Director of Public Prosecutions v Quach
[2017] VCC 1355
•18 September 2017
| IN THE COUNTY COURT OF VICTORIA AT MELBOURNE CRIMINAL DIVISION | Revised Not Restricted Suitable for Publication |
Case No. CR-15-00726
| DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROSECUTIONS |
| v |
| MEEISHYAN QUACH |
---
JUDGE: | Her Honour Judge Hampel | |
WHERE HELD: | Melbourne | |
DATE OF HEARING: | Plea: 20, 21 July 2015, and 18 September 2015 | |
DATE OF SENTENCE: | 18 September 2017 | |
CASE MAY BE CITED AS: | DPP v Quach | |
MEDIUM NEUTRAL CITATION: | [2017] VCC 1355 | |
REASONS FOR SENTENCE
---
Subject:
Catchwords:
Legislation Cited:
Cases Cited:
Sentence:
---
APPEARANCES: | Counsel | Solicitors |
| For the DPP | Mr D. Porceddu | Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions |
| For the Accused | Ms L. Torres | Papa Hughes Lawyers |
HER HONOUR:
1 Meeishyan Quach, you are the third person I have sentenced for offences arising out of an investigation called Operation Skyborne. Operation Skyborne began in September 2012 and between May 2013 and March 2015, six separate covert operatives acting under a controlled operations authority, conducted 39 transactions with a number of people, including significantly, Fadi Haddara and Khaled Kaddour, the other two accused who I sentenced.
2
Telephone intercepts and optical surveillance devices revealed that you played a significant role over a relatively limited period of the surveillance operation in Mr Haddara's trafficking activities. It was common ground in the opening presented on your behalf, as it was in the openings presented on behalf of
Mr Haddara and Mr Kaddour, that Mr Haddara was the head of a criminal syndicate which was engaged in the purchase and sale of drugs and firearms. Mr Haddara, as the prosecution summary said, was the head of the syndicate and used underlings, intermediaries and associates to conduct his drug trafficking and other criminal activities. You were one of those.
3 The specific transactions that, as a result of a surveillance operation, evidenced your involvement in the charge of drug trafficking, to which you ultimately pleaded guilty, occurred between January and March 2014 and led to your plea of guilty to a between dates charge covering that period.
Circumstances of the offending before me
4
On 13 January 2014, you were seen arriving at Mr Haddara's factory, from where he carried out much of his drug trafficking business, handing over
a plastic bag containing methylamphetamine from your handbag to Mr Haddara. He, in your presence, removed three smaller bags from it, weighed each of them and then counted out money in payment for those bags. He gave the money to you, or gave to the man with you and you then left.
5 Two days later, on 15 January 2014, you were seen with Mr Kaddour at Mr Haddara's factory and engaged in behaviour which indicated further involvement in the moving of drugs. Indeed, later that day, you drove Mr Kaddour to a place where he collected $18,000, in exchange for drugs. Unfortunately for you, the customer was an undercover operative. That was a total of 56 grams of methylamphetamine of an 80 per cent purity.
6
On 30 January 2014, surveillance revealed you engaging in discussions with Mr Haddara about sourcing drugs or supplying drugs, or rather you supplying
Mr Haddara with methylamphetamine. And on 7 February, you were again in contact with Mr Haddara, arranging to, at this time, source methylamphetamine from him. On that day, you were also in contact with Mr Kaddour, who was engaged in negotiations with a covert operative to supply 28 grams of methylamphetamine for a sum of $9,000. You later met with Mr Kaddour who gave you that $9,000 in exchange for ice and he was then seen dealing with that. You were also then seen involved in another transaction that same day, where a further quantity of methylamphetamine was exchanged for $2,500. That ended up being 27.6 grams of methamphetamine of 90 per cent purity and another amount of 6.7 grams of 90 per cent purity.
7 Again on 5 March, you were seen on optical surveillance at Mr Haddara's factory, again removing three small bags of methylamphetamine from your handbag. This time you weighed them on the scales and were seen to pass at least one of those bags to Mr Haddara before you left the camera view.
8 That means that you were seen dealing in 89.2 grams of methylamphetamine supplied to the undercover operative. There were the two further transactions caught on optical surveillance on 13 January and 5 March, where you were clearly seen handing over methamphetamine, but no quantifiable weight was obtained.
9 A search warrant was executed at your home and you were arrested on 18 March. Amongst the items found at the time of your arrest was a small amount of methamphetamine and a small vial of temazepam.
