Director of Public Prosecutions v Wrzos
[2023] VCC 1470
•21 August 2023
| IN THE COUNTY COURT OF VICTORIA | Revised Not Restricted Suitable for Publication |
AT MELBOURNE
CRIMINAL JURISDICTION
CR 22-00284
| DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROSECUTIONS |
| v |
| JANUSZ WRZOS |
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JUDGE: | HIS HONOUR JUDGE TINNEY |
WHERE HELD: | Melbourne |
DATE OF HEARING: | 23 May 2023 (Arraigned in Geelong) |
DATE OF SENTENCE: | 21 August 2023 |
CASE MAY BE CITED AS: | DPP v Wrzos |
MEDIUM NEUTRAL CITATION: | [2023] VCC 1470 |
REASONS FOR SENTENCE
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APPEARANCES: | Counsel | Solicitors |
| For the Director of Public Prosecutions | Mr A. Moore | Office of Public Prosecutions |
For the Offender | The Offender was not represented (at Plea) Ms A. Hurst (at arraignment) | Victoria Legal Aid (at arraignment) |
HIS HONOUR:
1This matter has a long and involved chronology, mainly as a result of Mr Wrzos' decision taken along the way, unwisely, not to be represented.
2The matter was listed for trial at the County Court sitting down on circuit at Geelong and at a point in time when there was a charge of blackmail on the indictment.
3A number of judges case managed the matter and tried to get an understanding from Mr Wrzos as to why the matter was actually proceeding to trial, what the defence was and what the benefit to him was in actually running a trial, one that all and sundry thought unlikely to be any real defence.
4It got to the point where Judge Mullaly had a number of mentions of the matter where he spelt out these sorts of considerations. It appeared to him, and I endorsed this view that there was the high likelihood that Mr Wrzos would be found guilty by a jury of the charge of blackmail which had a maximum penalty of 15 years. Had the matter proceeded to trial and had Mr Wrzos been found guilty of that charge, prison would have been the only available destination. There would have been no other penalty open to a court, in my view, given the 15-year maximum penalty in play there and the lack of any sort of utilitarian benefits afforded to a guilty plea.
5A defence response was required and ultimately extracted out of Mr Wrzos and it was not a particularly sensible document, certainly not one that could have been permitted to be opened in that manner to a jury.
6As luck would have it, though, VLA came into the matter at the point in time when I came down on circuit and on 22 May it was apparent that the matter had settled. The matter was adjourned to 23 May for the arraignment and the arraignment took place. By that point the Crown had accepted that they would take a plea to a lesser offence, that is the offence of using a carriage service to harass. They had always foreshadowed the availability of that charge, by the way, but it had never been taken up by Mr Wrzos.
7But on 23 May that rolled-up charge, and that is what it is, was the subject of the indictment that had been filed. Mr Wrzos pleaded guilty on that day. He pleaded guilty also to the related summary offence of the fail to appear on bail, that is a failure to appear on 26 November 2021. I was encouraging of the matter to actually proceed there and then on 23 May but Ms Hurst, who then acted for Mr Wrzos, was being instructed to apply to adjourn the plea off to another date to obtain psychiatric material, maybe a forensic report, and also material from a treater up in New South Wales. Also to get some military service records and details to put the plea properly before the court.
8The Crown also were contemplating, at that stage, getting an impact statement from the victim in this matter. She has decided, I think probably sensibly, not to put forward an impact statement, but I have no doubt that these messages had a significant and immediate impact – they were designed to.
9Nonetheless, the case was adjourned off to today's date and I have been looking into the iManage file on the court site to try and work out when documents were going to be filed. There was an ominous silence from VLA, broken only by their announcement today that they are not appearing for Mr Wrzos, that he has really not been sighted since that date in May. They therefore cannot, and will not, be appearing.
10Ms Foley appeared as a matter of courtesy today but it became apparent that Mr Wrzos did not want them. He wanted to do the plea himself and that is what has taken place. So I have allowed Ms Foley to remove herself from the hearing and I have done my best to draw out from Mr Wrzos the matters in mitigation by asking a number of questions. I have gone to areas that presumably, if he was represented, appropriately briefed counsel would be taking me to those areas. But I have accepted I may not have gone to every aspect. It is not my job to conduct the plea for Mr Wrzos. It is to try and put myself in the best possible position and fairness dictates that I have engaged in the way that I have with him.
