Director of Public Prosecutions v Wright

[2015] VCC 1656

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

AT MELBOURNE
CRIMINAL JURISDICTION

CR-15-01404

DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROSECUTIONS

v

CHRISTIAN WRIGHT

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JUDGE:	HER HONOUR JUDGE COHEN
WHERE HELD:	Melbourne
DATE OF HEARING:	4 November 2015
DATE OF SENTENCE:	20 November 2015
CASE MAY BE CITED AS:	DPP v Wright
MEDIUM NEUTRAL CITATION:	[2015] VCC 1656

REASONS FOR SENTENCE
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Subject:  Sentencing
Catchwords:              Plea of guilty; similar prior offending; institutionalised; tragic childhood
Legislation Cited:     Sentencing Act 1991 s 6AAA

Cases Cited:R v Verdins; R v Buckley; R v Vo [2007] VSCA 102Boulton v The Queen; Clements v The Queen; Fitzgerald v The Queen [2014] VSCA 342; R v McKee & Brooks [2003] VSCA 16

Sentence:TES 23 months imprisonment followed by CCO of 30 months duration with 100 hours unpaid community work, supervision, judicial monitoring and treatment for drug abuse.

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APPEARANCES:	Counsel	Solicitors
For the Director of Public Prosecutions	Ms J. Malobabic	OPP
For the Accused	Ms G. Connelly	VLA

HER HONOUR:

1Christian Leigh Wright, you have pleaded guilty to a total of eight charges; six of robbery, one of armed robbery and one of theft. 

2You have also admitted an extensive prior criminal history to which I shall refer later.

3The maximum sentence for each charge of robbery is 15 years' imprisonment.  For armed robbery, it is 25 years' imprisonment and for theft, ten years' imprisonment.  These maximum penalties are an indication by parliament of the relative seriousness with which offences of each of these types is regarded and I must take that into account.

4The offending giving rise to these charges occurred over a six week period between 6 March and 21 April of this year, in eight separate incidents on different dates, which have been detailed in the prosecution opening.  I refer to each, only to enable the seriousness and similarities between them to be assessed.

5On 6 March, just before 9 pm, you entered the Subway store at the Brimbank Central shopping centre, ordered a sandwich from the attendant and then demanded all the money from the till. The attendant called out for another employee who was at the back of the store and you said not to call anyone otherwise you would hit her, and repeated your demands for “all the money”.  The attendant opened the cash register and handed you money from it and you left the store. CCTV captured you walking into and out of the shop.  Approximately $700 was stolen.  These events give rise to Charge 1 of robbery.

6On 30 March at approximately 6 pm, you entered a liquor store at the same shopping centre, purchased a bottle of an alcoholic mixed drink, paid in cash and left the store. Just under an hour later, you returned to that store, selected another item from the drinks fridge, went towards the counter area and placed the bottle on the counter and handed a $10 note to the attendant. He was standing behind the counter and opened the cash register, but then you pushed him away and told him not to do anything or call anyone as you knew who he was.  You grabbed $50 and $20 notes from the cash register and left the store, leaving the drink behind. The amount stolen was approximately $2000.  The offending was captured on CCTV within the store.  The attendant told police that he was shocked and nervous in your presence.  These events give rise to Charge 2 of robbery.

7A week later, on 7 April, at approximately 6.15 pm, you entered the Coles Liquorland in Werribee, selected a bottle of alcohol and then approached the attendant.  You walked straight behind the counter and told him to open the till and give you all the money or you would bash his head in. He opened the cash register and you took out notes and coins and then left the store.  The amount stolen was $385.90.  The victim told police that he was very surprised because you had attended the store approximately an hour before and made a purchase.  This event is the basis of Charge 3 of robbery.  The offending was captured on CCTV within the store.

8On 9 April at approximately 8.30 pm, you entered the Subway store in Moonee Ponds and approached the counter holding a glass bottle.  The attendant walked to the front of the store and asked what you wanted.  At the time, he was alone in the store. You demanded he give you the money or you would smack him with this bottle and would kill him.  The victim looked down and saw the glass bottle in your hand. You then said to him, "It's not your money.  Give it to me.  Open it".  He said he was a new employee and could not open the cash register.  You walked around and entered from behind.  The victim stood back and you repeated demands for money.  You then turned a key that was already in the cash register and opened it and removed notes and coins before leaving the store.  The amount stolen was $400.  These are the events giving rise to Charge 4 of armed robbery. The victim in that incident told police he was very surprised throughout this event.  This offending was also captured on CCTV within the store.

