Director of Public Prosecutions v Sant
[2019] VCC 1592
•2 October 2019
| IN THE COUNTY COURT OF VICTORIA | Revised Not Restricted Suitable for Publication |
AT MELBOURNE
CRIMINAL DIVISION
Case No. CR-17-01781
| DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROSECUTIONS |
| v |
| PAUL SANT |
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JUDGE: | HER HONOUR JUDGE HAMPEL | |
WHERE HELD: | Melbourne | |
DATE OF HEARING: | 23 September 2019 | |
DATE OF SENTENCE: | 2 October 2019 | |
CASE MAY BE CITED AS: | DPP v Sant | |
MEDIUM NEUTRAL CITATION: | [2019] VCC 1592 | |
REASONS FOR SENTENCE
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Catchwords: Sentence – commonwealth offences – interference likely to prejudice the sage operation of an aircraft – endangering the safety of an aircraft in flight – transmission of false information – deprived childhood – youthful offender – delay in plea hearing – genuine remorse – good prospects for rehabilitation – rehabilitation already underway – CCO appropriate disposition for charges 1 and 3 – imprisonment with immediate release appropriate to mark the seriousness of charge 2
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APPEARANCES: | Counsel | Solicitors |
| For the Prosecution | Mr D. Holding | Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecution |
| For the Accused | Mr S. Norton | Stary Norton Halphen |
HER HONOUR:
Paul Sant, you have pleaded guilty in this court to three charges arising out of hoax calls that you made on the Melbourne Airport air traffic control frequencies over a period of three days in October of 2016 and which interfered with the proper management of airplanes in the airspace around and coming into land at Melbourne Airport.
On 25 October 2016 at about 3:47pm, aerodrome controller, Samuel Stubbs, was assisting a Virgin Australia domestic flight arriving in Melbourne from Launceston. It was carrying 176 passengers and 6 crew. Stubbs had cleared the plane to land. It was on its final approach. Stubbs and the pilots then heard a transmission on one of the Melbourne Airport landing dedicated radio frequencies directing the flight to abort take off. Stubbs and the pilot recognised that that was an inaccurate call, because the plane was landing, not taking off, and so did not act on the command.
About 20 minutes later, Jason Beatson, another aerodrome controller, received a similar transmission. He was assisting a Jetstar domestic flight arriving from Newcastle. It had 170 passengers and 6 crew on board. It, too, had been cleared to land. That plane was about 0.3 kilometres away from the airport and about one minute away from the runway when both Beatson and the pilot heard a transmission directing the flight to 'go around'. An instruction to ‘go around’ is an instruction not to land but to fly in the vicinity of the airport until given clearance to land. Beatson quickly confirmed that the pilot had not made the 'go around' transmission and confirmed with the pilot the clearance to land and that plane landed without incident.
About 23 minutes later, so that is now by about 4:30pm, Beatson heard another suspicious transmission. He was assisting a Qantas flight from Sydney to Melbourne and again he had given it clearance to land. That flight had a capacity to carry 168 passengers and there were 7 crew members on board. Both Beatson and the pilots heard the caller say, 'Qantas', and, 'go around'. There is some confusion as to what flight number was used, whether it was actually the flight number of the flight coming in or a different flight number. Beatson recognised the voice from the previous hoax transmissions and therefore was able to quickly transmit to the pilots that they were cleared to land and the plane did then land without incident.
You were the maker of those calls and it is your conduct in making those three calls which constitutes Charge 1, interference likely to prejudice the safe operation of aircraft contrary to s 192 of the Radiocommunications Act 1992 (Cth). This is an offence punishable by up to 5 years' imprisonment.
Two days later, on 27 October 2016, you made another hoax transmission. Beatson was again the aerodrome controller. He was assisting a Virgin flight arriving from the Gold Coast into Melbourne. It was carrying 164 passengers and six crew members. Again, the plane had been cleared for landing and was coming in to land. Its landing gear was down, the aircraft's flaps were set for landing and it had reduced its speed. The pilots then heard a transmission, as did Beatson, directing the flight to 'go around'. Before Beatson could counteract that command and tell the pilots that it was a hoax and that they were in fact cleared for landing, the pilot had acted on the instruction and went around.
