DPP v Lawson

[2020] VCC 2079

IN THE COUNTY COURT OF VICTORIA

Revised

Not Restricted

Suitable for Publication

AT MELBOURNE

CRIMINAL JURISDICTION

CR 19-02218

DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROSECUTIONS

v

ERIC LAWSON

---

JUDGE:	HIS HONOUR JUDGE JOHNS
WHERE HELD:	Melbourne
DATE OF HEARING:	10 November 2020
DATE OF SENTENCE:	17 December 2020
CASE MAY BE CITED AS:	DPP v LAWSON
MEDIUM NEUTRAL CITATION:	[2020] VCC 2079

REASONS FOR SENTENCE

---

Subject: Criminal Law Sentence

Catchwords: Reckless conduct endangering life – Theft – Attempted carjacking – Assaulting emergency worker on duty – Related driving summary offences - Indigenous Offender – Koori Court Jurisdiction of the County Court – Intergenerational Trauma.

Legislation Cited:

Cases Cited: Bugmy v The Queen (2013) 249 CLR 571; R v Fernando (1992) 76 Crim R 58; DPP v Heyfron [2019] VSCA 130

Sentence: Combination sentence of 25 months imprisonment with a 30-month Community Corrections Order

---

APPEARANCES:	Counsel	Solicitors
For the Director of Public Prosecutions	Mr M. Roper	Office of Public Prosecutions
For the Accused	Ms M. Walker	Melinda Walker

HIS HONOUR:

1Eric Lawson, you have pleaded guilty on the indictment before me in the Koori County Court to one charge of reckless conduct endangering life which carries a maximum of 10 years imprisonment, one charge of theft which is a maximum of 10 years imprisonment, one charge of attempted aggravated
car-jacking, carrying a maximum penalty of 20 years imprisonment, and one charge of assaulting an emergency worker on duty, which has a five years maximum term of imprisonment.

2You have also pleaded guilty to relevant summary offences being unlicensed driving which carries a maximum a six months imprisonment; driving whilst exceeding the proscribed concentration of a drug which is punishable by a fine; and committing an indictable offence whilst on bail, which has a maximum penalty of three months imprisonment.

3The circumstances of your offending are set out in the Summary of Prosecution Opening dated 6 November 2020, which is Exhibit A on these proceedings and forms part of these reasons for sentence.  At the time of the offending, you were 34 years of age, and you are now 36 years old.

4In brief, you were observed by police who were in an unmarked police vehicle, they noticed the registration plates were awry on the vehicle you were travelling in.  It was a Toyota Corolla.  You were observed to turn left onto Albert Street, Preston, travelling south.  Police members observed pedestrians crossing the road at this time.  You were travelling at a high speed, approximately130 kilometres an hour. The vehicle continued to travel south along Albert Street, Preston.

5The Toyota Corolla was observed going up median strips in attempts to pass vehicles travelling in a southerly direction.  You conducted a U-turn in Eton Court.  After exiting Eton Court, you turned right.  Police activated emergency lights and sirens whilst following you.  You did not stop.  You then collided with a wooden pole barrier which separates the road from a park area frequented by children and families for play.  The car lost traction, endangering the lives of people in the park area.  That is Charge 1.

6You later entered the shopping centre, Northland Shopping Centre, entered a Target store there, and footage shows you taking a fluorescent shirt from the store and wearing it over your top, before exiting the store without paying.  That is Charge 2, the theft charge. 

7You were later observed running towards a house at 13 Regent Street, Preston, jumping over a side fence to enter into the rear of the property.  You went into the premises, where Abhishek Singh was sitting in his living room.  Upon entering, you started to make demands for Mr Singh's car keys.  You had something in your hand, holding it in a threatening manner.  Mr Singh thought it looked like a needle.  You grabbed Mr Singh by the neck, and held the object in front of his face, forcing him into the kitchen.  After a brief struggle, you grabbed a knife from the table, and pointed it at Mr Singh, demanding he get on the floor.  Once he was on the floor, you searched through his bag and continued to demand keys.  That is Charge 3, the attempted aggravated car-jacking.