9On 12 April at approximately 3 pm, you entered the IGA supermarket in Deer Park, walked to the drinks fridge and selected a bottle and then walked to the counter and placed the bottle on it. The attendant scanned the bottle and placed it in a plastic bag.  You then asked for a packet of cigarettes.  The attendant turned around to select the cigarettes and as he turned back, you made a demand for money.  He initially thought you were joking as you were a regular customer and did not appear drug or alcohol affected, and he refused to hand over the money. You then lent across the counter and repeated the demand for money.  Realising you were serious, he stepped back.  At that stage, another customer entered the store and you said, "Just give me 50 bucks".  As the victim opened the cash register, you grabbed a pile of notes and cigarettes from the counter and left.  This was captured also on CCTV. The amount stolen was $1030.  The victim told police that he started shaking when he realised that you were serious in your demands, and felt scared and sickened and was in shock because this had never happened to him before.  This incident is the basis of Charge 5 of robbery.

10On 19 April at approximately 8.10 pm, you entered the Subway store at the Brimbank Central shopping centre again.  You approached the counter and produced a handful of loose change and asked for a cookie.  The attendant that night opened the cash register, and you reached over the counter and took notes out of it before leaving the store. This was again captured on CCTV footage.  The amount stolen was $300.  This is the basis of Charge 6 of theft.

11On 20 April at approximately 8.25 pm, you entered the Subway store in Moonee Ponds again, and approached the counter.  There were three female employees standing behind the counter. You spoke to one of them and demanded all the money.  She stepped back and hesitated, but the employee next to her said to just do as you said.  The first attendant then removed all the notes from the register and handed them over to you.  You then made a further demand for coins and she complied. You then walked towards the entry doors dropping coins, and left the store.  You were captured on CCTV footage entering the shopping complex and inside the store.  The amount stolen was $300 and this gives rise to Charge 7 of robbery.

12On 21 April at approximately 8.10 pm, you entered the Subway store at Central West shopping centre in Braybrook.  You approached the counter and asked the attendant for a cookie before handing her some loose change and asking her to change it for other denominations. As she was giving you change, you demanded money and tried to reach into the till.  The attendant closed the cash register and when you asked her to open it again, she said she could not.  You walked behind the counter and made a further demand but she maintained she could not open it.  You said, "Okay, then move" and you removed the whole cash register and left the store with it. You were captured on the CCTV footage walking around the shopping centre.  The amount stolen was $860.  The victim told police she was really scared.  That incident gives rise to Charge 8 of robbery.

13On 14 April, police had attended an address in Hoppers Crossing and spoken to your brother.  They located clothing items worn by you during the robberies that had occurred up until that time. Unfortunately, three more offences occurred after that date.  However on
23 April, that is nine days later, you contacted police, knowing that they were looking for you, and advised of your address at a caravan park.  Police attended and arrested you there.  You were interviewed but made “no comment”.

14You have been remanded in custody since your arrest.  That is now 211 days and will be deducted from your sentence.

15These matters resolved into a plea of guilty at a committal mention in August, that being at an early stage and before any witnesses were required to attend court.

16I must assess the seriousness of these incidents and your role in them.  I take into account that offences of this nature occur too frequently, and against persons in various types of convenience stores who are only doing their job, and seem to be thought of as “soft” or “easy” targets, especially those working alone on an evening or night shift. Those people deserve the protection of the criminal justice system, and your sentence should deliver that message with general deterrence an important consideration.

17Nevertheless, these were not sophisticated examples of such offending, and it was inevitable that you would be caught.  There was no attempt by you at disguise, and that is in contrast to the armed robberies for which Judge Gullaci sentenced you some years ago. You were known at some of the stores; indeed two of them you robbed twice in this period, although there were different attendants serving on each occasion. You were recognisable on CCTV cameras, or at least some of those that captured you, and you probably knew that those cameras were there or in the vicinity where you would be filmed.

18In each of the robberies, you made threats either in specific words or by implication, but there was no actual violence by you.  The incidents would have been frightening to each victim, as indeed many told police was the case, but none of the attendants in these shops was in fact placed at risk of physical harm.

19Charge 3 had a small degree of planning, in that you visited the store less than an hour before the actual incident in which you committed the robbery, but otherwise these were unsophisticated and what have sometimes been called "amateurish" instances of robberies.

20Even though criminality is not measured by cleverness or lack of it, I find that these are at a relatively low level of seriousness for potential incidents of this type.

