Director of Public Prosecutions v Nash

[2020] VCC 318

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

AT MELBOURNE
CRIMINAL JURISDICTION

CR 18-01989

DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROSECUTIONS

v

MICHAEL NASH

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JUDGE:	HER HONOUR JUDGE COHEN
WHERE HELD:	Melbourne
DATE OF HEARING:	28 February 2020
DATE OF SENTENCE:	24 March 2020
CASE MAY BE CITED AS:	DPP v Nash
MEDIUM NEUTRAL CITATION:	[2020] VCC 318

REASONS FOR SENTENCE
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Subject:  SENTENCING

Catchwords:  Plea of guilty; armed robberies, aggravated burglary, theft and attempted armed robbery; getaway driver for co-offender with firearm; co-offender died; 5 incidents in 17 days; long criminal history but not violent; longstanding drug addiction; homeless; totality; general deterrence and denunciation.

Legislation Cited:                  Sentencing Act 1991 s 6AAA
Cases Cited:
Sentence:  TES 7 y 2 m; Non-parole 4 y 10 m; PSD 786 days

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APPEARANCES:	Counsel	Solicitors
For the Director of Public Prosecutions	Ms. D. Karamicov	Office of Public Prosecutions
For the Accused	Mr. D. McGlone	Peter Lunt & Associates

HER HONOUR:

1Michael Nash, you have pleaded guilty to three charges of armed robbery, one of aggravated burglary, one of attempted armed robbery, one of handling stolen goods, and one of theft. 

2You have also admitted a considerable prior criminal history, to which I shall refer later.

3The maximum penalty for armed robbery and for aggravated burglary is
25 years' imprisonment.  The maximum for attempted armed robbery is
20 years' imprisonment, for handling stolen goods it is 15 years' imprisonment, and for theft 10 years' imprisonment.  These maximum penalties reflect the relative objective seriousness with which offences of these types are regarded, and some of these offences by you are serious instances of offences of these types.  You will not be receiving anywhere near those maximum penalties.

4This offending occurred in five separate incidents from 12 to 29 January 2018.  All were committed with a co-offender, Troy Van den Bemt, and there was a third offender involved in two of the incidents.  Details of each offence are set out in the summary of prosecution opening, Exhibit 1, and I shall only describe enough to indicate the nature and seriousness of the offending.

5I turn to Charge 1.  On Friday 12 January 2018, a little after 4 pm, you and Troy Van den Bemt committed an armed robbery at a post office in Mitcham Road, Mitcham.  You had driven your own car there, in convoy with Van den Bemt, who was driving a recently stolen car.  While he entered the post office wearing a hooded jacket and dark balaclava and brandishing a sawn-off double-barrel shotgun, you waited in that other car as getaway driver.  You were wearing a disguise - a skull mask.

6Van den Bemt entered the post office, approached two workers at the counter demanding money, and they emptied the cash register of $400 into a bag he was holding.  He then left and joined you in the stolen car, which you drove away.  That vehicle was observed by one of the workers at the post office, and was later located by police, abandoned, and your DNA was found on the steering wheel and inside door handle.  This armed robbery is the subject of Charge 1.

7Charges 2 and 3 arise out of a single incident.  On Sunday night, 14 January 2018, again with Van den Bemt and with another unidentified co-offender, you went to an address in Canterbury Road, Heathmont, where there was a house adjoining a milk bar/convenience store.  Again, your role was as getaway driver, and the plan to which you had agreed, was that while you remained in the car, the other two would enter the store, in order to steal.  You were aware that Van den Bemt had a firearm with him, and that both men were wearing balaclavas.  In fact, your two co-offenders entered the house, went upstairs, and confronted the two householders in or near bedrooms.  This was not part of your agreement, and the allegation against you is limited to your agreeing to be part of a robbery of the convenience store. 

8Your co-offenders stole personal items - wallets, cards, cash, and four iPhones, and also a Chinese passport, as well as two sets of keys to a white Toyota Kluger vehicle.  Downstairs, they took a large quantity of cigarettes and more cash.  The unidentified co-offender went briefly into the convenience store, where the store alarm was activated, but he had time to take the cash register tray. 

9Charge 2 against you, arising from this incident is of aggravated burglary, as I have said, based on your having agreed to participate in offending involving entering as trespassers with intent to steal, and having in their possession a firearm.

