Director of Public Prosecutions v Thanh-Le, Long
[2013] VCC 509
•11 April 2013
| IN THE COUNTY COURT OF VICTORIA AT MELBOURNE CRIMINAL DIVISION | Revised (Not) Restricted Suitable for Publication |
Case No. CR-12-02077
| DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROSECUTIONS |
| v |
| LONG THANH-LE |
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JUDGE: | HIS HONOUR JUDGE SMALLWOOD | |
WHERE HELD: | Melbourne | |
DATE OF HEARING: | 11 April 2013 | |
DATE OF SENTENCE: | 11 April 2013 | |
CASE MAY BE CITED AS: | DPP v Thanh-Le, Long | |
MEDIUM NEUTRAL CITATION: | [2013] VCC 509 | |
REASONS FOR SENTENCE
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Catchwords:
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APPEARANCES: | Counsel | Solicitors |
| For the Crown | Mr P. Moran | Office of Director for Public Prosecutions |
| For the Accused | Mr P. Morrissey |
HIS HONOUR:
1 Long Thanh-Le you have pleaded guilty to one count in trafficking in a drug of dependence being a large commercial quantity. That crime carries a maximum penalty of life imprisonment. The offending occurred between the early October 2011 and early March 2012 and it was indicted as what was known as a Giretti count. You pleaded guilty at the earliest reasonable opportunity and I accept in this scenario have expressed appropriate remorse.
2 Clearly, you have put yourself in a situation where you were unable to provide for members of your family, as you have done in the past, and you have placed yourself to a certain degree upon their mercy. I accept that there would be for someone in your position a degree of humiliation involved in all that.
3 Secondly, you must also get the utilitarian benefit of the plea. Trials of this nature can become very complicated and take a long time. It is my view that people in your situation, albeit facing very serious consequences are still prepared to plead guilty and should be given a demonstrable discount for having done so.
4 In so far as prior convictions are concerned you do have one set of relevant priors they going back to 2009. At that point in time you received an ICO for trafficking in substances. In one sense, those prior convictions for trafficking Ecstasy and possessing Ecstasy, possess heroin, possess amphetamine, use heroin, use amphetamine and use Ecstasy simply confirm what your counsel told me that you have had a drug habit over a period of roughly eight years and which became far stronger, as I understand it, in the two years leading up to this sentencing.
5 The circumstances of the offending are contained in a laudably brief Crown opening to which was annexed a much longer Crown opening. I propose simply to read out the short version and the longer version will be annexed to these my sentencing remarks. The situation is that a Operation Horizon was an investigation conducted by the Victoria Police Drug Task Force in July of 2011 to March 2012. You became a major target of that operation. The operation used surveillance and telephone intercept techniques to gather evidence against you and other members of the syndicate, including Truong Nguyen and Trung Nguyen who were acting at the direction of you.
6 The key events providing for the case against you involve a charge involving the seizure on the 7 February 2012 of 1.52 kilograms of methamphetamine from Truong Nguyen and a seizure on the 5 October 2011 of 1.97 kilograms of methamphetamine from Trung Nguyen. I note that Trung Nguyen has been already sentenced by me and was imprisoned for a period of three years with a minimum term of 18 months.
7 I think bearing in mind the far greater significance of your offending parity is of no real concern. It is accepted from the Bar table quite properly that you are to be sentenced for a significant period of time.
8 Trung Nguyen was arrested at Southern Cross Railway Station when he returned from Sydney. He had been sent to Sydney with another courier on instructions from you who had arranged to have the drugs paid for, then picked up and returned to Melbourne.
9 Truong Nguyen was arrested in Lenark Place in Deer Park where he had drug paraphernalia and methylamphetamine. Earlier, you had arranged to meet him in a restaurant at St Alban's to inspect the drugs before purchase. After collecting them they were arranged to be taken to Mr Nguyen's residence for safe-keeping. Obviously, there is far more detail to the bare bones of that description.
10 I accept having read the long opening as I was requested to by Mr Morrissey that you were not the head of this syndicate but you were certainly an organiser.
11 There was a person known as Big Brother, who on I think a fair reading of those intercepts was giving you directions.
12 Accordingly, you certainly don't fall to be sentenced as a courier and as indicated the end result is somewhat inevitable. That is a very brief summary of what occurred.
13 I do not know that there is any point in me going into any more detail. Anybody with a genuine interest can read the extended opening and be aware that I have read it and considered it before sentencing.
14 Trafficking of this nature is obviously serious as indicated by the maximum potential penalty. I think that having read the material that yours is certainly not at the high end of large commercial quantity but remains a significant crime.
15 General deterrence obviously plays a massive part in this. In so far as you are concerned I think you are going to be doing enough gaol in any event that specific deterrence are not a problem and I think also the public demand denunciation and appropriate punishment in a situation such as this. A very significant gaol sentence is inevitable.
16 Tendered on your behalf were a report from Mr Patrick Newton, a psychologist, who is obviously well known to me, as well as references from your daughter and from a friend who knew you. The references from your daughter and from that friend indicate that you are a generous person, a person who has endeavoured as best he could to look after family and relatives, who have been in obviously desperate straights.
17 I accept that you have given financially to orphanages in Vietnam and that other than for this offending and your use of drugs you are probably a very good citizen. Unfortunately this type of offending puts matters such as that into insignificance.