21Further, in the one instance where you had a weapon, , making that charge (Charge 4) armed robbery, the weapon was an intact bottle which you had in your hand. You did refer to it as part of the threat you made, but as submitted by your counsel, this was in some ways a de-escalation of previous armed robberies in which you had carried a knife, syringe or a broken bottle. Notwithstanding that the offence of armed robbery carries by far the highest potential maximum penalty of all of these charges, indeed ten years longer than each charge of robbery,  in the circumstances of this instance of that offence, I do not regard it as very much more serious than the instances of robbery.  It is very similar to each instance of robbery, and to the instance of theft in this case, although you must receive a heavier penalty for it because of the threat and presence of an item you were threatening to use as a weapon.

22As I have said, in my view and although I accept that each of these offences was frightening to the victims at the time, they were all at a low level of seriousness for offences of these types.

23That does not mean that general deterrence and just punishment are unimportant, but they should not in this case, outweigh all other sentencing factors.

24Your reasons for this offending as you related them to Dr Zimmerman were that you were feeling hopeless and wanted attention and help.  You had lapsed into intermittent heroin use, and also daily alcohol use, after your release from prison in November last year. You had no supports in the community, and apparently early this year made two attempts on your own life out of a sense of desperation. Each time you were treated for the physical implications of those attempts on your own life, but were discharged without any follow up, and in particular, any follow up to any psychiatric care.

25Sadly, you had reached the point by the commencement of this offending in March of feeling that you would be better off back in prison.

26I accept that the features of your offending including some less intimidatory features than your last offending in 2008, are consistent with your actions being a cry for help and unfortunately, for a return to prison, rather than being driven by greed, by need for immediate money for drugs, or any wish to intimidate or scare or get some sort of gratification from confronting the victims.

27I turn next to your personal circumstances.  You are now aged 32.  Two Judges of this court in the last decade have described your childhood and upbringing or lack of it as "tragic", and from what I have read and heard, I would adopt that description.

28Your father had left before you were born, and your mother had further relationships with you acquiring more than one step-father, although one seems to have been involved in your earlier upbringing and would have been part of the abuse said to have occurred to you.  You apparently also had half siblings but made no lasting relationships with them.

29Reports prepared in 2005 and 2008 by a psychologist, Ms Carla Lechner, described and concluded that you had a traumatic family background characterised by neglect and psychical abuse by your mother, and alleged sexual abuse within the family, and abuse by a step-father.

30By the age of nine, you came to the attention of the Department of Human Services, and at 12 were made a ward of state.  You apparently had some 40 placements on removal from your mother's care, some in foster homes and some institutional, and there was allegedly some further sexual abuse in more than one of those.

31You apparently did well enough at school but on multiple moves between schools your education and your development of social relationships was clearly not only disrupted but significantly undermined from an early age.

32You eventually left school and apparently did engage in work.  You started an apprenticeship which you did not complete, but engaged in work which you did not find too hard to find when you were in state ready to find it.

33Unfortunately but not surprisingly, you started abusing drugs by age 13, and by 15, were abusing alcohol and heroin.  You became addicted to heroin and have remained so, although stable now on a Suboxone program.

34Yours is probably a case where as referred to in the case of R v McKee & Brookes, your resort in teenage to drugs was a product of being enmeshed in the distress of deprivation, abuse and dislocation, and both the addiction and your background have continued over later years to influence your resort to drugs when that has occurred.

35In the current spate of offending, there is no indication that you were affected by drugs at the time of the offences. You are said to have been using them intermittently and you told Dr Zimmerman that you were drinking daily, although there is no description of you appearing affected by drugs and alcohol or one or the other during the offences. Nor do you say that your reason for this offending was to obtain money for drugs, but rather it was a reflection of hopelessness, and attention-seeking, in that you wanted help and felt you would be better off back in prison.

36Therefore this is not a case where the effect of drugs is said to have contributed to the offending, or not on its own, as I will come to shortly.  It does not seem to me that it is really being raised as such as a mitigatory factor under the McKee & Brookes considerations. I do regard that background as relevant to what prospects there are for your rehabilitation, and reducing the risk of reoffending, as it appears that previous similar if more serious offending has been connected with your drug abuse.

37You apparently had a teenage relationship as a result of which you have a son.  He was born when you were aged only 16 yourself.  I am told that he was raised by maternal grandparents.  You have apparently kept in touch with him, and always take an interest in him, but there is no close relationship since your offending sent you to prison. I am told that you wish for a further relationship with your son, and want to pursue that when you are next able to do so.

38I am told that you have worked while in the community, as I have said, failing to complete an apprenticeship but being able to find work in the building industry when free to do so.

39You unfortunately have not been able to form friendships of any duration, and that together with the lack of close family relationships, has left you without support and feeling very alone in the community. I am told that you have no visitors in prison and do not expect any, and it was the same during previous sentences.

