your behaviour on the compulsive hoarder basis, I do not consider that indicates you were using the time well. I consider it more in the nature of an attempt, until recently, to continue to rationalise or justify your behaviour. But insofar as you were using the counselling to help you to adjust to the fact that you were facing these charges and then to adjust to the future that it would hold for you, I accept that does show that you were, in that sense, trying to use your time well.
37
Your remand for that six months was, as I have already noted, your first time in prison, and as Mr Hannebery properly said, at a mature age, that
pre-sentence detention was clearly a very sobering experience for you. It always strikes me that it is such a pity that it takes a time of imprisonment or incarceration for somebody to be confronted by the reality of the consequences that they face for what they have done, that they can somehow push it off until then. But I accept that that was a sobering experience for you, and that whatever attempt to ignore the likely consequences you had made before you were remanded in custody, you fully appreciate now the enormity of the consequences in terms of loss of liberty and what that means. I accept that has and will continue to have a very powerful deterrent effect on you.
38 Unfortunately, the fact that you have a committed wife and two young children had not seemed to be a deterrent to engaging in the offending behaviour in the first place, but I accept that the acceptance of the consequences to them of your wrongdoing will from now on have a very significant deterrent effect for you and is also significant punishment for you, because every day you are not at liberty is a day when you have to think of them and feel, as I accept you do, responsibility and guilt for what has been visited on them for your conduct.
39 I therefore accept that the effect of being charged, the understanding and acceptance of responsibility for the consequences on your family, means that there is no need to impose as part of my sentence an added component to deter you specifically. The consequences of this have clearly done that and will continue to do it as you serve the sentence that you must.
40 As a result of the fact that the drugs were stored throughout the family home, it has been the subject of a confiscation application, and I accept that you have now acknowledged that you will lose your own interest by reason of automatic forfeiture, and that you have now withdrawn your application for exclusion in respect of your equity in the home, that is, your half interest in the equity in the home. Your wife, Josie, has an application for exclusion on foot in respect of her half interest. I sentence you, as I indicated in discussion with counsel before, on the basis that you will lose your half interest in the family home, and that your wife will have to establish her case for exclusion.
41 On the material before me, she clearly demonstrates an arguable case for exclusion. The material, if accepted by the court that must deal with that, and that is not me, would indicate that the home was acquired and the equity in it acquired as a result of the endeavours of the two of you by and large before your offending activity started. If that is accepted, that means she will retain her equity, but that is not up for me to decide. I sentence you therefore on the basis that it is clear that you will lose your share and that the outcome in respect of your wife's share is at present uncertain. Although I cannot hypothesise or speculate about the outcome of that, I sentence on the basis there is uncertainty at present about the outcome in respect of her share, and it is clear that your share has gone and that is an additional punishment which I take into account. Given that the material before me indicates that your equity was acquired by and large before this activity and independent of it, that is a significant additional punishment to you and a hardship that is visited upon your family as a result. It is a punishment for you because you understand and accept that it is a further consequence of your conduct visited upon your innocent family members.
42 So far as the evidence placed before me in respect of pre-existing anxiety and obsessive compulsive symptoms or disorder, I am not satisfied on the material before me that there is any causal link between those conditions and the offending. And as I have said, I am not satisfied that there is any causal link or mitigating aspect between the circumstances that led to what you characterised as a demotion at Stericorp or your use or abuse of steroids and amphetamines. They are clearly factors that explain your conduct, but in my view they do not act as mitigators, nor do they provide a causal link in a sense that mitigates.
43 I accept by reason of the matters that I have already referred to that you have very good prospects of rehabilitation. It is a very serious set of offences that bring you before the court, much more serious than anything you faced in your youth. The consequences by reason of that are clearly very serious for you, and I accept that you have faced up to that. Those consequences and the way you have dealt with trying to look after your family in the time whilst these charges have been pending indicate to me that your prospects of rehabilitation are very good indeed, and that you have done everything you can to indicate that upon your release you will do your best to retrieve your life, to get back to the position you were in before 2007, perhaps even well before that, because you seem also to have acknowledged the futility of the steroids and amphetamines abuse, and so there is a good prospect that you will keep that in mind and that your wife and children can keep that in mind so that they will look at the person you were before that started to blight your life and theirs.