10As you and your co-offenders left the scene, one of the others got into the white Toyota Kluger belonging to the householders, which was parked on the street, and using the stolen keys.  That is the basis of Charge 3, theft of a motor vehicle, and I note that you later drove that vehicle, adopting the theft of it. 

11Charge 4 arises out of an incident on Monday 22 January 2018.  At about 3.30pm, you and Van den Bemt committed another armed robbery at a post office, this time in Surrey Hills.  Again, you waited in a car outside, knowing Van den Bemt was entering, carrying a sawn-off double-barrel shotgun, and with his face covered by a dark balaclava.  This time, the getaway car was the stolen Toyota Kluger.  On this occasion, Van den Bemt not only approached workers behind the counter with the firearm, demanding money and pointing the firearm at each of them, but when they managed to run out of that area, and lock themselves in a secure area, he approached a woman who was present as a customer with her two children.  While they crouched on the floor, Van den Bemt took her iPhone, purse, and car keys.  Van den Bemt then left and got into the passenger seat of the car where you were waiting and drove from the scene.  Your participation in this incident is the basis of Charge 4 of armed robbery. 

12As it happened, on Friday 26 January 2018, police officers intercepted you driving your own car with Van den Bemt as a passenger.  They located a number of items used for house breaking and theft, and also a Mazda key, nine blank car keys, and Toyota keys that were later identified as belonging to the stolen Toyota Kluger.  All of these items were seized, but no charges laid at that stage.

13Later the same day, that is on Friday 26 January 2018, at about 9pm, you and Van den Bemt committed a further armed robbery at a Dan Murphy's liquor store in High Street, Kew.  You again waited outside as driver in the stolen Kluger, while Van den Bemt entered, wearing a dark-blue balaclava, and brandishing a sawn-off double-barrel shotgun.  He approached the counter, telling staff there “this is a stick-up” and demanded money.  He walked them between different cash registers, to be opened and emptied.  He also demanded each of three employees' wallets and iPhones, which he took, some of the wallets containing cards and documents, and there were two iPhones.  It is not specified how much money was gained from the tils.  At one stage, Van den Bemt ran outside and spoke to you, before coming back inside.  At the conclusion he entered the passenger seat of the stolen Kluger, and you drove away.  This event is the subject of Charge 5 of armed robbery.

14The final incident occurred on Sunday 28 January 2018 at a liquor store in Park Orchards Road.  Police had you and Van den Bemt under surveillance by that afternoon.  You were seen with another man, Jeffrey Wright, to move vehicles and have them filled with petrol.  Then, with Wright driving his own vehicle, and you driving the previously stolen Toyota Kluger, and Van den Bemt, a passenger of yours, both vehicles approached the area of the Park Orchards Cellars store and did some reconnaissance.  There were walkie talkies later found for communication between the two vehicles.

15Then Van den Bemt, carrying a sawn-off double-barrel shotgun and wearing a black balaclava and black hoodie over his head, got out of the Kluger and entered the store.  You remained in the Kluger wearing the same skull mask you had worn at the first post office armed robbery.  Wright remained in his car.  Undercover police were in place, and when Van den Bemt had entered the store demanding money, he menaced the shop owner and his son, and a police operative fatally shot him.

16On hearing the shots, you started up the vehicle you were driving.  Another police operative was right next to your vehicle, and pulled out a firearm and called on you to stop.  However, you drove off at speed.  A short while later you were involved in a collision with two other vehicles, and police caught up with you and arrested you.  You were wearing the skull print balaclava and gloves at the time.  You were charged with attempted armed robbery in respect of this incident, that is Charge 6.

17The third offender on this occasion, as I have said, was Jeffrey Wright, a man you had known from many years earlier in prison.  He also drove from the scene on hearing the shots, and he was also soon caught and arrested.  He was found to have walkie talkies and a CB radio in his vehicle.

18When police subsequently searched your home address, they found iPhones and a black bag that had been stolen from the residence at the Heathmont premises.  Amongst the items found in your possession during the interception on 26 January, was a Toyota key that police identified as belonging to the stolen Toyota Kluger, from that same Heathmont address.  These matters are the basis of Charge 7, of handling stolen goods, although I am told there were other items found in your possession, stolen from these incidents.