40In 2005, aged 22, you were described by Ms Lechner and His Honour Judge Hart as at serious risk of becoming institutionalised, as you were already finding the predictability and stability of a custodial setting more inviting than being in the community where you had no supports and felt extremely isolated. From the report of Dr Zimmerman, and particularly as reflected in your history on parole over the last few years and the lead up to the current offending, I am satisfied that you have indeed reached the point where you are to be described as institutionalised.

41Apart from your history with the Department of Human Services and as a ward of state, by your mid-teens you were apparently committing some offences, attributable to or for the purposes of your heroin use.  They were relatively less serious at that stage than they grew to be in your 20s.

42From what is before me of your criminal record, I note that from the year 2000, it involves several sentences of detention in a youth training centre, without much time in between those.  Then followed more significant sentences in your 20s.

43You have admitted a criminal record which on my calculation includes 15 court appearances over the last 15 years, for a range of offences, some involving drugs but most relevantly, seven counts of armed robbery, three of attempted armed robbery, two of robbery, four of burglary and multiple charges of theft.  Apart from the charges of armed robbery and attempts, there is only one charge of violence - that being for assault in 2003.

44In 2005, you were sentenced by Judge Hart for a series of armed robberies and attempted ones, when His Honour set a lower than usual minimum period to allow for longer than usual parole.  However, you breached that parole and served close to another two and a half years of that sentence.

45In 2008, Judge Gullaci sentenced you for further offending of the same nature committed whilst on parole.  Judge Gullaci significantly moderated the total effective sentence he imposed for that other set of armed robberies, because it had to be served cumulatively on the period required by the parole board, and taking into account totality for the offences on which Judge Hart sentenced you.

46I have read the sentencing remarks from both of those cases, and in each it is clear that experienced Judges of this Court recognised that there were some serious underlying problems stemming from what they both called your tragic background, and each fashioned a sentence or sentences that were an attempt to assist in addressing the causes of your offending and to promote your rehabilitation. Unfortunately, ultimately, neither of those sentences succeeded in that objective. 

47You have failed under each period of parole that has been ordered, either by further offending or, last year, by surrendering yourself as you could not cope in the community. I am told that you did complete more than two years relatively successfully, after being released in 2010, but that various stressors arose, culminating in 2013 with a clearly very stressful event involving your teenage son being subjected to sexual abuse.  This apparently was of such stress to you that it prompted your surrendering your parole.

48A psychiatric report from Dr Zimmerman outlines your background and draws on previous reports of psychologist Ms Lechner.  Dr Zimmerman excluded psychotic features of your condition, or thought disorder, or major depression.  She considered that you have symptoms of depression including low mood and tearfulness. You seemed preoccupied when interviewed by her, with themes of helplessness, regarding as intolerable that themes of abuse and trauma that afflicted you have now apparently afflicted your son.  She also considered that you meet the criteria for a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder. Finally, she noted your long use of drugs to cope with stressful situations, and diagnosed both alcohol and opiate abuse.

49Addressing what lawyers and now psychiatrists call “Verdins considerations”, Dr Zimmerman believed that in the period of the offending you were, as you had been for most of your adult life, suffering from a combination of depression, post-traumatic stress disorder and also the effects of daily alcohol and intermittent heroin use. She considered that there had been deterioration in your mental state since the offences against your son in 2013, and that feelings of hopelessness contributed to reckless and ill-judged behaviours.

50Dr Zimmerman also considered that your depression and PTSD make prison weigh more heavily on you, and noted how that exacerbated a recent distressing experience.  She comments that the chronicity of your problems poses a challenge in terms of future treatment programs, however she notes and takes some comfort from the fact that she finds you intelligent, and that when you saw her you were expressing a keenness to continue psychological work and showed willingness to address substance abuse programs.  I have clarified today that you are in fact seeing a psychologist, approximately weekly at present, and a psychiatrist although less frequently. She said your transition from prison on your next release should be with some transitional support and suggested a particular agency for that.

51In deciding your sentence, I have allowed some moderation of the application of general and specific deterrence, and also some reduction in your moral culpability, taking into account these diagnoses and conclusions of
Dr Zimmerman.  That is, I accept that you did suffer from these underlying mental health conditions which had some effect on reducing your judgment and making you behave more recklessly. I also accept that your mental health conditions make experience of imprisonment more onerous for you than for a person without those conditions.

