DPP v Lawson
[2021] VCC 1985
•3 December 2021
| IN THE COUNTY COURT OF VICTORIA | Revised Not Restricted Suitable for Publication |
AT MELBOURNE
CRIMINAL DIVISION
Case No. CR-20-00092
| THE DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROSECUTIONS |
| v |
| ERIC LAWSON |
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JUDGE: | HIS HONOUR: JUDGE JOHNS | |
WHERE HELD: | Melbourne | |
DATE OF HEARING: | 15 November 2021 | |
DATE OF SENTENCE: | 3 December 2021 | |
CASE MAY BE CITED AS: | DPP v Lawson | |
MEDIUM NEUTRAL CITATION: | [20221] VCC 1985 | |
REASONS FOR SENTENCE
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Subject: Criminal Law Sentence
Catchwords: Koori Court Jurisdiction – Aboriginal Offender – Armed Robbery – Intergenerational Trauma – Bugmy principle
Legislation Cited: Sentencing Act 1991 (Vic)
Cases Cited:Bugmy v The Queen (2013) 249 CLR 571; DPP v Lawson [2020] VCC 2079; R v Fernando (1992) 76 Crim R 58
Sentence:Combination sentence of 14 months imprisonment with a 30-month Community Corrections Order
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APPEARANCES: | Counsel | Solicitors |
| For the Director | Mr M. Roper | Office of Public Prosecutions |
| For the Accused | Ms M. Walker | Melinda Walker |
HIS HONOUR:
1 Eric Lawson, you have pleaded guilty to one charge of armed robbery which carries a maximum penalty of 25 years imprisonment.
2 You have a lengthy criminal history that is relevant to the sentencing exercise. You have spent considerable periods of your life in custody. It is sad to note that you have also spent considerable of your periods of your childhood in detention.
3 The matter for which I am sentencing you occurred in February 2018 which is coming up for four years ago. You were on parole at the time. In fact, you had cut off a monitoring bracelet prior to committing the offence. You have been in custody for a substantial part of the intervening period.
4 I sentenced you in December last year for offending that post-dates the offence for which I am now sentencing you. Effectively, all that has changed in your personal life since that sentence is you have spent a further 12 months or so in custody. The approach I took to your plight in December of last year is the same approach I now take.
5 If there is a chance to break the cycle of prison in your case and help you on the path to rehabilitation with culturally appropriate treatment and supports, it must be seized now. I will refer to some of my sentencing remarks from December 2020, but whilst I will not repeat most of what I then said, for the most part, it continues to apply in your case.
Circumstances of Offending
6 The circumstances of your offending are set out in the summary of prosecution opening dated 20 October 2021 which is Exhibit A on these proceedings and forms part of these reasons for sentence. You were 32 at the time of the offending, you are now 37.
7 In brief terms, the offence occurred at around 3 am on Saturday morning of 10 February 2018. Your victim was standing beside his car. You pulled out an object which was described as a 40 cm long screwdriver when you were close to him. He ran. You chased him down and grabbed him by the shoulder and he fell to the ground. You were standing over him, making demands saying: ‘Give me the fucking keys. Give me the keys and wallet or I'll kill you’. You were holding the screwdriver in such a way that your victim thought he was going to be struck with it. He gave you the keys to his vehicle and his wallet. You got into the vehicle and drove away. You were apprehended on 13 March 2018 in relation to breaches of parole and returned to custody.
8 There is a victim impact statement in the matter which I received. The impact upon your victim has been significant. It was an extremely traumatic event and it has affected him deeply. He is changed forever and I take the impact upon him into account.
9 This is clearly very serious offending and it sits within a history of serious offending that impacts the community in a very significant way. As I observed in December last year, you have a lengthy criminal record disclosing a number of relevant offences. It is a record which discloses a number of prior convictions of violence as well as other relevant matters; matters relating to motor vehicles and also a prior conviction of reckless conduct endangering serious injury.