19I must assess the objective seriousness of all of this offending and your personal role and culpability.  I have already said that the maximum penalties, particularly 25 years' imprisonment for armed robbery and for aggravated burglary, and 20 years for attempted armed robbery, reflect the very serious objective potential nature of such offences. 

20I consider each of these was a serious instance of each of those types of offending.  Each offence was committed with at least one co-offender.  Your co-offender in all incidents, Van den Bemt, on each occasion of entering premises, wore a dark balaclava, sometimes also a hood to hide his appearance, and those were likely to not only disguise his identity, but intimidate anyone he confronted.  He carried a seriously menacing firearm, a sawn-off double-barrel shotgun. 

21The two post offices were entered in the mid-afternoon during trading hours, when there were likely to be not only persons working behind the counter but also customers present.  No employees of stores such as these deserved to be confronted in such a way, as part of their employment, and the confronting of a woman with her two children and having them kneel on the floor and hand over personal items at the Surrey Hills post office, was a particularly confrontational and potentially very dangerous incident.   The confronting of employees at the Dan Murphy's store, and the final incident at Park Orchards, similarly picked on premises often regarded as soft targets where people are working at night. 

22Just because these armed robberies do not appear to have reaped high return, does not lower the seriousness of the nature of these incidents.  Each involved some degree of planning, including the taking and wearing of disguises, not only by Van den Bemt, but also by you at least on some of the occasions.  They involved some co-ordination of taking more than one vehicle for some, and on the last occasion, means of communicating between cars, after reconnaissance.  The armed robberies and the last attempt at one intended confrontation of people in these premises.

23There were no victim impact statements tendered, but the incidents were of a nature that will undoubtably have been very frightening to each person confronted by Van den Bemt, and there were many of them over the course of these incidents.  Such experiences can lead to ongoing feelings of insecurity for victims of such incidents, for a long time afterwards.  As I have said, I do not have any specific information about the impact on these particular victims.

24Turning to your role, it enabled Van den Bemt to do what he did, and you knew you were assisting him, knowing before he entered each premises that he had a firearm.  You agreed to four instances of armed robbery - the only reason the fourth was not completed, was that Van den Bemt was shot during the incident.  I accept that he was the principal offender, although on the second incident another offender entered premises to rob them. I accept that you did not even enter any of the premises, did not have a firearm yourself, and did not confront or intimidate personally, any of the victims.  I accept that the instigator and driving force was likely to have been Van den Bemt and not you.  Indeed, these incidents were all of different character than any of your previous offending, to which I shall refer shortly.  Even taking into account that Van den Bemt's death means that his version of who did what will never be known, I am satisfied that it was much more likely to have been him who instigated and planned these incidents.

25You say that he pressured you into assisting him.  At law you are guilty with your co-offender of the offences which, even if reluctantly, you agreed to commit with him.  It has not been raised in your defence that you are not guilty by reason of undue influence.  Your culpability is still significant, as you did assist and enable these offences to be committed, knowing that he wore a disguise and carried a firearm into each of the premises, and knowing the purpose for which he was entering.  You did so repeatedly, only days apart after each individual incident. 

26The sentences I am going to impose must reflect the objective seriousness of what occurred as part of each of these offences, but I have significantly moderated the individual sentences, to reflect that your role was much less individually culpable than that of Van den Bemt.

27In relation to the aggravated burglary, the prosecution does not allege against you that this was an armed robbery, although your two co-offenders clearly did commit an armed robbery on that occasion.  I sentence you on the basis that you had agreed to be part of an offence in which your co-offenders, at least one of them carrying a firearm, would enter only the convenience store, which in the early hours of the morning was unlikely to have anyone present.  So, the burglary was with the intention of stealing, and that did indeed occur.

28You were also party to the theft of the Toyota Kluger from those premises and subsequently drove it as the getaway car during three further incidents of offending.  The taking of keys to a vehicle in the course of a home invasion, has become a prevalent manner of car theft, and even though I have no information as to whether that was part of the plan, or whether it was known in adance that the residents had such a vehicle, the manner of that theft requires a sentence that reflects sufficient condemnation and general deterrence.  I note that you adopted that theft by driving the vehicle subsequently, clearly knowing that it had been stolen.