52A significant factor in mitigation of your sentence is that you have pleaded guilty to all of these charges.  You did this at an early stage, and are entitled to considerable leniency for not only the utilitarian value, that is, of saving the community the time and cost of disputed hearings and the witnesses from having to come to court to give evidence and, in the case of each of your victims, having to recall in detail, events that can have only been very frightening for them. Your pleas of guilty also reflect acceptance of responsibility for your actions, and in your case, I take them to reflect some genuine remorse for your offending.

53The principle of totality requires me to consider what total sentence should be imposed for the offences for which I sentence. There are eight offences over a relatively short period, but having regard to their number and the multiple victims and separate incidents, I need to apply some cumulation to reflect that there was a separate incident and a separate victim for each of the eight counts. Overall, substantial concurrency will apply having regard to the similarity in a pattern of behaviour over a relatively short period.

54In my view, the principle of totality also requires me to take into account that you have spent considerable recent periods in prison for offending of a similar nature. As already outlined, you have spent at least two thirds of the last ten years in prison, for offending of similar type to that for which I sentence you, although on the two previous occasions you were sentenced in the County Court, the offences mainly involved armed robbery or attempts at it.

55I am satisfied the time spent in prison for you has been and will throughout any sentence I impose, be more onerous than it would be under normal prison conditions.  That is for several reasons. The first is that you have apparently been serving all sentences in protection which necessarily makes the conditions more restrictive and makes activities and programs less available to you.  Also as I already stated, I take into account the opinion of Dr Zimmerman, that due to your duty or conditions of depression and post-traumatic stress disorder, you will find the time in prison more onerous and it may be exacerbated by stressful situations.

56In addition, there has been some further effect on the manner in which you have had to serve some of the time you have been in custody so far.  Notwithstanding that, you are in protective custody, I am told and accept that there was a period following disruption at MRC six months ago when your access to the exercise yard was even more limited than usual, and also that for about six weeks, your usual medication of Suboxone to address your heroin addiction was substituted with methadone, and that resulted in your experiencing unpleasant side-effects.

57You were then moved to Port Phillip Prison, and I assume that those specific extra restrictions ceased.  However I do take into account in some further moderation of your sentence, as I have said, some of your time on remand has been more onerous. In respect of the more general matters, it is likely to be for the balance of whatever time you serve in prison.

58Since you were last sentenced, there has been a change in sentencing options.  These include not only that a Community Corrections Order can follow a term of imprisonment of not more than two years, but also through the guideline judgment by the Court of Appeal in R v Boulton. Following that case, either a CCO, or a term of imprisonment of up to two years followed by a CCO may be regarded as suitable for offending which previously would have been regarded as requiring no sentence short of imprisonment for a period that required the fixing of a non-parole period.

59Although in theory available, in submissions it was agreed that I should not consider a term of imprisonment with a non-parole period and also followed by a CCO, for a variety of reasons including those outlined in Boulton's case.

60Notwithstanding your serious relevant prior criminal record, I am urged by your counsel to impose a term of imprisonment to be followed by a CCO.  It is, however, conceded that some period of immediate imprisonment must be imposed, and that that period must be longer than the time you have already spent in custody of 211 days.

61I have covered these briefly already, but in my view, clearly the sentencing principles of denunciation, just and proportionate punishment and deterrence, both general and specific, are important in this case although moderated to an extent as already explained.

62I take into account that it is clear that prior terms of imprisonment have not acted as a deterrent to you, and unfortunately, it appears that you have become institutionalised to the extent that when you knew that you could not cope with the particular stressors you were undergoing, you presented yourself to forfeit your parole and returned to the controlled environment of a prison.

63I ordered a pre-sentence report to assess your suitability for a Community Corrections Order to leave that open as a sentencing option.  That report raises some issues as to previous parole cancellation or revocation which seem to me not to require repeating here.

64That report did assess you as at the highest or maximum risk of reoffending.  I have considered in light of that assessment, whether placing of you on an order of the nature that I am urged on your behalf to do, is in effect, setting you up to fail. Nevertheless, you were assessed as suitable for a CCO, which may be due as your counsel urges me to find, to your interpersonal presentation on interview.

65I have considered carefully whether a sentence which includes a CCO on your being released from prison is possible for you to manage.  With the unsatisfactory and virtually self-defeating results of your previous parole orders, I have ultimately decided that you are no more likely to succeed in establishing some long-term stability in the community under a further parole order than a CCO.

66With your assurance that you want the opportunity to have an order that assists you to address the underlying causes of your offending, I shall give you the opportunity to enter a CCO on your release from prison. That means that I will be imposing a term of imprisonment a little less than two years, to avoid the imposition of a parole requirement, and it is to be followed by a CCO.  I want to make clear that I have moderated the total term of imprisonment significantly from what it would have been had this been a straight sentence with a non-parole period fixed, taking into account that you were unlikely to cope with parole, and that an alternative approach on your release in my view ought to be attempted and can still achieve sentencing considerations that apply in your case.