10 Your offending in February 2018, together with your criminal record raises real concerns about the danger you pose to the community when you are affected by substances. In December 2020, I noted the following at paragraph 12 of my reasons for sentence which are published:
It was submitted to me that I should be guarded at best about your prospects of rehabilitation. That is a fair assessment. You were assessed by Community Corrections as being high risk. The basis for that assessment is very clear on all of the materials and given your history.[1]
[1]DPP v Lawson [2020] VCC 2079 at [13].
11 As I have already mentioned, not a lot has changed in your life objectively since those observations save that you have experienced a further 12 months of custody, custody during the pandemic, and it is recognised that that experience is harsher than at other times. I also note that the harshness of a prison sentence does not increase in a linear fashion as time passes, but exponentially. In other words, a 12-month sentence is more than twice as harsh as a six-month sentence.
12 It is of significance that the matter I now sentence you for occurred prior to the matters I sentenced you for in December 2020. Whilst I must pass a sentence that reflects general deterrence, denunciation, just punishment and other sentencing factors such as specific deterrence, I must also apply the principle of totality and I have in your case.
Personal Circumstances
13 Turning to your personal circumstances, you are a proud Aboriginal man. Your father was a Barkindji man, your mother belongs to the First People of Milawa-Mallee, the Latje Latje mob. You recognise both and are proud of both lines and you have knowledge in relation to matters of cultural significance relating to your heritage, much of which you discussed on the first sentencing conversation you engaged in, in 2020.
14 You grew up in the Mildura area. Your education was limited. You got to the Year 7 standard. You have not undertaken any further education since leaving school, I was told. Secondary School was not a positive experience for you. You had experienced racism growing up and school also had the added complication, due to the presence of a number of relatives and associates, that you often found yourself getting into fights in order to stick up for others.
15 You had an early exposure to and engagement in drug and alcohol use. You were also exposed to a significant degree of violence in your formative years. I was told that you began using cannabis, alcohol and inhalants from as young as 11 and particularly 11 years to 13 years of age. You began using amphetamines from 19 years of age; methamphetamines, GHB and Xanax from 21 years of age; heroin from 18 until 26 years of age. You explained during the sentencing conversation last year that you were on a low dose of methadone and hoped to be able to get off it. You reiterated those comments in recent assessments to Corrections.
16 Whilst your childhood had some positives aspects, it is also very clear that you were exposed to a culture of alcohol use and aggressive behaviour which was reinforced by your late father and his male peers who normalised intoxication and aggression. You described how as a young boy, adult males, including your late father, would have their young sons engage in physical fights in order for the older males to win beer as a prize.
17 At the age of 15, not long after your parents separated, tragically, your father suicided. This had a profound impact upon you. During the sentencing conversation in 2020, you spoke about the fact that you had also lost three cousins to suicide in the early 2000s.
18 Your history shows that you entered the criminal justice system at a young age as was noted previously. Your criminal history is a bleak one that has sadly left you only some 19 months in total in the community since the age of 21. Your familiarity with the juvenile justice system was touched upon during the sentencing conversation, particularly, during your interactions with Koori Court Coordinator and court officer, Terrie Stewart, who knew you from that period of your life. Tragically, you have also reported that during periods of detention within the youth justice system you were the victim of extremely traumatic experiences which have stayed with you and marked you. Those matters you are now starting to come to terms with. I accept what you have said about those matters in the 2020 conversation and were touched upon in your counsel's helpful written submissions in relation to this plea. I accept what has been said about those matters and I will not go into any more detail about it in these reasons.
19 You were first arrested for assault, burglary and motor vehicle theft at the age of 11 and placed on a probation order and a youth supervision order at the age of 12. By age 13, you had been sentenced to a youth residential centre for three months. At the age of 15, you were sentenced to your first period of youth detention. You appeared before the Magistrates' Court at the age of 17 and received an intensive corrections order of three months. You again appeared in June 2002 at the age of 17 and were sentenced to four months of adult imprisonment.
