Director of Public Prosecutions v King
[2023] VCC 1450
•17 August 2023
| IN THE COUNTY COURT OF VICTORIA AT MELBOURNE CRIMINAL DIVISION | Revised Not Restricted Suitable for Publication |
CR 23-00032
| DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROSECUTIONS |
| v |
| MATTHEW KING |
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JUDGE: | HIS HONOUR JUDGE MULLALY | |
WHERE HELD: | Melbourne | |
DATE OF HEARING: | 4 July 2023 and 16 August 2023 | |
DATE OF SENTENCE: | 17 August 2023 | |
CASE MAY BE CITED AS: | DPP v King | |
MEDIUM NEUTRAL CITATION: | [2023] VCC 1450 | |
REASONS FOR SENTENCE
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Subject: CRIMINAL LAW – Sentence
Catchwords: Contravene Prohibition Order – Involve Child in Production of Child Abuse Material – Grooming for Sexual Conduct with a Child under the Age of 16 – Fail to Comply with Reporting Obligations – Possession of a Drug of Dependence – Threaten to Distribute Intimate Image of Person – Recidivism – Proportionality – Protection of the Community – Intellectual Disability.
Cases Cited:DPP v King (County Court of Victoria, Dawes J, 7 July 2020); Taylor v The Queen [2019] VSCA 162; 59 VR 163; Veen v The Queen (No 2) [1988] HCA 14; 164 CLR 465; Muldrock v The Queen (2011) 244 CLR 120.
Sentence:Total effective sentence of 4 years and 9 months with a minimum non-parole period of 3 years.
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APPEARANCES: | Counsel | Solicitors |
| For the Director of Public Prosecutions | Ms H. Baxter | Office of Public Prosecutions |
| For the Accused | Ms H. Anderson | James Valos |
HIS HONOUR:
1Matthew King, you have pleaded guilty to the following seven charges:
- Two charges of contravening a prohibition order made pursuant to the Sex Offenders Registration Act;
- One charge of involving a child in the production of child abuse material;
- One charge of grooming a child for sexual conduct (those last two offences are breaches of the Crimes Act);
- A further one charge of failing to comply with reporting obligations pursuant to the Sex Offenders Registration Act;
- A charge of possession of cannabis; and
- A summary offence of threatening to distribute intimate images.
2The maximum term for breach of Sex Offenders Act - Sex Offenders Registration Act for those offences is five years. The Crimes Act matters, the maximum term is 10 years for the possession of drugs it is a fine, the maximum term for summary offence is one year.
3They are significant maximum terms and in particular for the Crimes Act offences. It expresses Parliament's and the community's abhorrence of sexual offences involving children.
4The facts and circumstances of your offending were set out in the prosecution opening tendered on the plea.
5At the time of the offending, you were 29. You have now turned 30. The victim was a 12-year-old child.
6For reasons I will outline the reference to your dreadful history of prior similar sex offending. You were the subject of registration on the Sex Offenders Register and also subject to a further prohibition imposed by an order of the Magistrates' Court of Geelong in August 2021. To be precise on 5 August 2021, a final sex offender prohibition order was made by a magistrate, prohibiting the following conduct for a period of five years:
(a), the use of the internet to access any social media communication or messenger applications, including but not limited to Snapchat; and
(b), contact or communication with any person under the age of 18 years of age, that is not related to him, whether in person or via telecommunications or online means.
7In defiance of both aspects of that order, you established a Snapchat account and added or connected to the victim. This occurred in July 2022. The communication with the victim directly in which she told you progressively that she was 16 years old, then 15, then 14, and then 13. She was in fact, 12. Very quickly, almost immediately, you turned the conversations with her to sexual matters. It was really your only focus.
8The victim was a particularly vulnerable child with oversight from DHHS. She lived with her grandmother and had support from a social worker. You falsely told the victim that you were a 16-year-old boy. Your first request of her was to send you an image of her naked breast. She complied. You escalated your conduct by asking for a video of her masturbating. The victim sent a short video of her in the bath masturbating.
