Director of Public Prosecutions v Judd

[2018] VCC 2259

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

AT MELBOURNE
CRIMINAL JURISDICTION

CR 15-00602

DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROSECUTIONS

v

PAUL JUDD

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JUDGE:	HER HONOUR JUDGE GAYNOR
WHERE HELD:	Melbourne
DATE OF HEARING:
DATE OF SENTENCE:	17 December 2018
CASE MAY BE CITED AS:	DPP v Judd
MEDIUM NEUTRAL CITATION:	[2018] VCC 2259

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

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APPEARANCES:	Counsel	Solicitors
For the Director of Public Prosecutions	MR H. TIGHE
For the Accused	In person

1HER HONOUR:  Application has been made by Mr Judd to adjourn this hearing in order for him to change, as I understand it, his plea of guilty.  As I understand it, Mr Judd has informed the court that he was previously, whilst on remand, on a heavy dose of Seroquel which interfered with his thinking and that dose has been reduced in the last three months.  In that three months, as I understand it, his memory has recovered to the extent that he now recalls matters which had not been available to his recall since August 2014 when he was interviewed by police and conducted a no comment record of interview.

2The offending alleged against Mr Judd is said to have occurred in 2013 and 2014.  Mr Judd has been remanded in custody since December of last year.  The proceedings in this matter have been extremely protracted.  They have involved Mr Judd engaging the services of first Legal Aid, then Tait Lawyers, then Cameron Marshall.  A plea was conducted before me on 6 December 2018 in which all materials were put before this court.  Mr Judd himself entered a written plea of guilty to the charges before His Honour Judge Dean in September of 2017.

3The proceedings in front of Judge Chettle in December of 2017 ended when His Honour recused himself and subsequently Mr Judd made a complaint to the Judicial Commission.  My original understanding was that the Judicial Commission proceedings were still on foot but I have now obtained a copy of the correspondence forwarded to His Honour from the Judicial Commission whose investigations in that regard appear to have been completed and it is quite clear that the allegations made by Mr Judd against Judge Chettle were found not proven and indeed, the complaint was dismissed.

4Mr Judd also told me there were other matters relevant to IBAC inquiries, he having made telephone contact with IBAC last week which are also raised before the Judicial Commission, however in that correspondence there appears to be no indication of such communications which are in any event, in my view, irrelevant to the task before this court.

5There has been an attempt by Mr Judd on one occasion to change his plea to one of not guilty on a mental impairment defence basis, at which stage Legal Aid withdrew on a conflict of interest basis.  That change of plea was not pursued and as I have said, ultimately Mr Judd entered a written plea of guilty to the proceedings.

6I find that the application by Mr Judd is without merit.  I do not accept or see any evidence for his assertion that a lessening in his dose of Seroquel and what he said was a strong anti-depressant has led to a recovery of memory which would therefore form a proper basis for these matters to be adjourned right at the stage of sentencing so he can change his plea of guilty.  I see no reason why this sentencing should not be proceeded with today.  These have been long and protracted proceedings, as I have said.  Mr Judd has had the benefit of a number of counsel and a number of firms of solicitors in this matter, and as I have said, I find the application to be without merit and I therefore propose to proceed with the sentencing, a course with which I understand the prosecution to be in agreement with.  Thank you.  I will proceed with the sentence.

7Paul William Judd, you have pleaded before me as guilty, before me as follows.  On Indictment E12815202.2, to 41 charges of theft and on Indictment E12815202.3, to 12 charges of obtaining financial advantage by deception.  The extremely detailed prosecution summaries to the charges on each indictment are attached as exhibits to these sentencing remarks. 

8In short compass, in relation to the second indictment which I will refer to as .3, this essentially involved fraudulent steps taken by you to avoid paying rent owed by you on offices leased to house a business that you had established on 2 May 2013 called Worldwide Education and Migrant Consultants and Recruiting, hereinafter referred to as "WEM".