20 In June 2003 at the age of 18, you were remanded and sentenced to a term of three years with a non-parole period of 12 months. You were released on parole in November 2004 at the age of 20 but returned to prison in December 2005 to serve out the unexpired portion of 12 months of that parole. You were 21 at that stage. In March 2006, still at 21 years of age, while undergoing the cancelled parole, you were sentenced to a further period of 18 months; six months of that sentence was run cumulatively.
21 While in custody in April 2007 and aged 22, you were sentenced in the County Court to six years and one month with a non-parole period of 40 months. You were released on parole in August 2010 at age 26. You returned to prison in September 2010. Your parole of two years and nine months was cancelled. You appeared before the Mildura County Court in February 2011, sentenced to three months cumulative upon the unexpired parole.
22 You were released again on parole in August 2011 at the age of 27. You returned to prison one month later in September 2011. Your parole of two years and one month was cancelled. You then appeared before the Melbourne County Court in 2013 at the age of 29. You were sentenced to a total effective sentence of five years with a non-parole period of two years and six months. You were released on parole in December 2017 at the age of 33 but returned to prison in February 2018 to serve out the cancelled period of 366 days.
23 During this period of incarceration, your nephew passed away by suicide and this had a severe impact upon you. You were released and after serving the unexpired portion in February 2019 at 34 years of age, and then in July of that year, were remanded again on the current offending for which I dealt with you for in December last year and you've remained in custody since that time.
24 The matters relied upon in your plea, including the reports that have been tendered throughout both matters and Ms Walker’s helpful submissions on your behalf demonstrate that you carry with you the effects of childhood trauma and further trauma throughout your teenage and adult years. You have had early learning behaviours and consequences of your lifestyle, drug and alcohol abuse and the effects of trauma have shaped your psychology. I was told and I accept that you have a lack of coping strategies to manage emotions, to manage your experience in community life and dealing with stress and disconnection.
25 You lack appropriate coping skills for life stressors, and you have had little insight into how your experience of childhood trauma has contributed to your current psychological presentation. As I indicated in December last year, I was satisfied then that you are starting to come to terms with that aspect of your make-up and developing insight. I am also satisfied now, 12 months on, that that process has increased and continued given the way in which you engaged in the sentencing conversation before me recently and the matters you raised and addressed.
26 You are starting to recognise that it has to be up to you, but a substantial part of that involves you working hard on yourself with appropriate supports to deal with those underlying aspects that stem from trauma and things that have happened to you in your life and, no doubt, the long history of illicit substance abuse that is associated with that. You are going to have to work hard on all aspects of yourself in order to avoid further periods of incarceration, and what no one likes to focus on but has to be recognised, the risk of institutionalisation in your case.
Sentencing Conversation
27 You took part in a sentencing conversation for a second time and engaged fully again. You displayed a side of yourself, which indicated you are articulate and intelligent. You expressed appropriate shame and remorse. You again referred to - as you did on the previous sentencing conversation ‑ to the problem, as you put it, 'Drugging and drinking it out', which I take to mean blocking out the past trauma and sadness from your life. You spoke of your desire to engage with your children. Your mother and partner were present and participated in the conversation. You were challenged by your Elders. You reiterated your desire to connect further with culture - of which you have a strong connection – and to rehabilitate.
28 As I stated in 2020, your circumstances engage the Bugmy principle. The prosecution at that point continued to concede that there is a factual basis to raise the Bugmy principle. The relationship between your exposure to alcohol and violence and the trauma associated with that experience as a young child is centrally relevant to a proper assessment of your subjective culpability for the offending in this case.
29 The effects of intergenerational trauma are apparent in your life story and no doubt were apparent to all around you as you passed from childhood to teenager to adult. You were further traumatised through experiences in the juvenile justice system. I accept what you have told the psychologist and your counsel and what was so difficult for you to articulate during the first sentencing conversation. Those traumatic experiences have also left their mark on you and played a role in your psychological make-up and the dysfunction exhibited during times of stress and to adopt your words again your desire to 'Drink and drug it out'.