18 Mr Morrissey, in a persuasive plea outlined your history. I propose to go through it in a little bit of detail but without wasting time.
19 You are now 53 years of age. You were born in Vietnam in 1960. Everyone's well aware of what was occurring in that country at that time. Your father was a police officer in the south and ultimately was put into a camp. I don't need to take that any further.
20 You, at the age of approximately 18, as I understand it were able to escape and went to Malaysia. You were one of a family of 10 or 11 and fitted in the middle somewhere. You were in Malaysia for about a year. You were clearly hardworking there training and, indeed, when you had been put in a camp in Vietnam you worked as a fish carter. I accept that that would have been difficult work and you, at that time, with your father not there had become responsible for the family.
21 You came to Australia in 1979 and became an Australian citizen. Your desire was to work and you have spent little time learning English and have a limited knowledge of it.
22 Around about 2000 you started bringing out the rest of your family. From the time of arriving here you worked for Ford until about 1985. You married. You bought a home in St Albans and you have two children. That marriage collapsed in 2002. During the marriage your wife did piecework, as I understand it. You also, at one stage, had a clothing shop.
23 I have mentioned the reference from your daughter. You have a son, who is also present in court to support you, who is doing surveying. Your daughter is in marketing. Clearly, your children have done very well in the country to which you came and that is a matter which I think should be of pride both to you and to your wife.
24 You, over a period of time had been travelling to Thailand where other members of your extended family had I assume escaped. You endeavoured to bring them to Australia and to a large extent were successful. Because of your "skill" at achieving those purposes you were in demand by other people. You became as Mr Morrissey, I think, describes you somewhat of a freelance unlicensed immigration agent. That activity, of course, involved you going to Thailand and flying backwards and forwards on a regular basis. Throughout that period of time as well you were trading in clothes and you would go to Vietnam and do that on a frequent basis. Sometimes you would have short stays. Sometimes you would have longer stays.
25 In any event somebody who is so accustomed to international travel between those countries and has, on the face of it, legitimate purposes for doing so would obviously become attractive towards those who have a far less legitimate purpose for such travel.
26 In around about 2002 your marriage collapsed. By that stage your children were starting to grow up and you began using drugs. Your prior convictions that I have read out indicate that it was poly-substance abuse. Your addiction, I accept, was from a relatively early period in the 2000 but did not become severe until not long before this offending took place. You have not worked for a significant period of time. You are not on a pension.
27 Over that 12 months you continued to travel a lot. You led a somewhat aimless existence. You have a prior conviction to being found in a common gaming house which one does not see all that often these days but I am told by Mr Morrissey and accept that your friendships were not of the highest order. It has become clear that during that period of time you have fallen in with people who engage in this nefarious activity and have participated and yourself to what is now going to be your very great detriment.
28 You, I think I can safely say without this drug use and without this drug trafficking are probably as indicated a good citizen. I see no reason that now that you have been detoxed, on a period of remand and I accept have not used for a year and have no matters pending should not have reasonable prospects of rehabilitation.
29 You are 53. If you do not rehabilitate I do not think the future holds much for you. If your rehabilitation is successful and you do have extended family support in trying to achieve that then the risk of you reoffending certainly in this way should be minimal.
30 I think that if you would understand clearly that if you were to reoffend in this way in the future the sentence you received would result in you dying in gaol. In any event they are matters for you and they are matters for the people who know you.
31 The use of drugs over the years does not, in a sense, mitigate the offending. It puts it into a context and I can accept that over an extended period of time and in the circumstances in which you were living that your capacity to reason through the probably consequences of all this would have been limited.
32 Accordingly, there is a limited reduction of moral culpability but it seems to me that you would not do gaol any harder than any other prisoner and, indeed, it was not suggested on your behalf that that would be the case.
33 There is no psychological condition attached to you which would give rise to any of the principles other than the culpabilities I have described contained in Verdins.
34 You are 53. I must be careful not to impose a crushing sentence and, indeed, in your particular situation having particularly read the reference of your daughter I am inclined to allow for a very limited degree of mercy.
35 The Crown gave a range and I think that range was sensible. What I have done is in bearing in mind the matters pertinent to you and, particularly, your age and the fact that you have a long history without priors until 2009, the family support, the fact that you are not using and what would appear to be a desire to rehabilitate that you should have a minimum term which is a degree less than what it might have been in other circumstances. When I give the 6AAA announcement you will realise the benefit of your having pleaded guilty in real terms.
36 Accordingly, on the material before me in relation to this serious charge you are sentenced to be imprisoned for a period of six and a half years. I direct that you serve a minimum term of three years and three months before becoming eligible for parole. I direct that 50 days be reckoned as having been served under this sentence as I have indicated.
37 So Mr Le, that you fully understand the benefit of you having pleaded guilty and this being so sensible about all this I tell you that had you pleaded not guilty and been convicted by a jury I would have given you 10 with a six. Just so you fully understand and everybody understands that. Saving the courts from dealing with these matters has a very significant benefit.
38 MR MORAN: As Your Honour pleases.
39 HIS HONOUR: All right. Nothing else I need to say for the order?
40 MR MORRISSEY: No, thank you, Your Honour.
41 HIS HONOUR: Thanks gentlemen.
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