29Finally, the attempted armed robbery was another serious incident with a third offender involved, apparently as a lookout.  Van den Bemt again entered a liquor store in the evening where the shop owner and his son were working.  As Judge Lyons said in sentencing the other co-offender Wright, such premises are often regarded as soft targets, where there will be only one or two employees present, and likely to be cash in a till.  The sheer confrontation of your co-offender, Van den Bemt, using a shotgun to threaten people, demonstrates the danger of the situation.  Ultimately, it was Van den Bemt himself who paid the ultimate price of that danger, but this must be marked as another serious incident.

30Apart from Charge 7 of handing stolen goods, these incidents were serious instances of what are serious offences, especially the armed robberies and aggravated burglary.  The main purposes of the sentence must be unqualified community condemnation, and general deterrence; that is, to make clear to others tempted to engage in this type of offending - even to assist others to do it - that engaging in such offending will attract stern punishment.

31Objectively, public protection would also seem a relevant sentencing purpose, although there is no indication that you engage in this type of offending without Van den Bemt, and his death has brought that prospect to an end.

32After your arrest on 28 January 2018, you were interviewed by police.  You admitted involvement in the Park Orchards attempted armed robbery, in which Van den Bemt had been fatally shot, however you maintained that you were not involved in any other crimes involving him.  You were remanded on that date and have been in custody for approximately two years and two months since. 

33There was a disputed committal hearing, but I am told as to limited issues, and that no civilian witnesses were cross-examined.  It seems that you admitted involvement in the other incidents in stages. 

34You did not indicate pleas of guilty to all of these charges until about a week before your trial was to commence last September.  Whilst that can hardly be said to be an early plea of guilty, at least to the later of the charges that you finally admitted, your pleas of guilty still do entitle you to some leniency -  more for the Park Orchards one as you admitted it from the earliest opportunity.  A trial was avoided, and with that, not only the time and cost, but also the inconvenience and likely stress to some of the victims of having to attend court, be cross-examined, and re-live what were undoubtedly frightening events.  I find that there was significant utilitarian value in your pleas of guilty, albeit some of them were quite late.  They also stand as acknowledgement by you of your offending.  You will receive the benefit of some discount in your sentence for these reasons.

35Whether your pleas reflect true remorse is less clear, but I accept that you deeply regret becoming involved with Van den Bemt and the consequence that that is having, has already had, and will continue to have to your life.  I shall tell you what your sentence would have been had you not pleaded guilty but been found guilty of the same charges after a trial, once I have imposed your sentence.

36So far as the co-offenders are concerned, Troy Van den Bemt obviously died at the scene of the last offence.  Jeffrey Wright was charged only with that incident, and only with attempted robbery, in contrast to attempted armed robbery, as you have been.  He was sentenced in February last year, to a term of imprisonment of 23 months with a non-parole period of 15 months.  I have read the sentencing remarks of Judge Lyon and have taken into account your comparative circumstances and roles in relation to that offending.  Your role was in my view, significantly more blameworthy than Wright's, for more    than one reason.  He faced a less serious charge, which I take as an indication that it was accepted that he did not know that Van den Bemt would be taking a weapon.  You did know that, and I also take into account that you had been involved in the preceding incidents with Van den Bemt, and had been able to observe his manner and his actions, and you would have had an expectation of his likely actions.  These are clear differences and that is why you will receive a more severe sentence for that incident than Wright did.

37The third offender at the Heathmont premises appears to have taken an active and aggressive role, but has not been identified.

38I turn now to your personal circumstances. 

39You are now aged 52 and were aged 50 at the time of the offending.  I note at this stage that Van den Bemt was then 48 years old, and Wright the co-offender for the last incident, was aged 42.  None of you were young or impressionable, and each of you had long-established criminal histories.  Indeed, you had apparently met each of them whilst serving terms in custody.  I will say more about your meeting with Van den Bemt shortly.

40I am told that you were born in Poland, and were brought to Australia by your mother with your brother, when you were aged about nine, leaving your father in Poland.  Apparently, your mother did not work here, and did not do much to integrate into the local community.  You grew up in housing commission flats. She re-partnered when you were about 12 years old, but you did not get on well with her new partner and did not see him as a father figure.

41With the family making minimal effort to integrate into the Australian community, you felt dislocated from your Polish background and from your father, without much affinity for the Australian community. 

42You dropped out of school in Year 9 with minimal education.  Apparently, you became involved from about that stage in criminal activity through use of alcohol and drugs, and you ended up spending time in youth detention in Turana.