30 In Bugmy, the High Court described the manner in which factors of disadvantage are relevant to an assessment of an offender's moral culpability in the following terms:
The circumstance that an offender has been raised in a community surrounded by alcohol abuse and violence may mitigate the sentence because his or her moral culpability is likely to be less than the culpability of an offender whose formative years have not been marred in that way.
…
The experience of growing up in an environment surrounded by alcohol abuse and violence may leave its mark on a person throughout life. Among other things, a background of that kind may compromise the person’s capacity to mature and to learn from experience. It is a feature of the person’s make-up and remains relevant to the determination of the appropriate sentence, notwithstanding that the person has a long history of offending.
Because the effects of profound childhood deprivation do not diminish with the passage of time and repeated offending, it is right to speak of giving “full weight” to an offender’s deprived background in every sentencing decision. [2]
The court went on of course, to temper the concept of full weight with particular reference to individuals who have demonstrated an inability to control a violent response to frustration, and the corresponding increase in the importance of protecting the community from that offender.
[2]Bugmy v The Queen (2013) 249 CLR 571 at [40], [43] – [44].
31 I will note again that consistent with that principle, you do fall into a category where you are a danger to the safety of the community when you are drug affected. You simply are a person that cannot go down the path of using illicit substances. The likelihood being you are going to offend in these significant ways that are harmful to the community and just receive longer gaol terms.
32 Your upbringing and early childhood development has had a number of features in it that are referred to by the authorities including Wood J in Fernando and the High Court's statement Bugmy.[3] Intoxication did play a role in the offence before me and is relevant to my overall assessment of the circumstances of your offending in an explanatory sense and one which bears upon your moral culpability to some degree in the Bugmy sense rather than as a standalone factor attracting mitigation.
[3]R v Fernando (1992) 76 Crim R 58.
33 As I said previously last year in your case, some care needs to be taken in not allowing an understanding of Aboriginal disadvantage generally and its relationship to the past and the present high rates of incarceration of Aboriginal people, for example, to distort the concept of individualised justice. However, insofar as individualised justice in sentencing requires an assessment of the personal circumstances of the offender, an appreciation of those circumstances necessarily embraces an understanding of the socio-economic context, the cultural context and in the case of an Aboriginal offender such as yourself for whom the full effect of the Bugmy principles apply, the historical context also.
34 The circumstances that have led you to this court are not confined to those immediate factors which occurred to you at different times in your life. Others around you have also been the inheritors of trauma stemming from policies of segregation and assimilation and insidious racism and discrimination. Parents, family members, friends, people you have grown up with and got to know through various institutions, have also been a product or been exposed to systemic disadvantage that flows from the colonial experience.
35 You have had a number of dispositions in your life, including through Youth Justice, Adult Parole, Corrections Orders. You have failed to rehabilitate. It is now much better recognised that systemic disadvantage is built into the justice system in various and insidious ways. The significance of culture and culturally appropriate treatments to facilitate healing, including in a criminal justice system are now becoming better understood.
36 As I have said, you took part in the Koori Court and the sentencing conversation that is part of that process for a second time. It was not an easy process for you; it was confronting and emotional, you displayed respect and a commitment to engage with the process again. I stated previously during the first conversation last year that you were articulate and knowledgeable about your culture and history. Your meaningful engagement in the sentencing conversation is a mitigating factor. Your willingness to face the shaming, that is an integral part of the process and your preparedness to be accountable for your offending was apparent to me.
37 It is acknowledged that participation in the process of a Koori Court can be more burdensome than appearing at a traditional plea hearing. That is particularly so whereas, in your case, you have sought to reconcile with your Aboriginal heritage and to connect within the mores and values embedded in it. I was also able to gain a far more nuanced and multilayered sense of your shame, remorse, your character, your prospects of rehabilitation, whilst I remain guarded about them and in particular your relationship with your family, culture, and Country.