10 The drug trafficking that I have detailed, forms the substance of Charge 1 of trafficking between those January and March dates, to which you pleaded guilty.
11 The possession of the small quantity of methamphetamine and of temazepam found at your home on the day of the execution of the warrant, are the subject of Charges 2 and 3 respectively, possession of drugs of dependence.
12 When the search warrant was executed at your home, four stolen medical prescription pads were also found and that gives rise to Charge 4, to which you have pleaded guilty, a charge of receiving stolen goods.
13 This is serious offending. You were clearly part of a commercial drug trafficking ring, for gain. Although you, like others of your co-offenders, abused substances yourself, I am not satisfied that your involvement and the gains that you made were limited to being supplied with drugs to feed your own habit. The amount you made, how much you were paid by way of cash, as well as by way of drugs and whatever other ways you were paid, is unclear on the evidence. But I am not prepared to make an affirmative finding in your favour on the balance of probabilities that all you received out of this was drugs to feed for your own habit.
14 It was put and strongly put on your behalf that your drug dealing occurred in the context of the need to feed your own addiction. There is a certain irony, or perhaps even what might be called a breathtaking lack of insight to excuse or seek to excuse your behaviour that way. On the one hand, excusing it on the basis that you have an addiction and whilst on the other hand, engaging in what was clearly a trusted, mid-level intermediary in being trusted to transport significant quantities of drugs and significant quantities of cash between known people, well involved in the drug world and so to engage in that level of activity, thus fuelling and encouraging the drug addictions of many others. Justifying that by saying you were simply feeding your own addiction did, certainly back in July 2015 when you were first before me, demonstrate a breathtaking lack of insight and lack of acceptance of real responsibility for your conduct.
15 It is clear that subject to matters personal to you, considerations of denunciation, just punishment and deterrence, both general and specific, loom large in the sentencing mix.
16 Subject to considerations peculiar to your circumstances, to which I will refer shortly, the sentence to be imposed for your offences must not only be proportionate to your offending and your role, but proportionate to the sentences imposed on your co-offenders. I have been handed today an updated schedule, dealing with the sentences impose on all of those caught up in Operation Skyborne, not just you and the two other people who came before me for sentencing.
17 Looking at the sentence that I imposed upon Mr Haddara, described as the head of the operation, I must have regard to the fact that I sentenced him for the charge of trafficking, to which he pleaded guilty, to a term of imprisonment of 18 months, followed by a three-year community correction order. At the same time I sentenced him to a term of imprisonment for four separate firearms offences and which related to what was properly described as firearms trafficking, something you were not involved in. But that made his total effective prison sentence 23 months before the imposition of the three year CCO.
18
When I sentenced Mr Haddara, I did not take into account the close to six months that he had spent in pre-sentence detention. So the effect of the sentence that I imposed on him, was that he was subjected to, taking into account the time before sentence he spent in custody, the time he spent in custody, or was to spend in custody and the time he was required to serve as
post-imprisonment supervision, was approximately five years in total of custodial or correctional supervision.
19 In looking at the sentence I imposed on Mr Kaddour in similar terms, the effect of the sentence I imposed on him for his trafficking, which was in a similar vein to yours, but where surveillance detected him engaged in a larger number of transactions, with a larger amount of drugs, was to place him under custodial or correctional supervision for overall, a period of about three years, taking into account the time in custody and the time he is required to serve under a CCO.
20 Mr Haddara is properly regarded as the head of the syndicate, so your sentence must rank below his. Equating where you sit in relation to Mr Kaddour is a little more complex and I will come back to that shortly.
21 Although I heard your plea two years ago, along with the pleas of Mr Haddara and Mr Kaddour, and although I sentenced the two of them two years ago, I did not proceed to sentence you immediately. When your plea was presented, I took the view that the materials presented to me relating to what was said to be your improved prospects of rehabilitation since the commission of the offending that brought you before me, by reason particularly of your engagement in drug counselling and other programs whilst on bail and resident in South Australia, led me to adjourn, so as to enable more adequately and up-to-date materials to be provided to me. During that period of adjournment, you returned, in accordance with your bail condition, to South Australia.
22
Before the plea before me was heard, you had already been, on two separate occasions, charged with further drug trafficking offences in South Australia. On your return, pending the resumed plea hearing before me, you were
arrested for breach of the bail conditions relating to your South Australian charges, remanded in custody and ultimately sentenced there for the South Australian drug trafficking and related breach of bail conditions offences. So that meant that ultimately, although the South Australian offences occurred later, you were sentenced for them first and sentence before me had to be adjourned.
