R v Bakewell - [2022] SASC 39

SUPREME COURT OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA
(Criminal)

R v BAKEWELL
[2022] SASC 39
Judgment of the Honourable Chief Justice Kourakis
21 April 2022
CRIMINAL LAW - SENTENCE - SENTENCING ORDERS - NON-PAROLE PERIOD OR MINIMUM TERM - SOUTH AUSTRALIA
CRIMINAL LAW - SENTENCE - SENTENCING ORDERS - CUSTODIAL ORDERS - LIFE SENTENCE - REDETERMINATION OR SETTING OF MINIMUM TERM OR NON-PAROLE PERIOD
CRIMINAL LAW - PARTICULAR OFFENCES - OFFENCES AGAINST THE PERSON - HOMICIDE - MURDER - SENTENCE: PARTICULAR CASES - MINIMUM TERM, NON-PAROLE PERIOD
This is an application seeking an order to fix a non-parole period in respect of a sentence of life imprisonment. The Applicant was convicted in the Northern Territory Supreme Court of the offences of murder, aggravated sexual assault and unlawful entry of the dwelling house. The Applicant was sentenced for the offence of murder to life imprisonment on 26 May 1989. At the time, the Northern Territory Court had no power to fix a non-parole period.
In 2005 the Applicant was transferred to South Australia pursuant to the Prisoners (Interstate Transfer) Act 1982. Following amendments to the Correctional Services Act 1982 (SA) which conferred on the Parole Board the power to release on parole a prisoner serving a life sentence subject to a statutory review by a Commissioner, the Applicant was released on parole following a Parole Board resolution on 7 June 2016.
In October 2021 the Applicant returned to custody on a warrant issued by the Parole Board after having tested positive for cannabis and the Parole Board subsequently cancelled the Applicant’s release on parole.
Held, per Kourakis CJ: A non-parole period of six months to be fixed, to commence on 22 October 2021.
Prisoners (Interstate Transfer) Act 1982 ss 15, 27, 28; Sentencing (Crime of Murder) and Parole Reform Act 2003 (NT) (NT) ss 19, 19(3); Sentencing Act 2017 (SA) ss 47, 47(3); Correctional Services Act 1982 (SA) ss 67(6), 67(7), referred to.
Director of Public Prosecutions v Bakewell [2007] NTSC 51; R v Brady [2015] SASC 115; R v Fricker [2017] SASC 107, considered.

R v BAKEWELL
[2022] SASC 39
Criminal: Application

KOURAKIS CJ: This is an application by Jonathon Peter Bakewell made on 13 January 2022 pursuant to s 47(3) of the Sentencing Act 2017 (SA) (the Sentencing Act) for an order fixing a non-parole period in respect of a sentence of life imprisonment. The sentence of life imprisonment was imposed in the Supreme Court of the Northern Territory on 26 May 1989 on Mr Bakewell’s conviction of the offence of murder. A non-parole period of 20 years was fixed in 2004 by operation of s 19 of the Sentencing (Crime of Murder) and Parole Reform Act 2003 (NT) (the NT Act).
On 15 April 2005, Mr Bakewell was transferred to South Australia pursuant to s 15 of the Prisoners (Interstate Transfer) Act 1982 (the Prisoners Transfer Act). On his transfer by operation of ss 27 and 28 of the Prisoner Transfer Act, his life sentence and non-parole period were to be treated as if both had been imposed by a court of this State. Mr Bakewell was released on parole following a Parole Board resolution to approve his release made on 7 June 2016. On 22 October 2021 Mr Bakewell was returned to custody on a warrant issued by the Parole Board because he tested positive for cannabis consumption. On 26 October 2021 the Parole Board cancelled Mr Bakewell’s release on parole because of his history of cannabis use whilst on parole.
For the reasons appearing below, I fix a non-parole period of six months to commence on 22 October 2021.
The Offending
Mr Bakewell was convicted in the Northern Territory Supreme Court of the offences of murder, aggravated sexual assault, unlawful entry of the dwelling house, committed on the 23 February 1988 when Mr Bakewell broke into the flat of Anne-Marie Culleton (Anne-Marie). Anne-Marie was just 20 years of age at the time.
After a voir dire hearing, in which Mr Bakewell unsuccessfully attempted to exclude evidence of his police confession to the crimes, he pleaded guilty on the unlawful entry and theft charges. His trial on the murder charge commenced on 10 May 1989 before Kearney J. The Crown case was that either Mr Bakewell intended to kill or cause grievous harm to Anne-Marie or, in the alternative, that he caused her death whilst raping her. On 17 May 1989 the jury unanimously found Mr Bakewell guilty of murder.