38 My observations of you during the sentencing conversation and the words spoken by you and others, supported my findings, as it did last year, that you are at a crucial stage of your journey through life. You are at a stage where you have an opportunity, perhaps a final one, to address many of the underlying issues and the devastating related issue of substance abuse. It is principally for that reason that I will be imposing a sentence which I consider to be merciful and due to those issues - a lenient sentence. But it is an appropriate time to apply mercy in your case to try and grasp what I see is a disappearing opportunity. I will not say a final opportunity. An opportunity that will be fast disappearing if you continue to re-offend.
39 In my 2020 reasons for sentence I said the following to you:
As I observed during the hearing, given the matters in mitigation available to you, and my consideration of the range, to which I was helpfully provided some cases by Mr Roper that I will come to, I raised the issue that in a head sentence and non-parole you might be eligible for parole around about the same time that if I were contemplating the combination sentence you would have served in prison, to be released on a CCO. Which raised the real consideration for someone with your history and your history of failures both on parole and on Corrections orders as to what mechanism was going to best serve the community in endeavouring to assist you to rehabilitate.[4]
[4]Lawson [2020] at [40].
40 I went on to say:
Notwithstanding your lengthy history and your poor record on court orders, I do intend to extend considerable mercy and leniency in the sentence I impose in order to best serve the community's interest as well as your own, by endeavouring to seize what I am satisfied is an opportunity, given your participation in the sentencing conversation and what occurs to me as your insight and willingness to change; to seize that opportunity as one which can provide you with the support and resources that will help you achieve the goals you have set out during the conversation.
A parole order is more restrictive. As I understand it, the places of cultural learning that you wish to attend in order to rehabilitate will be less likely to be available to you on a parole order, than a community corrections order. Whether I impose the head sentence with a non-parole period or take the course which I propose to take, at some point, of course, you will always be released from custody, whether it be on parole or pursuant to a community corrections order. I form the view that the community corrections order provides a more nuanced and tailored level of supervision in your case. But ultimately, it will be up to you. [5]
[5] Ibid at [41] – [42].
41 Those were the remarks I made in December last year. You have now pleaded guilty to a very serious offence, of course. But it is an offence that occurred prior to those matters for which I dealt with you last year. You have not been released from custody. You have been in custody for around 30 months. Your plea has utilitarian value of significance. It is of great significance in the covid era, given the trial lists in this court and the crisis in trial lists in this court. It has also been a harsh 30 months of custody in the covid era; no visits, few opportunities for programs, and so on a lot of time for reflection. I have taken that experience into account as I must. I had you assessed for a Community Corrections Order again, with a view to Wulgunggo Ngalu Learning Place and during that assessment, you again expressed a strong desire to attend Wulgunggo Ngalu Learning Place. Corrections also referred you for Forensicare assessment.
42 I will just refer briefly to some aspects of the assessment. The community corrections order assessment noted that you indicated and admitted that you had been struggling with illicit substance use since your teens. But you said you had remained substance free for the time you had been in custody. You recognise that you need support and connection with your family and you are more likely to remain substance and offence free if you reside in Mildura with family when released from custody. You also discussed attendance at Wulgunggo Ngalu Learning Place and you indicated that you would be happy to attend there as it is different and it may work as attempts to cease substance use has not worked previously. You reported that you were on 20 mls of methadone and you are keeping it low with a view to cease if accepted to Wulgunggo Ngalu Learning Place.
43 You advised that you intended to reside in Mildura with your brother if not accepted immediately at Wulgunggo Ngalu because, of course, it depends on you getting a place. You indicated you have regular contact with your brother, mother and partner who resides in Werribee. You were assessed as suitable with appropriate conditions. You also referred to the Mental Health Advice and Response Service who I have received a report from and who summarised your background, which I will not reiterate; it is consistent with what I have already outlined.
