Director of Public Prosecutions v Goodland

[2016] VCC 1694

IN THE COUNTY COURT OF VICTORIA Revised
(Not) Restricted
Suitable for Publication

AT WARRNAMBOOL
CRIMINAL JURISDICTION

CR-16-00875

DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROSECUTIONS

v

JASON GOODLAND

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JUDGE:	HIS HONOUR JUDGE SMALLWOOD
WHERE HELD:	Warrnambool
DATE OF HEARING:
DATE OF SENTENCE:	10 November 2016
CASE MAY BE CITED AS:	DPP v Goodland
MEDIUM NEUTRAL CITATION:	[2016] VCC 1694

REASONS FOR SENTENCE
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Subject:
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Cases Cited:
Sentence:

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APPEARANCES:	Counsel	Solicitors
For the Director of Public Prosecutions	Ms A. Hassan	Office of Public Prosecutions
For the Accused	Mr M. Reardon	VLA

HIS HONOUR:

1Jason David Goodland, you have pleaded guilty to one charge of attempting to pervert the course of justice.  That crime carries a maximum penalty of 25 years imprisonment.  You are now 40 years of age and were 38 years of age when it occurred.

2You pleaded guilty at an early reasonable opportunity and you must get the utilitarian benefit of that plea of guilty.

3I am satisfied that there is at least now appropriate remorse in respect of the offending.

4You do have a criminal history, but somewhat surprisingly, that criminal history does not commence until you were 36 years of age.  I will be referring to that again later.

5Of real significance in this matter is that you were not charged for some 12 months after the offending occurred.  Accordingly there was a significant delay.  In your particular situation, a number of things have occurred within that time frame which are to your benefit, but I nevertheless take the delay into account.

6A summary of the offending is that on 8 January 2015, police executed a search warrant at your premises in Warrnambool.  As a result of that search inter alia police located something in the order of $3,500.  That resulted in you being charged with dealing with property suspect being the proceeds of crime.  You were also charged with cannabis matters which were dealt with subsequently.

7On 19 February 2015, the police prosecutors at Warrnambool received a letter from your then solicitor.  Provided with that letter was a quotation for a painting job and an invoice.  The quotation on the letterhead of Goodies Painting Services was dated 30 January 2015 and addressed to one Cassandra Conlon.  It quoted for payment of a kitchen, dining and lounge valued at $3,800.  The invoice again on Goodies Painting Services letterhead was dated 1 February 2015 again addressed to Cassandra Conlon and showed a deposit as being paid of $1000.

8The police prosecutor raised concerns with your then solicitor pointing that the quotation and invoice post-dated the seizure of the money by some three to four weeks.  Your then solicitor responded to that stating that you instructed that the date of the invoice of 1 February 2015 was a typographical error.  It should have been 2 January 2015.

9The police prosecutor pointed out this method, the painting job was before it was quoted, bought in before the seizure of the cash but the quotation of 30 January 2015 was well after the seizure.  The police were requested to investigate the authenticity of the documents that had been provided.

10Ms Conlon was arrested and said that she had been spoken to by your then partner, Stacey Goodland and had been asked to produce documents and a sum of cash which belonged to the two of you could be retained or covered.  She agreed and picked up a copy of the quotation and invoice.  It was only later that she realised that the documents were false to the extent that they were and she said that she had not stopped to think that she was lying to police.

11She said she knew something was wrong with them as she had received some text messages from your partner saying they were wrong and the dates should have been different.

12You pleaded guilty, I am informed, at the Warrnambool Magistrates' Court on 10 August 2015 to a number of charges and those charges included dealing with the proceeds of crime in terms of the cash that was discovered.  You received an aggregate sentence of 92 days imprisonment for that combination of offending.

13You were arrested on 19 May 2015 but you declined to participate in a record of interview.

14That is the offending.  As I said when sentencing your co-accused, perverting the course of justice is inherently a serious offence.  It strikes at the very fabric of our system.  There are a very, very wide range of examples of it and I said to her, yours I have no trouble accepting is at the very low end of it.  However it is not such as in my view enables a bond to be given or a non-conviction disposition to be given.  It must be a disposition which reflects as I said, the inherent seriousness of such a crime.

