Director of Public Prosecutions v Weightman

[2014] VCC 1149

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

AT MELBOURNE
CRIMINAL JURISDICTION

CR 10-00838

DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROSECUTIONS

v

RODNEY WEIGHTMAN

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JUDGE:	HIS HONOUR JUDGE SMALLWOOD
WHERE HELD:	Melbourne
DATE OF HEARING:
DATE OF SENTENCE:	18 July 2014
CASE MAY BE CITED AS:	DPP v WEIGHTMAN
MEDIUM NEUTRAL CITATION:	[2014] VCC 1149

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

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APPEARANCES:	Counsel	Solicitors
For the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions	Ms R. Harper with Ms E. Sheales
For the Offender	Mr P Randles

HIS HONOUR: 

1Rodney Dale Weightman, you have pleaded guilty on Indictment No. D10294915 to two charges of possession of a drug of dependence, one charge of being a prohibited person in possession of a firearm, and two charges of trafficking a drug of dependence.  Those crimes carry maximum penalties of one year, 10 years and15 years respectively.  You have pleaded guilty on a Commonwealth indictment effectively to one charge of conspiracy to counterfeit currency; that has a maximum penalty of 14 years' imprisonment.

2The situation is that you are now 48 years of age.  You pleaded guilty to all of these matters.  I accept that, having watched you whilst your brother-in-law gave evidence, you have appropriate remorse for what you have done, and you must also of course get the utilitarian benefit of those pleas of guilty.  Trials such as this are complicated and take a significant period of time, and accordingly, that benefit is given. 

3Your prior convictions before I dealt with you back in 2011 were of very little significance to what has occurred, but of course the matter for which I sentenced you previously, which I will refer to in a moment is a significant prior conviction for at least the State indictment for which I am about to sentence you today. 

4The history of the matter is that on 19 sept 2011 I sentenced you to be imprisoned for a period of 15 months with 12 months of that suspended for a period of three years.  That sentence was based upon one count of trafficking a drug of dependence and two counts of possession of drug of dependence, and the charges dated back to 2008.  You were at that time in custody on other matters.  Upon the completion of my sentence, which was almost immediate, you were released on bail.

5You were arrested again in January of 2013 in relation to the matters referred to on this State indictment here today.  There is also in existence the Commonwealth indictment which relates to offending between November 2010 to April 2011, which of course is not a prior conviction for the matters for which I sentenced you previously, or indeed for the State matters for which I am to sentence you today.

6You were sentenced by His Honour Judge Maidment in relation to the matters for which you were in custody at the time that I originally sentenced you on 9 July 2013 to 10 years' imprisonment with a minimum term of six years and eight months.  That was 10 years for a traffic in a commercial quantity and two years six months for a traffic simpliciter.  That offending occurred between May of 2010 and April of 2011.

7You have now been in custody of 674 days subsequent to and including the PSD referred to by Judge Maidment.  You were on remand for some of these matters as well as the matters for which he sentenced you, and accordingly, as best as I can calculate, there a period of around about nine months of Renzella time which is to be taken into account in a general way.  In your particular situation, bearing in mind the length of the sentence that you face, totality is really the most significant part of this sentencing process.  I must of course endeavour not to pass a sentence which could be regarded as crushing. 

8I therefore turn to the offending for which I am to deal with you, and I will deal with the Commonwealth matter first - and I might say this, I have been very ably assisted by counsel during the course of what could have been a very complicated plea.

9You have pleaded guilty to conspiracy to make counterfeit currency.  Between 26 November 2010 and 7 April 2011 you were under surveillance and listening devices had been placed in your property at Delacombe near Ballarat. You and a co-accused, a Mr Perry, went through the process of endeavouring to organise to counterfeit what on the face of it would appear to have been $50 Australian notes.  There was a number of conversations which were recorded and each of you was looking at how it could best be counterfeited, what the various options were and what sort of paper should be used.  You are seen examining  materials, and I do not need to go through all the detail of this, but it was clearly a serious attempt to counterfeit a lot of money.  The amount of paper that you had, as I understand it, could have resulted in excess of 2,000 $50 notes.  Whether you ever would have got that far or not is another matter, but he authorities are clear that it is the intent of the conspiracy that is the real sentencing proposition, not the question as to whether it was actually carried out.  Clearly with conspiracies, if they were carried out it would be a substantive offence.

10I agree with the Crown submissions in relation to that.  Counterfeiting is a serious crime, particularly when it involves money to the extent that you were prepared to go.  It attacks the basis of a country's currency and cannot be tolerated.  In the normal course of events it calls for the application of significant general deterrence as well as specific deterrence in most circumstances. 

11Yours is a difficult situation.  I am concerned that because of the length of the sentence you are already undergoing on a State indictment, and the addition to that which I will have to make on a further State indictment and that the Court of Appeal may intervene at some point in relation to the judge Maidment matters, and this could end up as a shambles. 

12Your co-accused in relation to the conspiracy received 18 months with six months to serve.  It is agreed that your role was less than his, and examining all this, I think the only proper way of going about this is to just simply give you a straight sentence which starts today, and therefore, there is no risk in the future of you being placed at an unfair disadvantage.  I make it clear as I did during the course of the plea that the sentence I am to impose today is for very pragmatic reasons, and I think that the sentence absent all the other factors would have probably been in the order of 12 to 15 months as a head sentence.  I am told that to give you more than six months involves the need to set a recognisance which would be in your particular situation somewhat of a nonsense.

13Accordingly on that charge you are sentenced to be imprisoned for six months, and I direct that that sentence commence today.