8You were apprehended after initially fleeing from police.  Your apprehension required you to be sprayed with OC spray; whilst you were receiving after-care, you abused the officers on the scene and spat at Detective Senior Constable  Coleiro and also Sergeant McHenry, and Senior Constable Torelli.  That is the charge of assaulting emergency worker whilst on duty.

9You were not licensed to drive, hence the relevant summary offence.  Toxicology reports showed that you had 0.44 milligrams of methylamphetamine in your system at the time of being in charge of the motor vehicle.  No record of interview was conducted due to your mental state at the time.

10Your offending is clearly very serious.  The driving clearly posed a significant danger, particularly because of the speed, and your erratic control of the vehicle, no doubt due in part to the presence of methylamphetamine in your system.  The attempted aggravated car-jacking is also a serious example of that offence.  The maximum penalties of each of those offences I have just mentioned demonstrate the seriousness with which Parliament regards them.

11The attempted aggravated car-jacking took place in the victim's own home.  The offending was committed within days after being placed on bail for theft.  Hence, the charge of committing an indictable crime whilst on bail.  There was no victim impact statement made but it is clear, very clear, what a frightening experience it was for Mr Singh. 

12You have a lengthy criminal record, disclosing a number of relevant offences.  It is a record which discloses a number of prior convictions for violence, as well as other relevant matters, matters relating to motor vehicles, and also a prior conviction of reckless conduct endangering serious injury.

13Your offending on this occasion and your criminal record raise real concerns about the danger you pose to the community when you are affected by substances.  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.

14Turning 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. 

15I was given detail about your upbringing and your circumstances in the very helpful written submissions of Ms Walker.  There are also two reports tendered which alongside the helpful opinions provided within, also went into your background.  I do not propose to summarise that in as much detail as it was provided to me, but in brief terms, I have mentioned your Aboriginal heritage through your mother and your father's line. 

16You 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 of, due to the presence of a number of relatives and associates, you often found that you were getting into fights, in order to stick up for others.

17You had an early exposure to and engagement in drug and alcohol use.  You were also exposed to a significant degree to violence in your formative years.  I was told that you began using cannabis, alcohol, and inhalants from as young as 11, and particularly the years 11 to 13 years of age.  You began using amphetamines from 19 years of age, methamphetamines, GHB, and Xanax from 21 years of age, heroin at age 18 until 26 years of age.  You explained during the sentencing conversation that you were now on a low dose of methadone and hoped to be able to get off it. 

18Your childhood had some positive 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 describe how as a young boy, adult males, including your late father, would have the young sons engage in physical fights in order for the older males to win beer as a prize.

19At the age of 15, shortly after your parents separated, your father sadly suicided.  This had a profound impact upon you.  I was also told, and you expanded on this in the sentencing conversation too, that you had lost three cousins to suicide in the early 2000s.  Your history shows also that you entered the criminal justice system at a young age, and I will shortly come to that history,  but it is a bleak one, that has sadly left you only  some 19 months in total in the community since the age of 21.

20Tragically, you have also reported that during periods of detention within the Youth Justice system, you were a 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 accepted what you said about that, and what was said on your behalf about that during the sentencing conversation.

21You 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 was sentenced to four months of adult imprisonment.

22In 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.

23While 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.

24You 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.

25During 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, where you have remained.

26The reports tendered 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.

27You 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. I am satisfied that you are now starting to come to terms with that aspect of your make-up. 

28You took part in the sentencing conversation and engaged fully, and you displayed a side of yourself, which indicated you were articulate and intelligent.  You said you were ashamed about what has happened.  You are ashamed as you put it, "Drugging and drinking it out", meaning the past trauma and sadness from your life.  You talked with pride about your Aboriginal heritage, and the artwork that you engage in, and you come across as someone who is very connected with family and also Country.

29In a detailed and excellent plea on your behalf, your counsel, Ms Walker, put forward a comprehensive argument that you are entitled the full effect of the Bugmy principle.  The prosecution conceded that there was 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. 