9The first offices were located at 21/101 Collins Street, Melbourne, you being allocated Suite 26 which you entered via a Servcore service agreement dated 3 May 2013 for a period of 12 months.  The first eight charges of obtaining financial advantage by deception relates to fraudulent activities in relation to that lease, which include providing false remittent advice as supposed proof of payment, emails falsely stating that you had made payments for outstanding amounts or transferred money to Servcore's account, providing a false document showing a transfer of monies to the Servcore account which were in fact transferred prior to their placement in that account, provision of a bank remittance disclosing the deposit of a cheque by you into Servcore's bank account which cheque was subsequently dishonoured, and making an arrangement whereby a NAB employee who was a friend of yours at your behest, sent you an email which you then forwarded to Servcore stating that a cheque to the value of $65,000 was ready for collection by you.  Eventually on 9 February 2014, you were locked out of these offices for failing to pay rent, the amount owing being $96,496.92. 

10You then on 21 February 2014 entered into an agreement with Melbourne Business Centre (MBC) for serviced offices at 9/440 Collins Street, Melbourne, being allocated office 44.  On 31 March you entered into a second agreement for more office space for which you were allocated office 43.  The last four charges on the indictment relate to fraudulent steps you took to avoid paying rent under those agreements.  You failed to meet payments for the services and facilities during the first three months which, in discussions and email exchanges, you said was due to problems that your bank, the Bendigo Bank, had with their transactions.

11On four occasions you provided MBC with Bendigo Bank cheques which were subsequently dishonoured, the Crown case being that you well knew there were insufficient funds in the account at the time that each of those cheques were provided by you to MBC.  In all, you only ever made a cash payment of $2,000 to MBC.

12You were arrested on 21 August 2014 and made a no comment record of interview.  The offence of obtaining financial advantage by deception carries a maximum penalty of ten years imprisonment.

13In relation to Indictment E12815202.2, the charges arose from your business WEM.  This was a business set up by you whereby your clients were primarily student visa holders, typically with about four months to run on their visa, who sought WEM services in order to apply for employer sponsored visas.  WEM advertised on the internet, the claim being made that this business was suitably placed with the migrant and recruitment industries to place prospective visa applicants with an employer commensurate with their skills and training that would provide sponsorship for a regional sponsored migration scheme or a 457 temporary work skilled visa, hereinafter referred to as "457".

14This sponsorship and employment opportunity is highly sought after, as successful sponsorship for a two or four year period results in the visa applicant receiving permanent residency within Australia, and once an applicant has received permanent residency, citizenship is automatic after a period of time.

15The applicants in these cases were in Australia on student or bridging visas, and as I have said, would typically have approximately four months left on their student or bridging visa before it expired.  If the applicant was in Australia when that visa expired they would then be deported.  It is the prosecution case that this category of visa holders were specifically sought by you as by the time the fraud was perpetrated upon them and discovered by them, details of which I will refer to, they would have been deported and unable to either lay a complaint or pursue civil proceedings against you.

16Whilst at no relevant time were you yourself a registered migration agent, you employed legitimate migration agents, administration staff, bookkeepers and an accountant.  You also engaged the services (on a contractual basis) of a recruitment agent to interview clients/applicants.  None of these persons employed or contracted by you were aware of the fraudulent nature of your activities.

17Again, in short compass, a potential applicant would complete a form regarding the type of migration assistance they required, and after an interview with your personal assistant and office manager would be introduced to you.  You would then review the paperwork supplied by the victim and would then sign a contract with WEM.  This contract required a payment of $20,000 in instalments for placing the applicant with a legitimate employer/sponsor who would agree to sponsor that applicant for an RSMS or a 457 visa.

18Once the initial fee of $3,000 was received, the applicant was sent to a recruiter, Mr Graham Winn, for interview and assessment, it not being known to Mr Winn or the applicant that the particular sponsor/employer was in fact not sponsoring applicants for RSMS or for 457 visas.  Mr Winn, after assessment would send you an email making comments on the applicant's suitability, invariably saying that that applicant was suitable for employment with a particular employer, some applicants undergoing multiple assessments with Mr Winn at your direction, which had the effect of using up valuable time left to the applicants on their student or bridging visa.

19About three or four weeks after the final assessment, you would contact the applicant and tell them they had been successful in the employment application process and had now to attend WEM to complete their application paperwork and sign a letter of offer or employment contract.  You would then meet with the applicant on many occasions and show them a fictitious employment contract, fictitious in the sense that whilst the employer existed, it did not sponsor applicants for RSMS or 457 visas.

20That employment contract or letter of offer would state the applicant had been successful and contained conditions of employment, salary expectations, et cetera, all devised by you to give authenticity to the sponsorship which in fact did not exist, and which had at no stage been arranged by you despite the payments of moneys by the applicant.