23
On 3 December 2015, you were sentenced in South Australia by Her Honour Judge Davey in the District Court there, to a total term of imprisonment of four years and nine months, with a non-parole period of two years and six months. Those sentences were declared to commence on 20 August 2015, which
I understand to be the time that you were remanded in custody in South Australia. Judge Davey's sentence was later reduced on appeal to a total effective sentence of four years and three months, with a non-parole period of two years.
24
You pleaded guilty before Judge Davey to two separate sets of charges relating to drug trafficking. The first set culminating in your arrest on 28 August 2014, the second following your release on bail in respect of those offences on
8 February 2015.
25 All the South Australian offending occurred after you had been charged with the trafficking and related offences, for which I am now dealing with you. You spent 53 days on remand in Victoria before being released on bail and returning to South Australia. It was there, whilst awaiting the determination of these charges, that you committed the offences that ultimately led to you being sentenced by Judge Davey.
26 I have been provided with a copy of her sentencing remarks. In sentencing you, Her Honour said this, relating to the South Australian offences,
"Whilst the amounts of drugs found in your physical possession were relatively small, the amounts of cash and the circumstances surrounding the offending, indicate that you were engaged in substantial ongoing drug trafficking."
She went on to say,
"It seems that you continued to use illicit drugs, particularly heroin and methamphetamine, after your arrest in Victoria and whilst you
were on bail in South Australia and you continued to traffic in those drugs."
She further said,
"It is important to note that not only did you use illicit drugs whilst on bail for the earlier offending, but you continued to traffic in those drugs and to a substantial degree. The cash found in your possession indicates that your offending was not at a level which merely provided for your ongoing addiction. On the contrary, the evidence proves and establishes that you were engaged in that drug trafficking, not only to support your habit, but for further profit."
27 As I have pointed out, while I can make no findings in your favour or adverse to you, as to how much you profited by it, I am not satisfied that all you got was drugs to feed your habit. But it is because of the subsequent drug trafficking that you come before me over two years since your original plea hearing, finally to be sentenced for these offences.
Personal circumstances, then and now
28 You were 25 at the time of the offending and you are now 27. You are the middle of three daughters of hard-working Vietnamese immigrant parents, who came here to make a better life for themselves and their children. The family settled in South Australia. The reports provided to me and the references from your sisters, indicate a childhood which was safe and stable. You did not want for food, for access to education, or for family support. But your childhood which was marred, from your perspective, by the long hours yours parents spent working in order to make this better life for themselves and for you, and by the high demands that you felt they, particularly your father, made of you, in terms of behaviour and academic achievement.
29 You completed your secondary schooling without incident, but unlike your siblings who went on to further study and professional careers, you left South Australia and came to Melbourne at the age of 18. You undertook a certificate course and qualified as a dental assistant, but that does not appear to be employment that you have pursued. In fact, on the material before me, it seems that from the age of 18, you were, by and large, unemployed or grossly underemployed.
30 The longer you were in Melbourne, the more you became alienated from your family and you were living, what appears to be, certainly by the time of the surveillance operation that gave rise to your arrest for these charges, a drug using and aimless life. You were moving in a serious criminal milieu, with people who dealt in drugs and guns. Your parents and sisters were clearly unaware of this drug using, aimless and criminally associated life that you were leading. It came as a great shock to your family when you were charged and when you acknowledged to them that you were dependent on on both heroin and ice, had not been in gainful employment for a considerable period and had been involved, in the way the evidence reveals you have, in a significant drug trafficking and other criminal activity ring.
31 Your family rallied around you and after that 53 days on remand, you were bailed on condition that you return to South Australia and live with them. Upon your return, you committed yourself to engaging in drug rehabilitation and managed to remain drug and offence-free for some time. However that did not last and it was whilst awaiting the hearing of these charges that you were charged with and succinctly bailed for the other drug offences for which Her Honour, Judge Davey ultimately sentenced you.
32 Since being sentence in South Australia, you have again expressed your commitment to becoming and remaining drug-free. You have engaged in courses, rehabilitative and vocational. You have re-engaged with your family and you are making active plans for a more productive and meaningful life in the future. Although access to drugs is more limited in prison than in the broader community, prisons are not drug-free environments. No evidence has been presented to indicate that you continued to abuse illicit substances whilst in custody. That indicates again that you have the capacity to make a commitment and to be able to sustain it for some period, this time for a longer period and when at times, your future must have looked particularly bleak to you.