11The matter has been opened to me and there is a summary of prosecution opening that is marked as Exhibit A and I think it is fair to say there are still some concerns held by Mr Wrzos about what he believes about the conduct of the Department of Health and Human Services.
12It is not really necessary for me to get to the bottom of that. I will work on an acceptance of the proposition that those who work in that field, in the Department of Human Services in Child Protective Services, work under an enormous level of stress, stress that does not need the added stress of the sort of communications that were received by Ms Carter, who is the practice leader within that department up in Ballarat and had been involved and present at the removal of the child of Mr Wrzos' friend, or ex-partner, Ms Osborne.
13They have a statutory obligation to do what they do, and, as I say, it is not an easy job at the best of times and it is made a lot harder when met with the sort of conduct that she was met with in these messages.
14The summary sets out the chronology. It sets out the nature of those messages and they are extremely unpleasant for her to have received those messages and she acted on them by contacting Triple 0. She had concerns not just for herself but also for Ms Osborne actually. The messages came from Mr Wrzos and it was easy enough to connect him to them, as the summary makes plain.
15He was interviewed by the police in July of 2021 and made a large number of admissions, which again made puzzling the fact of the matter moving along towards a trial on the blackmail charge, given the nature of those admissions. The admissions, though they were made, were not replete with any expressions of remorse, that is for sure.
16In any event, Mr Wrzos was charged and bailed. He failed to appear in accordance with that bail to appear in the Magistrates Court, but in the scheme of things that offence is far less serious than the other offence before me. Yes, it has a two year maximum term available to it but Mr Wrzos has provided some information to me in terms of his reasons for not appearing, and it is clear that he had a fair bit going on at that time. He has just overlooked the date at a point in time when he was dealing with the death of his grandmother and had recently been involved in the funeral arrangements as well. So there were those levels of distraction that were operating on his mind that make his failure to appear, I think, a relatively minor example of that offence as it is not some deliberate failure to attend, as I perceive it.
17Anyway, I will act on the summary. There is a guilty plea here and it is a late plea obviously, they do not come much later, but a guilty plea is better than none at all because there is still a benefit attached to it. As forlorn as the trial would have been, as certain a thing as the verdict would have been, had he run the blackmail offence to trial, the fact is he did not. He has pleaded guilty to this matter and so the waste of time represented by that trial has been avoided. There has been a fair bit of waste along the way, obviously, in terms of the number of mentions and the like, and as I say, it is a very late plea, but I take into account the fact of a guilty plea in this case.
18It is still a matter of some significance to my task because ultimately witnesses have not been required to give evidence in court. Ms Carter has not been required to actually come to court and give evidence and had she done so she might not have enjoyed it. There is not much pleasure in coming into a witness box and being cross-examined and she has been spared that experience, which is at least something.
19So there is a utilitarian benefit in pleading guilty that is still of weight here, even though it is a very late plea. It is a plea also occurring against the backdrop of the court's increased workload and blown-out lists arising in the COVID setting. So there is still a heightened benefit to anyone pleading guilty as a result of that pursuant to the Court of Appeal decision of Worboyes[1]. So I take into account Mr Wrzos' plea and his taking of responsibility and the benefits that accrue to someone who does plead, including the heightened benefit of someone pleading when the court's backlog has built up owing to the impact of Covid 19.
[1]Worboyes v The Queen [2021] VSCA 169
20A guilty plea, often enough, is indicative of remorse – it is not always the position – and here it is really hard to see a lot of remorse in this picture. Mr Wrzos obviously still has some sense of righting the wrongs of what he believed Ms Carter was engaged in, so that sort of mindset still, to some extent, persists, despite his plea. So it is not a case where there is fulsome remorse by any stretch of the imagination. I am prepared to find that there is some level of pretty minimal remorse in this case – I think he is actually sorry to have wasted the court's time, that is a different thing altogether – but in terms of remorse for the commission of the most serious of the crimes I am dealing with, that is the use of the carriage service to harass, I do not see a great deal of it here. So I make only some allowances then for remorse.