9These dreadful requests were charged as a rolled-up count of involving a child in the production of child abuse material. There was a further component of this charge which I will mention shortly.
10After receiving the video, you sent her a short video of you masturbating, again this is utterly depraved conduct. You then quickly raised with her and made plans to meet her in a park, for the purposes of having sex with her. You said you would bring a condom. You made these plans knowing she was a child. Although the meeting never occurred because the victim went to the police, this was a serious aspect of your grooming conduct.
11In your communications with the victim, you then quickly made arrangements for a vibrator to be purchased and delivered to the victim. You used your credit card to buy this adult sex toy and had it delivered to her neighbour's address so as her grandmother would not be alerted to what you were doing.
12Again, this is seriously deviant grooming behaviour. To further groom her, you arranged for a meal from McDonald's to be delivered to her to, and I quote your words, 'spoil her' after she had sent explicit images to you.
13In the most concerning elevation of your offending, you then encouraged and assisted her to set up an OnlyFans account. This is an adult content internet sharing platform, with paid subscription. She set up the account using your credit card details - the credit card details that you supplied. She uploaded a sexually provocative image, but during this whole process she began to get nervous and blocked your Snapchat account.
14I pause to say that the prosecution confirmed that an OnlyFans account was an open access type account to any paying subscriber. To that point you and she had used Snapchat in which images and videos do disappear unless screenshots are taken. Thus, by moving to having the victim establish an OnlyFans account, you were significantly advancing the possibility of distribution of the child abuse material that you were involving her in. This was the other aspect of the rolled-up charge of involving a child in producing child abuse material.
15To return to the point of the victim becoming scared and blocking your account. You responded to her blocking you by using another Snapchat account which you purported to be your brother. In those messages, you threatened to distribute the explicit images she had sent, and you also said that you were related to bikies who would come to her home within the hour. This type of threat to a 12-year-old child, is utterly despicable.
16The victim was understandably very frightened and she called social worker who listened to your call. The police were called and her grandmother notified. The police investigation of your credit card, used to buy the vibrator, the OnlyFans account and the McDonald's meal, led to you being arrested on 22 July 2022.
17The police found, yet again, a small amount of cannabis in your house. You also had hidden away a phone. I should add that some six weeks before this offending, the police who supervised your sex offender’s registration, attended your house. That is on 24 May 2022, the police found a YouTube premium application on your phone. You were arrested and interviewed and charged on summons. This became Charge 1 on the indictment.
18In the interview there were questions where you agreed that you could not have accounts which facilitated communications such as Facebook or Snapchat, that is you said as much on 24 May 2022. In other words, you were in effect warned about not having Snapchat accounts or communicating with young children, or those under 18, just six weeks before this offending. You were at the time charged with those offences, of not complying with your prohibition order, all which was made clear to you during this interview. That is specifically, you are not to communicate with a child under the age of 18, or communicate over the internet by social media platforms. As I say, this became Charge 1 on the indictment.
19In your record of interview for the later offences involving the 12-year-old victim, you made false denials or minimised your offences and alleged the victim sent images to you unsolicited.
20The gravity of your offences is self-evident. You, in a depraved way, exploited a vulnerable child. You pressured her, groomed her, arranged for a physical meetup for sex, set up a subscriber internet account, so you could involve her in production of child abuse material that others could see. You then threatened this child in a frightening way, saying that bikies were coming to her house and that you would distribute explicit images if she blocked your messages.
21The judgments of our appellate courts have been clear, that using the internet to contact, groom and broadly sexually abuse a child, must be met with stern punishment, that articulates the community's utter abhorrence of this social evil, and also imposes in very practical terms, lengthy terms of imprisonment, so as to deter others from exploiting children, using social media applications.
22As I will make clear these concepts were articulated to you directly in your first County Court plea for these types of offences. Judge Dawes of this court said the following to you in her reasons for sentence in July 2020.