That meant that he increased the engine thrust, partially retracted the aircraft's flaps, retracted the landing gear, communicated with the tower that he was going around and climbed the plane to a safe altitude to get away from the ground. That then meant that, in order for the plane to land, the whole process of a clearance for 'return to land’ had to be re-given by Beatson. This conduct has the potential to create a fatal situation at a critical point of a flight coming into landing and it is this conduct that gives rise to Charge 2, endangering the safety of an aircraft in flight contrary to s 25(2)(b) of the Crimes (Aviation) Act 1991 (Cth). This charge is a more serious one than Charge 1. Here the pilot acted on the instruction and the safety of the aircraft in flight was endangered. The difference between this offence and the previous one is reflected by the maximum penalty, for this charge being a maximum term of imprisonment of 20 years.
Later on that same day you made a further hoax transmission, this time on a different frequency used for airspace known as ‘Avalon Approach’ and used to communicate with aircraft coming and going from Avalon Airport as well as light aircraft with pilots in training from other airports such as Essendon and Moorabbin. The pilots using this frequency are often trainee pilots practicing 'Instrument Flight Rules' landing while training.
This last hoax call came in at about 7:30pm and a newly qualified air traffic controller, Edward Anderson, was the one who picked up the call. It was a 'Mayday' call. After the first mayday, you made a second mayday call and gave a call sign of 'Charlie Lima Mike'. You then gave a longitude and a latitude reference, which could be identified by a GPS position. This did not make sense to the air traffic controller because usually pilots give a geographic reference, such as a bearing and a distance from a town or some other geographic feature.
There was, in fact, an aircraft with the call sign 'Charlie Lima Mike' on the radar screen, but the information that could be gleaned from the radar screen was not consistent with the mayday call. That plane was maintaining level flight, whilst you, as the mayday caller, had said the plane was losing altitude due to engine malfunction. The radar screen showed that Charlie Lima Mike was 80 nautical miles west of Avalon Airport and that is not the zone in which the Avalon Approach frequency is used by pilots. Anderson told the caller that he could see the flight on the radar screen. He then realised it was a hoax and so stopped communicating with you. Not surprisingly, he found the hoax call to be very stressful, it became his main focus and as a result took attention away from everything else that he was overseeing in the course of his duties.
It is this last hoax call that constitutes Charge 3 to which you have pleaded guilty, transmission of false information contrary to s 198 of the Radiocommunications Act 1992 (Cth).
Whilst your conduct in regard to all three charges was dangerous and could have had terrifying, perhaps even fatal consequences, the potential impact of your action in relation to Charge 2 is clearly the most serious. Where a 'go around' is executed on final approach, the risk and endangerment to both the aircraft in question and other aircraft nearby is significant. Where a lighter aircraft is required to go around a heavier aircraft, there is a risk that the lighter aircraft will enter its wake turbulence, and that creates a potentially dangerous situation for that lighter aircraft.
In this particular instance, the 'go around' which you caused put the aircraft in an unsafe proximity to a Jetstar flight that was departing Melbourne Airport. Both the Civil Aviation Safety Authority and the International Civil Aviation Organisation prescribe three nautical miles as the safe separation distance between planes. As a result of the ‘go around’ command being acted on by the pilot, at one point the distance between the Virgin aircraft which had acted on the 'go around' command and the Jetstar flight on the tarmac was only 1.8 nautical miles. There was also, because of the similarity in the call signs between the Virgin aircraft and the Jetstar aircraft, a risk of confusion, maybe making the Jetstar flight, if it had not heard the command properly and thought it applied to it, abort its take off, and that thereby escalates the risk of a potential aircraft collision on the ground.
In addition to the potentially disastrous aspect of your illegal interference in the aircraft communications, on this particular occasion there was a significant effect on air traffic generally. All calls, not just the one that was acted on, had the capacity to create a significant ripple effect in the arrival sequence of aircraft as far away as Sydney or Brisbane. There is a pre-arranged landing order set as far as one and a half hours in advance and that has to be re-organised if a 'go around' is ordered and there can be further complications if an aircraft coming into land is on low fuel.
So, whilst your actions in relation to Charge 1 were not acted on by the pilots or air traffic controllers, they could have prejudiced the safe operation of the aircraft involved, given the confusion and interference regarding this important phase of flight. Air traffic controllers are required to consider a variety of factors when giving instructions to an aircraft having regard to the other aircrafts in the area and your interference in transmissions could have had a significant impact on operations.