21Mr Wrzos, in responding to questions posed by me, has given me a bit of a picture of his life – I do not suggest that it is a comprehensive picture or even as comprehensive as might be placed before me by some barristers, but I suspect also it might be more comprehensive than the background I would get from other barristers who do not go into these things in great detail.
22Mr Wrzos will be 38 in September. He was born back in September of 1985. He came to Australia in 1987 as a toddler with his parents. He has an older brother. He had a decent sort of background by the sounds of it, and a good relationship with his parents and a good education obviously. His parents obviously saw the high value of education. He was educated in the secondary system at a private school, St Bede's, down in Mentone.
23He left school about halfway through Year 12 and went into an apprenticeship but one that did not much interest him and he then worked in a variety of factory jobs.
24In 2007 he joined the Australian Defence Force and he worked for nine years within the military in various postings that he has told me about. He was discharged in 2016 owing to various medical and mental health issues and discharged onto a service pension which amounts to about $2,300 per fortnight.
25He married when he was still in the armed forces but that was a reasonably short-term marriage, as I understand it, with no children to that relationship.
26His mother is still alive. His father died a few years back and has always had a decent relationship with his family. He has ongoing contact with both his mother and his brother. He describes it as a close relationship.
27He had a number of medical and mental health issues that led to his discharge and there has obviously been some ongoing mental health considerations, such that he still has a treater who he sees now and then up in New South Wales. He describes himself as having ups and downs. He lives what seems to be a reasonably isolated sort of life.
28He purchased a house on a quarter acre block down in Lethbridge about 25 minutes out of Geelong and he purchased that outright but the terms of the settlement with his ex-wife required him to take out a mortgage of some $200,000. So there is an ongoing monthly payment of around $1,000 to $1,200 per month.
29He is also doing some work for a 70 year old man down the road who is building his own house. So he is making himself useful in that. He enjoys motorbikes. He has purchased a block of land out towards Maryborough or Avoca and there is some interest in starting some sort of motorbike camp for children.
30He feels a bit broken, that is the way he is describing it, and a bit isolated. He is supported in court here today by Ms Osborne who featured in this event. It was her child who was removed and that child, a boy of about 10, is living now with the father. I do not believe there to be any sort of issues in terms of ongoing messaging or contact between Mr Wrzos and the victim in this case. Presumably if there was any issue in terms of that you would tell me about that, Mr Moore.
31HIS HONOUR: There is no issue in terms of any sort of ongoing communication?
32MR MOORE: No, Your Honour.
33HIS HONOUR: All right. So I am dealing with an extremely unpleasant event, no question about that, a serious event in terms of Mr Wrzos' conduct, but it is back in October of 2020 and we are approaching three years down the track with, as I understand it, no further issues. So hopefully that persists. If it does not, Mr Wrzos would breach the order that I am shortly going to place him on.
34So, as I say, by posing these questions and getting answers from him I have received a fair bit of information from Mr Wrzos. One piece of information – it is a bit awkward asking this question directly of a person – he has no prior criminal convictions, when asked the question whether he had – putting to him that he had not been to court before, he has, and he told me he has and there is always a bit of caution in posing those next questions. It is not my job to be teasing out from him information that I have no business knowing. If he was represented, his counsel would have an obligation to spell out some of those things. But, anyway, I have left that generally alone. I think they are traffic matters, as I understand it, so not matters of any great seriousness and there is no criminal history alleged here. So I take into account that he is 37 years of age, almost 38, he has no prior criminal history at all, so he calls in aid his past good character.
35He indicates that he has some desire to possibly enter politics. I am not sure at what sort of level, whether that is local or state or even Federal, and he has some concerns about the imposition of a conviction and the impact that might have upon him.
36I have to consider a variety of things when I am passing sentence in this State, I have to consider the nature and the gravity of the offence. I have spoken of that already. This is not minor offending by any stretch of the imagination. To be sending these communications to a child protective worker like this is totally unacceptable. I must have regard to the nature and the gravity of the offence, I have to have regard to the maximum penalty and also the impact.
