Director of Public Prosecutions v Pontikis
[2019] VCC 1727
•22 October 2019
| IN THE COUNTY COURT OF VICTORIA | Revised Not Restricted Suitable for Publication |
AT MELBOURNE
CRIMINAL JURISDICTIONCR-14-00984
| DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROSECUTIONS |
| v |
| NAOMI PONTIKIS |
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| JUDGE: | HIS HONOUR JUDGE TINNEY |
| WHERE HELD: | Melbourne |
| DATE OF HEARING: | 16 October 2019 |
| DATE OF SENTENCE: | 22 October 2019 |
| CASE MAY BE CITED AS: | DPP v PONTIKIS |
| MEDIUM NEUTRAL CITATION: | [2019] VCC 1727 |
REASONS FOR SENTENCE
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Subject: Breach of CCO for serious offences of blackmail, kidnapping and trafficking. 3rd breach of CCO, Long delay.
APPEARANCES: | Counsel | Solicitors |
| For the Director of Public Prosecutions | Mr P Atkinson | Office of Public Prosecutions |
| For the Accused | Ms Smith | Emma Turnbull |
HIS HONOUR:
1I will have you remain seated, Ms Pontikis.
2Naomi Pontikis, you appeared before me last Wednesday, 16 October, charged with breaching the most recent community corrections order which I had placed you on. You admitted the breach and a brief plea was conducted on your behalf by Ms Smith.
3Ms Smith urged me to place you on to a fresh community corrections order, either that or perhaps defer the breach to see how you were performing on yet another community corrections order imposed earlier this month. It was a pretty big ask. She said as much, and I did not think at the time that it was open for me to do either of those things given the chronology in this case. I took the provisional view that I had no option other than to resentence you for the original offending. I have since, of course, re-read all of the materials as I said I would, not just the materials placed before me in the course of the plea last week but in fact all of the materials placed before in the course of the many hearings over many years.
4This matter has had, as you know, a long and tortured history. I am not even going to try to set out the full chronology. There is a chronology of relevant events attached to the contravention package that has been filed in this matter. The serious offending for which I placed you on the original order occurred right back in March 2014. As you will recall, the Crown had called for an immediate term of imprisonment in the course of the plea that was conducted over a number of days. I rejected that call. I sentenced you on 12 December 2014 to a standalone three year community corrections order. My sentencing remarks were then, and remain still, the most lengthy that I have ever delivered in my career as a judge, spanning as they did 47 pages. They set out all of the detail of why I did what I did, not just to you but to the two co-accused. They set out the explanation that I gave to you of the need to comply with the order that I was placing you on, and the potential ramifications if you breached that order. Regrettably, I have repeated that ‘ramifications of breach lecture’ on two further occasions to you to no avail.
5You breached that original order by serious offending indeed, and by a pretty dedicated non-compliance. Hindsight is a powerful thing. With the benefit of hindsight, I wish I cancelled the order when you came back before me way back in October 2016, but I did not. I was persuaded to give you another chance.
Mr Kilias. who appeared on your behalf on that occasion, conducted an excellent plea on your behalf. He spoke of the gains you had made in the period leading in to the breach proceeding that was listed. You had been admitted to a fresh community corrections order in the Magistrates Court. As I said at the time, reading the materials the night before, I could not envisage anything other than a resentencing exercise. In fact what I did is I cancelled the order and gave you another chance. That was on 13 October 2016. I cancelled the order and resentenced you to a two year community corrections order. I warned you again and told you not to expect another chance.6Again your compliance was deficient. Again you breached that new order by offence and non-compliance. The breach was listed before me in May 2018. A couple of months before that date you had appeared in the Magistrates Court in relation to some of the fresh offending and you received an adjourned undertaking to be of good behaviour with some treatment conditions. When you came before me on 7 May 2018 on the breach, again there were some encouraging signs. Again Mr Kilias somehow, I do not know how, but he persuaded me to adjourn the breach to give you the chance of continuing on with the residential and other treatments.