Your role as the offender came to light because you bragged to friends. One of them reported you to the Australian Federal Police. Warrants were then obtained by the police and some calls were intercepted. There were some discussions about the making of transmissions. You did not deny in any of them that you were the maker of them and, in one call, you were heard to say that you had thrown the radio transmitter into the lake at Caroline Springs.
About a month later, on 21 November 2016, police executed a search warrant at your home, where you lived with your parents. Although they were unable to locate the transmitter, they did seize a radio aerial and air piece attachment from your bedroom. Your mother told police that she had seen a portable radio with an antenna on the kitchen table. The police drained Caroline Springs Lakes, but they were unable to find the transmitter there either.
On the day of the execution of the warrant, you were arrested and interviewed and when interviewed, made a no comment interview.
Following your arrest and the interview, you were charged and remanded in custody and you remained on remand for 31 days before being granted bail by the Melbourne Magistrates' Court. You were initially released on CISP bail, that is heavily supervised bail with significant conditions. As time went on, those conditions were eased. You remained on bail from the time of your release in late December 2016 until now.
In August 2017, when the matter was in the committal stream in the Magistrates' Court, you made an offer to plead guilty to appropriate charges and by 5 September 2017, a formal plea of guilty had been entered in relation to charges that, at that stage, both parties agreed resolved all matters. You were then committed to this court for a plea in February 2018. Your legal advisers had some concerns about the appropriateness of the charges to which you had pleaded guilty and as a result the plea hearing was vacated and the matter adjourned.
Shortly before the trial was due to be heard in August of this year, further consideration of the appropriateness of the charges, having regard to what had always been your admitted conduct, led to further negotiations or discussions between prosecution and defence and you ultimately entered pleas of guilty, in July 2019, to the three charges that are now before me and the trial date was vacated.
These are clearly serious offences and it is clear that, subject to matters personal to you, denunciation and deterrence loom large in the sentencing mix.
You may have been young. You may have thought it was just funny or just silly, but as the narrative that I have just read out makes clear, the potential for real serious and significant harm, way beyond what you may have contemplated, was very real. Therefore the sentence must acknowledge that, denounce the behaviour, deter you and deter anyone else who thinks it is just a joke or it is not going to be serious to make a hoax interference with flight transmissions. Such behaviour is totally unacceptable. It imperils significant numbers of people and places undue and unnecessary stress on those with the responsibility for piloting plains and directing air traffic. And they must understand that, if detected, and they are likely to be, that they will face significant punishment.
Turning then to matters personal to you. You were 19 at the time that you committed these offences. You are now 22. Your childhood was difficult. When very young, you were diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder. You lived with your parents and your older brother until the age of 14. Then your parents found themselves unable to manage what were clearly challenging behaviours and, from the ages of 14 to 18, you were made the subject of Care to the Secretary orders, that is the Secretary to the Department of Health and Human Services. The Secretary became your legal guardian and had the responsibility for all parenting decisions in respect of you. You were removed from the family home and placed into State care, living in a variety of residential units. It is a well-known and well accepted fact that children who live in residential units generally have much poorer outcomes than those who are able to live within a family unit.
Despite the combination of being removed from the family home, living in residential units with other children who needed to be in the care of the Secretary because their families were unable or unwilling to look after them, and many of whom have significant behaviour problems and significant criminal histories, you managed to complete your secondary education and even to embark upon a TAFE course. Your Care to the Secretary order could have been discharged at the age of 17 but there was a further extension until you turned 18. There is no power to extend a Care to the Secretary order beyond that. At the age of 18, you therefore were automatically discharged from Care to the Secretary and you returned to live with your parents. You were still living with them at the time of the offending.
By then you had obtained employment as a baggage handler with Virgin Airlines. You had apparently lost that job not long before this offending. It would appear that that was in part as a result of your behaviour, or the way you relate to people, and in part to the behaviour that you were subjected to by others in the workplace. You certainly reported, and there seems to be good documentation to support it, that you had been bullied and treated in a way that was distressing to you. The loss of that job seemed to be a matter of considerable shame and there are, in the materials before me, reports of you continuing to dress up in your Virgin uniform every day and pretend you were going to work because you found it difficult to accept that you had lost your job and you were ashamed.
