Director of Public Prosecutions v Haddara

[2017] VCC 1546

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

AT MELBOURNE
CRIMINAL JURISDICTION

CR-17-01163

DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROSECUTIONS

v

FERAS HADDARA

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JUDGE:	HIS HONOUR JUDGE MONTGOMERY
WHERE HELD:	Melbourne
DATE OF HEARING:
DATE OF SENTENCE:	24 October 2017
CASE MAY BE CITED AS:	DPP v Haddara
MEDIUM NEUTRAL CITATION:	[2017] VCC 1546

REASONS FOR SENTENCE
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Subject:
Catchwords:
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Cases Cited:
Sentence:

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APPEARANCES:	Counsel	Solicitors
For the Director of Public Prosecutions	Mr H. Boyd-Wilson
For the Accused	Mr J. Desmond	Mr S. Parker

HIS HONOUR:

1Feras Haddara, you have pleaded guilty to one charge of breaching a community corrections order, you have pleaded to, on an indictment, one charge of burglary, one charge of theft, one charge of damaging property, three charges of handling stolen goods, one charge of trafficking in a drug of dependence and three charges of possession of a drug of dependence.  You are also pleading guilty to a summary matter that I have been asked to deal with, dealing with property suspected of being proceeds of crime. 

2In respect of the breach, it concerns you failing to perform unpaid community work, failing to be supervised and managed on a number of dates and reoffending during the period of the order.  The order was made by me on
27 June 2016, where you were given a six month sentence with a community corrections order.  You then reoffended by way of the matters listed in the indictment.

3The original order concerned offences of committing an indictable offence whilst on bail, dangerous negligent driving whilst pursued by police, dangerous driving, dealing with property suspected of being proceeds of crime, drive whilst disqualified (2), possessing a prohibited weapon, possessing a controlled weapon, possessing methylamphetamine, reckless conduct endangering serious injury, resisting police.

4In relation to the original matters for which I gave you the six months and a CCO, I cancel that order and make no further order.

5You have admitted your criminal history, which includes the matters I have just been through, from the offending I sentenced you for on 27 June 2006, and that history, in a recount of that offending, as set out in the Victoria Police criminal history sheet in more exactitude, contains some serious matters.  In addition, on 17 May 2016 you were convicted of reckless conduct endangering serious injury and dealing with property suspected of being proceeds of crime and some driving offences, resist police, dangerous driving, possess a prohibited weapon.  Prior to then you had a series of offences from 01/09/2014 back to 10/09/2009 which all involved motor vehicle offending, plus there is one from the Albury Local Court on 30/08/2010 which involved driving whilst a licence suspended.  It is not a criminal history that in any way you should be proud of. 

6The facts of the offending on the indictment are set out in the prosecution summary, as are the facts of the offending in relation to the summary matter.  Your counsel takes no issue with that.  Any reader of these reasons can refer to Exhibit 1, the summary of the prosecution, to place the sentences in their full factual context.  I will not now refer to the facts of the matter. It is necessary for any reader of these reasons to go to Exhibit 1.

7In mitigation your counsel, Mr Desmond, filed written submissions, psychological report and a number of certificates from the prison and also a letter from a potential employer.  In mitigation he relied on,

(1)       Your plea of guilty, which is correctly categorised as an early plea.

It is an acceptance of responsibility by you for your offending and has            saved the court the time and cost of a jury trial and for thus the   appropriate discount has been given.

(2)       He put to me the context of the offending as set out in his written and                  oral submissions and also as set out in the report of Mr Mackinnon, a                  forensic and consultant psychologist, and it involved you being upset                    with a friend of yours taking off with a girlfriend of yours and you then got        back on to the drugs. 

(3)       He relied on your age.  You are now 27.  Whilst you could not be                   described as a young offender, you are certainly not a person of great            maturity.  You were born in Melbourne.  You come from a large family.            You grew up in the western suburbs.  You went to school until Year 10              and then had sporadic employment.  There have been a number of                   deaths in the family which have caused you considerable emotional                    problems.  You have had difficulty with employment.  A business you                were in, in effect, went bust.  Premises you had at one stage burnt down.               You started to use drugs and thus you became involved in this bout of             serious offending.

(4)       Mr Desmond pointed to the family support you have, shown by the               number of people who have been in court from your family in support of               you.

(5)       He submitted that you have good prospects of rehabilitation.  You have          been undertaking various courses in gaol, as is demonstrated by the   exhibits, and have returned negative urine results, and you have a                  position to go to, and that is with a firm called Engineers Point, and the               writer of the letter, Mr Laturo, confirmed the prospects of your   employment and that when you are released from custody you will be             able to have a position with him.

(6)       He put that your other criminal offending, apart from the matters I have           dealt with you for, were driving offences and not as serious as these               matters.

