Director of Public Prosecutions v Purdy

[2017] VCC 1984

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

AT MELBOURNE
CRIMINAL JURISDICTION

CR 17-01025

DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROSECUTIONS

v

RYAN PURDY

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JUDGE:	HIS HONOUR JUDGE GRANT
WHERE HELD:	Melbourne
DATE OF HEARING:	5 December 2017
DATE OF SENTENCE:	19 December 2017
CASE MAY BE CITED AS:	DPP v Purdy
MEDIUM NEUTRAL CITATION:	[2017] VCC 1984

REASONS FOR SENTENCE
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APPEARANCES:	Counsel	Solicitors
For the Director of Public Prosecutions	Ms K. Parnham	OPP
For the Accused	Mr P. Skehan

HIS HONOUR:

1Ryan Purdy, you have pleaded guilty to: 15 counts of burglary; four counts of damaging property; 11 counts of theft; two counts of attempted burglary; one count of prohibited person possessing a firearm; and one count of possessing an unregistered general category handgun.

2The attempted burglary charge carries a maximum penalty of five years' imprisonment, and the charge of possession of an unregistered general category handgun carries a maximum penalty of seven years' imprisonment.  All the other offences have a maximum of ten years' imprisonment.  You have also pleaded guilty to one summary charge of committing an indictable offence whilst on bail.

3Your offending can be described briefly.  On 28 November 2015 you committed a burglary with another person at the La Porcetta Restaurant in East Bentleigh.  In the course of committing the burglary you caused damage worth $8926.  The items damaged were an alarm system, CCTV cameras, a desk and a printer.  $12,800 cash was stolen.

4Then between 3 August 2016 and 11 September 2016 you were involved in a series of burglaries or attempted burglaries on small business premises.  In three of these there was destruction of alarms and ransacking of offices.  On ten occasions cash and property were stolen, except on one occasion when $20,400 was stolen the returns on your offending were relatively modest.

5You were apprehended by police at 1.03 am on 11 September 2016, committing a burglary at Riches Fresh Bakery in Scoresby.  At the time of this offence you were on bail for a charge of burglary that he'd been committed on an IGA supermarket on 26 July 2016.

6After your arrest the police searched your car and found items linking you to a number of the other burglaries committed over the preceding five weeks.  When your flat was searched the police found an unloaded, sawn-off, over and under 12 gauge shotgun.  Your prior criminal history prohibited you from possessing a firearm.  Because the shotgun had been sawn off it was classified as a general category handgun.

7Mr Purdy, this is serious offending.  You were involved in a spree of burglaries.  You targeted small businesses.  Mostly you stole small amounts of money, however, on two occasions you obtained large amounts of money and on four occasions you caused damage to property.  You were on bail and on a drug treatment order at the time of the offences in August and September 2016.  When your flat was searched you were found to be in possession of a sawn-off shotgun, and at that time you were prohibited from possessing any firearms.  With this offending great weight must be given to the principle of general deterrence.

8You have relevant prior convictions.  Your first appearance in a court was on 20 November 2006 when you appeared at the Hobart Court of Petty Sessions for offences that included 16 counts of burglary and 13 counts of theft.  You appeared regularly in courts in Hobart between that date and 6 October 2014.  Two of those appearances were in the Supreme Court.  On 7 August 2007 you appeared in the Hobart Supreme Court for an offence of aggravated armed robbery and you were sentenced to 15 months' imprisonment.

9On 2 November 2009 you again appeared in the Hobart Supreme Court on charges of aggravated burglary, stealing and attempted arson where you were sentenced to two years' imprisonment to be followed by 18 months' probation.  On 13 December 2012 you appeared in the Hobart Court of Petty Sessions for a large number of offences.  On some of those offences you were convicted and released on a drug treatment custodial sentence for ten months, an order which was subsequently breached.

10On 21 April 2016 you appeared at the Dandenong Magistrates' Court for offences that included five counts of burglary, two counts of theft and two counts of intentionally damage property.  You were sentenced to an aggregate term of 15 months' imprisonment to be served by way of a drug treatment order (DTO).  The current offences occurred, as I have said, whilst that order was in place. 

11Given this history specific deterrence and protection of the community are highly relevant sentencing considerations.

12I now move to those matters concerning your background and those matters in mitigation. 

13Your family circumstances were difficult and unsettled.  I was told that your mother was a drug user and she left the family home when you were three years old.  Your father re-partnered when you were four years old.  One of your older sisters was born with severe disabilities and your father acted as a full time carer.  Your two older brothers became drug users.  Your eldest brother, Michael, committed suicide when you were 11 or 12 and this event had a significant effect upon you.

14I was told that your relationship with your stepmother broke down when you were 13 or 14 and you moved out of home.  You had no stable accommodation.  Your counsel told me that you were in and out of the family division of the Children's Court because of your unstable circumstances.

15In sentencing you I do make allowance in a general way for the impact upon your life of the hardships you suffered as a child. 

16I was told that you left school in Year 10 and by that time you had commenced the use of cannabis.  When you were 16 you commenced using methylamphetamine.  It has been the major disruptor in your life ever since.

17You did make an effort, it seems, in 2011 or thereabouts to stay away from drugs and this is reflected in the drug treatment order made in Hobart in December 2012.  That order was breached when you relapsed into drug use. I was told that this occurred after your partner had miscarried.