30The 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 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 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.

31In 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.”

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.

32You, unfortunately, fall into a category where you are a danger to the safety of the community when you are drug-affected.  Your offending occurred in the context of a long-standing alcohol and polysubstance abuse history.  Ordinarily, intoxication is not a mitigating factor.  Indeed, in some circumstances, it may aggravate an offender's culpability.  However, where the abuse of alcohol and cannabis has its genesis in the kind of dysfunction which you were subjected to in your early years, it may be taken into account as a relevant mitigating factor, where it is relevant to the circumstances of the offending.

33In the R v Fernando Wood J stated,

"While drunkenness is not normally an excuse or mitigating factor, where the abuse of alcohol by the person standing for sentence reflects the socio-economic circumstances and environment in which the offender has grown up, that can and should be taken into account as a mitigating factor.  This involves the realistic recognition by the court of the endemic presence of alcohol within Aboriginal communities and the grave social difficulties faced by those communities, where poor self-image, absence of education, and work opportunity and other demoralising factors have placed heavy stressors on them reinforcing their resort to alcohol and compounding its worst effects".

34Your upbringing and early childhood development had a number of features referred to by Wood J.  Similar concepts have been referred to elsewhere, including recently in the Victorian Court of Appeal in the case of DPP v Heyfron.  As I have stated, you have a history of dangerous and violent offending whilst intoxicated.  You have been aware for some time of the relationship between your illicit substance abuse and criminal offending. 

35Intoxication in your case is relevant to my overall assessment of the circumstances of offending, in an explanatory sense and one which bears upon your moral culpability to some degree, rather than as a stand-alone factor attracting mitigation.

36Some 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, cultural context, and in the case of an Aboriginal offender such as yourself for whom the full effect of Bugmy principles apply; the historical context also.

37The 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.  Parents, family members, friends, people you have grown up with and got to know through various institutions, have also been a product of systemic disadvantage, that stems from the colonial experience.

38You took part in the Koori Court and the sentencing conversation that is part of that process.  It was far from an easy process for you; it was confronting and emotional, you displayed respect and a commitment to engage with the process.  As I have stated, you were articulate and knowledgeable about your culture and history.  I consider your meaningful engagement in the sentencing conversation as a mitigating factor.  You were challenged by your Elders. 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.

39It 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 remorse, your character, your prospects of rehabilitation, whilst I remain guarded about them and in particular your relationship with your family, culture, and Country.

40My observations of you during the sentencing conversation and the words spoken by you and others, supported my findings 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.

41As 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.

42Notwithstanding 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. 

43A 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 (CCO).  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. 

44You have pleaded guilty at an early opportunity.  It was submitted by your counsel, the plea has utilitarian value, as well as reflecting some remorse, or at the very least contrition, and acknowledgment of your wrongdoing.  You have been on remand for well in excess of 12 months.  Most of which is through the very difficult period of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has placed significant restrictions on your experience in custody, and I have taken that matter into account.

45I had you assessed for a CCO.  I am aware of course, that you have pending matters, pending serious matters which depending on the outcome of those matters, may yet derail what I am proposing to do.  I had you assessed, and you were assessed, understandably, as not suitable for a Community Corrections Order.  You were assessed as high risk based on the level of service risk assessment tool, and as I have said, given your background and your history, that is perfectly understandable for that assessment.

46During that assessment, you expressed a strong desire to attend either Wulgunggo Ngalu Learning Place or Wiimpatja Healing Centre, preferably Wulgunggo Ngalu, where a person there, Mr Shaun Braybrook, is known to you. 

47You 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.  This has provided you with a sound basis to embrace an  opportunity which you have not been able to complete on previous occasions.    There are, as set out in the Community Corrections report, real limitations and  difficulties with having confidence that you will get to either Wulgunggo Ngalu  or Wiimpatja. 

48But for the reasons I have set out, 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 spent an awful lot of time in custody.  You have failed parole in the past, you have also failed Corrections orders.  But I have been satisfied based on all the material that this could be a watershed moment for you, that there is a real opportunity for you to take control of your life.