15I do regard these particular acts, attempting to pervert the course, as being at the low end.  In one sense they could be described as no worse than telling lies in a record of interview, but the two of you did involve somebody else.  It was persisted with in the face of it being inherently implausible and there must be consequence for that.

16Your partner, your co-accused is 33 years of age and she had no prior convictions.  I sentenced her to a 100 hour community corrections order and that sentence was given basically - I understand that she had been effectively coerced into doing it.

17As I said, it is an inherently serious crime and the normal course of events would call for an active gaol sentence.  General deterrence clearly has to play a significant part in all circumstances.  I think specific deterrence probably does not matter a great deal.  There must also denunciation and obviously there must be appropriate punishment.

18As it was said, the Crown submission was that an active custodial sentence was required and in the normal course of events I would have agreed with that.

19In your particular situation, a number of other factors have intervened which I am obliged to take into account.

20Tendered on your behalf were some references and a report from a Dr Kamar, a neuropsychologist.  Your counsel provided very helpful written submissions and obviously I have read those and taken them into account along with the submissions he made orally in court.

21Your background is that your family was originally from McArthur.  You attended Hampton Technical School to Year 11.  By that stage you were using drugs and indeed would appear to have been expelled because of that use of drugs.

22You worked on the parents farm for a couple of years before completing a painting apprenticeship.  You have remained a painter for your adult life, alternating between being self-employed and a paid employee.

23You went to Adelaide for a period of time and you and your co-accused apparently married in around 2006.  She assisted you in the carrying on of the business.

24You have no children.  I am told that you separated in February of this year and there is an intervention order in place.

25Insofar as your health is concerned, you had a motor vehicle accident in 1999 and was diagnosed with epilepsy.  It would appear that a part of your cannabis use was or has been involved in self-medicating that condition.

26You have also managed it through various medications and I take that into account though it seems there is nothing to suggest that your condition could not be monitored appropriately in a custodial environment.

27The situation is that there had been a delay of some 12 months meant that you were not charged until early this year.  In the meantime on 10 August 2015, you were sentenced to a period of 92 days incarceration.  That clearly was a lost opportunity for concurrency and indeed as I understand it and I think I have indicated, included the offence which you were trying to avoid.

28I might also say in this situation, it is my view that you were trying to get the money back rather than avoiding a conviction for the offence itself and whether that makes any real difference or not, I am not too sure.

29But in any event, on 13 January of this year, you were sentenced to a further 68 days to be served and you were on a community corrections order of 18 months.  That gives a total of something like 160 days of missed opportunity for concurrency.  It was of course after that or not long after that, that you were then charged.

30You, in September 2015, were also being placed on a community corrections order involving some 50 hours of community work.

31Your situation is that you have reported and I have no reason to doubt this, it is in the medical report, that since around about a month or so after this particular offending, you started experiencing significant mood swings and anxiety.  You had clearly been using drugs inappropriately for a significant period of time.  Your criminal history had only commenced a year or so earlier.

32You reported that your mental condition had deteriorated significantly during the periods of incarceration that I have already referred to.

33Accordingly in December 2015, a neurological assessment noted, "the likely presence of extremely severe levels of depression, anxiety and stressor symptoms."  I take that into account in terms of how it would make it more difficult for you in a custodial environment and indeed you have described having difficulty in a custodial environment.

34Clearly in my view, in this situation, Verdins type principles bear no relationship to the moral culpability involved.

35In June of this year, you were hospitalised for two weeks in a mental health ward after an attempted suicide as I was informed and you subsequently have been on Seroquel on a daily basis to manage that anxiety, depression and mood swings.  You have reported positive results from that.

36Of the community corrections orders that you were placed on, you have currently completed 112 hours of community work with something in the order of 90 remaining.  You are on other programs to reduce offending and significantly a couple of references were tendered on your behalf.

37The first of those is from Hammond's Contracting which indicates clearly that you have work available to you.  You have been working with them and there is no reason why that should not continue.