67There will be further punishment from the restrictive nature of the CCO itself, as was discussed in Boulton's case, and I have included a condition as to some unpaid community work as a penalty in addition to the period of imprisonment.

68However the main conditions on the CCO will address the various causes of your offending behaviour in order to try to assist you to establish a much more stable and, hopefully for you, a happier life on your release from prison. If that could be achieved, and I note that your prospects of rehabilitation are at best very guarded, it would not only be in your own best interests, but ultimately in the best interests of the community in general.

69It will be up to you, Mr Wright, to persevere with your present resolution and determination to address the several background factors that have undermined you in the past from maintaining a stable and law-abiding life in the community.  It will not be easy and as I have said, I have considered very closely whether the order I am going to make is merely setting you up to fail. However, for the reasons I have stated, I consider it is worth trying, and ultimately it is in your hands as to whether you can find the fortitude and the resolution to persevere with the programs to which you hopefully will be directed, to try to address your underlying problems and reach a point where you can maintain a stable and law-abiding lifestyle.

70Christian Wright, on each of the charges, you are convicted and sentenced as follows.  On each of Charges 1, 2, 3, 5, 7 and 8, those are the charges of robbery, you are sentenced to imprisonment for 12 months.

71On Charge 4 of armed robbery, you are sentenced to imprisonment for 16 months to be followed by a Community Corrections Order to last for two and a half years or 30 months.  I shall describe the conditions on that CCO shortly.  On Charge 6 of theft, you are sentenced to six months' imprisonment.

72I direct that one month of each of the sentences on Charges 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7 and 8 be served cumulatively on each other and on the sentence imposed on Charge 4.  In other words, the sentence for armed robbery on Charge 4 is the base sentence and there is one month of each other sentence cumulated on that charge and on each other.

73That creates a total effective sentence of 23 months or 1 year, 11 months to be followed by the CCO for two and a half years.  I declare as reckoned served towards this sentence 211 days of pre-sentence detention and I direct that that be recorded in court records.

74The conditions that I place on the CCO will be:  100 hours of unpaid community work over the duration of the CCO, supervision, that you attend for assessment and treatment as directed in relation to your drug abuse, your alcohol abuse and also attend for assessment and treatment as directed for mental health conditions.  I also impose a condition that you attend as directed, for programs to reduce the risk of you reoffending.

75In addition, I have decided that this is a case where judicial monitoring has a particular application, and I note that it was recommended in the pre-sentence report. Given your vulnerability to relapse as evidenced over your history, either by reoffending or simply feeling you cannot continue in the general community and your relapses into drug abuse or alcohol abuse, I shall impose judicial monitoring as a condition.  I am going to appoint the first judicial monitoring review as in three months' time which I think brings it to
19 February which is approximately three months on a Friday. I can reassess either the frequency or even the need for continuing monitoring depending how things go in the future.

76I have just realised that makes no sense because you will not be on the Community Corrections Order by then.  I am sorry, I was thinking - I was looking for a date.  It will be three months from when the Community Corrections Order starts.  Sorry about that.  That date will have to take its - I will come back to how that gets set shortly.

77In addition to these conditions, all usual terms of a CCO apply.  I know they will have been explained to you but I shall repeat them again briefly.

78First, within two working days of your release from prison, you must report to the nearest community corrections office to where you are living.  Now in the report, it was recommended that that be Sunshine but that was noting you did not have an address.  At the moment, it will be the nearest community corrections office to where you will be living when released, and it is within two working days of your release.

79Over the course of the order, you must notify to community corrections officers of any change of address of where you are living or where you are working within two clear working days of such change occurring.

80You must submit to visits from and obey all lawful directions of community corrections officers.

81You must not leave the state of Victoria without prior permission of community corrections officers.

82Most importantly, you must not commit any other offences during the period of the Community Corrections Order.

83If you contravene this order, either by failing to comply with the conditions generally or by committing further offences, you can expect to be brought back before me on a contravention hearing.  A contravention of a Community Corrections Order is itself an offence, and can attract a separate punishment.

84Also, depending on all of the circumstances including your personal circumstances at the time and what the circumstances of any contravention are, the options available on such a contravention include variation of the order by extending it or increasing its terms, or it may simply be confirmed, or it may be cancelled and you may be further sentenced on the charge to which it relates.  Now do you understand the terms and conditions of this community corrections order?

85OFFENDER:  Yes, Your Honour.