37Now, there is no impact statement before me but I do not doubt that these things had an immediate impact upon the worker, after all, she called Triple 0. She had the right, if she wanted to, to make an impact statement, she has not, so it is not my job to speculate and then somehow to invent any sort of long-term impact. No doubt she will not forget these messages in a hurry. No doubt they had an immediate effect upon her, but I certainly cannot make any judgments about there being any sort of significant long-term impact in this case. If she wanted to tell me about that, she could have. She has chosen not to, so there is a vacuum in that sort of setting.
38Then I come to deal with the purposes of sentencing. I have to denounce this conduct and I do strongly denounce it. There are ways and means of going about things. If there is a grievance about the way someone is performing an official function, to actually take it up to them by way of a direct message, giving directions to deposit money into a nominated bank account and starting a countdown clock and issuing all sorts of veiled and nasty consequences, to commit this sort of offence using a carriage service to menace, harass and to cause offence, it is not minor. It must be denounced.
39I also have to punish you. That is what a court does. There is always an aspect of punishment in any sentence imposed by a court. I have to try and deter you from offending. If you were someone who had been doing this repeatedly, if you had a lengthy history before the courts, well the need for me to deter you, so specific deterrence, would be a very powerful consideration. I doubt if it is here, I think it can be moderated owing to the fact that you do not have a criminal history. This represents your first criminal conduct. So the absence of criminal conduct in the past, the sense I have that you are not taking this on further, that you are leaving her alone, and that you realise that your conduct has given rise to criminal proceedings, I think there can be some moderation of the weight given to deterring you. I would be surprised if you ever thought this was an appropriate way to act again. So I think there can be some moderation of specific deterrence.
40General deterrence is a different proposition. I must have regard to the need to deter other people, and that is a pretty significant consideration in this sort of case; when someone is acting pursuant to their statutory duty and as a result of engaging in their statutory duty running afoul of this sort of conduct, people must understand they must not conduct themselves in the way that you did. So I have to deter other people from doing what you did and that purpose is not minor at all in this sentencing exercise.
41I have to consider the need to protect the community from you. I think that specific deterrence can be very significantly moderated. The community has not needed protection from you in the past and I think is unlikely to need protection from you in the future actually. So there can be very significant moderation. This purpose, I think, drops away very sizeably in my task. In other cases it might be a very powerful consideration, actually, but it is not here at all.
42As I say, I have to work out the weight to give to these various purposes of sentencing. That is how a court comes to the end destination in a sentencing task. To weigh up the nature and the gravity of the offence, look at the personal circumstances of the accused, look at the impact upon the victim, work out the extent to which these various purposes must be adequately reflected and then make judgments about the nature of the disposition required in a given case. As a matter law, a court never imposes a sentence greater than that which is required to satisfy the various purposes of sentencing – that is also a matter of common sense.
43In this case I think the conduct the subject of the charge on the indictment, is just too serious to be dealt with by way of a monetary penalty, but not serious enough, at this point at least, to warrant a term of imprisonment. It would be a big step to imprison you here and I note that the Director is not calling for such an outcome.
44Mr Moore who appears on behalf of the Director of Public Prosecutions is instructed to make sentencing submissions and the Director of Public Prosecutions in this case submits that a with conviction community corrections order would be the appropriate disposition in the sound exercise of my discretion.
45Well I am not bound by any submission made on behalf of the Director, or even anything said by you. I have to exercise my own sentencing discretion in this case. I think ultimately a community corrections order is warranted in this case given the nature and the gravity of the offending.
46There are matters in mitigation, obviously. I have mentioned those. I do take into account your plea. As late as it is, it is still important. I imply from it some minimal remorse. I have to make judgments about your prospects of rehabilitation, because of course that comes in to making an assessment of your risk of reoffence as well, and I think your prospects of rehabilitation are good. I draw that from the fact that you are the age that you are, you have no prior criminal history. I am dealing with you as a first time offender at the age of almost 38 years of age, and one who, although late in the piece, has at least accepted responsibility for his criminal conduct.