18In late 2014 or early 2015 you moved to Queensland.  In October 2015 you appeared at the Gympie Magistrates' Court for drug possession.  You were fined $450.  You then moved to Victoria.  Within a very short time you were committing offences that saw you remanded in custody on 15 December 2015.  These were the offences heard at the Dandenong Magistrates' Court on 21 April 2016 when you were sentenced to a DTO. I note in relation to that order that the days you had spent in custody was not at that time reckoned as served.

19Charges 1 to 3 on the current indictment were committed on 28 November 2015, which means they were committed during the same timeframe as the offences which were dealt with in April 2016.  This is a relevant matter for me to take into account in sentencing you.

20On 26 July 2016 you were arrested for burglary on an IGA supermarket and released on bail.  Between 2 August 2016 and 30 August 2016 there were a number of review hearings in the Dandenong Drug Court.  Between 3 August 2016 and 11 September 2016 you committed the balance of the offences on the current indictment.  You were remanded in custody on 11 September 2016 and the period of 67 days from that date until 17 November 2016 is pre-sentence detention that is directly referrable to the matters before me.

21On 17 November 2016 you appeared at the Dandenong Magistrates' Court for the offences of burglary, theft and going to equipped to steal that relate to the IGA offending on 26 July 2016 and for contravention of the DTO.  On the IGA matters you were sentenced to an aggregate imprisonment term of six months. You were sentenced to nine months' imprisonment on the breach of the DTO.  The fact that the sentence was nine months rather than 15 months supports the submission by the prosecutor that the sentence made allowance for the days you spent on remand from 15 December 2015 to 21 April 2016.

22The magistrate who sentenced you ordered the nine months' sentence be served cumulatively upon the six months' sentence, making a total effective term of 15 months.  A minimum term of nine months was set before you would be eligible for release on parole.  Your non-parole period expired on 16 August this year.  You are now serving the balance of the sentence which is due to expire on 16 February 2018.  You were not considered for parole because the current matters were still outstanding.

23Mr Purdy, I have spent time detailing this history because it is relevant to the application of the principle of totality.  Because you are being sentenced for a large number of offences I am required to ensure that any sentence I impose is just and appropriate for the whole of the offending.  The principle does not only apply to the matters that are before me on the current indictment.  The principal also applies to sentences imposed on different occasions.

24This means that I am required to consider the total criminality involved in all of the offences for which you are to be sentenced, and the totality of the effective length of the sentences to be imposed and which have been imposed.  In short, I am to consider the sentence that would have been imposed had all of the offences fallen for consideration on the same occasion.

25It is also important for me to take account of the following matters.  First, charges 1 to 3 on the indictment occurred prior to your remand in December 2015.  If they had been dealt with in April 2016 they may have, given their seriousness, added to the gaol term, but given the nature of the order that was made, not considerably, secondly, the IGA offending seems to be the starting point for the offences that followed in August and September 2016.  The fact that you have received a six month sentence on the IGA matters is a relevant consideration in determining the sentence for subsequent matters and, finally, my sentence should reflect the fact that your non-parole period expired on
16 August 2016.

26There is not a lot that can be said in mitigation.  You have pleaded guilty.  Although the matter was not resolved until shortly before the trial date the prosecutor agreed that the indication of a willingness to plead guilty to the ultimate charges came as soon as practicable after the prosecution had nominated the charges it was including on the trial indictment.  The plea is an acceptance of responsibility and is indicative of remorse.  The plea has also saved the victims from the stress of giving evidence and saved the community the costs involved in a criminal trial.  Given the large number of charges and potential witnesses, if there had been a trial, the utilitarian benefit of the guilty plea is significant.  You will be given credit for all these matters.

27I am not optimistic about your prospects for rehabilitation.  You have a longstanding and deeply entrenched drug problem.  Efforts to deal with it in the community have been unsuccessful.  Your only hope for rehabilitation would be to stop using drugs. 

28I intend to impose an aggregate imprisonment order on charges 1 to 32.  I do so because the offences are part of a series of offences of a similar character.

29Mr Purdy, would you please stand:

on charges 1 to 32 you are convicted and sentenced to an aggregate term of imprisonment of three years;

on charges 33 and 34 you are sentenced to an aggregate term of imprisonment of nine months with six months of that sentence to be served cumulatively upon the aggregate imprisonment order made on charges 1 to 32;

on the breach of bail you are sentenced to two months' imprisonment.

30This makes a total effective sentence of three years and six months.  I fix a minimum term of two years and three months before you will be eligible for release on parole.  I make a declaration that you have served 67 days pre-sentence detention.  Had you pleaded not guilty and been found guilty after trial I would have sentenced you to a total effective term of four years and nine months with a minimum term of three years and six months.

31I make the disposal and forfeiture orders sought by the prosecution.  You can be seated there.

32COUNSEL:  As Your Honour pleases.

33HIS HONOUR:  I do have the forfeiture orders here so I will just sign them now, Ms Parnham.

34MS PARNHAM:  Yes, Your Honour.

35HIS HONOUR:  Yes, the prisoner can be removed, thank you.

36MS PARNHAM:  As Your Honour pleases.

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