7The second breach then was adjourned off to
2 August of last year, and on that date I found the breach proven, and despite by earlier strong warnings, I extended the order by a period of six months to permit you to complete it. Again though, you were warned pretty explicitly not to expect further leniency. By that stage you had become, I think, the first person with three documents with my signature on it. The original one, the second one and that varied order.8Yet here you are again in breach of that order. This time, though, there is only one non-attendance alleged but you have committed offences in
December 2018 and in March 2019. Now, a Magistrate was somehow persuaded to place you on a work only community corrections order for the December offending, and that order was made by Mr Kumar on 22 December 2018, a most experienced magistrate indeed. You have then failed to comply with that order. It has been breached and of course you have committed the March offending in the currency of that order and my order.9This breach that I am now dealing with has been adjourned on a number of occasions since August of this year. It was listed on 18 September. I was told by the authorities that you refused to board the bus on that day. You have instructed your counsel that that is not what happened, but ultimately it is really unimportant for me to determine what occurred. What is plain is that you then went to the Magistrates Court on those outstanding charges on that date in October. You received a community corrections order for that fresh offending but in a setting where you and your advocate knew that this breach was coming back before the County Court. It was a matter of days away. Your counsel, Ms Smith, in a way relies upon that most recently obtained order, even though it is very recently obtained, and urges me to wait and see how you are ‘travelling’ on that. I have done that before on a number of occasions. The fact is that this breach that I am dealing with should have been finalised in September, and leaving that aside, the imposition of a community corrections order in the Magistrates Court within days of the listing date of this breach in this Court is a matter only of very little weight to me. I am not saying the Magistrate is wrong to have imposed that order. I am not passing sentence in relation to those matters, but you and your counsel and presumably the Magistrate, knew that there was this hurdle ahead, that is the breach exercise for the far more serious offences for which you were placed on this order.
10I said in the course of the plea last week that in the course of my involvement in your cases I have felt a bit like a gambler on a losing streak, being asked to remain at the table and then gamble some more of my hard earned money. My original reasons explain why I took the very unusual course of placing you on the first standalone community corrections order. It was an unusual course. There was, though, a large range of mitigatory material, including your youth and lack of criminal history and your most excellent efforts by way of inpatient treatment.
11And then each time you subsequently came before me there was a plea made as to the recent efforts you had been making. Each time you subsequently came before me there was just enough to persuade me to give you another chance. That is until now.
12I am not going to descend further to the history. Anyone wishing to get a full understanding of the ‘ins and outs’ of this case will need to read, as I have, my original sentencing remarks as well as my remarks on the occasions of my extending the two later opportunities to you in October 2016 and then
August 2018. Also May 2018 when I adjourned off the case to see how you were travelling. I now believe I have no realistic option but to
re-sentence you for the original offending. I must also impose a sentence for the offence of breaching the order. It is obvious that I hoped that this day would never arrive but it has and, as you must know, you have brought it down upon yourself.13In passing these sentences I see little purpose in restating the full details of the original offending or going chapter and verse though your personal history or matters in mitigation. I do not see the need to descend back to the details of the agreed prosecution summary which was Exhibit A on the original plea.
14My reasons, delivered on 12 December 2014, set out the various matters that were relied upon back then. You pleaded guilty at an early stage, you were remorseful, you had then, in my judgment, excellent prospects of rehabilitation. You were 21 and I thought it very unlikely you would trouble a court again. How wrong I was. The offence gravity has not changed nor the mitigatory value of your plea or the existence of remorse. So I am not going to revise those sorts of things. Obviously enough, I must reconsider my assessment of your prospects of rehabilitation given all that has occurred over the last few years. I can no longer conclude that your prospects are excellent but I am certainly prepared to conclude that you have realistic prospects of rehabilitation. They will be conditional upon remaining drug free. Drugs have been a massive issue for you, as they are for many. They have derailed your life. You surely cannot enjoy the sort of life that you have fallen into from time to time. Who could? You have supportive parents and I truly hope for you, for them and for your child that in the future, you can be drug free. If you are you will be offence free. You know how deeply your conduct has impacted upon yourself, upon your family including, of course, your own child, a son born since I placed you on the original order. He is now two and a half years of age and with your parents.