43I am told that you blamed your mother for separating you from your father.  Further, when you were aged about 21, you found out that your father had been killed in an accident in Poland, and your mother returned there to deal with family affairs.  Apparently, she sold all but one property there that had been owned in the family, but did not share any of the proceeds with you or your brother, and ended up spending all of the money herself.  This caused you even greater resentment of her.  You had disconnected from family or Polish identity but had little in its place. 

44Your mother died about five years ago of cancer.  You have no good relationship, as I have said, with her partner, and apparently at or shortly aftr the time of her death, you had a falling out with your brother, and have had no contact with him since about that time. 

45You apparently first used drugs in your teens and were using heroin intravenously by about age 19.  Your criminal history also reflects use of cannabis, amphetamines and ecstasy, but heroin was the main drug you used, and I note that at times your criminal record reflects that you were on buprenorphine or methadone, well known substitute medications for treatment of heroin addiction.  You have not undergone residential drug rehabilitation.  You seem to have reverted or relapsed into drug abuse soon after being released from prison on a number of occasions over the last 30 years. 

46You have a minimal employment history, being on Newstart after leaving school, and on a Disability Support Pension since about 1996.  From what you told Mr Cummins, you were granted that pension because of a diagnosis of schizophrenia when you came out of custody in 1996. 

47However, apart from some mood-stabling medication, you told Mr Cummins that you have not had any psychiatric or psychological treatment over the intervening years, and Mr Cummins found no symptoms of any psychotic conditions when he assessed you earlier this year.   In his assessment, you were more likely to have suffered periods of depression over the years, but he noted those are hard to diagnose retrospectively, and especially as you were using heroin, a strong depressant drug, intravenously for many years. 

48Apart from what you told Mr Cummins, there is no material from any medical professional who has treated you, nor as to your condition and treatment over the years.  It is not suggested that your mental health contributed to your participation in this offending in any way that would enliven principles that might reduce your sentence. 

49Neither your mental health history to the minimal extent that it is described, or your history of drug use, excuse your present offending.  However, I do take them as providing some context for how you came to enter into this offending.  I accept that both an unstable mental health history or some underlying mental health conditions, and particularly the taking as you have described it of 'shard' provided by Van den Bemt, would have heightened your susceptibility to Van den Bemt's suggestions, let alone any stronger persuasion, to enter into this offending with him.

50A positive in your life was your relationship with Ms Jackie McKenzie, which I am told lasted on-and-off for about 13 years.  She is the mother of your two daughters who, I am told, are now aged 17 and 13.  I am not naming them to protect their privacy.

51Ms McKenzie apparently did not approve of your drug abuse, but apparently gave you support over a long period of time, and that included, at least temporarily, a home when you would be released from prison over the years.  However, I am told that eventually your relapses into drug use and offending led her to cease such support. 

52That left you living out of your car after your last release from prison in 2017, and it is in that period that you reconnected with Mr Van den Bemt.  I am told that your former partner and daughters have not been visiting you during your current period in custody, and that that weighs heavily on you.  I am told that you did make phone calls in the early period of your remand, but that these became too upsetting and now you believe your daughters are unwilling to take your calls. 

53As you face a considerable period in prison - indeed, much longer than you have previously experienced - I accept that ongoing lack of contact with your daughters, and indeed with your former partner, will be weighing heavily on you and make your experience of imprisonment more burdensome.  I am told you have had no visits at all in the more than two years you have been on remand, and not only your partner and daughters have not been visiting you, but you also have no ongoing contact with your brother.

54You have admitted a long criminal history starting in your teenage.  It has put you in custody on many occasions;  mainly reasonably short periods, the longest being a sentence of 50 months with a non-parole period of 30 months imposed in this court in 1997.

55Your criminal history does you no credit at all, and sadly reflects that you regularly reoffended after sentences had been imposed or after you had served those sentences, probably due to relapsing into drug use.  You have breached a number of suspended sentences, or other sentences that initially did not require immediate imprisonment.  I note there were some periods of two to three years between offending, but then you were back before courts.  The last time before the present offending, you were before this court in October 2016, when a sentence of five months' imprisonment was imposed, and as I have said, I gather you were released in early 2017. 