Offences such as grooming are becoming more prevalent in our community, as the internet facilitates anonymous communications between offenders and children. There is a paramount public interest in protecting children from this type of conduct which is often hard to detect. There is a presumption of harm where children are the victims of sexual offences.[1]
[1]DPP v King (County Court of Victoria, Dawes J, 7 July 2020) 17.
23In my words, these crimes are what parents and guardians and the community fear. Children necessarily and increasingly engage in the use of social media, is how young friends communicate and socialise, it is how people meet. Such interactions are by and large positive, but it is a very short step for deviants like you to exploit those methods of communication to engage in damaging sexually abusive and exploitative incidents with children. That is why recidivous sex offenders like you are prohibited by orders of the courts from having access to these social media platforms, or in your case the bans on communicating with children in any form, or in any circumstance.
24You, of course and not for the first time, blatantly disobeyed these restrictions and quickly moved into internet communications to sexually abuse this victim. Your explanation that you were bored and wanted a girlfriend does not do anything but reinforce that you are a danger to the community or readily turns to exploitation despite prohibitions. On any measure your offending is especially serious. Harm of some degree is evident from the evidence that the victim was frightened, but it is to be presumed that further harm is likely.
25Sexual abuse is often felt later, deeply and enduringly. Your offending, although over a one-to-two-day period in that period of time, quickly escalated from seeking images to direct and explicit videos of her genitalia, to planning a physical meet up to have sex. As mentioned, the establishment of the OnlyFans application was a further escalation in a child abuse spectrum.
26I have referred to the fact that you are a recidivous sex offender. This fact impacts on your level of moral culpability, the need for deterrence to you and the need for protection of the community, especially children from you.
27As noted, you were 29, now 30 years old. Your first lot of offences in the adult courts were for dishonesty and driving offences committed in your late teens or early 20’s. You received fines and then a Community Corrections Order which was breached. Those breaches, and a later offence of threatening to kill led to your first sentence of imprisonment in June of 2020.
28
On 7 July 2020, you were dealt with for your first sex offence. The offences were using a carriage service to groom a child under 16 between the fourth and
27 July 2019; using a carriage service to transmit indecent communications to a child on 4 July 2019; and drug offences of cultivation and possession of cannabis.
29
The offences of grooming were when you used Snapchat and then direct texting to engage in sexualised grooming of who you thought was a 14-year-old girl, it was in fact an undercover police operative. Your communication was intermittent over that period. It was sexually explicit. You sent an image of your penis on
4 July 2019. You were charged and remanded on 16 January 2020. Your plea was done swiftly and you were sentenced by Her Honour Judge Dawes on
7 July 2020. You had spent five months in custody by the time of your sentencing. It was during the height of the restrictions in the prisons due to the COVID pandemic. Thus, prison life was more onerous.
30The sex offences were Commonwealth offences. Accordingly, Her Honour sentenced you to six months' imprisonment and ordered you be released after five months on a reconnaissance release for a period of 18 months. You had done almost five months on remand to that point. You were released with a condition to be of good behaviour; to be under the supervision of the Community Corrections Services sex offender’s manager; and you were to undertake and complete the sex offender’s program within the period of 18 months. The drug offences were dealt with by an adjourned undertaking.
31I have read the careful reasons for sentence, which outlined why the lenient sentence imposed was justified. Following this merciful sentence, you were released in July 2021, but quickly, that is, by 6 July 2021, you were advised and reviewed regarding your sex offender registration obligations by your police monitor. This police officer was then made aware of offending behaviour in August of 2020. His investigations revealed sexually explicit communications with a child in fact commenced on 23 July 2020. There were other sexual messages on your phone to other children. Most of the victims were vulnerable children in the care of DHHS.
32You were remanded in custody on 10 September 2020. Ultimately, a large number of offences of breaching the Sex Offenders Act were proceeded with by way of plea on 28 January 2021 in the Magistrates' Court. The magistrate imposed 140 days in prison, being the time that you had served on remand. Thus, you were released in January 2021.
