Director of Public Prosecutions v Ruthven

[2017] VCC 335

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

AT MELBOURNE
CRIMINAL JURISDICTION

CR 16-01513

DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROSECUTIONS

v

JAMIE RUTHVEN

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JUDGE:	HIS HONOUR JUDGE TINNEY
WHERE HELD:	Melbourne
DATE OF HEARING:
DATE OF SENTENCE:	29 March 2017
CASE MAY BE CITED AS:	DPP v Ruthven
MEDIUM NEUTRAL CITATION:	[2017] VCC 335

REASONS FOR SENTENCE
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Subject:
Catchwords:
Legislation Cited:
Cases Cited:
Sentence:

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APPEARANCES:	Counsel	Solicitors
For the Director of Public Prosecutions	Ms I. Treasure	OPP
For the Accused	Mr B. Johnston	Haines & Polites

HIS HONOUR:

1Jamie Ruthven, you have pleaded guilty to three charges on this indictment, being one charge of making false documents, and two charges of obtaining property by deception. 

2Those charges are all punishable by a ten-year maximum term of imprisonment.  In addition, there is a summary offence laid under the Bail Act of committing an indictable offence whilst on bail, and that is punishable by a fine of no more than 30 units, or imprisonment for no greater than three months.

3You are 31 years of age.  You have admitted a relevant criminal history.  Relevant owing both to the natures of the matters contained within it, and the chronology of offending, for you were on both a community corrections order and a suspended sentence for dishonesty offending at the time of some of this offending, from which I must pass sentence.  Also, you were on bail at the tail end of the offending.

Facts

4The details of your offending are set out in Exhibit A, which is a lengthy summary dated 25 November of 2016.  It was read to the court by the prosecutor. He omitted some of the formal matters in that document with my leave.

5I see no need to go to the detail of that summary, given that your counsel told me it is an agreed statement, and it will remain on the court file.

6I will sentence in accordance with the charges on the indictment and that agreed statement.  I will still say something very briefly about your offending.

7It is obvious enough that you were involved in quite calculated and deliberate offending. It was protracted.  The offences are all laid as between dates, reflecting the false documents that you made and the sums obtained from two separate victims, being the ANZ and National Australia Bank. 

8There are schedules attached to the charges.  There were many false documents, with some 25 or so identities.  The schedule sets out the style of documents.  You made a number of relatively high-quality false documents. They were far from amateurish.  You were constructing false identities, and they were then used to obtain real credit cards from the two banks, which were then used by you and others.

9Two of those others gave evidence against you at the committal hearing, consistent with undertakings that they had given at the time of their pleas. 

10All up, some $85,000 was obtained.  Of course, it is not suggested that you have pocketed all of that by any means. You clearly have not.  However, what is plain is that you were the instigator of this highly dishonest and calculated scheme. It was not spontaneous. 

11A search of your house disclosed a large number of false documents and materials.  You made a no-comment interview with police on 18 January of 2016.  You pleaded guilty, but obviously not at the earliest of stages.  A contested committal was conducted, though it did serve some purpose, and reduced the total monetary value of the overall charges below the total that then existed in the Magistrates' Court, as I understand it.

Victim impact statement

12There is no victim impact statement here, but of course, yours are not victimless crimes. We know that. 

Submissions in mitigation

13Mr Johnston appeared for you on the plea, and in his customarily excellent plea, raised a number of matters in mitigation, relying primarily upon:-

·your guilty plea,

·the presence of remorse,

·your good prospects of rehabilitation (especially given the subsequent release onto a community corrections order). 

·A report from Mr Cummins, and the suggestion of some increase in your custodial burden, and possible deterioration in your state if imprisoned.

·Mr Johnston relied also on your pregnancy as heightening your prison burden if you were sent there.

14He conceded the seriousness of the offending and the obvious importance of specific and general deterrence, though argued that you really could be released on a community corrections order on its own, or failing that, a community corrections order in combination with a term of imprisonment.

Crown submissions

15Mr Goodenough, who appeared on behalf of the Director on the date of the plea had very little to say about the offending, and that was because the plea had been so sensibly conducted by your counsel.  Mr Goodenough argued that it would not be open to release you on a community corrections order, whether on its own or even in combination with a term of imprisonment, given the limits existing in relation to combined sentences.  He argued that the offending demanded a term of imprisonment with the fixing of a non-parole period.