The descriptions about your family life that are contained in the: various DHHS reports that were provided to me, testimonials from two of your cousins, psychological report prepared by the psychologist, Mr Michael Crewdson, and prepared at the time of and in support of your bail application in November 2016, CISP bail reports prepared in relation to your eligibility for release on CISP bail and monitoring your progress whilst on that supervised bail in respect of these charges, more recent neuropsychological report prepared for the purposes of this plea, observations of your employer, Mr John Cutler, and the instructions put by your counsel, Mr Norton, vary considerably. That is, those descriptions of your family life from all of those reports vary considerably.
On the one hand there are reports that your parents, particularly your father, were loving and supportive throughout your life, that you had a rich family life and that you admired and respected your father. On the other hand, there are a significant number of reports of a loveless and emotionally neglectful family life. There were also reports that your parents were unable to manage you, to accept your diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder and the deficits that that caused, to comply with recommendations in respect of how best to treat and manage your ASD and that they were then and still are now emotionally and in all ways completely detached from you.
When you were released on bail after that 31 days on remand in respect of these offences, you were bailed to live at home with your parents. Your father had indicated to the court that they were prepared to have you back home. You have remained living at home since then, although your employer, Mr Cutler, and one of your cousins, Mr Tabone, are both of the view that, having regard to what they see as the emotionally neglectful and deprived home environment, you would be better living somewhere else.
Your parents and brother have not been at court to support you, although your cousin, Mr Tabone, was and so was another cousin. Mr Cutler, your current employer to whom you are now apprenticed, was at court. He gave evidence, amongst other things, that was supportive of the neglectful side of the story. He said that it was his practice, when he took on an apprentice, to invite the parents to what he called a family, or a kitchen table meeting, to talk about his expectations of, generally, their son as an apprentice and what the parents should know about the way their child was going to be working and the way he was going to be treated. Mr Cutler said that your parents declined repeated invitations to attend a kitchen table meeting.
I was told that when you were arrested and remanded in custody, your parents did not visit you and that they were unable to provide police or the remand authorities with any information about your treating doctors or your medication. I was told that they advised that DHHS would have that information. It is of note that when you were arrested, it was over 12 months since your Care to the Secretary order had been discharged and DHHS had had no responsibility for you since then. These anecdotes provide significant insights into the family dynamic. It may well be that, in their own ways, your parents are loving and caring but unable to manifest it in a way that has been able to provide you with the support that you need and particularly that you needed when you were younger.
This is not your first appearance before a court. You have had two previous court appearances. The first was when you were still a child in October 2013. That was for unlawful assault, assault police, using an unregistered vehicle on a highway and receiving stolen goods. You were dealt with in the Children's Court and, without conviction, the matter was adjourned on you entering into a good behaviour bond for nine months, including conditions to undertake and complete an anger management program, as directed by DHHS. It would appear from the chronology that you were in DHHS care at that time. On the adjourned date, the charges were dismissed on the basis of compliance with the bond.
Your next court appearance came in 2016 and you were dealt with in the Magistrates' Court. You there pleaded guilty to making and using a false document to the prejudice of others. Again, the matter was dealt with by an adjournment without conviction and you were placed on a bond for 12 months to be of good behaviour and you provided a written apology to a named police officer. The circumstances of that make and use false document was somewhat unusual and perhaps also gives insight into your, at times, unusual behaviours that may well be a product of your Autism Spectrum Disorder. In an attempt to clear your name in relation to a crime that you had not committed, you committed a more serious crime by creating a false document in an attempt to prove your innocence.
It is a reflection of the view that that court took of the gravity of the offence, that it was dealt with on the basis of a without conviction bond. I note, however, that this offending was committed during the period of that bond.
You are properly to be regarded as a young offender. You were 19 at the time of the offending and you are now only 22. It is clear that, so far as the courts are concerned and so far as knowledge and understanding of the maturing of the brain is concerned, the brain does not fully mature until a person is 25. Therefore, generally people not just under the age of 18, who are by law children, but also people up to the age of 25 are to be regarded as young offenders whose immaturity means that they are not always able to make sensible long-term decisions or have the capacity to think through matters and understand the consequence of their behaviour in the way that we can and should expect of people with a fully matured brain.
The law makes it very clear that youth and immaturity must be taken into account and that generally greater emphasis must be given to encouraging rehabilitation, particularly to encouraging rehabilitation already underway, often therefore at the expense of the weight that might otherwise be given to general deterrence in cases involving an offender of full maturity. There is nothing in your circumstances or in your previous history that suggests that I should in any way diminish the force of that sentencing principle. There are cases when, even with a young offender, their criminal history is such and the nature of their offending is such that those principles of encouragement of rehabilitation must give way to other principles. Yours is not such a case.