47So I think there are very decent prospects of rehabilitation and I believe a low risk of reoffending in the circumstances. If I took a different view of your risk, if I thought there was a high risk of you getting back on the phone and committing this sort of conduct, well that would translate into a far more significant disposition being imposed upon you. But I do not think that is the position.
48So ultimately I have had regard to all the matters that have been raised, both on your behalf and on behalf of the Director of Public Prosecutions who appears through Mr Moore here today. Ultimately, I believe it is both open and appropriate for me to deal with you by way of a community corrections order – that is in relation to one of the charges.
49So what I intend to do – I will still have you remain seated, Mr Wrzos, I will get you up on your feet soon enough. But what I am intending to do is this: having heard all these matters, I am going to deal with you in this way but I can only deal with you in this way if you consent in each instance here. I have a charge of failing to answer bail. One of these offences, the one on the indictment, that is a Commonwealth offence, I cannot combine the disposition on that with the disposition on the State offence of failing to appear. I do not need to bother you with the reasons for that but it is because if we have both a Federal sentencing exercise and a State one, then I have that difficulty.
50I have not made it explicitly clear, but I should really, I take into account the relevant matters under the relevant provisions of the Crimes Act (Cth), s16 and thereabouts, in terms of the matters that I take into account in terms of the sentencing exercise for the indictment matter. They are very much the same matters that exist on a State level, in any event, things such as your plea and the stage of the plea and whether there is remorse or not, and making judgments about your prospects of rehabilitation and all these things, and I take those into account.
51So what I am going to do is this: on the State matter – and I should go one step further – I have raised with you, I think because my sense was if you were represented, whether it had been Ms Hurst or Ms Foley, given what I know of you, I think it highly likely they would have been making submissions to me that such disposition as was imposed that the court should consider doing it with 'on a without conviction' basis. So I have raised those sorts of questions with you towards the tail end of the exercise and that elicited your responses.
52Obviously your strong preference is to avoid a conviction, and you mentioned your political aspirations and the like, and I raised the relevant provision of the Sentencing Act that set out some of the matters that a court can have regard to when considering whether there should be conviction or non-conviction. They are not exhaustive but they include matters such as the nature of the offence – well here it is a serious offence, the Commonwealth matter. Though these are in the State Act, the same sorts of considerations would come into play – just bear with me though.
53Mr Moore, I am caught up in that most dreadful of experiences, that is a State and a Federal sentencing exercise. I just have a sense, I might be wrong, but I have a sense that a Commonwealth community corrections order cannot be imposed without conviction. Do you know one way or the other?
54MR MOORE: I can't help you, Your Honour, I'm afraid.
55HIS HONOUR: I might just need to stand down. Just bear with me, I'll have a look at the Act. I know a CCO can be imposed because it's one of those dispositions that is picked up, but I don't believe there's a power to avoid conviction in the Commonwealth regime. Let me just have a look at this.
56VOICE(from body of court): Your Honour, it's not available, you can do a bond without conviction but you can't do a ‑ ‑ ‑
57HIS HONOUR: CCO.
58VOICE: CCO, Your Honour.
59HIS HONOUR: No, a CCO can't be imposed without conviction.
60MR MOORE: Well the other alternative, I suppose Your Honour, which hasn't been canvassed is a fine without conviction.
61HIS HONOUR: I can't do that in the Federal regime either, there's no – other than one of the bonds ‑ ‑ ‑
62MR MOORE: Or the recognisance ‑ ‑ ‑
63HIS HONOUR: Yes, recognisance release, but I don't think that is adequate in the setting of this case.
64VOICE: It's 20 AB, Your Honour.
65HIS HONOUR: What is it?
66VOICE: 20 capital A, capital B, Your Honour.
67HIS HONOUR: Well there are only very limited powers in Federal regime to proceed without conviction. For instance, under s19B of the Act, but that requires a court to be satisfied of the extent to which an offence is of a trivial nature and it just doesn't apply to this setting. There are then other powers to – of conditional release after conviction but that doesn't avoid the aspect of conviction. But fines without conviction and CCO's without a conviction don't apply in the Federal regime.