15Ms Smith had the misfortune to be engaged as your advocate at the tail end of these proceeding. Mr Kilias had the very good fortune to appear on those two occasions and each time he appeared he had a wealth of strong mitigatory material. Ms Smith drew the short straw. She was appearing for you but on the third breach proceeding and did not have that sort of material. Not for want of trying to persuade me, but she just did not have the material to hand and she recognised the difficulty of the submissions which she made and conceded, even as she asked me to defer the case or to put you on a community corrections order that it was a big ask. Well, of course it was.
16The community corrections orders that I have imposed, the original order and the fresh order and the extended order, they always represented a chance for you to avoid a significant term of imprisonment. You understood that. You breached the original order. You breached the new order and now you have breached the varied extended order, and I must deal with you on that last breach. I am not going to roll it all up together and look at your past misconduct on the earlier versions of the order.
17For a variety of reasons, you have been unable to comply and, really, you have been unable to remain offence free. You have been unable to take the chances offered to you by this court and by other courts for that matter and your life has from time to time, not always, but from time to time been quite chaotic. Drugs and associations with other drug users have been, of course, massively problematic, and that leads into issues in terms of stable accommodation.
18You will not or cannot comply with a community corrections order.
19You have admitted the breach so I must deal with you for that offence as well.
20I then need to deal with the current varied community corrections order under the provisions of s.83AS of the Sentencing Act. It seemed to me the other day, and this remains the position, that the only realistic option is to re-sentence you. So to act under s.83AS(1) (c) as it is. I do not need to cancel the order as it expired earlier this year.
21So I regret to say then that it is prison that beckons for you. I must say, I thought long into the night last night and again earlier this morning, whether I could revisit my views in relation to that. I have read all the material again and I have reached the view that my provisional view was entirely correct. So prison beckons for you. I hoped it never would, but of course now it does. At last, you have really left me with no choice.
22So I take into account all of those matters that have been raised on the original plea. Also the various matters raised in mitigation in the course of the other appearances before me. Also the matters recently raised by Ms Smith, including, of course, your early guilty plea to the breach offence.
23I take into account also the fact that you have spent a period of time in custody in the lead-up to the most recently imposed Magistrates' Court community corrections order. No doubt the Magistrate had regard to that time in custody in reaching the view that it was open for him to impose a standalone community corrections order. So it is then that he did not impose a combination type sentence. I cannot have regard to that period of 64 days as strict pre-sentence detention. It is not. You were not in custody in relation to this matter and inevitably the Magistrate must have had regard to it, in any event. However, I do have regard to it in a broad fashion in applying the principle of totality. It is also the longest time that you have spent in custody so it may itself have some role in deterring you into the future.
Extent of compliance
24There is one thing that I certainly did not take into account when I first sentenced you back in 2014 which of course I must now take into account in your favour, and that is the extent of your compliance with the community corrections order. Again, there is a raft of material placed before me in this regard which I see no need to detail. I have, of course, the most recent breach report. I have also your efforts over the last few years. I have had people in the past who have adopted almost a derisory approach to these sorts of orders. I have had some who have not even turned up at the induction appointment. I have had some who have just steadfastly sought to avoid any of their obligations under the orders. I have had some who have refused to do any of the unpaid work or who have just disappeared interstate or overseas, people who just could not care less. Well, those sorts of people, they do not get too much benefit when it comes back to Court in breach and it comes to the point of a Court taking into account the extent of their compliance in a re-sentencing task. You do not fall into any of those categories, not by a long shot. Though your efforts on the original order were pretty disastrous and not that much better on the second, the most recent breach is constituted by a single non-attendance and the commission of these two separate sets of offences on those two dates. The report states that as of July 2019 your attendance has been sporadic, with the last contact by phone on 22 March 2019. In the course of supervision appointments you presented with deterioration in your mental and physical health, with further barriers such as ongoing illicit substance use and negative associations. You were described as showing little in the way of motivation to actively participate in rehabilitative programs and engagement with services. Corrections have attempted to implement strategies to reduce your overall risk. They have, I am sure, bent over backwards to accommodate you but with little by way of reward.