33Again, you almost immediately commenced to reoffend in the same like manner. Between the 17th and 21 February 2021, you again breached your Sex Offenders Registration Act obligations and used Snapchat to communicate in a sexually explicit way with who you believed was a 15-year-old child. It was in fact again, an undercover police officer.
34
On 22 March 2021, you used your Snapchat to contact one of the victims or children, that was involved in your 2020 offending. You were arrested on
2 April 2021 and remanded. The plea was done almost immediately on 6 April 2021. You were sentenced to a total effective term of three months' imprisonment for using the carriage service to transmit indecent communications and the sex offender registration breaches. Again, you had cannabis when the police searched.
35You were released on 16 August 2021. In December 2021 you were brought back before Judge Dawes for breaching the reconnaissance release. Her Honour detailed all the offending that had occurred following her sentence. I am grateful to Her Honour, as I have relied on her reasons for sentence upon the breach for this chronology. Her Honour considered that in light of your high risk of offending, it was important a treatment program be made available. There had been no opportunity to engage with you from your release in July 2020, as you had so regularly reoffended and quickly reoffended and been placed back in remand.
36Her Honour’s order was to extend the reconnaissance release for a further 18 months. This offending of course further breaches that order. Her Honour noted that in August 2021, there was the prohibition that I have referred to, banning all social media and all communication with children. Her Honour hoped that would have the desired effect, it plainly did not.
37As I have said your prior history is highly relevant to my sentencing task. As was simply put by the Court of Appeal in the matter of Taylor v The Queen [2019] and they were then dealing with a recidivous fraudster. The court said,
The applicant, it seems, has learned little from the sentences imposed upon him for past transgressions. Of course, he is not to be punished again for his past crimes, but the fact that he has not responded to previous sanctions bears directly on his moral culpability for the instant offending, his prospects of rehabilitation and the danger his recidivist tendencies present to the community, all of which emphasise the need for a sentence influenced by a significant measure of specific deterrence. The applicant needed to be punished and the community protected.[2]
[2]Taylor v The Queen [2019] VSCA 162; 59 VR 163, [141].
38There are many other statements with principle regarding sentencing recidivists. Importantly the High Court in Veen v The Queen (No 2),[3] made it clear that a sentence must always remain proportionate to the crimes committed by the particular offender and the sentence is not to become in effect, preventative detention, because of the danger an offender - or the danger of an offender arising from the obvious and dangerous tendencies exposed by the recidivism.
[3]Veen v The Queen (No 2) [1988] HCA 14; 164 CLR 465.
39On the topic of proportionality, in this case you will be a serious offender for Charge 4, I can impose a disproportionate sentence in order to protect the community. The prosecution made no such submission. I will not impose a disproportionate sentence on that charge.
40However, protection of the community for Charge 4 must be the primary sentencing consideration. As I have made clear, or if I have not, I make it clear now, protection of the community is a sentencing purpose that looms large for all the offences. There are other aspects of this sentencing purpose of community protection, that arise from aspects of your personal circumstances – in particular, your low intellect and the need for targeted treatment. I will move to those matters in discussing your personal circumstances.
41As mentioned, you are now 30. You are one of six children. You remain close to your mother and two of your brothers. You went to local schools and had teacher's aids. I was told yesterday that you did go to a specialist school in post-primary school.
42You instruct that you had a diagnosis of ADHD and medicated for a time while a child. You have difficulty in reading and comprehension. You were not diagnosed with an intellectual disability in childhood thus a justice plan is not an option, although your counsel urged that a justice plan be part of a combined sentence of imprisonment and a Community Corrections Order.
43Your level of intellect was addressed by Ms Lechner in her medico-legal psychological reports provided to Judge Dawes. In that report, the earlier report of 21 April 2020, which was again tendered on this plea as well. Ms Lechner points out that you were tested on only the verbal sub-tests of the Wechsler Abbreviated Scale of Intelligence. She went on to explain this limited test, or with this limited test, your results were displayed extremely low or mild intellectual disability, with deficits in all domains.