49These are serious charges.  General deterrence is very important and a significant factor.  I am satisfied that the sentencing orders I make reflect that, as they are also tailored to reflect denunciation.

50I sentence you as follows, Mr Lawson.  You can remain seated, given where you are. 

51On Charge 1, you are sentenced to 15 months imprisonment.

52On Charge 2, it is one month imprisonment.

53On Charge 3, 18 months imprisonment and a two and a half year Community Corrections Order.

54On Charge 4, six months imprisonment.

55On the summary offence of unlicensed driving, three months imprisonment.

56Exceeding a proscribed concentration of a drug, it is a $200 fine.

57Committing an indictable offence on bail, one month imprisonment.

58I direct that three months of the sentence imposed on Charge 1, three months of the sentence imposed on Charge 4, and one month of the relevant summary offence of unlicensed driving will each be cumulative on each other and on the sentence imposed on Charge 3.  That makes a total effective sentence of 25 months imprisonment.

59I declare as by way of pre-sentence detention; you have served 532 days of pre-sentence detention. 

60I will come to the Community Corrections Order conditions in a moment. Pursuant to s.6AAA of the Sentencing Act, but for your pleas of guilty, I would have imposed a total effective sentence of five years with a non-parole period of three years.  I do make an order against your license, pursuant to s.89, your license is cancelled and disqualified for 18 months from today.

61The conditions of the Community Corrections Order:

i.That you are to be released to attend Wulgunggo Ngalu, or in the alternative, Wiimpatja Healing Centre, and complete a residential program at either establishment;

ii.In the event that a place is not available for you at either service stated above upon release; that you attend either program as directed once a place becomes available;

iii.That there is judicial monitoring.  The first judicial monitoring seven days after your release from custody.  We may need to come up with a date for that, and thereafter ever six months for the duration of the Community Corrections order; that you complete 75 hours of unpaid community work, 50 hours of programs can be credited towards that 75 hours; that you undertake treatment and rehabilitation for drug and alcohol misuse as directed; you undertake offence-specific programs and other treatment course or rehabilitation as directed, including Wulgunggo Ngalu or Wiimpatja; that you engage in mental health assessment and treatment as directed.

62Now, I recognise that there is some - we discussed this at the plea.  This Corrections order relies heavily on Corrections officers, and also those from Wulgunggo Ngalu and any liaison officers involved to try and anticipate your release, the date, and put things in place.  I can see Ms Walker nodding, and I am quite sure she will do her very best to try and facilitate it as well.  Ideally, you would go straight from custody to Wulgunggo Ngalu.  But I cannot make that a strict condition of the order because there needs to be a place you need to be assessed.  But I am very hopeful, and I would be very grateful to all those involved if every effort can be made to make that possible.

63All right.  Do you consent to the order upon your release, Mr Lawson?

64ACCUSED:  Yes.

65HIS HONOUR:  All right.  Ms Walker will do the sums and work out when your release date is.  It is a lenient sentence, given that I have assessed you as this is a real turning point for you; you did impress during the sentencing conversation.  But you have got a very bad track record.  As I have recognised, that needs to be placed in the context of someone who first entered the system as such as an 11 year old, who was already immersed in an alcohol and violent culture.

66But that situation, as you can well-appreciate that you have experienced, given your prison experience today, will not carry the day again.  It is a real one off opportunity for you to try and embrace all the supports you can on this when you are out, and you have got to be the one that makes it work.  Otherwise, you will be back before me, and I will have little alternative.

67Mr Roper, Ms Walker, there is no problems with that sentence in the technical sense, is there?

68MR ROPER:  No, just one matter, Your Honour.

69HIS HONOUR:  Yes.

70MR ROPER:  I may have raised it, I honestly cannot remember whether I raised it last time.  Just in terms of the dealing with the offender's license.  There is a mandatory provision in relation to summary Charge 17.  That is driving a vehicle with the drugs, and 49(1) that will be.  There is actually a mandatory six month minimum.  So, it is a bit academic, because Your Honour has already made an order there, but the Act does actually specify that an order needs to be made on summary Charge 17.