33 You are fortunate to have continued to have the support of your family. I am told since you were remanded in South Australia, your family have visited you weekly whilst you have been in custody. They are genuinely concerned for your welfare and the testimonials provided back in 2015 and more recently for this hearing by your younger sister, indicate a great openness and desire on the part of your family to continue to support you and to assist you and to offer you their love. That remains so, notwithstanding their disappointment about the course of life that you had taken, which appears to be so alien from the way the rest of them have lived their lives.
34 To your credit, you have accepted their support and assistance. You have acknowledged the shame that you feel and the shame and distress that you have caused your family. You acknowledged that you have engaged in conduct that is contrary to the values of the family that you were brought up in and the ways you were brought up. You indicate that you are looking forward to the continued support of the family, to earn their respect and to continue to have their support upon your release. So family support and what would appear to be the prospect of stable accommodation and love and support around you to encourage your rehabilitation are significant, positive factors to take into account in assessing your prospects for rehabilitation.
35 Although this is the Commonwealth of Australia, our Federal system means that State borders can make significant differences, in terms of the administration of laws. Had it not been for jurisdictional issues, that is, your committing some offences in this State and some offences in South Australia, subject to the laws of each of those States, you could reasonably have expected to have been sentenced for these offences shortly after having been sentenced for the South Australian offences. In fact, had you not been remanded in custody in South Australia, it was your reasonable anticipation that having been dealt with here, you could have applied, under the Interstate Prisoner Transfer Legislation to return to South Australia to complete your Victorian sentence and, whilst still serving that sentence, been sentenced in the South Australian court. You could have served all sentences close to your family.
36 You lost that opportunity because you were arrested after your return to South Australia, by reason of breach of your South Australian bail conditions. Although it was your conduct that led to that outcome, the operation of State laws that precluded you from being dealt with in the way a person whose offending had all occurred in the one State, could have been.
37 As I indicated from the start and as was common ground before me on the plea, I should moderate the sentence to be imposed upon you today, so as to achieve, as best as possible, the same result that would have been achieved, had I been able to sentence you within a short time of your being sentenced for the South Australian offences.
38 In some ways, the time has served you well. In the two years in custody, you have, as I have indicated, demonstrated a sustained period of engagement with commitment to rehabilitation. That is evidenced, not only by your participation in drug rehabilitation and behavioural management courses, but also in vocational courses and programs. You have worked in prison industry and the testimonials that have been provided from those with whom you had contact whilst in custody in South Australia, indicate that you had accepted your fate, that you had to serve your time and that you were seeking to do the best you could and make the most of it, in terms of learning and engaging in an obedient way, so as to maximise your prospect of a better acceptance of authority and responsibility upon your release.
39 You have also shown, during that whole time in custody, how you have managed to continue engagement with your family and deal with the tensions that seemed to exist. You were initially resentful, grateful for their care, but resentful of their telling you that you had done the wrong thing. That had been the cause of some of the problems that led to the family tensions, relapse into drug use and breach your bail conditions back in 2015.
40 I accept Ms Torres' submissions that considerations of totality and the effect of delay, by reason of the interstate issue, are significant sentencing factors here also. I accept Ms Torres’ submissions that any time that you serve here will be more onerous by reason of your isolation from your family. They are not empty words, given what I have been told and I accept about the level of family support.
41 Coming back then to how to determine the sentence. I consider your moral culpability at the time of the offending is significant. You were capable of knowing that what you were doing was wrong and seriously wrong. You were caught up in a life, not just of drug dealing, but of serious drug and associated criminal activity. It became your lifestyle. You were associating with people who had very seriously anti-social views and you were part of that milieu. You were acting as a trusted, mid-level intermediary.
42 There are not many people who, while sourcing their own drug addiction, would be trusted to carry substantial amounts of drugs and substantial amounts of money from a supplier to a wholesaler and back again. That was the role you fulfilled. You were not just carrying parcels, the contents of which you were not supposed to know about. You were trusted sufficiently and at a sufficiently high level of the operation to witness the weighing of the bags, to witness the counting of the cash and to be involved in the transporting of substantial quantities of drugs and cash. That shows a level of trust within an organisation. That means you were a high level operative. One whose drug use did not impede their capacity to avoid detection, to seek to defeat surveillance, and to be able to carry out in all its grubby details, that level of drug dealing. So it was really a criminal, if not a gangster life you were leading at the time.