68You may be not following that, Mr Wrzos, but even as I was speaking – when I consider the nature of Charge 1 on the indictment, it is a Commonwealth offence, and it is privy to the Commonwealth sentencing regime. That sentencing regime, do not ask me why we do not have uniformity here, permits me to pick up some State sentencing regime dispositions, such as a community corrections order. In the State regime, if I was just dealing with a State offence, I could on an offence, place someone on a community corrections order with or without conviction. It was that provision I was referring to in s8 of the Sentencing Act which applies only to the State sentencing exercise that I have.
69So, for instance, the failure to appear charge which is a State-based offence, it is covered entirely by the Sentencing Act. I have the capacity in that case to fine you without conviction or put you on a community corrections order without conviction, or I could even put you on a good behaviour bond without conviction, which is what I had in mind doing actually in terms of that offence.
70But in terms of the use of a carriage service, it is a Federal offence. It is covered by the Federal regime. There are a very limited number of dispositions available in the Federal regime that can avoid conviction and the major one of those, requires me to be of the view that the offence is trivial in nature which I do not believe it is. So I do not believe I have any option but to convict you in relation to that. Do you understand?
71As I say then it is complicated then by that issue, this task, because I cannot place you on a s19B disposition under the Crimes Act (Cth) and order you to do unpaid work. I have no capacity to discharge someone and then to make that a requirement of an undertaking to be of good behaviour.
72Anyway, I take into account the various relevant provisions within both the State Sentencing Act but also the sentencing provisions within the Crimes Act (Cth), including those where his matter is spelt out in s16A of that Act.
73So what I have in mind then is this: in relation to the State matter before me, so the failure to answer bail, given the nature of that failure to appear and all the matters in mitigation in this case, including your explanation for that, I am going to release you on a good behaviour bond without conviction. That is what it is, it is termed a bit differently, it is called an adjourned undertaking under s75 of the Sentencing Act and so I find you guilty of that offence. I place you on an undertaking. It starts today, it runs for 12 months, and the only conditions of that are you must be of good behaviour during the period of the undertaking and you must attend before the court if you are called on during the period of the adjournment.
74This is what is referred to as a good behaviour bond, all right? It is no longer called that but that is what it is. It is your promise to be of good behaviour for the next 12 months. You do not need to turn up at court in 12 months. If you are of good behaviour for 12 months that is the end of it. If you are not then you are brought back, and in breach of it there is a charge of breaching the adjourned undertaking and I am then engaged in a re-sentencing exercise on that charge. So that is what I have in mind for that matter.
75For the charge of use of a carriage service to harass, having considered all the matters I am going to convict you in the circumstances and I am going to admit you to a community corrections order, and it will be for a period of 18 months. But bear this in mind: the only special condition attached to this is the performance of 150 hours of unpaid work – that is what I have in mind. So the order is specified as running for 18 months, ending on 20 February 2025, but because the only condition relates to the unpaid work, if you get the work done, the order will then expire, okay? So I would encourage you to actually get that work done and dusted.
76So you have not had one of these orders before so I need to explain it to you, then I need to ask if you will consent to it.
77As I say, it will run for 18 months, it starts today. These orders have mandatory terms, they apply to everyone who gets one. You are getting one so they will apply to you. I told you one of them before; you must not during this order commit another offence for which you could be imprisoned – that will not be a problem, you have not been offending over the course of your life so that should be very straightforward. But if you broke the law, if you committed a crime punishable by a term of imprisonment in the period of this order, you will have breached this order, all right?
78You must report to and receive visits from the – it says the Secretary, it is from the Community Corrections Officer who is appointed.
79You must report to the Community Corrections Centre within two clear working days of this order starting. It starts today so I would get down there. Ring the phone number on the order but you will need to report within two days of today's date to the address. It is on the document, you will see it, it is at the State government offices in Little Malop Street in Geelong. So you have to report within the two clear working days. I have told you already that you have to report to and receive visits.
80You must let them know within two clear working days of any change of address or job – that, I am sure, will not be an issue.
81You must not leave Victoria without first getting permission to do so from the Community Corrections Officer. No doubt if there is a good reason to leave, if, for instance, you needed to go up and see your psychiatrist or even if you needed a holiday, or something like that, you do not just get up and leave. If you do that, you breach the order. You would raise it with them and no doubt they will give you permission if you are doing well on the order. Of course they would. You must obey all their lawful instructions.