56Your past offending includes drug offences and possession and use of heroin, amphetamines, cannabis and ecstasy, but mainly offences of dishonesty which, I am told and accept, are likely to have related to your drug use and obtaining money for it.  The only previous offences of violence were in 1992, and that was a single set of offending.  The only weapon-related offence was possession of a regulated weapon - I do not know what it was - in 1997.  I do not have details of any of these matters, as I have said, but I accept that for more than the last 20 years your criminal history, while doing you no credit, was not violent and not of the nature or seriousness of armed robbery or aggravated burglary. 

57You say that you were pressured into committing these offences by Van den Bemt.  You had apparently met him either in your late teens or early 20s, in prison.  Apparently you formed quite a bond with him, as you were both young men without support in the community, homeless, and who had both experienced physical and sexual abuse, allegedly while in youth detention.  You told Mr Cummins that even then, Van den Bemt was in custody for having committed armed robbery, much more serious offending than yours.   

58You say that you have not had much contact with Van den Bemt over the intervening years, but apparently happened to come across him in 2017, soon after you were released from prison, and at a time when you were homeless, living out of your car.  He offered that you could, at times, stay with him.  I am told that it was your old bond with him, through that shared, difficult time in your youth, that left you particularly susceptible to his influence and his recruitment of you to join him in the offending that brings you here.

59You told Mr Cummins that although your previous usual drug of dependence was heroin, he supplied you with what you call 'shard' – methamphetamine - which you took intravenously.  Your susceptibility to his persuasions was heightened by your use of that drug, and you also say that he made threats which you feared might lead to harm to your daughters and their mother. 

60You told Mr Cummins that at first you refused to participate, as armed robbery was much more serious than your previous offending, but he exerted sufficient pressure and threats to lead you to agree.  By pleading guilty to these charges, you have conceded that whatever pressure or persuasion Van den Bemt exerted, it was not sufficient to give you a legal defence to these charges.  I also note that he was killed in the last incident, so he is not able to give a different account. 

61In light of your prior history which although including multiple offences, is of dishonesty and drug use rather than of violence, and not of the gravity of any of the incidents giving rise to the present charges, and that your participation was limited to driving to get-away river role and you did not personally engage in the confrontational behaviour or carrying a weapon, let alone a firearm, nor even entering any of the premises, I am prepared to accept, on the balance of probabilities, that it was Van den Bemt who was the instigator and active aggressor in these incidents.  I also accept that although you knowingly participated, he was exerting some influence over you and overwhelmed any resistance you had to it. 

62Mr Cummins notes that you describe yourself as having become institutionalised.  You seem to have spent, as I said, many periods in prison, although most of them have been periods of months, rather than years.   Your attitude that you feel you have become institutionalised includes that you do feel a sense of security returning there.  To your credit, this time in custody, you have become a unit billet, a position that recognises some responsibility, and you have remained free from drugs with clear drug screens, except for prescribed methadone. 

63These matters indicate that your prospects of rehabilitation are not hopeless, but I still regard them as no more than guarded, given your history.  It will be up to you to see if you can commit to trying to turn your life around when you are released from prison, and in particular, to stay away from resuming your previous drug use and staying away from people associated with it and resisting criminal activity.  I recognise that that will not be easy for you, but if you wish to re-establish contact with your daughters, it will almost certainly be necessary.  As I say, although you are in your fifties already, it does not mean that you cannot turn your life around if you have the commitment to do so and resolution to do so, on your release.  I bear in mind that a crushing sentence may destroy the current will you have to do that, and any chance of you rebuilding your life on your eventual release. 

64I have decided on a non-parole period that in light of the seriousness of this offending, should still leave that open, assuming you do obtain parole, but that will be a decision for the Parole Board.

65I have already explained that community denunciation or condemnation, and general deterrence are the most important sentencing purposes in this case, and because of the objective seriousness of each of the incidents, they must attract significant terms of imprisonment.

66While you have no personal history of this type of offending, specific deterrence has some importance because of your otherwise long-standing criminal history, and should be seen to deter you from becoming involved in any future offending.

67Because each of these incidents occurred as part of a spate of similar offences, over a period of little more than two weeks, the principle of totality requires considerable concurrency in the sentences, although some cumulation is required to mark that each separate incident was planned and impacted on separate and different victims. 

68Would you stand up now please.