43 So your moral culpability and your personal circumstances at the time do not give you significant mitigation. However, you are a person without relevant prior convictions. You have one minor and youthful offence for dishonesty. You rank clearly below Haddara, but on the evidence before me, it seems that your role was similar to that of Mr Kaddour. However, he was significantly older than you, he had significant prior convictions and had was also involved in firearms offences, which you were not involved in.
44 You were trusted to deliver drugs to Haddara, as I said, to watch him weigh the supplied drugs, to count the money or watch the money being counted, in exchange for the drugs and to escort or deliver the money back to whoever supplied the drugs to you and you were to return the money to.
45 Surveillance also show that you were actively involved in the receiving and transmitting of order and accepting orders, on the understanding that you were in a position to fill them. You were trusted to drive to various locations and to witness the supply of drugs and exchange of money from others at that level in the supply chain. You were therefore clearly much higher than the street level seller, you were properly regarded as a trusted operative, operating at the wholesale level of the syndicate.
46 Your sentence needs to be distinguished from Mr Kaddour’s, not only because he is older, he has got priors and he was involved in a gun offence as well, but also because the period of offending, to which he pleaded guilty, spanned another couple of months and the quantity of drugs that were obtained that were able to be weighed and tested, by reason that they were supplied to an undercover, was a little greater than yours.
47 But as I noted when I was sentencing each of Haddara and Kaddour, it is clear that the amounts that were able to be weighed and tested because the transactions were to the undercovers, must be seen against that background of what was clearly ongoing, large-scale criminal activity of which you were aware, even when you were not actually handling drugs or money. So ultimately I have come to the view, there is little to distinguish between you and Kaddour, other than his priors, and the greater length of time of trafficking in which he was engaged.
48
But because your circumstances are so different now from those that obtained at the time of the original offending and at the time you were originally before me for sentencing, neither parity nor proportionality can be strictly applied. You are still serving your South Australian sentence, transferred to Victoria under the Prisoners (Interstate Transfer) Act1983 (Vic) after your non-parole period had expired in South Australia. The circumstances of your subsequent South Australian offending, and your family support in South Australia, make it is clear that a combination sentence, such as that I ultimately imposed on
Mr Haddara and Mr Kaddour, is not appropriate to you in your circumstances today. It was acknowledged by Ms Torres that, in the circumstances, the only appropriate sentence was one which involved the imposition of a term imprisonment and the fixing of a new, single non-parole period.
49 The other reason that your circumstances cannot be directly compared with that of Mr Haddara or Mr Kaddour, is because of the commission of those subsequent offences in South Australia. Neither Haddara nor Kaddour had pending charges of a like nature, committed whilst on bail, awaiting sentencing in respect of matters for which I dealt them.
50 Had you been able to be sentenced for all offending at the same time, or close in time, I would have ordered partial concurrency of the sentence for these offences, with the sentences for the other offences. It was like-behaviour, occurring over a relatively concentrated period of time and with the same factors of inadequately addressed drug use and bad lifestyle factors, relevant to all charges.
51
So today, having to structure the sentence, having regard to the fact you have already served two years of the four year, three month head sentence imposed in South Australia, I take into account the time that has elapsed, the evidence of that more sustained period, although in custody, of abstinence and commitment to addressing your drug use and the evidence of the sustained
re-engagement with your family. As I have said, it is your family support and re-engagement with them that is, in my view, the strongest rehabilitative factor. Perhaps paradoxically, therefore it is a matter that carries more weight with me today than it did, or would have done, had I sentenced you shortly after you first appeared before me in July 2015.
52 I take into account also the fact you had been found eligible for parole in South Australia at about the time you were first eligible for consideration and it appears you would have been released on parole, had it not been for these charges.
53 I have structured the sentence so as to ensure that the period I think is the appropriate cumulative period, taking regard to those matters, can be served to allow a significant gap between the head sentence and the non-parole period, to allow the Parole Board here the maximum opportunity to consider your release on parole and to do what is necessary, in order to facilitate your transfer to parole in South Australia, if that is considered by the Victorian and the South Australian Parole Board to be the best way to manage you on your release into the community.
54 So the sentences themselves may not necessarily sound like the sentences that would have been imposed, had I dealt with you before you were dealt with for the South Australian offences. They have been tailored to ensure that you do not serve more time than I think you should, in totality terms, but having regard to time elapsed since you were first sentenced.