82So they are the mandatory terms. They apply to everyone who gets one of these orders. So they apply to you.
83Then I have the ability to list all sorts of special conditions on these order. No doubt I could have you assessed for your suitability for this order, get back a report recommending maybe mental health treatment and the like, or supervision requirements. What I have done though is I have decided to proceed in this way and simply to attach one condition, and it is for that reason that I do not need to call for an assessment in relation to this order. That condition is unmistakably punitive. I am not fining you or anything like that. You must perform 150 hours of unpaid community work and that is over the period of this order. The order runs for 18 months, but as I say, if you get that work done, the order will come to an end. So you can do that work pretty swiftly, I would have thought. So that is the full suite of terms and conditions.
84Now I have not told you what happens if you breach this order. If you breach it either by not complying with the mandatory terms or by not turning up at unpaid work or breaching in that way, you will be brought back to court. It will not be the Magistrates Court. You will be brought back in front of the County Court, and it will not be just any County Court judge. It will be me, because my signature will be on this document and so will yours.
85If you breach this order you will be brought back in front of me. You get charged with breaching or contravening the community corrections order – that is an offence punishable by a term of three months' imprisonment. But the major problem would be this: I would then be having to work out what to do to a man who had breached this order that he consented to enter and there are not many options open to a court, I can tell you, and the most common option is that the order is cancelled.
86That probably sounds attractive. That does not sound like much of a penalty, what, you breach an order and it gets cancelled, but if it is cancelled I then have to re-sentence you, and a community corrections order is at the pointy end of the sentencing hierarchy. The next step up from there is prison so do not breach this order. If you breach it, of course I would listen to anything that you said, or any lawyer said on your behalf, so I cannot tell you exactly what I would do if you breach this order. All I am telling you is do not breach it because if you breach it you will not be sitting down the front row of a court as you have been today. You will be up on the dock. And that is whether you are represented or not. You would be sitting in the dock and you would be one step away from prison. Do not put yourself in that position.
87So get in your mind, I am not suggesting there is any likelihood of this happening, but if you somehow got some bee in your bonnet about Ms Carter and you thought you would make some further communication with her, you would be I think almost guaranteeing yourself a prison term if you breach the order in that sort of way. You leave her well alone.
88The best advice I can give you in terms of this sort of order is to turn up when you are told to turn up and do what you are told to do when you turn up. I do not know what the work will be. It probably will not be much fun. It might be inconvenient. In a way it is designed to be. It is unmistakably a punishment.
89There will be people on this order you will come across, there will be other people who have been coming to court for as long as you were in the military, back and forth they come to court and they get these orders and they breach them all the time. There will be people who have criminal histories. There will be people who have drug abuse issues. Keep to yourself. Do not be engaging with them. Do the work that you are told to do, get it done, get it done quickly and this order will then lapse. It does not need to run for 18 months. If you do the work it will expire, as I understand it, under the relevant provisions of the Sentencing Act which are picked up in the Federal sphere. But do not muck them around, and do not treat them in the way that you treated Ms Carter or you will find yourself in breach of this order and back before me.
90If you have some sort of reason why you cannot turn up at unpaid work, let them know. Let them know in advance and no doubt they would re-schedule it. They might ask for some medical evidence if there is some serious issue such that you cannot turn up medically. If you just do not turn up you will be breached. I have seen it time and time again, people who do not turn up and then down the track they try and describe the reasons why they did not turn up but they have not provided evidence and they get breached. That is what will happen if you approach this order in that way.
91But hopefully you will report within the two clear working days, you will have a case officer assigned to you. It is not an onerous order. It does not have a supervision requirement. They are going to be giving you directions in terms of unpaid work and it should be an easy enough order for you to comply with though, there is a level of punishment in it, as there has to be.
92Let me just see then. Do you understand then the nature of this order that I am going to place you on?
93OFFENDER: Yes, Your Honour.
94HIS HONOUR: All right. And will you consent to entry onto this community corrections order?
95OFFENDER: Yes, Your Honour.