86HER HONOUR:  Do you agree to comply with such an order.

87OFFENDER:  Certainly.

88HER HONOUR: All right. I state for the purposes of s.6AAA of the Sentencing Act, that if you had pleaded not guilty to these charges but being found guilty of each of these charges by a jury and if all other circumstances had been the same, I would have imposed a total effective sentence of five and a half years imprisonment with a non-parole period of three years, six months.

89Now finally, compensation orders were sought.  I believe they have been sorted out but I have not had a chance to look through them.  I will try to look through them while the draft order is being prepared.  If I have not got time this afternoon to sign off on them, they will be - I will look at them early next week.

90Take a seat, Mr Wright.  There are just a couple of matters that arose.  I was thinking when I thought of three months for the first judicial review means three months' time from now.  It obviously does not. But the date - can we tell yet the date of completion of the sentence?  It is one year 11 months, less the - the 211 days is effectively - approximately seven months, when I say - may be a little under seven months.  So that leaves just fractionally over one year, four months.  I am sorry, it is Friday afternoon.  The math has gone astray.  One year, four months roughly from now but I think it may need to be left to the correctional authorities to work out what the actual release date will be.

91MS CONNELLY:  I think that is right, Your Honour, because there may be other factors but they ‑ ‑ ‑

92HER HONOUR:  There may be administrative adjustments even though your client is in a unit where he might not be affected, but I think it has to rely on the reckoning of the custodial ‑ ‑ ‑

93MS CONNELLY:  That is right.  The only other issue might be that they are unlikely to make the wholesale changes and if Your Honour wanted to pick a date three to four months after (indistinct), it would probably be safe to do so, which would take us to June 2017 I think.

94HER HONOUR:  It has to - we have to have a date to put into the system apparently.  That is why I am - my associate urged me to ‑ ‑ ‑

95MS CONNELLY:  Well Mr Wright was arrested ‑ ‑ ‑

96HER HONOUR: - - -and I said all right, three months from today, but that will not work.  So if it is one year and four months approximately from now, takes us to ‑ ‑ ‑

97MS CONNELLY:  But Your Honour would then add the three months which would take us to June 2017, would it not?

98HER HONOUR:  I see what you mean.  June 2017.  It is not possible for me to pick a - I have to do something that may have to be changed.  I do not know whether I will be on circuit.  I do not know what my roster will be in 2017.  We have got 2016 dates all in place from leave to circuits to the like, but not 2017 yet and I cannot foretell what my - whether I might be on leave or sitting elsewhere in the state.  Maybe we better pick a date that is a Friday of a week towards the end of June and see if that can be varied if needed.

99MS CONNELLY:  As Your Honour pleases.

100HER HONOUR:  It is impossible to really estimate but usually there are not circuits in the first two weeks of July.  So I think it might be better to make it the first Friday in July which seems to be 7 July and by the time
Mr Wright is released from prison in approximately March, I will know my roster for that year.  But it is - and that can be notified if - well basically, it will be known well before March but I cannot tell now what it will be.

101I will fix 7 July 2017 at 10 am and that will be in the order, but if it has to be changed, there will be plenty of notice that it has been changed.  All right, now while that is all being prepared, I will look at these.

102Yes, all right, I have looked at the draft CCO which - except that it has got an address in there that obviously no longer applies, but we cannot know what the new address is, so might as well leave it at that.  I will show - have both counsel shown and if it complies with what you think I have said and then if
Mr Wright can be asked to sign it.

103MS CONNELLY:  That seems to reflect Your Honour's orders.

104HER HONOUR:  All right, in that case, you can approach too if you like,
Ms Connelly.

105MS CONNELLY:  Yes, Your Honour.

106HER HONOUR:  I will have my associate approach Mr Wright. 
Mr Wright, this is the CCO.  You have got to sign it and I have to today.  Have a read of it.  I have explained the terms and your counsel has checked them, but if you - you ought to read it yourself and just check what is there.  All right, I am signing that Community Correction Order.  Also there will be copies for both sides and you will get one, Mr Wright.  It does not of course, come into force until you complete your imprisonment which is, as I said, roughly one year, four months away.  I will see you on 7 July 2017 or thereabouts.

107But as I have said, I am giving you the opportunity to see if, with the more hands definite types of programs, you can address problems. But in the end, it is up to you and it will require very serious application by you because unfortunately, your history points to you not having coped with dealing with a whole lot of things in the past.  But if you reoffend, it will be a breach of that order as well as you will be back in front of me for a breach of that order with the potential that you will be resentenced for the charge that that is on.  That is armed robbery alone and of course by then, you would have done the 23 months of imprisonment. But nevertheless, I have constructed a totality of orders that takes into account that you are to be doing a protracted period on a CCO with its own conditions.