16He challenged the basis of the Verdins limb six submission, but not the fifth limb that was relied upon.  I am not bound by that submission as to penalty, or indeed, any of the prosecutor's submissions, no more than I am bound by any submission made by your own counsel.  I have to pass sentence, not your counsel, and not the Director. 

Background

17I want to turn briefly to your background before returning to the matters in mitigation.  Why then am I going to your background briefly?  Well, you know your own background, and I have no reason to doubt the personal background that has been placed before me.

18Your counsel took me to it, and it is also contained in detail in the report of
Mr Cummins.  You are 31 years of age, born on 26 September 1985.  Your parents separated, and you were raised, as I understand it, by your mother. 

19Your background was unexceptional, though clearly it was not one of any great privilege or advantage. Though there was some financial disadvantage (I think you grew up in the housing commission), you had a loving upbringing with no hint of physical, or any other, violence.  You maintained contact also with your father.

20You were educated to Year 10 level, and then worked in a couple of relatively menial jobs, I think in a chicken shop and a fish and chip shop.  You have two daughters aged ten and 12, and they live with their father up in country Victoria. They are now up in Pyramid Hill.

21I was told that you were an intermittent drug user between the ages of 15 to say about 22, and at that stage you were introduced to ice.  You had been injecting ice and using GHB at the time of these offences.  I was told that your life spiralled out of control when your ex-partner took the two children in 2010.  His actions were prompted by his concern about your drug use, so there must already had been some ominous signs, at least for him, to do that, and for you then not to in any way challenge that status.

22You served a four-month sentence before being released in early June of last year.  You were released onto a community corrections order, and went home to live with your mother up until my remand of you last week.  You are now about four and a half months' pregnant.

23You have a criminal record.  It is not a particularly long record, and it shows that your breaching the law is a relatively recent phase of your life.  That is an unusual aspect of this case.  However, your criminal history is undeniably relevant to my task.  The courts have tried to deter you with very limited success.

24You were placed on a community corrections order in 2013 for dishonesty offending, and you breached that order.  When you went back to court for breach in July of 2014 on that re-sentencing exercise, you received a four-month sentence wholly suspended for 18 months, as well as a four-month actual term for fresh offending. So you went to prison.  You knew what it involved. 

25You were put on another community corrections order in May of 2015.  At that time, it was a 15-month order.  Again, there was some dishonesty offences.  It follows then that the offending for which I must pass sentence occurred in the period of that later community corrections order.  Much of it occurred in the operational period of the suspended sentence, which lapsed in January 2016.  Some of it occurred after you had been bailed in December of 2015, and much of it occurred after you had been arrested in the vicinity of a hotel room in early September 2015, leading to the O'Connor brief make false document charge that was dealt with on 1 April 2016 in a consolidated plea.  You admitted making false documents.  They were inside the hotel room.

26You were placed on another community corrections order on 1 April 2016, and your counsel points to that as a matter in mitigation.

27This matter that I have to pass sentence in was listed for plea in December of 2016, and I am told it looked like it would not be reached in the list.  It was in the reserve list, which is most regrettable.  That, in combination with a desire to get some material as to your progress on the new community corrections order, led to an adjournment application on your behalf.

28There is a brief report on your conduct that has been placed before me, marked as Exhibit 4 on the materials, and that report is not entirely positive.  Undoubtedly, your criminal history has some relevance to my task, as the courts have extended opportunities to you in the past.  The need for specific deterrence is fairly plain here.  Your past criminal conduct and the chronology of offending, and escalation of offending, raises some doubts as to your future prospects.

Psychological material

29I have referred already to the report of the psychologist Mr Cummins.  I take into account that report.  He sets out your background in detail.  The report is chiefly relied upon as showing that there may well be an increase in custodial burden, owing to the conditions commented upon by Mr Cummins, as well as some possible deterioration in your mental health in a custodial setting.  These are the fifth and sixth principles from the case of Verdins v The Queen, a Court of Appeal decision.

30The evidentiary foundation for the submissions is pretty slim in this case, but I accept that those two principles should be afforded some very modest weight here.  None of the other principles from that case are in any way relied upon.  In fact, they were specifically disavowed by your counsel, correctly so, in my assessment.

31Mr Cummins makes a number of claims in his report that simply cannot pass muster, and they are not relied upon by your counsel.  Your offending was not disordered. It was not shambolic.  It was not without judgment or skill.  It was quite organised and calculated.  It has none of the hallmarks of a person acting with any significantly impaired abilities. Quite the opposite.