44
As Ms Lechner described you in this way, you impressed as cognitively socially and emotionally immature with limited capacity for reflective and consequential thinking. Ms Lechner emphasised appropriate treatment on the basis that in her view at that time you were a low to moderate risk of reoffending. Understandably, Ms Lechner who saw you again for these offences, in her later report of
15 May 2023, acknowledged that your risk of reoffending was now high. She did not retest you or apply the full IQ testing, but rather referred back to her earlier report. Again, Ms Lechner repeated the words that she'd used in the earlier report as follows:
Mr King, against impressed as cognitively socially and emotionally immature with limited capacity for reflective and consequential thinking.[4]
[4] Psychological Report of Carla Lechner dated 25 May 2023, tendered on the Plea, [3].
45She also repeated the general point that you had a cannabis addiction or dependency and ‘a mild intellectual disability with attentive psychosocial immaturity’.[5] Ms Lechner was concerned about your admission to her in the later assessment that you had, ‘liked young bodies’ and were aroused by the fact that the victim carried out your sexual requests. She wrote of this in her summary and opinion at paragraph 4 in the following terms:
In respect of his offending, Mr King stated he was looking for a relationship online, although his contact with the complainant quickly became sexualised even though he was aware of her young age. He stated that he knew he would be in trouble with the police, but carried on regardless. Mr King stated that he was aroused by the fact that the complainant would carry out his requests (something he had seen on pornography sites). He also admitted that he likes 'young bodies', this raising the possibility of deviant hebephilia sexual interest. In light of this admission and the repetitive nature of his offending, Mr King is now considered a high risk of sexual reoffending and requires a high level of intervention that addresses his sexual offending as well as his psychosocial immaturity.[6]
[5] Ibid, page 6.
[6] Ibid, [4].
46Your counsel's submission was that your intellectual disability was relevant to the assessment of your moral culpability and what weight should be given to general deterrence and how onerous prison might be for you. In the High Court decision in Muldrock,[7] it made clear that an intellectual disability is always relevant to sentencing. In that case, the expert evidence comprehensively established the accused's mild intellectual disability's full-scale IQ of 62. Organic causes at birth were considered the likely cause.
[7]Muldrock v The Queen (2011) 244 CLR 120.
47The accused had been assessed in that matter for his fitness to be tried and it was found on balance, that he did have capacity. The point is that a mild, but debilitating intellectual disability was well established and was in that case seen as having causal connection to the offending. Unfortunately, in this case, as we conceded by your counsel, the evidence as to your intellectual disability is less than complete. However, I am not going to get bogged down in fine diagnostic labels.
48You have a low intellect. It is a disability. You are eligible for NDIS assistance. You went to a special school and you had teacher's aids. You find it difficult to comprehend. I will deal with you, or deal with the evidence as establishing mild intellectual disability, but the causal connections are more stretched in this case, than in others where the intellectual disability is more pronounced. That said, Muldrock in the judgment at paragraphs 54 and 55 said the following:
A question will often arise as to causal relation if any between the offender's mental illness and the commission of the offence. Such a question is less likely to arise in sentencing a mentally retarded offender, because the lack of capacity to reason as an ordinary person might, as the wrongfulness of the conduct will in most cases substantially lessen the offender's moral culpability for the offence. The retributed effect and the denunciatory aspect of the sentence that is appropriate to a person of ordinary capacity, will often be inappropriate to the situation of a mentally retarded offender and to the needs of the community.[8]
[8] Ibid, [54]-[55].
49The court went onto say that the same applied with respect to general deterrence.
50In the end, I have to sentence you as you are, someone with a significantly low intelligence, who is now eligible for NDIS assistance, who has less capacity to think things through and is socially immature. This remains the case, even though you have been told and punished time and again for your sexual contact with children and your breaches of prohibitions or restrictions and Sex Offenders Registration Act conditions.