21The applicants were then asked to sign this contract as a result of which they believed their sponsorship or employment was assured, and that the RSMS or 457 visa would issue.  In fact, the jobs were fictitious in that the employers existed but knew nothing of the jobs purportedly obtained by you for the applicants.  As I have said, your staff were unaware of the fictitious nature of the sponsorship, you telling them you had obtained the sponsorship or employment through your personal friends and network of contacts, and you prohibited your staff from contacting potential employers.

22You also often advised applicants not to directly contact the sponsor employer and on a couple of occasions when the applicant did contact the employer and the pretence became known, you became very angry with them and blamed them for thwarting or jeopardising their sponsorship.  You would tell the applicant that the company that they contacted was in fact owned by another company and it was with this further company with which you had been negotiating sponsorship, which was a lie.

23On another occasion, a prospective employer who had been contacted by an applicant then contacted you and you said you had been the victim of a deception where someone was using your name and the company's reputation.  On other occasions, by the time of police interception, the process had not got to the stage of an applicant signing the fictitious employment contract, although those applicants had already paid their money.

24You would also advance reasons to the applicants and to your staff about why particular employment had not been secured or why there was a delay in the employment process which included excuses of industrial action, legal delay in getting paperwork completed, applicants not being suitably qualified and requiring further training, employers delaying in providing the contracts, and on occasion you would stage phone calls to potential employers or the Department of Immigration and Boarder Protection, employees making statements about occasions where, whilst you were doing this, a dial tone on the phone could be heard whilst you were pretending to speak.

25After one staged phone call to DIBP, you provided feedback to the applicant that the Department had made an error with their visa application but that the issue was now resolved due to your intervention.  The effect of these excuses again was to use up the remaining time on the applicants' student or bridging visas, and almost all of the 41 victims were in fact deported (bar two) who were still in the county at the time of your arrest and able to make victim impact statements.

26When applicants' current visas were close to expiration your consultants would make last minute applications on their behalf for a new student visa or a tourist visa so they could stay in Australia, and if the applicant chose a student visa, they had to enrol in an available certified educational course at their own expense.

27On occasion, you offered to make payment for these courses rather than provide refunds for the moneys paid to you, but there is no evidence that you ever made payments for those educational courses.  The 41 charges each represent the payment of moneys by an applicant to you in the belief that the applicant was to be sponsored by a legitimate employer, and it is the prosecution case that in each instance you dishonestly took money from them with the intention to permanently deprive.

28In some cases, applicants made multiple payments of varying amounts using electronic transfer and/or cash and so course of conduct charges have been laid pursuant to clause 48A8 of Schedule 1 of the Criminal Procedure Act 2009 in all but five cases; these being charges 25, 35, 36, 39 and 40.

29The applicants paid moneys over a ten month period from May 2013 to February 2014 and the total amount stolen was $238,750.  On 27 May 2014, a search warrant was executed at the previous offices of WEM at 101 Collins Street.  You were arrested on 21 August 2014, again making a no comment record of interview.  On 17 September 2014, a warrant was issued on the Bendigo Bank and all banking records and statements in relation to yourself and WEM were seized.

30The maximum penalty for theft is ten years imprisonment.  This matter has had a rather protracted course of proceedings.  You were charged with the offending on 8 August 2014 and on 13 November 2014 the matter was adjourned to 15 January 2015.  On 15 January of that year, there was a further committal mention and the case was adjourned for a three day committal hearing in April, but on the first day of that committal it proceeded by way of straight hand-up brief and was adjourned to 14 April 2015 for initial directions hearing at the County Court.

31On that date, the matter was further adjourned to 8 May 2015, on which date the matter was booked in for a six week trial to commence on 25 July 2016 with a further directions hearing on 18 September 2015 and a final directions hearing in May 2016.

32On 29 May 2015, there was an application to vary bail by consent.  On 18 September 2015, there was a further directions hearing at the County Court and the matter was listed for another directions hearing on 13 November 2015.  On 21 October 2015 there was a further application to vary bail, and on 13 November 2015, the matter was adjourned to 3 December 2015.  On that date, the matter was adjourned for a final directions hearing on 10 March 2016.

33On 15 February 2016, there was another application to vary bail conditions.  On 10 March 2016, the matter was adjourned to a final directions hearing on 15 April 2016, but then adjourned to 6 May for a final directions hearing and eventually the matter was adjourned to 18 July 2016, when a final directions hearing was conducted.