44 In relation to your circumstances, you were candid and frank and part of that frankness indicates that you are at risk of institutionalisation. You explained that most of your incarcerations were due to you thinking about what is going to change. 'I felt safe in gaol and always happy to go back in'. You accepted that the drugs were a problem. You said 'They get into your headspace when you're depressed and make you do things you wouldn't normally do'. You expressed eagerness to attend Wulgunggo Ngalu Learning Place, especially to learn more about your culture and its positive aspects and it was highly recommended by that service that you attend Wulgunggo Ngalu Learning Place on a community corrections order if you had the opportunity. It was recommended - I will quote:
Wulgunggo Ngalu Learning Place provides Koori men on a community corrections order with an important opportunity to learn new skills, reconnect with or further strengthen their culture and participate in programs and activities to help them address their offending behaviour.[6]
[6]Mental Health Advice and Response Service (MHARS) report of Ms Brenda Hughes dated 26 November 2021, p.2.
45 Back in 2020 I noted that you had communicated to Corrections that you had been substance-free in custody for a long period of time. That was the longest period you can recall being drug-free and that has continued to be the case and provides a basis to embrace an opportunity which you have not been able to complete on successfully previously. There are difficulties with having confidence that you will get to Wulgunggo Ngalu. There is a process to go through that can take some months. Certainly, I was told and understand that the community corrections order that was part of your sentence from 2020 still remains waiting to be activated and will be activated upon your release. That is a community corrections order that has as a condition you attend either Wulgunggo Ngalu or Wiimpatja. It now seems that Wulgunggo Ngalu is the preferred destination. The community corrections order, of course, has built within it the possibility that you might not be able to get to Wulgunggo Ngalu at least immediately.
46 Many of the reasons I set out for the lenient sentence I imposed in 2020 continue to have force. In particular, given the fact that from the age of 11 you have been subject to a number of orders. Certainly, from the age of 19, 20, 21, you have spent a significant time in custody. You have failed parole in the past, you have also failed Corrections orders. But as I have said, I am satisfied based on all the material that this could be a watershed moment for you. There is a real opportunity for you to take control of your life. The additional period of imprisonment on top of the period you have served up until January or so this year is a significant period of deprivation of liberty and is a punishment that serves general deterrence, denunciation and specific deterrence given, in particular, that it has come off the back of a lengthy period of imprisonment with no break.
47 It is a serious charge nonetheless and general deterrence is very important and a significant factor. I am satisfied that the sentencing orders I am about to make reflect that and they are also tailored to reflect denunciation. They also take into account the principle of totality.
Sentence
48 I sentence you as follows, Mr Lawson, and you can remain seated given where you are.
49 On the charge of armed robbery, you are sentenced to 14 months imprisonment in combination with a community corrections order of two and a half years duration.
50 The condition of the community corrections order are that you be released to attend Wulgunggo Ngalu; complete a residential program at that establishment. In the event that a place is not available to you at that service upon release, that you attend that program as directed once a place does become available.
51 There will be judicial monitoring and supervision also. The judicial monitoring will commence 30 days or a month after your release from custody. Given emergency management days, there will be some uncertainty about that date, but we will endeavour to liaise and make sure that I see you within a month of your release. Thereafter, every six months for the duration of the community corrections order I will have judicial monitoring.
52 It is a condition that you undertake treatment and rehabilitation for drug and alcohol misuse as directed and that you undertake offence specific programs and other treatment, courses or rehabilitation as directed, including Wulgunggo Ngalu, and that you engage in mental health assessment and treatment as directed.
53 I declare that you have served 332 days pre-sentence detention on this matter.
54 Pursuant to s 6AAA, I indicate that I would have sentenced you to be imprisoned for four years and nine months with a non-parole period of three years.[7]
[7]Sentencing Act 1991 (Vic).
55 Mr Roper, it is armed robbery relating to the vehicle. I have to make an order against the licence in those circumstances, do I? I can't hear you. Can you just unmute yourself, Mr Roper, if you can?
56 MR ROPER: Sorry, Your Honour.
57 HIS HONOUR: Yes.
58 MR ROPER: I just turned it off. Yes, s 89 of the Sentencing Act.
59 HIS HONOUR: Yes.
60 MR ROPER: So 89(4) suits, to do with the stealing of a vehicle and an armed robbery is, of course, the stealing of a motor vehicle.