108Now in relation to the compensation orders, I have so far looked at certain claims.  I have so far looked at three and I am prepared to make those orders.  What arrangements you can eventually make to pay them or seek advice on - I do not know what has happened in the past and whether you have - how you have dealt with compensation orders if they were made in the past.  There is some advice I think available to you, while you are in prison including issues as to bankruptcy.  I will not go further about any of that but I will - rather than make the stores involved run up the cost of bringing separate applications or separate legal proceedings,  I will make the orders sought because on each case, there is a statement by statutory declaration confirming that these are based on reconciliations of those shops' tills at the end of the day.

109MS CONNELLY:  Sorry, Your Honour ‑ ‑ ‑

110HER HONOUR:  Yes?

111MS CONNELLY:  I am thinking on my feet here, but Your Honour, I am just considering how the sentence structure that Your Honour has adopted might be impacted by s.15, the order of services of sentence, in that, the - as I understand the sentence, the armed robbery is the base sentence plus the sentence that attracts the community corrections order.  So that - and - so the armed robbery sentence would be served plus then the cumulation orders ‑ ‑ ‑

112HER HONOUR:  The cumulation orders, yes.

113MS CONNELLY: - - -and then the CCO and I cannot see in terms that there is any problem with that, but it just occurred to me ‑ ‑ ‑

114HER HONOUR:  It is how I have been doing it in a lot of these.  See the alternative ‑ ‑ ‑

115MS CONNELLY:  And there has been no problem?

116HER HONOUR:  Well nobody has raised that there is and central records have not.

117MS CONNELLY:  Well if works, that is good.

118HER HONOUR:  I looked at various options whether some or all of the robberies should be a separate CCO, separate from a different - a higher sentence on the armed robbery, but I have adjusted the armed robbery imprisonment time down to - it is the most serious of the offences although as I said, there is really a totality here and rather than do a single aggregate sentence - heaven forbid I do not mean that nastily but - I was the judge overturned in Felton's case when I first tried to apply what I thought was a rational way of doing an aggregate sentence. I do not now attempt aggregate sentences without consent.

119MS CONNELLY:  I think it was Fenton or Felton ‑ ‑ ‑

120HER HONOUR:  Felton.

121MS CONNELLY:  Felton, yes, I think.

122HER HONOUR:  I know the first name was Abby and a hundred separate acts, stolen from her employer ‑ ‑ ‑

123MS CONNELLY:  It seemed perfectly sensible.

124HER HONOUR:  They were rolled up charges.  Some of them but I thought it was just a period of 12 months offending but the Court of Appeal did not.

125MS CONNELLY:  Here we are, Your Honour.  It is ‑ ‑ ‑

126HER HONOUR:  And I am governed by that.

127MS CONNELLY: - - -s.45(3) seems to cover it and it is - if the court makes a community corrections order in addition to opposing a sentence of imprisonment, the correction order commences on release from imprisonment.  So that would seem to mean release following the expiry of the total effective sentence - the aggregate term of imprisonment.

128HER HONOUR:  It is not an aggregate though.  It is a total effective sentence.  But I have not - that is how I have structured it in several others.  Does the Crown have any problem with that?

129MS MALOBABIC:  No, Your Honour.  That would be my experience as well, that it would not raise issues in the central records.

130HER HONOUR:  It does not seem to have so far.  So I am still coping with these compensation orders.  Are there two for the same amount?  Is that what - or have I - there are three Subways?

131MS MALOBABIC:  Yes, Your Honour.

132HER HONOUR:  There is Monee Ponds, Brimbank Central and this one which is Braybrook.  If there is a problem, we can call it back on, but I have not yet been told that there is and it is the - there is no ideal way to structure these sentences.  If I made every single robbery charge have a CCO follow it, that could be even more difficult. I think it will work.

133MS CONNELLY:  I think so too, Your Honour.

134HER HONOUR:  Because of the time of day on a Friday, I want to get this signed so that Mr Wright can be - have the order and be removed from the court straight away.  Ms Connelly, if you want to speak to your client now, I am happy if you want to approach him so that ‑ ‑ ‑

135MS CONNELLY:  Thank you, Your Honour.

136HER HONOUR: - - -it is ready to go when I have signed this once I have checked it.  I have signed that order so it can accompany - or I think my associate gets it through to the administration straight away.  It gets emailed apparently now.  All right.  Mr Wright, that concludes the matter.  I will have you removed from the court and I will see you on 7 July in 2017.

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