32Your counsel sensibly does not rely upon those portions of the report as in any way reducing your moral culpability for the offending.  Mr Cummins, as he often enough does, expresses his views as to the dispositions open to the court, and even the likely dimensions of any prison term imposed in combination.  I ignore his views in those areas. He just should not be expressing them.

Guilty plea

33I turn then to some of the other matters raised in mitigation.  The first of those is your relatively early guilty plea.  I accept that your plea of guilty has a strong utilitarian value.  It was entered a relatively early opportunity.  That is how I will treat it, even though you pleaded not guilty in the Magistrates' Court following a contested committal.  It does not strike me as fair to treat your plea purely on the chronological basis.  The fact is that, whilst you ran a committal, that actually served some useful purpose and narrowed the scope of your liability.  Once in this court, the matter settled very swiftly.

34Witnesses have been spared the experience of coming to this court to give evidence. The community has been spared the time and the cost and the effort of a contested hearing up in this court.  In this way, you have taken legal responsibility for your offending, and you have facilitated the course of justice, so I will pass a lesser sentence because of your guilty plea and the relatively early stage it was entered.

Remorse

35Your counsel argues that I should find that you are remorseful for your offending.  You have pleaded guilty, and at an early stage.  There is reference to remorse in your mother's and your own letter.  I believe you probably are remorseful, and I take the existence of that remorse into account in mitigation. 

Rehabilitation

36I turn now then to your prospects of rehabilitation.  One can only be quite guarded here.  You have been given chances by the courts in the recent past, and you have just not taken them.  This was serious and calculated offending, whilst on a court order or orders, and for some of the offending, whilst on bail, and following police interest in September of 2015 for obviously related offending on the O'Connor brief, where you were arrested at the hotel in possession of false documents and charged with making false documents.  Still, your history before the courts is a relatively recent thing, though you have taken to it with gusto. 

37I have the letter from your mother and from you, and I must say I am impressed by each of them.  I also have the courses that you have done, some urine screens, and an email from Corrections dealing with your attitude to your current order.  Whilst not a totally glowing report, I have still seen many that are far worse.

38You have been out of custody since June of 2016, and there has been no fresh offending, and nothing outstanding.  You are back living with your mother, and you are pregnant.  You are due to give birth on 25 August of this year.

39There have been a couple of dirty drug screens, and two that were clean.  None of that is surprising. I have to be realistic as to the difficulty of a long-term user breaking the addiction.  You also have to be realistic about that.  I am told that you have desisted in drug use once awake to your pregnancy, and really it has been suggested that this is a factor that bears upon your prospects.  That is to say, your pregnancy is, in a way, a protective factor as well.

40Also, mention is made by your counsel of the improved state of play in your dealings with your ex-partner, and the ability that you had to meaningfully interact with your two young girls, who are ten and twelve, and now live up in Pyramid Hill.

41Courts have tried to put a break on your offending, and they have tried to lead you away from crime, to no avail.  However, having said all of that, I really doubt that you have enjoyed the last handful of years.  I am pretty confident your mother has not.  You have taken to crime quite late in life, though as I say with a pretty strong determination.  Your offending has been relentless, and I am prepared to accept that drugs are very much a driving force in this respect.

42There is no suggestion of any lavish or enviable lifestyle that you are leading.  Drugs are likely the driver here.  That is not mitigatory by the way, but it suggests to the court that successfully treating that issue may well break your connection to offending and to the police and to the courts.

43In this way, your past lack of criminality is important.  Had you been offending for 15 years in the way you have over the last few years, I would hold almost no hope for you, but you have not.  You are certainly a very long way removed from the stage where I would give up on you.  I do not think you have given up on yourself, and nor should you.  Others stand by you, and these things are very important.  I think you do appear to have some insight, and I am prepared to find that you do have quite realistic prospects of rehabilitation.  I think you want to live a different life, and that is half the battle won right there.

44I assess your prospects then as being reasonably good if, but only if, you totally desist in taking illegal drugs.  It is a big "if", and it is far from assured, given your lengthy drug use.  It will not be easy for you.

Parity

45Though I was told of the dispositions imposed on three co-accused, the principle of parity of sentence does not aid you here, because of course, all things are not equal.  Your counsel made that plain, and he was right to do so.  Those others dealt with have some connection, obviously, to your offending, but they have not been dealt with for anything like your full conduct.  You were very much the instigator, and two of them gave undertakings to give evidence, and then gave evidence against you at the committal, so the sentences passed upon those others has no strong pull at all in your case, owing to the very many differences.