38Also importantly there is a reference from Ms Beasly, Solo Connect with the Salvation Army, which points out a number of things.  Firstly that you have terminated a lot of the prior associations that were getting you into trouble, that you are endeavouring to address other needs and skills that you should have, that you are no longer using ice, so it was a bit problematic as to how much of that you were using though I do accept that you were very drug-affected at around about the time of this offending though in no way, shape or form does it reduce moral culpability.

39Since you have been seeing those people and seeing you have been treated your mental health would appear to have stabilised and the reports states that your physical appearance has improved immensely.  You apparently show good understanding of the negative impact that your drug use has had on you.

40You are now in transitional housing and can stay there for another 9 months or so as I understand it, having been homeless in a pretty parlous situation after the breakdown of your marriage.

41So there is a situation where there has been a significant delay that at the present time you have work available to you and are working, you have stable housing available to you, you have no matters pending I have been told, you have a community corrections order or two community corrections orders in place, one of which has treatment conditions to it and to which have hours which you have completed satisfactorily.

42Your mental health which would appear to have worsened significantly after this offending occurred has now been properly addressed and you are better for it.  I take into account in a limited way, questions of parity and the fact that your co-accused was given a community corrections order.

43You also have, and I know this is not a mathematical calculation, some five months of lost opportunity for concurrency which is brought about because this charge in fact had never been laid, bearing in mind that you pleaded guilty to it, as I understand it, at the first committal mention.

44The prospects of your rehabilitation are really up to you, but where you did not offend until you were 36, reliably they should be pretty good.  The risk of you reoffending would appear to be based very much upon whether you can abstain from the use of drugs.

45In a situation such as this, I was mindful of the words of the Court of Appeal in DPP v Leech.

"It is particularly important that this court should not devalue or deny the right of a sentencing judge to act mercifully in a case where it seems to the judge to be an instance where an opportunity for reaffirmation of an offender ought to be grasped.  That, after all, may be a decision which rebounds very much to the benefit of the community."

46As to the present, the Court of Appeal said in DPP v Dokaba,

"A sentencing judge should be astute to investigate whether a non-custodial disposition is to be preferred even in a case of a serious offence, if in the long term the community interests would be best served by that course.  This court should seek to promote public understanding of the fact that apart from the interest of the individual who was sought to rehabilitate, an important interest in itself, there is a vital community interest in maximising the prospects of rehabilitation of an individual who has been convicted of a serious crime."

47The efforts that you have made and the circumstances that have been put in place subsequent to this offending persuades me that despite the seriousness of this type of offending, a community corrections order is within range.  This is a situation where as I have indicated, during the course of the plea, it has been four years ago with this material on your behalf.  I probably would have imposed a suspended sentence and clearly community corrections orders are designed to replace that concept.

48The corrections order must be of such a degree that it shows that this offending was at the lower end.  It would never be regarded as trifle.  As I said to your co-accused, it must be a community corrections order which involves proper punishment and I think the way to do that is simply with a very significant number of work hours.

49The corrections order will be over a period of 3 years and it will be with 250 work hours and it will be with conviction.

50That will be cumulative upon the community corrections order you are currently undergoing and your counsel may explain to you that once you get through the 250 hours, that is the end of the community corrections order.

51In your situation with what is in place, certainly until late this year, that is September of this year, I do not see any need to be imposing other conditions.  It is a matter for you.

52If your rehabilitation is not complete and you can go back to offending and using drugs, the consequences of that will be of your own making.  All right.

53MR REARDOWN:  If it pleases the court.

54HIS HONOUR:  I am sorry, Ms Hassan.  Was there any forfeitures or anything?  I cannot remember.

55MS HASSAN:  No, nothing, Your Honour.

56HIS HONOUR:  All right, Mr Goodland.  I have put you on that order.  Can I make it very clear to you that if you do not complete it and you get brought back for breaching it, you are going in, you go out that door, all right?

57OFFENDER:  Yes.

58HIS HONOUR:  Thanks, Mr Reardon.

59MR REARDON:  May it please the court.

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