51I will not visit on you, the full weight of what is plainly in the ordinary situation a very high level of moral culpability, or visit upon you the heavy weight of general deterrence. However, on the other side of the equation, your personal attributes such as your mild intellectual disability and what Ms Lechner now considers is the concerning evidence of attraction to pubescent children, which she described as deviant hebephilia, means that weight needs to be given to the protection of the community because, at the very least, your intellectual disability will be enduring. It is hoped treatment will assist with your sexual deviancy. I agree with the assessment that you are a high risk of reoffending in like manner or worse in the future.
52Your counsel urged that you be put on a Community Corrections Order, that included treatment, hopefully from an expert in the field of intellectually disabled sex offenders. That specialist is Ms Cathy Leigh-Smith. I have had considerable experience of her fine work with intellectually disabled sex offenders, but that is within the post-offence supervision regime or the Crimes (Mental Impairment and Unfitness to be Tried) Act supervision regime. A connection to a specialist psychologist, such as Ms Leigh-Smith, for long term treatment would be beneficial. I was told by your counsel that efforts were made between a plea and the last two days to see if there was any potential from Ms Leigh-Smith to assess you, but she had no capacity.
53It seemed to be put though, that there were some failures from Corrections to get you involved in treatment as Judge Dawes had directed. The cause of the inability of treatment programs to begin, is in my view, simply that you continue to reoffend so quickly after release. In my view, treatment in custody prior to release or under strict supervision immediately on release from prison would be best, but that of course is for other authorities, not the court.
54I say this because the sentence urged by your counsel of the Community Corrections Order, was not, in my view, although powerfully put by her, was not within range. It would in my view dilute punishment, denunciation, general deterrence and protection of the community too much. You have spent time on remand being 691 days. However, even with the capacity to add up to 12 months more, in my view the sentencing purposes would not be adequately met. I say that taking into account your plea of guilty in these times when the impact of the pandemic still affects the court listings. So the benefit to you is more than would have been the case.
55You have relieved a child of being a witness in embarrassing circumstances. You have been in prison a number of times and you have been as a consequence of your offending, as I understand it, like many others in the system a protection prison. You have access to facilities that are available generally to protection prisoners.
56Ms Lechner said, that you are at risk of being stood over. No actual evidence of this risk materialising at any point in the multiple times that you had been in custody save, that following the last hearing as a consequence of press reports, you were subject to abuse in the prison and have moved cells or within the prison, and you have had to seek out psychological support. I take that information into the equation.
57But in the end, amelioration of sentence because of the risks in prison, or that prison will be more onerous to you are moderate.
58You have multiple charges over separate dates and I must ensure that the principles of totality are applied. I also note that Charge 3 is a rolled-up charge and Charge 4 is over a period of time of multiple incidents. However, once you are a serious offender for Charge 4, there must be cumulation unless I otherwise order, or there must be cumulation for Charge 4. The issue is probably simplified because I consider that charge, Charge 4, as the most serious, and it will be the base sentence upon which other sentences to be considered for cumulation or concurrency.
59
I have, after considering such orders, stepped back and ensured that the overall sentence is proportionate and it meets the total offending, that is the total offences that were committed by you as the offender. I have also relooked at the sentences, that is those for breaching offences, to ensure that there is no double punishment with the events making up the Crimes Act offences of grooming and child
abuse - involving a child in child abuse - production of child abuse material.
60In coming to the sentence, I have taken into account all that was carefully put on your behalf: the reports, the NDIS involvement, your risk, your supports and the need for intensive treatment into the future. I have hopefully made clear that I have given proper and measured weight to the deep concern the community has when vulnerable children are sexually abused over the internet by sexually perverted offenders. There must be punishment and deterrence suitably moderated in your case and protection of the community.
61Your rehabilitation is not overlooked, but it must yield to other sentencing purposes. I will allow for a potential period of parole, so, if it is determined appropriate by others, you will be supervised in the community on release whenever that may be. The minimum term is what in my view justice requires you to serve in custody.
62I impose the following sentences:
63Charge 1, of contravention of the prohibition order, you are sentenced to one month imprisonment.
64Charge 2, again a contravention of the prohibition order, you are sentenced to six months' imprisonment.