25You have, however, done all of the unpaid work. You have engaged meaningfully in a number of other aspects of the order. You have made some real efforts along the way and I accept that it has not been easy for you. So you are a long way removed from those people that I have described who just ignore the order or do not take any steps to comply. Drugs have yet again derailed you, as they really will continue to do for as long as you use them. I pay regard then, as I must, to the extent of your compliance with this order. Though not satisfactory, of course it was not, it was not minor compliance at all and it stands to reason then that in the re-sentencing exercise I will be imposing sentences that are a good deal less than otherwise would have been the case.
26I take into account the material that Ms Smith placed before me the other day. It is, I must say, more than a bit sad for me to read your parents' letter. They have had a lot of ups and downs since 2014. So have you. They recognise the leniency which has come your way. They speak, though, with some hope. They speak of your recent release from prison and the fact of your return home. In that brief time, and it has been brief, they had seen some encouraging signs and real improvements including attending for a drug screen and registering to do programs as evidenced by the two taskforce documents. They ask me to take into account this recent improvement and of course I am not deaf to that plea.
27As I have said earlier, I am confident that you are not happy to have been living the life that you have lived over the last handful of years. What pleasure can there be in going in and out of prison, of being exposed to Court cases and being deprived potentially of playing a vital role in your own child’s life. So I certainly do not write you off at all. You wish to change, I am confident of that, and again you have showed at least some signs of having that desire and potential and ability. You may not feel it, given the passage of time and all that has happened over the last handful of years, but you are in fact still quite a young person. When I originally sentenced you I said this in paragraph 30, speaking then of your excellent efforts in rehabilitation. I said:
'If you maintain your approach there is no reason at all why you cannot be a highly valuable member of the community, one perhaps looking back at this offending in the years ahead as an extraordinary aberration in your life'.
28Well, as I have said, my judgments as to your prospects of rehabilitation have been dealt a bit of a blow by the conduct over the years but, really, I repeat those sentiments. You are still young. You really should not think it is all dark and gloomy ahead for you. It is not. You can turn your life around. People of your age can. It will not be easy. So I do think you have realistic prospects of rehabilitation but they will really very much hinge on whether you can be drug free. If you cannot be drug free your prospects of living a meaningful life will really plummet.
29I have to take into account the nature and the seriousness of the offending and, as I say, that is referred to in my original sentencing reasons, and nothing has changed. Your role has not changed nor the impact of the crime. Back in 2014 I dealt with the sentencing considerations and the weighting to be given to the various purposes. Again, nothing has really changed there other than perhaps the understandable downgrading of your rehabilitative prospects, given your failure to comply and your continued offending. You have also grown older, of course, and youth was a critical factor back in 2014. It is less important now but it still is relevant to my task. Specific deterrence and community protection were very much moderated back in 2014, given that you were a youthful first offender with what I judged to be excellent prospects. Well, as I say, my view as to your future rehabilitation is now more guarded and those purposes of sentencing assume a larger role.
30You were 21 when I first saw you. You are now 26. I have then the dilemma of sentencing you in 2019 for crimes committed by you all those years back in 2014. Now, of course, I am in that position owing to the many chances I have extended to you and in a way, as I said earlier, I wish I had dealt with you more firmly back in the 2016, but I did not. No doubt you were glad I did not, and I did not for the reasons I then expressed which, in my judgment, were valid reasons to deal with you with that lenient second order. You now fall, though, to be sentenced by me for relatively stale crimes, and that is never an easy task for a judge. So I have to take that delay into account as far as I am able to here. The individual sentences, the total effective sentence and the non-parole period I will soon pronounce, are a good deal less than would have been the position had I dealt with you much earlier and had you not made some real efforts on the orders along the way, including the most recent one. But I have your efforts on the order, I have the unpaid work having been despatched, I have the passage of time since the crimes, and I am not free to ignore any of those things.