There has been a three-year delay between the offending and the ultimate hearing of your plea and that is clearly a matter I must take into account. I accept that the delay arose primarily as a result of the uncertainty of your legal advisors as to whether, on your admitted conduct, the offences that you were charged with or the offences that you had initially pleaded guilty to, properly reflected your conduct and therefore whether it was appropriate to advise you that your pleas of guilty were proper pleas to be entered. But from a relatively early stage, although you made a no comment record of interview, you admitted you were the person who made the transmissions, you admitted the conduct and you acknowledged that you were coming to understand the consequences of it.
In those circumstances, as the law also makes very clear, you are entitled to a reduction in the sentence that otherwise would be appropriate by reason of your plea of guilty. In the circumstances, the benefit of that guilty plea should not be reduced because ultimately the guilty plea was entered very shortly before the sentencing hearing because of the concern on the part of your legal advisers rather than an avoidance or denial of the conduct on your part.
You have written a letter of apology. I accept that that is genuine and that you now do understand the seriousness of your conduct and that you regret it. The combination of your acknowledgement of your conduct, your pleas of guilty and the writing of the letter of apology all indicate to me that you accept responsibility for your conduct and that you are remorseful. Those factors therefore add to the weight to be given to your guilty plea. Your guilty plea is, I accept by reason of those matters, of itself, evidence of remorse and the guilty plea and the other evidence of remorse add to the weight to be given to your prospects for rehabilitation.
I accept that, as a result of your appreciation of what you have done, as a result of this matter hanging over your head for three years and of the sentencing hearing now, you have appreciated the gravity of your conduct and that you are unlikely to commit like offences again. Therefore, the weight to be given to specific deterrence by reason of those factors is significantly reduced.
Much has changed in the last three years and much of it to your credit. You have not been charged with any other offences. You have obtained employment and you have shown yourself to be not only committed to obtaining and maintaining employment but to be a diligent and valued employee.
That is greatly to your credit. It shows determination and a capacity for sustained effort. You are now in the second year of your apprenticeship as an electrician. You commenced your apprenticeship after you had been charged and released on bail. You obtained employment and undertook not only your workplace-based employment but the TAFE part of it as well. At the end of your first year your employer was unable to keep you on due to a downturn in work. As your current employer, Mr Cutler, attested, you door-knocked in order to find employment after that. He took you on as a casual labourer, initially for a week. You proved yourself in that week to be obviously keen to work and to remain in employment and he kept you on, initially on a week-by-week basis, and ultimately agreed to sign you on as an apprentice so you could enter your second-year apprenticeship.
You have been employed by Mr Cutler now for 12 months. He wrote a testimonial and gave evidence on the plea and he was a truly impressive witness. Your parents may not have been able to provide you with support and structure but Mr Cutler, although not acting as a substitute parent, has provided you with opportunities which you have embraced. He is a man of considerable experience as an employer. He runs two businesses, he employs about 40 people and has a long history of community and local government involvement. He gave evidence that he has had a number of apprentices over his 40 years in business. Some of his longest-term employees, those who have worked for him for over 30 years, started as his apprentices and have remained with him throughout. This denotes stability, good judgement and a loyal and supportive workplace.
Mr Cutler demonstrated a deep understanding of the responsibility of an employer to young people, particularly immature young men, in providing them not only with vocational training but guidance as they mature into adults.
He acknowledged somewhat ruefully that, when he took you on, he had not done his due diligence. He was unaware until you told him shortly before the plea hearing that these charges were pending. It is to his credit and to yours that he has stuck by you and agreed to keep you on, notwithstanding the offending and certainly without in any way condoning the behaviour. He has done so because of the diligence and commitment that you have shown in the time that you have worked for him and that 12 months of showing a different personality and character compared to the idiocy of the behaviour over those three days in October 2016.
Your seeking out employment, your sustaining employment, your gaining the respect of your employer and his continued support after the disclosure of the charges are all powerful factors pointing towards rehabilitation already well underway and a rehabilitation that has been, by and large, self-motivated and
self-driven. It does stand in stark contrast to the irresponsible behaviour that you engaged in over those three days.