34On 17 August 2016, the matter was listed for a special mention and the trial date vacated and relisted for October 2016.  The matter was then further adjourned on your application to obtain copies of hard drives compiled by e-Crime which took some time to be forthcoming.  The trial was then listed for 2 October 2017 for six weeks, and in February 2017 the Office of Public Prosecutions was granted an extension of time.

35On 22 May 2017, a further application to vary bail was refused, and a Family Violence Intervention Order was sought and obtained by police on behalf of your wife.  On 5 July 2017, there were further proceedings in relation to the provision of data from e-Crime, the last of these being forwarded to Victoria Legal Aid on 25 July 2017.  You had in the interim self-admitted to a psychiatric facility and on 1 August 2017 at a mention the defence foreshadowed an application to adjourn the trial on medical grounds.  The matter was adjourned to 28 August 2017 when there was a defence offer to resolve both trial indictments.

36Plea indictments were filed on 6 September 2017 at which time Judge Dean of this court directed that you enter a written plea for each indictment.  The plea hearing began on 11 December 2017 before His Honour Judge Chettle.  A possible issue as to your fitness to plead and a change of plea had previously been raised but then set aside.  Various issues arose and ultimately Judge Chettle recused himself, remanding you in custody on that date where you have remained since.

37I now turn to your personal circumstances.  You are 66 years of age and were born in Adelaide, the youngest of three children.  An older sister died of breast cancer when she was 35.  Your father was a sales manager and had served in the Second World War in the Royal Australian Air Force.  Your childhood and adolescence were overshadowed by your mother's mental illness difficulties, in particular with depression for which she was regularly hospitalised.

38Your counsel told me that whilst you were not especially academically gifted, you were a superior sportsman who excelled in baseball in which you played and coached for many years, played competition pennant tennis and football at a senior level.  You left school at aged 18, first working with the ANZ Bank, being transferred on your request to the country town of Berry where you remained for two years.

39When you were 21 you married a woman who was described to me by your counsel as a member of a well-heeled Adelaide family; which marriage lasted seven years and of which two children, a daughter now aged 26 and a son 23, were born.  You bought a house but struggled to repay the mortgage.  There were moves interstate.  There was both financial stress and emotional difficulties with the moves, ultimately resulting the demise of that marriage.

40After working for the bank, you took up employment with the business Nipper Van Buren, a building maintenance and cleaning company.  At the age of 30 you moved to Melbourne where you were offered a job as a manager for MSS.  This was then bought out by another firm and you continued working on as national manager of maintenance of property services.  You married for a second time, which marriage lasted only a few months, and in the wake of that marriage's demise you became involved in the first of your two prior convictions for dishonesty offences, then placed on a six months community based order by the Melbourne Magistrates' Court on 15 January 1996.

41You were subsequently dealt with and gaoled in 1999 on 47 charges of  obtaining financial advantage by deception, obtaining property by deception, making a false document to the prejudice of others, using a copy of a false document and obtaining credit without disclosure of bankruptcy.

42A transcript of the plea in that matter was obtained and produced on this plea.  Your then counsel, Mr David Drake, described the offending for which you were dealt with in 1996 as arising from a motor vehicle purchased by your second wife via a bank loan for which you went guarantor.  She left you and went to live in Queensland.  The bank sought reimbursement of about $19,000 and you wrote a cheque knowing you had insufficient funds which was subsequently dishonoured.

43You left your employment and worked for Lendlease for seven years in their property management department.  You met your third wife in circumstances where you suffered a baseball injury and attended a hospital where she was a charge nurse and looked after you.  You became friends and then she moved into a house you were renting.  A relationship then developed and you subsequently married.      That marriage was ongoing until her unfortunate demise via suicide in 2017.  She apparently suffered from a number of conditions arising from early childhood sexual abuse at the hands of local clergy and suffered depression and anorexia and in the last stages of her life, made a number of suicide attempts.

44You were retrenched from Lendlease and worked for a small property business for seven years until you were gaoled, as I have said, in 1999.  Your counsel informed me that that you had been recruited into a Ponzi scheme by others and ultimately received only about $40,000 of the proceeds.  Examination of the transcript of those proceedings before His Honour Judge Pilgrim on 28 August 1999, revealed that the offending involved you obtaining funds from a female friend who had inherited about $250,000 from her mother.