44 These nonetheless are very serious offences, mainly the amount of pseudoephedrine of course, but the wholesale nature in which you seemed to be helping yourself to the drugs sent for disposal, the wide range of illicit drugs that you had in your possession. Therefore punishment, denunciation and general deterrence clearly loom very large. The prevalence of illicit drugs and the consequences for people and those affected by those who abuse illicit drugs are well known, and therefore those who deal in them, who possess them for purposes related to trafficking, must understand that when caught, they will be dealt with severely. It must be very clear that the consequences will be serious in order to deter people from thinking this is an easy way of making money or an acceptable way to behave, and therefore the sentences I impose on you must reflect those considerations.
45 Although you face 14 charges, it is clear that this is a course of conduct all related to the same idea, and a course of activity over what would appear to be a relatively short period of time. In my view, this would be the sort of case where this court should be able to impose aggregate sentences, if not one aggregate sentence for all the offending, at least an aggregate sentence in respect of the four counts of possession of the precursor chemicals, an aggregate sentence in respect of the six counts of possession of drugs of dependence, an aggregate sentence in respect of the three counts of trafficking in a drug of dependence, and a single sentence for the trafficking in the large commercial quantity of pseudoephedrine.
46 The law simply does not permit me to do that, which means I must sentence individually for each count. But clearly considerations of totality, looking at this as an overall episode, and making sure that although I impose a sentence that reflects the criminality in respect of each individual offence, reflects this as a course of conduct has to be the guiding consideration. And the total sentence I impose must be one that is not made disproportionate by reason of the number of charges, but reflects the overall pattern of behaviour. That means that I have done some cumulation, but there is substantial concurrency between the sentences that I impose.
47 I have also been asked to make an order for the taking of a forensic sample, and having regard to the nature and number and seriousness of the offences, and to the fact that up until shortly before trial this proceeded as a contested matter, in my circumstances it is appropriate to make that order. I am going to make by way of the provision of a buccal sample, that is, a mouth swab. I must warn you, Mr Gonzalez, that if you do not co-operate with the police in respect of the taking of that buccal sample, the mouth swab, then the police are authorised to use reasonable force for the taking of that sample, and if so, they are authorised what I consider to be a significantly more invasive method, that is, by the taking of a blood sample.
48 I have also been asked to make a disposal order in respect of the items found, and I propose to do that, and I note that in respect of both of those matters they were either not opposed or consented to by Mr Hannebery on your behalf.
49 Just before I formally pronounce the orders, can you tell me, Mr Slim, the days of pre-sentence detention to today?
50 MR SLIM: 181 days.
51 HER HONOUR: Do you agree with that, Mr Hannebery?
52 MR HANNEBERY: Yes, Your Honour.
53 HER HONOUR: Thank you. Could you please stand, Mr Gonzalez.
54 John Gonzalez, on the 14 counts to which you have pleaded guilty, you are convicted.
55 On Count 1, trafficking in a large commercial quantity of pseudoephedrine, you are sentenced to be imprisoned for a period of four years.
56 On Count 2, trafficking in methylamphetamine, you are sentenced to be imprisoned for a period of one year, and I direct that six months of that be served cumulatively upon the sentence on Count 1. Count 1 is the base sentence.
57 On Count 3, possession of methadone, you are sentenced to be imprisoned for a period of three months.
58 On Count 4, trafficking in morphine, you are sentenced to be imprisoned for a period of one year.
59 On Count 5, trafficking in diazepam, you are sentenced to be imprisoned for a period of one year.
60 On Count 6, possession of oxazepam, you are sentenced to be imprisoned for a period of six months, and I direct that three months of that be served cumulatively upon the sentence on Count 1 and the other partial cumulation orders I am making.
61 On Count 7, possession of alprazolam, you are sentenced to be imprisoned for a period of three months.
62 On Count 8, possession of lorazepam, you are sentenced to be imprisoned for a period of three months.
63 On Count 9, possession of flunitrazepam, you are sentenced to be imprisoned for a period of three months.
64 On Count 10, possession of iodine, the precursor chemical, you are sentenced to be imprisoned for a period of 12 months, and I direct that six months of that be served cumulatively upon the sentence on Count 1 and the other partial cumulation orders I am making.