A neuropsychological report has been prepared by the neuropsychologist, Laura Scott. That confirmed the diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder, which as I have noted, is a long-standing diagnosis, not one that was only identified after you had been charged. It is clear from Ms Scott's report that you have significant difficulties with social cognition and impairments to aspects of attention, executive functioning and insight. Autism is indeed a spectrum disorder and you are clearly somebody who, notwithstanding that, has been able to attend school, to complete your schooling, to engage in a workplace, to sustain work and to attend post-secondary vocational training and commit to it. Indeed, Mr Cutler spoke of what he described as obsessive or compulsive traits in your personality. Once you start to do something, you are intent on that and that task alone. That can make you a good employee but also a somewhat difficult person in the workplace. However, you have managed to work within a workplace with a group of people, mainly men, of varying ages and to adapt despite what has been described as your quirky or unusual personality. It is clear that your communication skills are not good. That is consistent with Ms Scott's report and the way in which your Autism Spectrum Disorder manifests itself in you. But notwithstanding that, Mr Cutler, your employer, is confident that there is a place for you in that workplace and continued work for you and that you have managed to work in harmony with your fellow employees.
I am not satisfied that your Autism Spectrum Disorder has any realistic connection with the offending. I am not satisfied it caused or contributed to the offending or was causally linked to it. I am not satisfied that it materially diminished your capacity to reason appropriately at the time of the offending, concerning the wrongfulness of the conduct. And I am not satisfied that it impaired your ability to appreciate the wrongfulness of your conduct or obscured your intent to commit the offence or impaired your ability to make calm and rational choices or to think clearly. It follows that, in my view, the first four principles in Verdins[1] do not apply to reduce your moral culpability or the weight to be given to general deterrence by reason of your Autism Spectrum Disorder.
[1]R vVerdins; Buckley; Vo (2007) 16 VR 269.
I am however satisfied that that disorder is a matter properly to take into account as part of the overall sentencing synthesis. It explains, in part, whilst you failed at the time to properly appreciate the significance of your conduct, why you were so socially isolated at the time and it is certainly relevant to an assessment of the difficulties that you would face, by reason of the manifestations of your disorder, particularly your communication deficits, your inability to read social cues from others and to explain yourself properly, if you were to be incarcerated and it makes all the more impressive your efforts to obtain and maintain stable employment, to integrate into a workplace and to avoid any further offending.
Although there is a very clear need for this sentence to denounce your conduct, to deter you and others from considering engaging in like conduct and, so far as Charge 2 is concerned, in my view the gravity of the offending is such, that it must be marked by the imposition of a term of imprisonment, I do not consider that in all of the circumstances it is necessary for any part of the sentence to be immediately served.
I consider that, in particular, having regard to your youth at the time, the obviously salutary effects of the 31 days that you have spent on remand, your successful completion of CISP bail and your self-driven rehabilitation in the three years since the offending, that it is not necessary, in order to meet the needs of denunciation and deterrence and to give proper weight, having regard to your youth, to the importance of rehabilitation, to impose a term of imprisonment with a component immediately served.
In respect of Charge 2 therefore, I propose to sentence you to a period of imprisonment, but to direct your release forthwith on a recognizance release order. I am not going to make any declaration in respect to the pre-sentence detention. If, in what I hope and anticipate in light of the evidence before me and the findings I have made, is the unlikely event that you commit any further offence and you are required to come back before me to be dealt with for breaching the recognizance release order, that 31 days will remain as time that can be counted if any sentence of imprisonment is to be imposed.
In respect of the other two charges, both of which are punishable by a maximum of five years and which are not, for the reasons I have explained, in my view as serious as Charge 2, I propose to release you on a community correction order with conditions that you are under supervision for the period of the order and that you engage with such mental health assessment and treatment as directed. Can you now stand please, Mr Sant?
So far as the release on the recognizance release order, I cannot impose that and release you on recognizance unless you promise to be of good behaviour for the period of the order. Are you prepared to make that promise to be of good behaviour?
ACCUSED: Yes.
HER HONOUR: And I cannot release you on a community correction order unless you agree to abide by the conditions. When you were assessed for suitability for the CCO, you were told of the standard conditions of the order and I have told you now that I intend, in addition, to impose two additional conditions, supervision and mental health assessment and treatment. Are you prepared to consent to a CCO with those conditions?
ACCUSED: Yes.