45You married your third wife in 1993 but in 1995 you told the victim, Yvonne Reynolds, that you and your wife had separated.  You asked Ms Reynolds to lend you money to buy a business, then obtained moneys from her saying you could obtain a better interest rate for her than that she was currently receiving, then obtained further moneys for investment in what Ms Reynolds believed was a mining company and other moneys which you said you invested in a foreign exchange.  You promised high rates of return in a short period of time.

46You also sought to repay her via a cheque which was subsequently dishonoured.  You also obtained moneys from one Mr Withers for the fictitious purchase of a vacant block of land which was in fact not for sale.  Your dealings with Mr Withers also involved two occasions in which you gave him cheques which were subsequently dishonoured.

47In the third fraudulent undertaking, you obtained moneys from a baseball club of which you were president in order to pay some debts for the club, but which moneys were maintained for your own use, and again, there was an occasion when you gave that club a cheque which was ultimately dishonoured.

48Your next victim was a Mr Foulds who gave you money for investment on the foreign exchange, you offering a return of 20 to 22 percent on an investment over four weeks which you instead placed in your own account.  Again, you attempted to make repayment by way of dishonoured cheques.

49There were two other victims, David Buckthorp and Dan McConnen, both of whom gave you money which you were to invest on terms of high interest and quick turnover, but which moneys you kept and to both of whom you sought to make recompense by the use of cheques subsequently dishonoured.

50There are a number of charges relating to dishonoured cheques to various banks and fraudulent letters generated by you in order to assuage your then employer to the effect that charges against you of which the employer had become aware had been dropped by the Office of Public Prosecutions.

51In some of the cases you represented yourself to your victim as a successful businessman who had made large amounts of money as a result of successful investments by you, and on at least one occasion you displayed a false document purporting to show a deposit of more than $900,000 in a joint account held by yourself and your then wife.  The amounts involved in those fraudulent transactions amounted to more than $400,000. 

52You were sentenced to a term of imprisonment of four years with a minimum term of two years imprisonment and were released from gaol in late 2001.  You gained employment through people your counsel said were Chinese men you had met in gaol, one of whom set up a computer shop company, the IT Warehouse which eventually had 21 shops in Melbourne, Adelaide and the Gold Coast.

53You worked as the Victorian, Tasmanian and South Australian operations manager for that company which traded for three to four years until it failed, apparently due to competition from Apple.  In 2005, you worked for a man named Andre Ho who owned a shop in Elsternwick working as a store manager for three to four years.  This man also owned a law firm, Andre Legal, and you worked there as an IT consultant.  In that time the firm was raided by police and prosecuted for fraud, your former employer receiving a lengthy gaol sentence.

54Your counsel told me you appeared as a witness for the prosecution in the subsequent Supreme Court proceedings. You and your wife lived for some months in Cairns where she nursed your grandson who was ill and in 2010 you lived in Brisbane working as a practice manager for a legal firm where you worked for two and a half years.  You apparently faced charges relating to alleged fraudulent activities by you in that time, which are yet to be resolved.

55You then had what was described to me as a falling out with that boss and left that employment voluntarily.  You returned to Melbourne in 2012 working for a short time with a law firm in Mount Waverley, undertaking human resources and IT duties but your employer discovered your undisclosed criminal record and you were prosecuted administratively for failure to disclosure that record.

56It was at this point in early 2013 that you set up WEM, you having had at some stage done some work for a migration agent.  It was your instructions that this firm was initially set up on a legitimate basis but the high associated cost, primarily relating to the legitimate staff you employed and expensive office premises, led you to resort to dishonesty in order to keep this business afloat.  Your counsel told me you have for some years suffered from depression and anxiety and sought to tender a psychological report from your then treating psychologist, Amanda Wallace upon whom you attended throughout 2017.

57The prosecution objected to the reception of that report, with which submission I eventually agreed.  Although a psychologist, Ms Wallace purported to diagnose you as suffering from schizophrenia which she was not qualified to do.  I read the report which primarily referred to treatment sessions with you, and some unsuccessful marital counselling conducted by her with yourself and your wife.  It made only passing reference to your offending and in the circumstances, I formed the view it was not relevant to the sentencing exercise before me.  A psychological report obtained from Mr David Ball was not tendered, your counsel informing me it was unhelpful.