55 Could you please now stand, Ms Quach.
56 Meeishyan Quach, on the four charges to which you pleaded guilty, you are convicted.
57 On Charge 1 of trafficking, you are sentenced to be imprisoned for a period of two years.
58 On Charges 2 and 3, the two charges of possession of drugs of dependence, you are sentenced to an aggregate sentence of one month imprisonment.
59 On Charge 4 of receiving stolen goods, the four prescriptions pads, you are sentenced to a term of imprisonment of one month.
60 That makes a total effective sentence of two years.
61 I direct that 12 months of this sentence be served cumulatively upon the sentences you are currently undergoing.
62 I fix a new single non-parole period of 12 months.
63 I declare that you have spent 53 days in pre-sentence detention and direct that be counted as part of the sentence already served.
64 Are those declarations right, in terms of what we are saying about the understanding of the law?
65 MR PORCEDDU: Just pardon me, Your Honour. I think so. Just in relation to the total effective sentence, could I just confirm, Your Honour? The total effective sentence is two years, is that correct?
66 HER HONOUR: Yes, that is for these four State offences for which I am sentencing.
67 MR PORCEDDU: Yes.
68 HER HONOUR: So Charges 2, 3 and 4 are all concurrent with the sentence on Charge 1.
69 MR PORCEDDU: Yes. I think that's right, Your Honour.
70 HER HONOUR: And then, one year of that sentence, cumulative upon sentences already served, so that adds 12 months - - -
71 MR PORCEDDU: Twelve months.
72 HER HONOUR: - - - to the sentences he is currently undergoing.
73 MR PORCEDDU: Yes. And then minus the - - -
74 HER HONOUR: And non-parole period starting today, but with the 53 days PSD calculated - - -
75 MR PORCEDDU: Yes.
76 HER HONOUR: - - - of 12 months.
77 MR PORCEDDU: Yes. I understand that that's correct, Your Honour.
78 HER HONOUR: All right, thank you.
79 Now, I make the forfeiture and disposal orders sought and I have signed them.
80 Any further update on the 464ZF?
81 MR PORCEDDU: Your Honour, it's a bit ambiguous. It is - I've been getting bits and pieces, but, Your Honour, I won't pursue the application right now. We will leave it as seven days.
82 HER HONOUR: All right, I will reserve my decision on the application for the provision of a forensic sample.
83
Ms Quach, can I just explain to you what I have been talking to the lawyers about, in relation to the forensic sample. I understand you consent to it, but
I am not sure at this stage that it is necessary for me to make it. If you have already provided a forensic sample and it is on the national database, I should not order it again and you should not have to provide a further sample. If, however, you are not on the national database, then I do consider it appropriate, having regard to the nature of the offending and your circumstances, to make the order. Do you understand that?
84 OFFENDER: Yes.
85 HER HONOUR: All right. Now, if the order is made, it will be by way of a buccal sample. That requires you to rub a swab like a cotton bud on the inside of your mouth until a sufficient sample has been obtained. And I must tell you, that if you do not co-operate in the provision of that sample, then the police are authorised to use reasonable force to take the sample and it is likely that they will use the more invasive means of obtaining a forensic sample, which is taking a blood sample. Do you understand that?
86
I have given the prosecution a week to be able to clarify whether there is a need to make the order or not. If you are not on the database, I will make the order and you will be notified of that. If you are on the database, I will indicate that
I will not make the order because there is already a sample on the database. No doubt you lawyers will explain that to you.
87 So I hope, Ms Quach, this is the last time that you are before a court in this State, or in any other State. You are fortunate indeed to have a loyal and loving family and you have obviously had a lot of time to think and reflect about the life you have been leading and about the fortune you have in the support that your family are still prepared to give you. And I hope that that will sustain you through the balance of your sentence and your time upon release into the community.
88 MR PORCEDDU: Your Honour, just one other thing. A 6AAA is required.
89 HER HONOUR: Yes. It is so artificial in these circumstances.
90 But for your pleas of guilty and having regard to the time at which I am imposing the sentence, I would have sentenced you to a term of imprisonment of four years and I would have fixed the period of two years as the time that you would have been eligible to serve before, or been required to serve before being eligible for release on parole. Thank you.
91 COUNSEL: As Your Honour pleases.
92 HER HONOUR: That is it. All right, thank you everybody. Let us adjourn until 9 o'clock tomorrow morning.
- - -
0
0
0