31I have regard also to what I have previously said about your role. It was a pretty fundamental role in this offending. Also what I said back in 2014 as to the concept of parity of sentence. Back then I drew positive distinctions between you and the two male co-accused. They were older. One of them had some criminal history. They both went to prison. You did not and now I am sending you to prison. I cannot ignore the sentences I imposed on them but the fact is, though, there is much water under the bridge in your case and the efforts made on the order in the interim, which I must take into account. They are matters I must take into account in your favour, so they are relevant distinctions or differences.
I am left with no sensible alternative, in my view, but to re-sentence you on the four charges for which you were admitted to this order, being the three original offences of trafficking, kidnap and blackmail, as well as the last offence of contravening the order, which I have placed on to this order. Prison is a disposition of last resort. It was on the first occasion you appeared before me, the second occasion and third occasion. It is today on the fourth occasion, being your third breach of this order. Each step along the way I have hoped never to see you again and you have no doubt hoped the same thing, but at last, though, as I say, you really have left me with no choice but to imprison you.
I take into account the various purposes of sentencing.
I take into account current sentencing practices.
You may or may not recall that Shabanov received an 18 month term for the blackmail. He received a 21 month term for the kidnap. He received three months for a theft which you were not a party to, and there is also a summary offence. I made orders for cumulation. It ended up being a two and a half year term but 29 months of that pertained to the blackmail and kidnapping. He received a non-parole period of 14 months.
Bekiri received a 14 month term of imprisonment on the blackmail, a 17 month term on the kidnapping. I directed eight months cumulation between those two sentences, so he had a total effective sentence of 25 months. I fixed a non-parole period in his case of nine months.
I can really, in the circumstances, have no confidence at all that you will comply with another community corrections order or that any further deferral of this case is a sensible option. In any event, I am satisfied that a further community corrections order, even if you were assessed as suitable, would not and could not achieve the various purposes of sentencing in this case. I must send you to prison. I pay regard, though, to the principle of totality of sentence and the long delay here, even though, as I say, it has been created by the steps that I have taken to avoid this day coming.
38I moderate the sentences significantly. I moderate the level of cumulation significantly, and as you will see, I am fixing what I judge to be a very modest non-parole period when viewed against the head sentence I am imposing and, of course, when viewed against the non-parole period imposed in the other cases.
39I will have you remain seated I think.
Sentence
40On the fresh charge then of contravening this community corrections order, that is the offence before me to which you have admitted your guilt, I convict and sentence you to seven days' imprisonment.
41I am then left, as I say, with no option but to deal with you under the provisions of s.83A(1)(c). I do not need to cancel the order, it has expired, but I then have to re-sentence you under those provisions. On the re-sentencing exercise, having taken into account, as I say, the extent of your compliance, on the previous charge of contravening a community corrections order, likewise, I convict and sentence you to seven days' imprisonment.
42On the original Charge 1 of trafficking in drugs, I convict and sentence you to three months' imprisonment.
43On the original Charge 2 on the indictment, the charge of blackmail, I convict and sentence you to seven months' imprisonment.
44On charge 3 on the indictment, kidnapping, I convict and sentence you to nine months' imprisonment. That will be the base sentence.
Cumulation
45Two months of the sentence imposed on the blackmail charge and one month of the sentence imposed on the trafficking charge will be served cumulatively upon the base sentence and upon each other. All other sentences, that is to say the two seven day terms of imprisonment, will be served concurrently with each other and with all other sentences.
Total Effective Sentence
46You will have lost track of what all this amounts to. It produces a total effective sentence of 12 months' imprisonment.