14I then look to the State sentencing, and again, I do not think I need to go into too great a detail.  On 30 January 2013, whilst you were still subject to the suspended sentence that I had imposed, police executed a drug and firearm warrant in Delacombe.  They found methylamphetamine, which gives rise to possess a drug of dependence, but it is not disputed other than it is to be sentenced on the basis of personal use.  They also found MDA, and again, the same principles apply.  Also found was a Colt .25 calibre handgun which was concealed inside a slot machine.  That gives rise to a prohibited person possessing an unregistered firearm.  I never ask any more why the person had the gun in these particular circumstances, because I never believe the answer, but the fact of the matter is that these sorts of weapons in this sort of drug business are very dangerous indeed, and there has to be an appropriate sentence given for that which includes accumulation, as I will explain in a moment.

15The police in that raid also found 26.8 grams of 80 per cent pure amphetamine, and that gives rise to the Charge 4, of traffic a drug of dependence, namely amphetamine.  I note that that is the trafficable quantity, so your plea of guilty must get an added benefit.  They also found a very significant, it would seem, quantity of a drug of dependence known as methorphan.  No one seems to be able to quite tell me what that is, but the fact of the matter is that you had a lot of it.  In those circumstances, whilst I cannot quite equate what it is worth, or anything like that, where the trafficable quantity is two grams, that clearly is a very significant amount, and I do not in these circumstances seek to have the matter stood down or adjourned while I find out those things; I am simply going to give you the same sentence that I give you for the trafficking of amphetamine with some accumulation.

16They are the charges that you face as a result of that raid.  It is trite to say that you have done it before, and one can only hope that you do not do it again.  General deterrence obviously plays a very important part in drug trafficking.  Specific deterrence in your position, if that were the only matter I was sentencing you for, the fact that you are at the present stage undergoing a 10-year sentence before I even pass this one, if that is not sufficient specific deterrence to you, I do not know what could be.  In any event, there has to be denunciation, and as was discussed at some length here this morning, appropriate punishment.

17The circumstances are that since being in gaol you have now undergone a significant number of courses, and I accept what your counsel says that you are having a serious go at rehabilitating.  What I am impressed by are the two letters, one from a Ms Elger, a psychologist, and one also from Mr Gatford, the prison officer, in regard to the peer program that you are engaging in, and also the school children program that you are engaging in.  I know from my own experience that they do not put people into those positions that they regard as a risk of destroying the purpose of it, if I can put it that way, and it is very much to your credit that within the two years you have been in gaol you have got yourself into that situation. 

18You are, it seems to me, clearly an intelligent man.  How you got yourself into all this over the long term is anybody's guess, but I think it is fairly simple to say, Mr Weightman, that over the last five or six years, you have had some very, very dangerous playmates.

19Your own personal circumstances are that you were brought up in the country.  You had various occupations.  You did spray painting; things like that.  You eventually became a trainer of horse races at an early age, and you were disqualified from that for the production of banned substances.  I have a recollection of there being some concern about you having had veterinary approval for those substances, but in any event it cost you that occupation, and you then fell in with various people and the offending started way back in 2008.  You, yourself, have had problems with drugs in the past.  You are, as I have indicated, coping pretty well in gaol and you are endeavouring to use it to the best advantage that you can.  You are still in your 40s, so you are not going to be an old man when you are released, and I think the prospects of you rehabilitating, whilst I would agree with the Crown have to be guarded, they certainly have not been extinguished, and obviously if you can rehabilitate the risk of you reoffending would be very low indeed.

20There was sworn evidence given on your behalf by your brother-in-law, who said that in the ultimate when you are released, the family will support you.  You come from a large family, they visit you in gaol, and you do have that support in the background awaiting your ultimate release.  That gives me confidence in terms of the prospects for rehabilitation.

21I do not think I need to go into any greater detail than that in terms of this sentencing process.  Insofar as the suspended sentence is concerned, the breach was for the very same offending, and accordingly there has to be significant accumulation in relation to that.  It is hard to say what the sentence would have been but for the very significant sentence, to say the least, that you are currently undergoing, and I think the simplest bit is that I will just sentence you on each of these and see what the future holds.

22Accordingly on the State indictment, on Charge 1, two months concurrent; on Charge 2, two months concurrent; on Charge 3, 12 months; on Charge 4, 24 months; on Charge 5, 24 months.

23I direct that six months of the sentence imposed on Charge 3 and 12 months of the sentence imposed on Charge 5 be served cumulatively upon each other and upon the sentence imposed on Charge 4.  That gives an effective sentence on that indictment of 42 months.

24Insofar as the suspended sentence is concerned, there being no exceptional circumstances and on my finding the breach proved, I direct that the 12 months be fully restored.  I direct that six months of that restored suspended sentence be served cumulatively upon the sentence that you are currently undergoing.  To that point, that means you have an effective head sentence now of 10 years and six months.  Of the 42 months that has been imposed upon the State indictment this day, I direct that two years of that 42 months be served cumulatively upon the sentence that you are undergoing and the suspended sentence that I have just restored.  That means that at this moment in time you have a head sentence of 12 and a half years. 

25I understand that those matters have been appealed to the Court of Appeal, and ultimately that will be a matter for them, but working on that basis and on the succinct plea that was put on your behalf today, it seems to me that to increase your minimum term by anything dramatic would be crushing and potentially not in the interests of anybody. 

26Accordingly, I direct that pursuant to s.14 you commence a new minimum term of six years commencing today.  I say that I am not going to give 6AAA disclosures because it would have been impossible, but the 42 months, I can simply say would have been 63 months had you not pleaded guilty.  So does that add up?  In effect it is about 14 months extra on the minimum term.  I am not going to go into days, but that is about what has happened.

27Thank you.  I  might say counsel have been very helpful, because things can go forever if there's not a lot of common sense shown sometimes.

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