96HIS HONOUR: And secondly, the adjourned undertaking, the good behaviour bond, that is what I have in mind for the State offence, are you prepared to enter that undertaking to be of good behaviour?
97OFFENDER: Yes, Your Honour.
98HIS HONOUR: Well I will have those documents then, I'll just have a look at that and make sure it fits the bill. We'll copy these to you, Mr Moore, in due course but it's a pretty straightforward document, the community corrections order, it's a with conviction disposition in the circumstances given, it's the Federal regime, for a single charge of use of a carriage service. It runs to 20 February of 2025 and it's just got that one condition being the unpaid work condition of 150 hours over the 18 months. The adjourned undertaking likewise, it's got the condition to be of good behaviour.
99So I'll have those signed by Mr Wrzos. I will then sign them myself and then we'll get copies to you.
100MR MOORE: Thank you, Your Honour.
101HIS HONOUR: I will just sign those orders now and then you'll be good to go. I will just ask you a couple of questions then, Mr Wrzos, and then we'll finalise this and I'll get you copies of these documents as well.
102So do you acknowledge then that you have signed this community corrections order?
103OFFENDER: Yes, Your Honour.
104HIS HONOUR: And you've signed it along from the words 'I understand the effect and the conditions of this order and consent to it being made.' Is that so?
105OFFENDER: Yes, Your Honour.
106HIS HONOUR: As I have said, the only special condition attached to this order is that you must perform 150 hours of unpaid community work over a period of 18 months. So the order runs for that 18 month period, but as I say, if you get the work done, as I understand it, it will then expire. So the starting point is for you to get down to the address on the document, the Geelong Community Correction Services at the State government offices in Little Malop Street within two clear working days – may be get down there tomorrow. There is a phone number but I am sure it is in person now so I think you just attend in person, you will be inducted on the order and it will go from there.
107Anyway, you indicated that you consent to this order?
108OFFENDER: Yes, Your Honour.
109HIS HONOUR: And the second of the orders is the adjourned undertaking, that is the good behaviour bond on the fail to answer bail charge. And I have done that without conviction, all right, so I have the power to deal with you without conviction in relation to that matter and it is appropriate to do so, in my judgment. So do you acknowledge then that you have signed that adjourned undertaking document?
110OFFENDER: Yes, Your Honour.
111HIS HONOUR: And that you understand the effect and the conditions of this order and you consent to it being made as well, do you?
112OFFENDER: Yes, Your Honour.
113HIS HONOUR: I will have those copied to you. Yes, grab a seat then. I also have signed the forfeiture order in relation to the s33 application under the Confiscations Act for the property said to be held – to be forfeited to the minister – this is the mobile phone. Now, if the phone has gone back this order will not be acted on then, Mr Moore, will it?
114MR MOORE: No, Your Honour.
115HIS HONOUR: Yes, all right, I have signed that order then. Let me see if there is anything else I need to deal with then. Anything else from your perspective Mr Moore?
116MR MOORE: No, Your Honour.
117HIS HONOUR: Mr Wrzos, I am not required to tell you exactly what I would have done to you if you had pleaded not guilty and been found guilty before a jury. There is an artificiality to it anyway because there is the negotiation of this matter with the reduction of the charge. But let there be no misunderstanding about this, if you had – even in relation to this charge, if you had pleaded not guilty and been found guilty of this charge, I would have sent you to prison. If you had been found guilty of a blackmail there would have just been no question about a sizeable prison sentence in that setting. So I am confident that you have approached the matter correctly – ultimately, anyway. Do you have any questions about what has happened at all, or not?
118OFFENDER: No, Your Honour.
119HIS HONOUR: So just stay out of trouble as you have for most of your life actually, comply with that order and get down to Corrections, get the work done and get on with your life, okay?
120OFFENDER: Yes, Your Honour.
121HIS HONOUR: Yes, all right. Nothing else then from your perspective, Mr Moore.
122MR MOORE: No, Your Honour.
123HIS HONOUR: That completes the matter then so I might just see if there is anything in the reserve list. I will stand down and consider the matter in the reserve list but it will not involve anyone here anyway, so I will stand down then for the moment. You will be free to go once you have a copy of that document, okay?
124OFFENDER: Thank you.
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