Non-Parole Period
47I am going to fix a very modest non-parole period. Whether you are admitted to parole is not something that I can have any regard to. It will be really between you and the Adult Parole Board. All I can do is fix a non-parole period, and I do fix one that, as I say, might be seen to be slightly out of kilter with the head sentence, but I do so for the reasons that I have expressed earlier in these reasons. I fix a period of three months during which you will not be eligible for release on parole. Now, as I say, I cannot guarantee that you will be released after three months. It will be between you and the Adult Parole Board and you will need to make application, but I am extending to you at least that possibility. As you can see, the sentences that are imposed, both individually and in terms of the total effective sentence and the non-parole period are dwarfed by the sentences imposed on your co-accused, but I have got to take into account this sentencing exercise as it exists today and the extent of your compliance with the order. So there are sound reasons for there to be significant disparities.
48I have also had regard in that broad fashion to that previous time in custody in the lead-up to the order made by the Magistrate on 8 October of this year. That 64 days is not pre-sentence detention that I can strictly have regard to. So s.18 does not apply to that time, but you have served it, and I can have regard to it in a broad fashion. See the case of Buddle [2014] VSCA 232.
Section 18 Pre-Sentence Detention
49I remanded you in custody the other day, so there are also five days of strict pre-sentence detention to be taken into account, pursuant to s.18. So that period of five days is entered into the records of the Court. You have already served five days of these sentences.
6AAA
50In the circumstances, I decline to make what is referred to as a section 6AAA declaration in relation to the re-sentencing exercise. It is just totally artificial.
51As to the fresh offence of breaching the community corrections order, you pleaded guilty to the offence and so of course you get the benefits of that early guilty plea. You have taken responsibility and at the earliest of stages. No contested hearing was required so you must be afforded the utilitarian benefits that accrue, not to mention your plea being an indicator of remorse. Had you pleaded not guilty to that fresh offence of breaching this order and been convicted of it, I would have imposed a more significant term. I would have sent you to prison on that matter for 21 days in those circumstances, rather than the seven days I have selected. I would have cumulated 14 days of that 21 day sentence onto the base and part cumulative sentences.
52Let me just see if there is anything else I need to order. Any other orders I need to make, Mr Atkinson?
53MR ATKINSON: Just two matters my friend and I have just been briefly discussing, sir. I believe the appropriate - we believe the appropriate pre-sentence detention will be six days.
54HIS HONOUR: Was it?
55MR ATKINSON: From the 15th, which was when Your Honour dealt with it.
56HIS HONOUR: I thought it was the 16th.
57MS FREIJAH: The 16th.
58MR ATKINSON: The 16th, sorry, Your Honour, my appalling writing, 16th to the 22nd.
59HIS HONOUR: One, two, three four - - -
60MR ATKINSON: Not including today.
61HIS HONOUR: So it's six, is it?
62MR ATKINSON: Six days, yes, Your Honour.
63HIS HONOUR: I must have - yes, you're right. All right.
64MR ATKINSON: Your Honour indicated a seven day term of imprisonment on a re-sentence. I've just tried - as there were seven days for the - - -
65HIS HONOUR: This order, originally the order was imposed on trafficking, blackmail and - - -
66MR ATKINSON: The kidnap, Your Honour.
67HIS HONOUR: Kidnapping, all right.
68MR ATKINSON: Yes.
69HIS HONOUR: But when I came to actually release her on the - let me just look at it. Yes, on the fresh order in October 2016, I re-sentenced and I re-sentenced her on blackmail, kidnapping, transferring and the charge of contravention, right.
70MR ATKINSON: Yes, Your Honour.
71HIS HONOUR: When I varied the order back in 2018, August 2018, it was those four charges that were subject to the variation. So that is the re-sentencing exercise now. I have imposed just the straight seven days on the fresh offence of contravention and, indeed, I think that's what I did on one other - yes. That is what I did on what was then the fresh contravention charge back in August 18. So there is only one contravention rolled up into this, so therefore there is one re-sentence.
72MR ATKINSON: Yes.
73HIS HONOUR: Does that make sense or not?
74MR ATKINSON: It does now, Your Honour, yes.