Pregnancy

46I have already spoken of my allowance for the increased burden upon you in prison, owing to the conditions spoken of by Mr Cummins, and the probability of some deterioration.  I add into the mix your pregnancy.  Pretty plainly, it will make your imprisonment more onerous.  It is a little bleak contemplating such a setting.  Who would want their child born into such a setting where they are not then entirely certain they will even be able to have the child remain with them in prison.  There is no reason for me to think that you would not be able to keep your child, but in a non-prison setting of course, you would not even need to consider those sorts of issues.

47Now, I accept of course that your pregnancy can be managed adequately on a medical basis, and so too of course the birth, it is just a far more restrictive and less-pleasing setting for a pregnant woman, or for a new mother with a newborn. A less pleasant feel to what is normally such a happy event.  I also think I can consider the potentially stabilising effect of pregnancy and birth in considering your rehabilitative prospects, which I have done. 

Current sentencing practice and offence gravity

48Current sentencing practice is one of a large range of matters that I must, and do, pay regard to.  The sentencing snapshots in this area are not of much use at all.  Consistency of sentencing is a fundamental objective of the criminal law, but there is never one correct sentence.  These sorts of offences, especially the obtaining by deceptions, can cover a multitude of different offending and different factual settings.  Much of this style of offence seen in this court is of a high value, but high-value offending can be committed in a very unsophisticated and isolated fashion.  A single loop of a pen on a cheque, or one dishonest transaction on one day, well, it can yield a fortune.  Every case is very different, and so too, every offender.

49What I must do is pass an appropriate sentence in this case.  In your case.  I must pay regard to the nature and the gravity of the offending before the court.  As I have said, this was serious and calculated dishonesty offending.  Your offending was deliberate, it was quite sophisticated, and of a protracted nature.  You created a very large range of false documents of good quality.  Good enough to fool the banks. 

50Also, the obtaining property offences involved a decent monetary sum.  All of the offending was committed by you whilst on a community corrections order for dishonesty offences, and some was committed in the operational period of a suspended sentence, and also whilst on bail in the later stage of your offending.

51This was, on any view of it, serious offending, you know that.  Your counsel accepted that, and you have always had an expectation of being returned to prison.  I am afraid you were realistic to hold such a view.

Sentencing considerations

52I have taken into account all of the submissions made, and the exhibits that have been tendered before me.  Sentencing is always a quite complicated task.  There are a variety of matters which must be taken into account by the court.  I have to take into account the maximum penalties. I must pay regard to current sentencing practices, but there are many other matters that I must also pay regard to.

53Your prospects of rehabilitation are of course a relevant purpose for me to consider, and I do not ignore them.  I do think that they are reasonably good and realistic, subject to your total abstinence from illegal drugs.  However, your rehabilitation is not the only matter that I have to consider.  If it was, sentencing would be pretty easy.

54You must be punished for your serious crimes, though justly and proportionately, and I must denounce your conduct, and I do.  Community protection is also of some weight here, given your criminal history and the unfortunate chronology of offending. 

55Clearly, I must give some weight to specific deterrence, that is, the need to deter you from further offending.  That is obviously a relevant consideration given the nature of these crimes and your past appearances before the courts.  You must be dissuaded from ever committing such crimes as these again.  Courts have tried to deter you, but with very limited success.

56I will try again to dissuade you, but I must not lose sight of your late start to crime, and my sense that you wish to change some of the negative aspects of your life.

57The court must also seek to deter others who are minded to commit this type of serious offence.  It is serious offending.  It is not rendered less serious owing to the scale of your victim's business enterprise.  The need for general deterrence is sizeable in this sort of case. 

58Increasing technology at the disposal of the common person represents a real problem for banks and financial institutions.  False identities can be created far more easily than in times gone by.

Boulton

59Your counsel argued that it was open, and indeed desirable, to place you on a community corrections order, either on its own, or if needs be, in conjunction with a term of imprisonment.  His primary submission was that a standalone community corrections order would be adequate, but if not, one in combination with a prison term.  Either way though, whether released now or in the future from prison, to release you on such an order.

60Sending any person to prison is always a matter of last resort for any court, I need no reminding of that.  I must not confine any person unless the purposes for which sentence is imposed cannot be achieved by a community corrections order.  I was taken to the case of Boulton, which contains the guideline judgment of the Court of Appeal.  Much has changed since Boulton was published back in late-2014. 