(7)       He took me to the report of Mr Mackinnon, which sets out your personal        circumstances in a more substantial state than I have summarised for            the court.  It set out the programs you have been taking part in at the                 gaol, which include rehabilitation and educational programs.  You have            been working as a unit billet and have been taking drug tests.  He set out            the circumstances of your emotional disorder upon learning of the                 situation I have referred to about your girlfriend.  He said, "Unresolved         emotional issues, especially those pertaining to his former girlfriend,                appear to have got the better of him and he soon relapsed into illicit              substance abuse and associated offending."  He said you are socially           vulnerable and the subject to peer group pressure.  He did say that you          appear to be coping with the prison environment well enough - his words,             not mine - despite ongoing depression and anxiety.  That psychological           report also sets out your drug problems.

8I think the PSD is now 240 if we add on ‑ ‑ ‑

9MR BOYD-WILSON:  Two forty-four, Your Honour.

10HIS HONOUR:  Two forty-four?

11MR PARKER:  Yes, Your Honour, that's correct.

12HIS HONOUR:  Thank you.  Mr Desmond initially tentatively submitted I could consider a community corrections order.  However, in my view, I afforded to you that opportunity and you did not take proper advantage of it and, because of that and the serious nature of the offending here, it is not an appropriate sentencing disposition.

13Taking into account all of the matters set out by your counsel in mitigation and the matters put by the prosecution, taking into account the matters set out in s.5 of the Crimes Act, the basic purposes for which a court may impose a sentence are punishment, both general deterrence and specific deterrence, which in your case, because of your criminal history, certainly has a part to play, denunciation and protection of the community.  This has been serious offending and you must realise that.

14In sentencing you, I must have regard to a range of matters such as the seriousness of the offending, your culpability for it, your personal circumstances and those of the victim, if any.  In particular, I have taken into account the principal of totality.  I am required to balance the interests of the community in denouncing criminal conduct, the interests of the community, seeking to ensure, as far as possible, offenders are rehabilitated into society.  I express my denunciation of your behaviour.

15In sentencing you and arriving at the sentence that I have, I believe you have some prospects of rehabilitation, provided that when you leave gaol you do not use drugs.  It is also important that you do obtain employment, and I am sure you will have the support of your family.  If you do go back to using drugs, gaol sentences just get longer and longer if you survive. 

16Taking all those factors into account - a complicated sentencing proposition - I have done it this way. I have bracketed Charges 1 and 3 as an aggregate offence because they, in my view, satisfy s.9(1) of the Sentencing Act.  Similarly with Charges 4 to 6, I have aggregated those charges as well and dealt with the others individually. 

17On Charges 1 to 3, I impose an aggregate sentence of 12 months. 

18On Charges 4 to 6, I impose an aggregate sentence of 12 months.

19On Charge 7, the charge of trafficking in a drug of dependence, namely methylamphetamine, I impose a sentence of 24 months.

20On the possession charges, that is, 8, 9 and 10, on each of them, I impose a fine of $500 with a stay of three months in respect of payment. 

21In relation to the indictment, I direct that six months of the aggregate sentence on Charges 1 to 3 and six months of the aggregate sentences on Charges 4 to 6 be served cumulatively upon each other and concurrently with the base sentence, which is Charge 7, thus making on the indictment a sum of 36 months. 

22In relation to the breach, I sentence you to a term of one month cumulative, and in relation to the summary offence, I sentence you to a term of imprisonment of one month cumulative, which makes a total effective sentence of 38 months. 

23I declare that you serve a period of 24 months before being eligible for parole.

24I declare that the time of 244 days you have already served to be reckoned to be part of the term of imprisonment I have just imposed.

25I declare, pursuant to s.6AAA of the Sentencing Act, that if you had proceeded to trial and you were convicted by a jury, I would have imposed a sentenced in the order of six years with a non-parole period of four years. 

26I have made the various orders that I have signed. 

27Gentlemen, if you could just check all those figures and make sure I have got it right. 

28So it is 12 months on one to three, 12 months on four to six, 24 months on seven, six months of one to three and six months of four to six cumulatively with seven, which makes a total of three, 36 months, $500 on each of the possession charges, one month on the summary and one month on the breach cumulative on the indictment matters, which makes a total of 38 months with a non-parole period of 24 months.  

29COUNSEL:  Yes, Your Honour.

30HIS HONOUR:  All right.  Are there any other matters I need to attend to, other orders I have to make?

31MR BOYD-WILSON:  Just the order in respect to the driver's licence for the theft of a motor vehicle.

32HIS HONOUR:  I think that was discretionary, wasn't it?

33MR BOYD-WILSON:  My understanding was it was mandatory, but I will just double-check that.  I believe the term is discretionary, but an order must be made under s.89(4).

34HIS HONOUR:  All right.  Which offence am I imposing that?

35MR BOYD-WILSON:  Charge 2, Your Honour.

36HIS HONOUR:  On Charge 2, I cancel your licence and disqualify you for a period of 12 months from obtaining a licence.

37MR BOYD-WILSON:  As Your Honour pleases.

38HIS HONOUR:  Any other matters I have forgotten or misstated?

39COUNSEL:  No, Your Honour.

40HIS HONOUR:  All right.  You can take Mr Haddara out, thank you.

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