Director of Public Prosecutions v Hawthorne, Connor
[2024] VCC 1230
•8 August 2024
| IN THE COUNTY COURT OF VICTORIA AT LATROBE VALLEY CRIMINAL DIVISION | Revised Not -Restricted Suitable for Publication |
GENERAL LIST
Case No. CR-24-00382
| DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROSECUTIONS |
| v |
| HAWTHORNE, Connor |
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JUDGE: | His Honour Judge Palmer | |
WHERE HELD: | Melbourne | |
DATE OF HEARING: | 8 August 2024 | |
DATE OF SENTENCE: | 8 August 2024 | |
| CASE MAY BE CITED AS: | DPP v Hawthorne, Connor | |
MEDIUM NEUTRAL CITATION: | [2024] VCC 1230 | |
REASONS FOR SENTENCE
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Subject:CRIMINAL LAW
Catchwords: Theft – Theft via transferring money between accounts – Abuse of trust – Vulnerable victim – Delay – Remorse – Whether Community Corrections Order in range
Legislation cited: Crimes Act 1958 (Vic)
Sentence: 3 Year Community Corrections Order
6AAA:Term of Imprisonment with a non-parole period
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APPEARANCES: | Counsel | Solicitors |
| For the DPP | Ms S MacDougall | Office of Public Prosecutions |
| For the Accused | Ms A Patterson | E Anselma Criminal Law Specialists |
HIS HONOUR:
Circumstances of offending[1]
[1] The detailed circumstances of offending are set out in Summary of Prosecution Opening for Plea (13 May 2024). I have also read and taken into consideration Submissions on behalf of Connor Hawthorne (1 July 2024); Megan Rodgers, Confidential Psychological Report (23 June 2024); and victim impact statement of Fred Mynard (17 May 2024).
Connor Hawthorne, during your childhood you developed a close relationship with Fred Mynard, who was the partner of your material grandmother. You called him Poppy Fred. The relationship continued after Mr Mynard and your grandmother separated, and Mr Mynard took you into his home when you were 15 years old.
Mr Mynard was not very good at using computers and you helped him out, including by using his internet banking accounts to pay his bills. In 2018, while you were still 17 years old, you began to steal money from Mr Mynard, by transferring money from his bank accounts into your own. Up until your 18th birthday, you stole a total of $24,776 from him (charge 1).
Over the next six or so months you stole a further $133,455.77 (charge 2). You only stopped when you had emptied Mr Mynard’s accounts, and Mr Mynard – trying to pay for groceries at the supermarket checkout – was declined because he had insufficient funds. For some time you denied that you had taken the money, and blamed the bank.
Eventually, however, there was no avoiding the fact that you had taken Mr Mynard’s money and used it to shop for yourself, to buy a van so you could work as a courier, to buy a lawnmowing business, to buy a car to tow the trailer for that business, and to buy a crystal for your mother. None of Mr Mynard’s money has been recovered or repaid.
You have pleaded guilty to two rolled-up charges of theft, contrary to s 74(1) of the Crimes Act 1958. The maximum penalty for each count is 10 years’ imprisonment.
Your offending has had a devastating impact on Mr Mynard. He has endured three years of hardship and stress, and now needs help to buy food, pay bills or fill his car with fuel so he can get to the doctors. This is the first time in his life he has ever had to beg for food and money. And it is because of the shameful and appalling behaviour of a young man to whom he offered nothing but generosity and kindness.
I find that your offending is objectively serious:
a.You repaid the generosity Mr Mynard had shown to you at every stage of your life by abusing his trust;
b.He was vulnerable, and you exploited that vulnerability;
c.You committed numerous dishonest transactions over an extended period of approximately one and a half years; and
d.You stole an amount of money – approximately $160,000 in total – that was large, especially relative to the means of your victim.
These matters confirm the importance of general deterrence, denunciation and just punishment, and suggest that you should be sentenced to a term of imprisonment.
In mitigation, your counsel submits that:
a.You had childhood trauma, experienced difficulties at school, and were diagnosed with ADHD at the age of nine;[2]
b.You have no prior or subsequent criminal history;
c.You admitted your guilt in August 2019 but charges were not laid until September 2023, so the prospect of charges being laid was hanging over you for four years;
d.You pleaded guilty at the earliest reasonable opportunity;
e.You are currently employed as a truck driver, and have good prospects for rehabilitation; and
f.Your youth means that I must give greater weight to your rehabilitation.
[2] However, your counsel eschewed any reliance on either Bugmy or Verdins.
Your counsel submitted that you were remorseful for your conduct. However, apart from your plea of guilty I see very little evidence of that. You claim that you intend to repay Mr Mynard, but have not paid a cent in the five years since your offending was discovered.
I will make the compensation order sought by the Crown. However, in the end it will be up to you to show that your supposed intention to repay Mr Mynard is more than just fine sounding words.
Your counsel submitted that all relevant sentencing purposes could be served by the imposition of an appropriately conditioned community correction order (CCO). The Crown agreed that a CCO with a significant punitive component was within range.
I have – somewhat reluctantly – come to accept that a CCO is within range. However, before I can impose a CCO, you need to consent to it. If you do not consent, the only adequate sentencing option available to me will involve a term of imprisonment.
The CCO I intend to impose will be of three years duration. I will explain the conditions that would be included in a CCO, so you can decide whether or not you consent. [Read out conditions from CCO].
If you breach the CCO by committing further offences, you can be charged and a sentence of imprisonment is one of the options that can be imposed for that breach. You can also be re-sentenced for the offence which is currently before me. That might include imposing a term of imprisonment. I will make an order that any breach by you of this CCO be brought back before me.
Do you consent to the imposition of a community correction order? [Yes].
If you had not pleaded guilty, I would have sentenced you to a term of imprisonment with a head sentence and non-parole period. Instead, I am convicting you and imposing, as an aggregate sentence, a CCO of three years duration.
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