61At the time of that decision, the Court had at its disposal the ability to impose a term of up to two years' imprisonment in conjunction with a very lengthy community corrections order.  That has changed as of 20 March of this year.  Now there is a limit of up to 12 months' imprisonment.

62The Court of Appeal, in later cases after Boulton, saw fit to remind judges and judicial officers that these dispositions are not some get out of gaol free card to be used for every offender and for every crime.  The Court of Appeal have also, from time to time, queried the way that sentences have been inappropriately imposed to evidently keep open the community corrections disposition, and how this has all led to artificially compressed sentences being imposed in the courts.

63They have observed a trend of prison terms hovering at what was the outer-margin of the then-allowable two-year period, and there was the suggestion of this being a device or ploy being used to leave open this disposition, a disposition which, in many cases, should never have even been considered.

64Really, they were saying there was a focus on the community corrections order disposition in circumstances where that very focus subverted the true sentencing process.  Some members of the Court of Appeal were disturbed by such a trend, and called for legislative change, and queried really, if the orders were having their desired or intended effect (see the case of Basic).

65Parliament moved to reduce these orders.  As I say, some of those recent amendments apply to you.  The reduction of the prison term to no greater than 12 months, that does apply to my sentencing task.

66Section 5(4C) of the Sentencing Act prohibits the imposition of a sentence of confinement unless the court concludes that the purposes of sentence cannot be achieved by a community corrections order to which specified conditions are attached.  A judge therefore has to pay careful attention to the purposes for which sentence is to be imposed, and consider whether they can actually be achieved by a community corrections order, either a standalone one, or if not, a community corrections order imposed in combination with a prison term of up to 12 months.

67Here, there is simply no question of a standalone order in my view.  Your crimes are too serious, and the chronology of offending a real worry.  The need to adequately reflect punishment, community protection, denunciation, and general and specific deterrence, would not be achieved by a standalone order in my judgment. 

68Your counsel's secondary submission was that a prison term in combination with a community corrections order could be considered.  He argued in favour of release upon a community corrections order, and was suggesting that there are some benefits, or advantages, in such a disposition. 

69The question though is not whether I can see some advantages or benefits in a combined disposition.  One almost always can.  The question really is whether it is open to me in the sound exercise of my sentencing discretion to release you on such an order in combination with a prison term. 

70I just do not believe that it is here.  Your crimes are too serious.  Such an order would not, in my view at least, give adequate weight to the need to denounce, to protect, to punish, or to deter.  The need for general and specific deterrence is very clear here.  You have received such orders in the past.  You have breached two, and on the one you have not yet breached, you have shown some worrying signs along the way, even in the lead-up to this court case, though there is reference to some improvement.

71This serious offending, or some of it, occurred in the currency of your second community corrections order, and in the operational period of a suspended sentence, and on bail.  Previous community corrections orders have evidently not deterred you.  They have not led you away from crime in the past.  It may very well be that you need the much stronger and more immediate control exercised by the Adult Parole Board.  I am going to impose a head sentence and then fix a non-parole period, but in each instance, I will take into account the many matters in mitigation.  My non-parole period will pay regard to the increased burden of imprisonment, and my strong sense that you are certainly not beyond change.

72You are very much reclaimable in my assessment, and though I have to proceed on the footing of your serving every day of my head sentence, I am going to fix a non-parole period which, I hope, will recognise and encourage your efforts.

Totality

73I obviously pay regard to the principle of totality here.  I note that you were sentenced in April of 2016 for some similar-style offending, occurring in the same general time period.  I have already commented on that.  However, what is plain is that the offending before me is far more serious.  It cannot be sensibly suggested, and was not, that if you had been dealt with at the same time for all of the offending, you would have received that same disposition.  Plainly, you could not have.

74I have taken a last look at the effect of the sentences that I will pronounce to ensure that they are commensurate with the gravity of your overall offending, and they are not crushing upon you.

75I also pay regard to the need to avoid double-punishment in this case.  The conduct the subject of Charge 1, well, much of that surfaced again in relation to the obtaining offences. The false documents were being made to then be used in the obtaining by deception, so I am very much awake to the need to avoid double punishment here.

Sentence

76Again, just remain seated Ms Ruthven, there are a handful of orders to be made.  Firstly there are some compensation orders in favour of each of the victims, so the National Australia Bank and the ANZ bank.  Application is made for compensation in the full sum of the loss, and those orders are not opposed by your counsel.  I will make them, I have signed them, I now pronounce them.