65On Charge 3, involving a child in the production of child abuse material, you are sentenced to two years and six months' imprisonment.
66Charge 4, grooming for sexual conduct of a child under the age of 16, you are sentenced to three years and six months' imprisonment.
67Charge 5, breach of the Sex Offenders Registration Act, you are sentenced to two months' imprisonment.
68Charge 6, the possession of cannabis, you are convicted and fined $400.
69The summary offence, of threat to distribute intimate images, you are sentenced to three months' imprisonment.
70The orders of cumulation are as follows.
71
One year of Charge 3; two months of Charge 2; and one month of the summary offence are cumulative upon each other and upon the - all cumulative on
Charge 4.
72If my maths is right, that gives a total effective sentence of four years and nine months' and I fix a minimum non-parole period of three years.
73I have calculated hopefully accurately the time you have spent in custody thus far at 391 days. This figure having been reckoned I will now declare it is part of the sentence I have just imposed. I will ensure that this declaration is entered into the records of the courts do the prison authorities are left in no doubt that you have already served 391 days of the sentence I have imposed.
74Had you pleaded not guilty to these offences and been found guilty; I would have imposed a sentence of six years with a minimum of four years.
75There are orders that I need, or declarations that I need to make. In respect of Charge 4, I declare that you are a serious offender, a serious sex offender and that declaration will be entered into the records of the court.
76With respect to the sex offenders register, Charges 3 and 4, these are registrable offences and as a consequence of those offences you must register on the sex offenders register for a period being life. You are already required to be registered for life, but it is a requirement under these offences as well.
77There's a forfeiture that I'm to sign which relates to cannabis and the mobile phones, that'll be signed. Is there any other orders?
78MS BAXTER: No, Your Honour.
79HIS HONOUR: Thank you. Ms Anderson, the sex offenders register oddly says that I have to tell him that he's placed on the register and I do so by giving him a document. So, I've got to sign that I give him the document and he's got to sign that he's got the document.
80MS ANDERSON: Yes.
81HIS HONOUR: But it's not those facts that are critical it's the content of them which is the responsibilities and requirements which he knows, because he's been on it and breached it as he has. But there is that document. We can't send it to him now, it'll be - I take it that he will sign the document if I ask him now whether he consents to that, or says he will sign the document. And we can note that in the oral hearing, does that make sense?
82MS ANDERSON: Yes, that does, Your Honour.
83HIS HONOUR: I've got to send you a document and you've got to sign Mr King, relating to the sex offender register, do you understand that?
84OFFENDER: Yes.
85HIS HONOUR: All right. You'll sign that?
86OFFENDER: Yep.
87HIS HONOUR: Thank you. Is there anything else required?
88MS ANDERSON: Your Honour there's possibly an issue.
89HIS HONOUR: Right.
90MS ANDERSON: It may be my error, but I was - or mistake, I was just seeking to clarify it with the prosecution.
91HIS HONOUR: Yes.
92MS ANDERSON: I understood the indictment had more charges on it - - -
93HIS HONOUR: I had those charges.
94MS ANDERSON: - - - than what Your Honour read out, which I'm happy to be wrong there but - - -
95HIS HONOUR: I had a document with those. This is embarrassing. Sex offender registration we've - there's only one.
96MS ANDERSON: Must be something that's been superseded.
97HIS HONOUR: Well he was arraigned.
98MS ANDERSON: Yes.
99HIS HONOUR: And he pleaded guilty to those six charges and I entered them in the records of the court. And the seventh was the summary offence which you agreed to.
100MS ANDERSON: Yes.
101HIS HONOUR: It's all in our documents. I'm confident. Yes, so my - - -
102MS ANDERSON: My error.
103HIS HONOUR: Not sure. Thank you very much for all your assistance. If you need some time you can have it now.
104MS ANDERSON: Thank you, Your Honour.
105HIS HONOUR: Thank you. Ms Baxter just give them some time if they need it.
106MS BAXTER: Sure.
107HIS HONOUR: Thank you.
108COUNSEL: Thank you.
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