Kearney J made the following findings of:
·Anne-Marie had been living alone at the flat for some five and a half weeks before she died in the very early hours of Tuesday 23 February 1988;
·Mr Bakewell had been living with two others in an adjoining flat but they had vacated those premises on the morning of Monday 22 February because they could not afford the rent;
·Mr Bakewell returned to the flats late on the Monday 22 February, or in the early hours of Tuesday 23 February, because, he claimed, he had nowhere else to say. However, he then broke into Anne-Marie’s flat by pushing open the locked back door with the intention of raping her;
·Mr Bakewell attacked Anne-Marie in her bedroom and stifled her screams by putting his hand over her mouth before dragging her into the second bedroom where he raped her. Again, he held his hand, first to her mouth, and then to her throat, to stifle her screams;
·During the rape Mr Bakewell tore off a corner of the sheet and tied it around Anne-Marie’s throat with a double knot. The Judge found that he did so to stop her screaming and not in order to kill her. Anne‑Marie’s breathing was occluded. Mr Bakewell raped her again as she struggled to catch her breath;
·Mr Bakewell left Anne-Marie on the bed in that condition to go to the kitchen where he drank some fruit juice and took money from her purse;
·Mr Bakewell returned to the bedroom, where he found Anne-Marie was no longer breathing and her face blue. He cut the ligature from Anne-Marie’s neck and attempted to revive her. He removed any signs that might identify him, including by wiping away fingerprints where he thought they might have been left. He placed Anne-Marie and the sheet under the shower, again, in order to remove any fingerprints. He wiped the floor of the whole flat with another sheet;
·Despite the efforts he took to conceal his guilt, when questioned by police a few days later, on the night of Friday 26 February 1988, and into the following Saturday morning, Mr Bakewell made a full confession. He also gave a history of drinking between six cans to four cartons of beer daily.
Kearney J did not find that Mr Bakewell intended to kill Anne-Marie. He proceeded to sentence Mr Bakewell on the basis that the verdict was returned on the basis of statutory murder.
Kearney J took into account the following of Mr Bakewell’s antecedents. Mr Bakewell was 26 years of age. He was born in England in 1961. He was adopted soon after his birth and came to Australia with his adoptive parents. He left school at the age of 15 years and found short-term employment only. By the age of 17 years he was drinking heavily and shortly afterwards became an alcoholic. He was charged with the offence of robbery in Adelaide when he was 18 years old but absconded. Whilst away, he worked in Sydney and travelled to New Zealand before being deported back to Australia. In Sydney he was convicted in 1986 of common assault against a woman who was his de facto partner.
Kearney J noted that Mr Bakewell surrendered himself on the robbery charge in 1987. He was sentenced to two years’ imprisonment with a short non-parole period. He was released on 10 November 1987 and left Adelaide in January 1988, arriving in Darwin in February.
His only employment in the ten years before the murder was short-term. He had numerous stays in detoxification centres. Mr Bakewell adopted a number of aliases in that period, including Andrew William Booth, John Peter Griff and John Peter Hickson.
In the reasons of Southwood J,[1] given many years later, on an application of the Director of Public Prosecutions to fix a non-parole period of 25 years pursuant to s 19(3) of the NT Act, his Honour referred to a history of Mr Bakewell taking cannabis from the age of 15 to escape and to relax.[2] No connection between the cannabis use and the offending is mentioned by Southwood J.
[1] Director of Public Prosecutions v Bakewell [2007] NTSC 51.
[2] Ibid at [10].
The sentences imposed by Kearney J were as follows. Mr Bakewell was sentenced to four years’ imprisonment for breaking into the flat, ten years’ imprisonment for the rape, cumulative upon the sentence of four years, and one year’s imprisonment for the theft, again cumulative on the previous sentences. The total effective sentence of 15 years’ imprisonment for those offences could only be served concurrently with the mandatory life sentence of imprisonment. At the time there was no power for a Northern Territory Court to fix a non-parole period with respect to a life sentence imposed for murder. Nor would a non-parole period be fixed for the offences of break and enter, larceny and rape because they were concurrent with the life sentence.
Nonetheless Kearney J said of Mr Bakewell’s offending that he ‘displayed not a vestige of civilised humanity towards [Anne-Marie] when she was alive and you gain little credit in my eyes for your limited attempts to revive her later on’.