69Michael Nash, on each of the charges you are convicted and sentenced as follows:

70On Charge 1 of armed robbery, three years and nine months;

71On Charge 2 of aggravated burglary, three years' imprisonment; 

72On Charge 3 of theft of a motor vehicle, six months' imprisonment;

73On Charge 4 of armed robbery, three years, nine months' imprisonment;

74On Charge 5 of armed robbery, three years, nine months' imprisonment;

75On Charge 6 of attempted armed robbery, three years, four months' imprisonment. 

76On Charge 7 of handling stolen goods, four months' imprisonment.

77I direct that 10 months of the sentences on each of Charges 4, 5 and 6 and eight months of the sentence on Charge 2, and three months of the sentence on Charge 3, be served cumulatively on each other and on the sentence imposed on Charge 1.  That should create a total effective sentence of seven years and two months' imprisonment. I fix a non-parole period of four years and ten months.

78I declare 786 days pre-sentence detention reckoned served, that is almost two years and two months, which means that you become eligible to be considered for parole in approximately another two years and eight months.  Of course, any decision for parole is up to the Parole Board.  The pre-sentence detention will be deducted administratively from both the total sentence and the non-parole period. 

79I state for the purposes of s.6AAA of the Sentencing Act, that had you not pleaded guilty, but been found guilty of the same offences in otherwise the same circumstances, I would have imposed a total effective sentence of 11 years' imprisonment with a non-parole period of eight and a half years. 

80Now, I was asked to make a forfeiture or disposal order? 

81MS KARAMIVOC:  Disposal order.

82HER HONOUR:  Disposal order, and it was not opposed, and I do that - do make that order. 

83Take a seat for a few minutes Mr Nash while I just check with both sides of counsel that they got those details and that the arithmetic works.  Do you want me to repeat any of the ‑ ‑ ‑ 

84MS KARAMIVOC:  I think I got seven years and four months, Your Honour.

85HER HONOUR:  Have you?  It's - 45 months is the base sentence, Charge 1.

86MS KARAMIVOC:  Yes, three years and nine months?

87HER HONOUR:  Sorry.

88MS KARAMIVOC:  Three years and nine months.

89HER HONOUR:  Three years and nine months' - yes - or 45 months.  Ten months cumulated for each of the two other armed robberies and the attempted armed robbery, so that is an extra 30 months.

90MS KARAMIVOC:  Yes.

91HER HONOUR:  And eight months for the aggravated burglary, and three for the theft of the car.

92MS KARAMIVOC:  And then there's three months for Charge 7.

93HER HONOUR:  That's totally concurrent.  I didn't order any cumulation, so it falls to be, and I intend it to be totally concurrent.  It seems to me that it relates to the proceeds of the other offences so yes - there's no cumulation from Charge 7. 

94MS KARAMIVOC:  Yes.

95HER HONOUR:  So seven years two months.'

96MS KARAMIVOC:  Yes.

97MR MCGLONE:  Yes, that's correct, Your Honour.

98HER HONOUR:  And as I said, four years 10 months' non-parole, which I make to be 58 months.  Yes, thank you.  All right, I have signed the orders, so we will adjourn the court, or do you want to talk to your client here or go downstairs. 

99MR MCGLONE:  I understand the present circumstances Your Honour, but as my learned friend pointed out, we are dealing with something that requires physical touch and I am not that intimate with my client.  I will go down and see him downstairs.  That probably did not make any sense.  I was trying to make a joke, forget it. 

100HER HONOUR:  We are all trying to not have people in close proximity and ‑ ‑ ‑ 

101MR MCGLONE:  I understand.

102HER HONOUR:  ‑ ‑ ‑ if you want to stand near the dock and speak to him, but if you want ‑ ‑ ‑ 

103MR MCGLONE:  I am happy to see him downstairs.

104HER HONOUR:  ‑ ‑ ‑ if you're happy to see him downstairs, I will stand by those procedures.  All right, could we have Mr Nash taken from the courtroom please.  I should say before Mr Nash leaves, I did try to put in place a
video-link so you did not have to come into the building today.

105OFFENDER:  No worries, Your Honour.

106MR MCGLONE:  I explained that to him. 

107HER HONOUR:  But there hadn't been time apparently to - for processes to happen.  So now adjourn to my sentence tomorrow morning at 10.30. 

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