71HIS HONOUR:  Against that charge, all right.  I misunderstood that.  I thought it was I could pick which one I was most familiar with. 

72I make the order against s.89A of the Sentencing Act but also against the section of the ‑ ‑ ‑

73MR ROPER:  It is s.51 ‑ ‑ ‑

74HIS HONOUR:  What section is it?

75MR ROPER: It is s.501E(A) of the Road Safety Act.

76HIS HONOUR:  I also make it under that section.

77MR ROPER:  Yes, I may have - I am pretty sure I mentioned it, but I am not sure, Your Honour.

78HIS HONOUR:  No, you did.  You did and I misunderstood. 

79MR ROPER:  Yes.

80HIS HONOUR:  All right.

81MS WALKER:  Your Honour, may I address you with respect to the dates.  So, 25 months from the date of his remand which was 5 July 2019, and his release date 5 August of 2021. 

82MR ROPER:  Is that not the 4 July.

83MS WALKER:  Sorry, it is.  Yes.  Sorry, my phone.  Sorry, 4 July.  So that would make release date 4 August.  So, he would be seeing you seven days after
4 August.

84HIS HONOUR:  All right, perhaps we will look at - if 11 August is a weekday, we will do it at 9.30 am on 11 August.  If not, it will be the day following or the day following that.  We will put it in the orders.

85MR ROPER:  11 August is a Sunday.

86HIS HONOUR:  11 August next year.

87MR ROPER:  No, no.  Sorry.

88HIS HONOUR:  It is a Wednesday.

89MR ROPER:  A Wednesday. 

90HIS HONOUR:  All right, 9.30 am. 

91MS WALKER:  As the court pleases.

92HIS HONOUR:  All right, well Mr Lawson, you have got a way to go still in custody.  But as I made clear, they are serious charges and it was always - as I have said during the hearing, it is either going to be a parole period or the Community Corrections order.  So, you got the opportunity of a Community Corrections order, which should get you to where you want to be to rehabilitate, all right?

93ACCUSED:  Yes.  Yes, no worries.

94HIS HONOUR:  Thank you everyone.

95MS WALKER:  Your Honour, I am sorry.  Sorry, Your Honour.

96HIS HONOUR:  Yes.

97MS WALKER:  Can I just raise one matter.  I was in communications with the court.  But Mr Lawson may also be eligible for emergency case management days.

98HIS HONOUR:  In the ‑ ‑ ‑

99MS WALKER:  Emergency management days.

100HIS HONOUR:  Yes.  Just stay in touch, if it is earlier, it is earlier. 

101MS WALKER:  Yes.

102HIS HONOUR:  It just really needs to be - yes.  I can easily change the judicial monitoring day, or just leave it as it is, even if it is earlier.  The main thing I am concerned with is it is not just left and forgotten about that he - if Wulgunggo Ngalu can take him, that is where he should go.  Straight from custody.

103MS WALKER:  That is what we are hoping to do.  Now that we have got certainty, we can make that referral and a sufficient date, I would hope that he would go straight into the program.  I can notify the court when that happens and as Your Honour has already alerted, we have still got pending matters, so there is a couple of things we need to do with that as well.  So, we will stay in touch with the court and see about the dates.

104HIS HONOUR:  All right.

105MS WALKER:  So, if we could just get the date for 11 August at the moment.

106HIS HONOUR:  Sorry, I lost that last bit.

107MS WALKER:  If we just keep it at 11 August.

108HIS HONOUR:  Yes, yes.  We will.

109MS WALKER:  Yes.  Thank you, Your Honour.

110HIS HONOUR:  Well look, those papers will be prepared and signed by me and I think they will be sent to Mr - they will be sent to you, Ms Walker as well, but they will be sent to Mr Lawson for signature.  All right.

111MS WALKER:  Thank you, Your Honour.

112HIS HONOUR:  All right, adjourn the court.

‑ ‑ ‑