75HIS HONOUR: Yes, all right.
76MR ATKINSON: Yes, I hadn't appreciated the terms of the other order.
77HIS HONOUR: Yes, so she was on the four charges on the order.
78MR ATKINSON: Yes.
79HIS HONOUR: I have re-sentenced in relation to those.
80MR ATKINSON: Those, plus the - - -
81HIS HONOUR: And I have given her the seven days straight, concurrent on the fresh one.
82MR ATKINSON: Concurrent, yes. As long as I can explain that to my instructors there will be no issue, sir.
83HIS HONOUR: Yes. So it is not easy get on top of this, I can tell you. I spent hours going through the materials but anyway, you are right, it is six days so I will - and as I say, I am just declining to try and unravel and go back and work out what I would have done if she had pleaded not guilty to the trafficking all those years back. It is a waste of time doing it. I am not going to do it. Any other matters from your perspective?
84COUNSEL: No, Your Honour.
85HIS HONOUR: From yours, Ms Freijah?
86MS FREIJAH: No, Your Honour.
87HIS HONOUR: So you understand the terms of that order? It is a 12 month term of imprisonment with a very low non-parole period of three months. She will need to get cracking in terms of making that application, I would have thought. She has got credit for the six days that she has served. So you will go down and see her downstairs?
88MS FREIJAH: Yes, Your Honour, I will explain the sentence to her, yes.
89HIS HONOUR: All right, and I guess you will need to take steps one way or the other in terms of the existing CCO that she was placed on. I do not know what happens with that, whether it is suspended or whether you have it called in and dealt with by way of a breach and try and have that dealt with to get some concurrency anyway, that is a matter for you really. Let me just look at the formal orders.
90MS FREIJAH: Your Honour, I have just been instructed that she can commence a community corrections order upon her release from this sentence, by her father has instructed (indistinct).
91HIS HONOUR: Well, yes. Well - - -
92MS FREIJAH: It is a matter for Corrections (indistinct).
93HIS HONOUR: Well, it is a matter for Corrections.
94MS FREIJAH: Yes.
95HIS HONOUR: I guess it is either that or to call it in and vary it and get the benefit of, if it is to be a re-sentence exercise, to get the benefit of perhaps concurrency.
96MS FREIJAH: Yes.
97HIS HONOUR: And anyway, that is a matter for you.
98MS FREIJAH: Something to consider, yes, thank you.
99
HIS HONOUR: But anyway, obviously, I will fix that non-parole period and I have signed the formal order. If you get it you will see that there are three charges on the - of contravention. There is no order made in relation to
Charge 5, contravention of a community corrections order. We cannot get it off the system. That was the last contravention that was dealt with in August of last year where I imposed a monetary penalty. So you will find no order in relation to Charge 5. That is the explanation for that. Not much of a one but it is the attitude anyway. I have signed that order.
100What I will do once my reasons come back in relation to this I will revise them and I will provide those revised reasons to the Adult Parole Board, to potentially assist her in relation to the issue of parole. I may well provide all of the reasons. I have my revised original reasons. I will have revised reasons from October 2016 and I have got unrevised reasons from August 2018. So I think what I will do is, unless there is some reason why I should not, I will provide those to the Adult Parole Board to assist them and probably your client I suspect.
101MS FREIJAH: (Indistinct words).
102HIS HONOUR: Yes, all right. No other matters then?
103MR ATKINSON: No, sir.
104MS FREIJAH: No.
105HIS HONOUR: Ms Pontikis, I am sorry it has taken so long to do that and I am sorry it has wound up in the way that it has wound up but you are still very young. As I say, you probably do not feel it, but you are, you are very young and you can still get beyond this phase of your life, I am confident of that. So take the steps that you need to take, starting off in custody and take it from there but, you know, you have got a lot of qualities, they are still there and it is just a matter of dealing with these drugs I think. That is the starting point. So best of luck in the future anyway. Ms Pontikis can be removed, thank you.
106ACCUSED: Thank you so much, Your Honour, thank you.
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