HER HONOUR: Thank you. All right, remain standing please.
On the three charges, Paul Sant, to which you have pleaded guilty, you are convicted.
On Charge 1 and on Charge 3, you are sentenced to be placed a community correction order for a period of 12 months commencing today. The order will last for 12 months commencing today and ending on 1 October 2020. There are mandatory terms that apply to all community correction orders. They are: that you must not commit another offence for which you could be imprisoned during the time the order is in force; you must comply with any obligation or requirement prescribed by Regulation 17 of the Sentencing Regulations 2011, that means, that you must not be impaired by drugs or alcohol when you attend at Corrections for any purpose under this order and you must submit to drug or alcohol testing if directed to do so; you must report to and receive visits from the Secretary or delegate; you must report to the Sunshine Community Correctional Centre at 10 Foundry Road, Sunshine within two clear working days after the commencement of this order, that means by Friday of this week; you must let a community correction officer know within two clear working days if you change your address or your job; and you must not leave Victoria without first getting permission to do so from the Secretary or delegate, and you must obey all lawful instructions from and directions of the Secretary or delegate.
In addition, you must be under the supervision of a community corrections officer for a period of 12 months and you must undergo any mental health assessment and treatment and that may include psychological, neuropsychological, psychiatric treatment or treatment in a hospital or residential facility as directed by the Regional Manager.
On Charge 2, you are sentenced to be imprisonment for a period of two years and I direct that you be released forthwith on a recognizance release order, the recognizance fixed in the amount of $1,000, on condition that you are to be of good behaviour for the period of two years.
I must warn you that, if you breach this recognizance release order, you will be brought back to this court and probably before me to be dealt with for breach of the recognizance and you can be resentenced for the original offence. Do you understand all of that?
ACCUSED: Yes.
HER HONOUR: And you are prepared to enter into those orders?
ACCUSED: Yes.
HER HONOUR: I have here the community correction order and Ms Linfoot, you are completing the recognizance release order?
MS LINFOOT: Yes, your Honour. I will just hand up the paperwork.
HER HONOUR: Thank you. You can take a seat for a moment Mr Sant, while the documents are prepared. You can take a seat, just while the documents are being prepared.
Pursuant to s 6AAA I declare that, but for the pleas of guilty, I would have sentenced you in respect of Charges 1 and 3, to sentences of 12 months' imprisonment and in respect of Charge 2, to a sentence of three years' imprisonment. I would have made orders for all sentences to commence today, therefore a total effective sentence of three years and I would have fixed a non-parole period of 18 months.
MR NORTON: As your Honour pleases.
HER HONOUR: And Mr Norton, if you would accompany my associate to the dock?
MR NORTON: Thank you, your Honour.
HER HONOUR: Take Mr Sant through those documents. When you are satisfied they are correct and he consents have him sign them please. Can I indicate to the members of the press who are here, the sentence will be available on the portal forthwith, but I am afraid my reasons are not in a form that I can give you a draft at this stage. Any further orders that are required to be made?
MS LINFOOT: No, your Honour.
HER HONOUR: And has the explanation I have given of the recognizance release order been sufficient to comply with the Act?
MS LINFOOT: Yes, your Honour.
HER HONOUR: Thank you, Ms Linfoot.
MR NORTON: Thank you, Your Honour. Your Honour, there is one more matter. It is an informal matter which I have been asked by Mr Cutler to raise. Mr Cutler obviously gave evidence. He has not been here today. And he wished to convey to your Honour, to the court, to those present, to the prosecution that as a citizen of the State, that he was very satisfied with the process that was undertaken. He even made the comment that the public are very quick to criticise our justice system and he felt that it was important to be able to convey some level of satisfaction in the process, because the process obviously is very important. He ask that I convey his praise of your Honour and also of Mr Holding, and the way both of you approached the task. So, I have fulfilled that.
HER HONOUR: Well, thank you. It is often a thankless task up here and I am not sure that everyone will share Mr Cutler's view, but it is nice to hear it. Thank you.
MR NORTON: It is important, your Honour, I suppose to note that he conveyed that view in circumstances where he did not know what the outcome was, and he was conveying in respect to the process rather than the outcome.
HER HONOUR: Thanks, Mr Norton. Mr Sant, once copies of those documents have been made by my associate and provided to you, you will be free to leave the court.
Mr Norton will wait and make sure he has got those documents. Thank you.
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