65 On Count 11, possession of phosphorous, you are sentenced to be imprisoned for a period of one year.
66 On Count 12, possession of acetic anhydride, you are sentenced to be imprisoned for a period of one year.
67 On Count 13, possession of benzyl chloride, you are sentenced to be imprisoned for a period of one year.
68 On Count 14, possession of methylphen, you are sentenced to be imprisoned for a period of one year.
69 That makes a total effective sentence of five years and three months, and I fix a non-parole period of three years and six months.
70 I declare that there have been 181 days of pre-sentence detention and direct that they be counted and reckoned as part of the sentence already served.
71 Can you please take a seat while I make the ancillary orders.
72 Pursuant to s.6AAA of the Sentencing Act, I declare that the sentences I would have passed but for your pleas of guilty would have been the following: Count 1, imprisonment for five years; Count 2, imprisonment for one year and three months; Count 3, imprisonment for four months; Count 4; imprisonment for one year and three months; Count 5, imprisonment for one year and three months; Count 6, imprisonment for eight months; Count 7, imprisonment for four months; Count 8, imprisonment for four months; Count 9, imprisonment for four months; Count 10, imprisonment for one year and three months; Count 11, imprisonment for one year and three months; Count 12, imprisonment for one year and three months; Count 13, imprisonment for one year and three months; Count 14, imprisonment for one year and three months.
73 I would have made partial cumulation orders again, consistently with the pattern of partial cumulation orders I made in respect of the actual sentence, and would have arrived as a result of that at a total effective sentence of seven years' imprisonment, and I would have fixed a non-parole period of five years.
74 Consistently with what I have said about the inability to fix aggregate sentences in respect of offences of like nature, and what I then wanted to do in respect of partial cumulations, what I have done is in respect of each different category of offending, made a partial cumulation order, so that there is in effect concurrency between each cluster of offending, but with partial cumulation in respect of the first or the first significant offence of each type, so as to achieve the total effective sentence I have.
75 I made the order for the provision of the forensic sample pursuant to s.464ZF in respect of the buccal sample, and as indicated I make the disposal order in the terms sought in respect of the property indicated in it.
76 Mr Slim and Mr Hannebery, do the orders that I have pronounced reflect what I have said I intended to do, and have you checked the arithmetic and is the arithmetic correct?
77 MR SLIM: I have not checked the arithmetic, Your Honour.
78 HER HONOUR: Can I ask you to do so, please?
79 MR HANNEBERY: I have checked the arithmetic, Your Honour. It adds up in my mind. The only thing Your Honour did say in relation to the final sentence you imposed, that it was for Count 10. I presume Your Honour meant Count 14.
80 HER HONOUR: I am sorry. That was the sentence for the possession of the methylphen?
81 MR HANNEBERY: Yes.
82 HER HONOUR: Indeed, I meant that as the sentence for Count 14, one year's imprisonment, and the sentence that I imposed on Count 10, possession of the precursor chemical iodine, was a sentence of one year's imprisonment and six months of that to be served cumulatively upon Count 1 and the other partial cumulation orders.
83 MR HANNEBERY: As Your Honour pleases.
84 HER HONOUR: So thank you, that must have been a misspeak in respect of that last count. Mr Slim, have you checked the arithmetic now or has your instructor?
85 MR SLIM: No, Your Honour, I have not.
86 HER HONOUR: Can you do so, please?
87 MR SLIM: Your Honour, I have checked the total, which seems correct, if I may say so. The total head sentence.
88 HER HONOUR: Thank you. Mr Gonzalez, could you just stand again for a moment, please. Normally when I have sentenced somebody I wait in court while they are taken out; I think that is generally an appropriate thing to do so that they see me paying them the courtesy of seeing them go. It is also a very important reminder for me of the seriousness of the imposition of a term of imprisonment on somebody; it is a reminder that every day counts for me as well as for you. Given what I have said and heard about your family, and given the number of people here today, I am going to leave the Bench and give you a short opportunity to say goodbye to those people who have been here to support you throughout before you are removed. So can you please allow Mr Gonzalez to stay for a short time to say goodbye before you take him down.
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