58You have suffered from chronic diverticulitis for many years and have undergone two resection surgeries.   You are currently being treated in gaol for infection and you hold some fears about the progress of this disease, you now having reached stage where the only treatment remaining to you would result in you being required to use a colostomy bag.  You also suffer from Barrett's disease whereby reflux has destroyed part of the oesophagus resulting in difficulty and pain when swallowing.  You have been recently diagnosed with glaucoma in both eyes, are on some medication for this, and are booked in for treatment at the Eye and Ear Hospital.

59Whilst in custody, you have been held at the Ravenhall Correction Centre where you now work as a peer listener and I received documentation attesting to the course you have undergone in that regard.  I also received a letter from Emily Butterworth, re-integration officer at Ravenhall describing you as pro-active and motivated in your role as a peer listener.  You have also undertaken two certificate courses in community services, managing emotions program, a traffic control program, a participation in workplace safety, arrangements program, a health balance program and a program in healthy thinking.

60Your counsel also referred to two extra references which were not available for submission on the plea, they being references from Mind Australia and Swinburne University where you have volunteered as a peer assistant to survivors of sexual abuse as a result of own experiences in assisting your wife with her difficulties.

61A letter from Gabriel Rankin dated 26 October 2017 noted that you had been attending upon the Salvation Army Community Support Service since January 2016, in which time you successfully completed the positive lifestyle program, a ten week self-awareness course.  It was noted in that letter that you had a strong commitment to volunteering, and that you had been assisting the Salvation Army during its Christmas Cheer program.

62Your counsel also tendered a letter from you addressed to the court in which you expressed remorse for your offending and said you had decided whilst in gaol to turn your attention to helping other vulnerable prisoners.  I accept that you have used your time in gaol profitably. 

63Despite what appeared to have been evident difficulties in your marriage in 2017, you were nevertheless involved in a relationship with your wife for about 26 years and her death by suicide is a matter which I accept is of considerable grief to you, it having occurred whilst you were in custody, and your counsel told me that your grief is compounded by your own feelings of remorse and guilt in relation to your offending resulting in your inability to be available to support her.  Due to your incarceration you have been unable to arrange for a ceremony to bury her ashes. 

64I accept that your plea of guilty, although not made at an early stage, is deserving of utilitarian benefit.  I accept that you suffer various physical ailments which undoubtedly make your time in gaol more difficult, and as I have said, that you have used your time in custody profitably.  However, as the prosecution correctly pointed out, this was serious offending with vulnerable people, desperate to remain in Australia, who were remorselessly targeted by you, that fraudulent activity aggravated by a high degree of planning and sophistication.  It came to an end only because of police intervention.  You also determinedly avoided your rental obligations under the leases that you held in relation to two properties.

65The prosecution are unable to point to any evidence of enrichment as a result of your offending and your counsel informed me that much of your ill-gotten gains were expended on the expenses surrounding that business.  Notwithstanding the mitigatory matters that I have outlined, it is clear that only a term of imprisonment (and I note that neither the prosecution nor defence resiled from this course) is an appropriate response to your offending.

66I do not regard your prospects of rehabilitation as particularly positive.  You have previously been gaoled for a lengthy period for fraudulent offending, again involving vulnerable victims and very large amounts of money.  Equally seriously, on this occasion you set yourself up as a service which those applying to might all too readily believe was legitimate and which they were entitled to believe was legitimate.

67The ease with which you duped these 41 people who were entitled to believe the migration service you provided was lawful, speaks both to their desperation and vulnerability and your own heedless exploitation of it.  I refer here to the two victim impact statements, the first being from one Harish Barbu Raui.  He said that emotionally:

"After all his lies and promises I am stuck with words to explain the effect that has shown on my life.  There was a point where Mr Judd looked into my eyes and said, 'I am telling you the truth', we will lodge your permanent visa by tomorrow'".

68As a result of your offending against him, this complainant fell into depression and anxiety for which he was treated for six months and was on medication for more than a year.  He said that your actions had robbed him of confidence and any ability to see his life as happy and successful.  Financially he had to move from Tasmania to Melbourne on your advice, as he said, "for a good acquaintance between us and with my visa proceedings".  This involved moving expenses, moneys to you, the interest and loss of pay.  He said, "I had a full time job in Tasmania.  Could not find work for three months in Melbourne and eventually I had to settle down for a part time job".

69He said, "I have had to skip a meal at least one meal a day for many months to save money to pay for my next immigration agent".  He said he had still not recovered financially as a result of the deception you practised upon him.