Compensation

77Having convicted you of obtaining property by deception, I am satisfied that the National Australia Bank has suffered the loss referred to in the order to the tune of $55,411.70, and I order that you pay compensation to that institution in that sum.  I have signed that order.  Likewise, in terms of the ANZ, you have been convicted of obtaining property by deception in relation to that institution.  I am satisfied that they have suffered loss to the tune of $30,665.85, and again I order that you pay compensation to that institution in that sum.

78Now, they are orders that are made against you in those sums.  I am not suggesting that someone is going to turn out your pockets and find that sum of money of course.  They now operate, essentially, as judgment debts against you.

Forfeiture

79There is also an application made for the forfeiture of the various bits and pieces and documents and items and things found upon the execution of the warrant at the place where you lived at the time of the warrant being executed in January of 2016. Again, there is no opposition to the making of this order, and I order pursuant to the provisions of s.33(1) of the Confiscation Act that the property referred to in the schedule be forfeited to the minister.  So the forfeiture order has also been made.

80I had considered in this case passing an aggregate sentence, and I could have.  But on reflection, there are two different victims, and transparency has some importance here, and in a way transparency is lost when an aggregate sentence is imposed.  So I am going to pass individual sentences and then make orders as to cumulation.

81I think in the circumstances I will have you just remain seated then, all right?  You do not need to stand up.

82On Charge 1, which is the charge of making false documents, I am going to convict and sentence you to 12 months' imprisonment.

83On Charge 2, which is the charge of obtaining property by deception from the ANZ bank, again I convict and sentence you to 12 months' imprisonment.

84On Charge 3, relating to the obtaining property from the National Australia Bank, I convict and sentence you to 15 months' imprisonment. That is the base sentence.

85On the summary offence, you are convicted and sentenced to seven days' imprisonment.

Cumulation

86I direct that two months of the sentence imposed on Charge 1 and three months of the sentence imposed on Charge 2 are to be served cumulatively, that is, on top of the base sentence and upon each other.

87The seven-day sentence will be served concurrently with all these other sentences. 

Total Effective Sentence

88So what does that result in for you?  It is a total effective sentence then of 20 months' imprisonment, all right?  So that is the head sentence.

Non-parole period

89I am going to fix a non-parole period, and it recognises many of the matters that have been raised on the plea in terms of your increased burden.

90I fix a period of eight months, during which you will not be eligible for release on parole. 

Section 18

91I declare that you have spent 25 days in custody by way of presentence detention, and that this period has already been served under the sentence.  So you have already served 25 days.

Section 6AAA

92Had you been found guilty of these offences following a trial, I would have sentenced you to a term of imprisonment of two years and ten months. I would have fixed a non-parole period in those circumstances of 21 months, and that statement will be noted in the records of the court, pursuant to s.6AAA of the Sentencing Act.

93Now, Ms Treasure and Mr Johnston, is there anything I have overlooked in terms of matters that I need pronounce at all?

94MS TREASURE:  No Your Honour.

95MR JOHNSTON:  No Your Honour.

96HIS HONOUR:  All right.  Now, are you going to be rushing off to the reserve list, Mr Johnston?  Is someone going to go down and see her?

97MR JOHNSTON:  Your Honour, I will be going down to the reserve list, but I am not expecting to get a judge, so I will be able to see Ms Ruthven afterwards, and I will go and see her after that.

98HIS HONOUR:  You will go down and see her, all right.  Was there any need for me to make - I think on the last occasion I made a - I mentioned the fact that she was pregnant, so I do not need to mention that again.  Is there any need for me to make any sort of custodial directions?

99MR JOHNSTON:  No Your Honour, I have made further enquiries this morning.  There are no further custody management issues required.

100HIS HONOUR:  All right, well thanks very much then.  So Ms Ruthven,
Mr Johnston is going to come down and see you downstairs, all right?  He is due down in the reserve list - or it might be up, I do not know where the reserve list is sitting at the moment.  But he will be going to another court, but then he will come down and see you.  It might take a little bit of time, but he will be on the way down to see you, all right?

101Yes, all right.  Ms Ruthven can be removed then, thank you.  I will just sign the order.  You head off Mr Johnston, I am just going to sign the order on the Bench, you scoot off, all right?

102MR JOHNSTON:  Thank you, Your Honour. 

103HIS HONOUR:  Thanks very much for your assistance.

104MR JOHNSTON:  If Your Honour pleases.  Yes, all right, I have signed that order.  Yes, well look, I have got a matter at 11 o'clock, I think it is, so I will stand down until 11.

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