61 HIS HONOUR: Yes, of course, yes. All right. Sorry, I'm just looking at the order I made last time in relation to licence. Yes.
62 In relation to the charge of armed robbery, given it involved the stealing of a motor car, pursuant to s 89, your licence is cancelled and disqualified for six months from today.
63 Now, in December I had made a similar order against your licence for 18 months. Effectively, Mr Lawson, you've got two community corrections orders but they mirror each other. The one I've imposed in combination with the prison sentence today doesn't have work hours associated with it. But the one I imposed in December last year does have work hours. For all appearances, as far as you're concerned, once you're released you'll be on one community corrections order. But if you breach it, you'll be being dealt with for breaches of two community corrections orders and you'll be re-sentenced on everything. Do you understand?
64 OFFENDER: Yes.
65 HIS HONOUR: You'll be being re-sentenced on the matters from last year and re‑sentenced on this matter again. I think you appreciate there would be very limited options for me, depending what the breach was constituted by and when it occurred, of course.
66 You consent to the community corrections order?
67 OFFENDER: Yep.
68 HIS HONOUR: Yes. All right. Look, the effect of the sentence, I know that Wulgunggo Ngalu takes a few months for processing - maybe up to three months. Mathematically, you've got about three months left to go on the sentence I've now imposed before you can be released on a CCO. But I know that with emergency management days, that time might be less.
69 I'll just say this to you, Mr Lawson. I'm confident based on the matters that were explored last year and the matters that have been explored again that you will get to Wulgunggo Ngalu at some stage and have the opportunity to get to Wulgunggo Ngalu. Ideally, it would be upon release. But if it's not, you're going to have to make every effort - and you'll have supports around you. But you're going to have to do right by yourself to make sure that you adhere to the corrections order and get to Wulgunggo Ngalu when you do. That program, you've indicated, you've got a real willingness to engage with that program. You know Shaun Braybrook. It is really up to you now. As I say, I've extended mercy and leniency. Given all of the matters I've referred to and, of course, totality, but you're going to have supports around you but it's up to you. You've got to work on yourself and make sure you take this opportunity. You're well placed now because you've had a period of being drug free. All right. Are there any other orders I need to make, Mr Roper?
70 MR ROPER: No, Your Honour. I think just to clarify, the declaration was 332 days?
71 HIS HONOUR: 332 days pre-sentence detention, yes.
72 MR ROPER: Yes, yes.
73 HIS HONOUR: Ms Walker - - -
74 MR ROPER: No, there were no - and you've made the licence order?
75 HIS HONOUR: I've made the licence order.
76 MR ROPER: Nothing further, Your Honour.
77 HIS HONOUR: Thank you. Ms Walker, is there anything else I need to refer to?
78 MS WALKER: No, Your Honour. Nothing further. If the court pleases.
79 HIS HONOUR: All right. That order - the corrections order will be signed by me and then it will be sent somehow to Mr Lawson for his signature. Ms Walker, as you did on the last occasion, perhaps if we can have some liaising and understanding of when Mr Lawson is going to be released and then I can work out a time for the first judicial monitoring session. It might be that the orders have to put a date on it but we'll work through that.
80 MS WALKER: I think Mr Lawson should know in a couple of weeks in relation to that. The process has changed with EMDs now.
81 HIS HONOUR: Yes.
82 MS WALKER: Where they're not automatically calculated. Mr Lawson will have to file an application for those EMDs. But as soon as he knows and he tells me then I'll notify the court and a date can be set down.
83 HIS HONOUR: Thank you very much.
84 MS WALKER: If the court pleases.
85 HIS HONOUR: Thank you, Mr Roper for your assistance through this matter and thank you, again, Ms Walker. Good luck, Mr Lawson. I'll see you at the first judicial monitoring session.
86 OFFENDER: Yeah.
87 MS WALKER: Thank you.
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