70I then turn to the second victim impact statement of Mr Sundara Krisna Pichalou who stated that the effect upon him was that he was forced to seek credit and loans from his bank.  He said he was still struggling to pay his bills back.  He said in the last two years he had - and this victim impact statement, I think, was made in October 2017 - he had experienced severe financial hardship.  The $6,000 he lost was huge money to him, particularly in his country's currency.  He said it directly affected his physical health and wellbeing.  He said, "This scam was a devastating incident in my life".  He said it affected the relationship with his family and his workplace.

71He said he was desperate to get his money back, had trouble letting it go, and generally was struggling to pay the interest which was due monthly on the monies he had borrowed as a result of this scam.  He said, "It is quite hard for me to gain decent work in Australia.  Income earning is now very tight to meet my monthly bills.  I am not going to give up until I recover money from him".

72Your dealings with your landlords displayed, yet again, your willingness to take evasive action via the use of cheques subsequently dishonoured in order to avoid your financial obligations.  These are matters of real public concern.  I consider general deterrence to be an overwhelming principle that I must have regard in the sentencing exercise before me.

73In my view specific deterrence also remains live, as does the principle of protection of the community.  You repeated your criminal activities over and over again, and the lack of regard you showed to your victims, notwithstanding severe punishment you received for alarmingly similar offending in the late 1990s, leads me to conclude that any sentence of imprisonment I impose must be severe.

74Could you stand up, please, sir.  In relation to Indictment No.E12815202.2 on Charge 1, you are sentenced to four months' imprisonment; on Charge 2, six months' imprisonment; on Charge 3, four months' imprisonment; Charge 4, six months' imprisonment; Charge 5, 12 months' imprisonment; Charge 6, six months' imprisonment; Charge 7, six months' imprisonment; Charge 8, four months' imprisonment; Charge 9, 12 months' imprisonment; Charges 10, 11, 12, 13 and 14, six months' imprisonment on each; Charge 15, four months' imprisonment; Charges 16, 17, 18 and 19, six months' imprisonment; Charge 20, four months' imprisonment; Charges 21, 22, 23 and 24, six months' imprisonment; Charge 25, three months' imprisonment; Charge 26, four months' imprisonment; Charges 27, 28, 29, six months; Charges 30 and 31, four months' imprisonment; Charges 32 and 33, six months' imprisonment each.  These are sentences on each charge, just to make that clear.

75Charge 34, four months' imprisonment; Charge 35, one month imprisonment; Charge 36, three months' imprisonment; Charges 37 and 38, four months' imprisonment; Charges 39 and 40, three imprisonment; Charge 41, six months' imprisonment.

76The base sentence is the sentence imposed on Charge 5, which is 12 months' imprisonment.  I order that six months of the sentence imposed on Charge 9 and one month on each of the remaining charges be served cumulatively to Charge 5 and to each other, giving a total effective sentence of 57 months.

77On Indictment E12815202.3, you are sentenced to four months on each of those charges.  The base sentence is the sentence imposed on Charge 1, four months' imprisonment.  I order that one month on each remaining charge be served cumulatively to the sentenced imposed on Charge 1 and to each other, giving a total effective sentence of 15 months.

78I order that the sentence imposed on Indictment 12815202.3 be served cumulatively to the sentence imposed on Indictment E12815202.2.  This gives a total effective sentence of 72 months or six years and I order that you serve a minimum term of four years. 

79Pursuant to s.6AAA I declare that had you not pleaded guilty, I would have sentenced you to a term of imprisonment of seven years and ordered that you serve a minimum term of five years.

80You may have a seat, sir.   What is the PSD?

81MR TIGHE:  Yes.  The PSD is 371 days.

82HER HONOUR:  I declare that 371 days of this sentence have already been served by way of presentence detention.  Is there anything further that I need to attend to?

83MR TIGHE:  Your Honour, just as a precaution.  They were course of conduct charges.

84HER HONOUR:  Yes.

85MR TIGHE:  Your Honour found that they were course of conduct charges.

86HER HONOUR:  I found that they were course of conduct charges except in the five charges that I have referred to.

87MR TIGHE:  Yes.  Thank you, Your Honour.

88HER HONOUR:  Is that it?

89MR TIGHE:  That is it.

90HER HONOUR:  Thank you very much.

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