Kearney J concluded:
I think it is therefore important to state, as I now do, that despite your limited prior criminal record, I regard you at this time as a highly dangerous person who represents an extreme risk to the ordinary members of the community and, as such, you are a person unfit to live freely in society – at least for many many years to come.
Statutory imposition of a non-parole period
In 2004 a sentence of a non-parole period of 20 years was fixed by operation of s 19 of the NT Act. When Mr Bakewell transferred to South Australia in 2005 pursuant to the Prisoner’s Transfer Act, he expected to be released soon after the expiry of the statutory 20 year non-parole period in 2008 and he hoped to spend time with his father who was ill and living in Adelaide. However, in 2007 the Director of Public Prosecutions of the Northern Territory made an application pursuant to s 19(3) of the NT Act which empowered the Director to apply to the Supreme Court to fix a non-parole period of 25 years if the crime of murder involved a sexual offence. Southwood J of the Supreme Court of the Northern Territory held that he was bound by that provision to fix a non-parole period of 25 years. On appeal to the Northern Territory Court of Criminal Appeal, that Court held that Southwood J was wrong to hold that he was bound to fix a non-parole period of 27 years and that his Honour had a discretion not to fix the higher non‑parole period. The Court of Appeal set aside the non-parole period of 25 years which his Honour had fixed. The legal effect of that decision was to leave in place the statutory non-parole period of 20 years.
The Northern Territory legislature responded by enacting legislation directed at Mr Bakewell in particular, requiring the imposition of a non-parole period of 25 years. The validity of that legislation was upheld by the Northern Territory Court of Criminal Appeal but on further appeal the High Court held that the legislation was invalid. Mr Bakewell was therefore again left with the statutory non-parole period of 20 years. However, to borrow the expression of Kearney J, many years were to come and pass before Mr Bakewell’s release on parole.
When Mr Bakewell transferred to South Australia, the effect of s 67(6) of the Correctional Services Act 1982 (SA) (the CS Act) was that the Parole Board could not order his release on parole but could, instead, make a recommendation to Executive Council to exercise its power pursuant to s 67(7) to order his release.
In 2008 the Parole Board recommended Mr Bakewell’s release but on 17 March 2011 the Executive Council resolved not to release Mr Bakewell. On 22 November 2011, the Parole Board again recommended his release but it was again refused by Executive Council on 16 May 2013.
Mr Bakewell applied for parole again in October 2015. In February 2016 amendments to the CS Act conferred on the Parole Board the power to release on parole a prisoner serving a life sentence subject to a statutory review by a Commissioner.
On 7 June 2016 the Parole Board resolved to release Mr Bakewell on parole and he was released on 9 September 2016. The conditions of parole included that he be under the supervision of a probation officer, that he take only medically prescribed drugs, that he abstain from alcohol and that he present himself for urine testing and breath testing.
Mr Bakewell had then served more than 28 years in prison, longer than the statutory non-parole period of 20 years and three years longer than the 25 year non‑parole for which the Northern Territory DPP had unsuccessfully applied.
Behaviour in Prison
The Parole Board’s recommendations for release were soundly based.
Mr Bakewell had received mental health services counselling in the Northern Territory in 1994.
He volunteered to undertake the Northern Territory Sex Offender Treatment Program in 1998. He was described as highly committed and an active participant.
Mr Bakewell undertook a sexual behaviour clinic program, an alcohol and other drugs program, and a domestic violence for men program whilst imprisoned in South Australia. Good reports were given of his engagement in those programs. On 17 August 2006 Mr Bakewell worked on a six-month contract with National Parks. On 2 April 2007 he began outside employment with Ceiling Concepts five days a week. Again he was given good reports. In the Mount Gambier Prison he undertook victim awareness, cognitive skills, anger management and a brief intervention cannabis program.
Parole Breaches
On his release from prison, Mr Bakewell went to live with his wife, whom he had met in Darwin whilst she was visiting another prisoner, in Mount Gambier. In October 2016 Mr Bakewell was diagnosed with tonsil carcinoma which was treated by surgery and radical radiotherapy. He suffers from ongoing throat pain. Mr Bakewell has claimed that he has used cannabis to ameliorate that pain. Mr Bakewell was diagnosed with probable multiple sclerosis in 2000. He now resides in Adelaide.
After his release on parole, Mr Bakewell tested positive to cannabis use in March 2017. He claimed that the result was caused by passive inhalation. A further positive cannabis test was returned in June 2017. On that occasion he admitted to smoking cannabis to alleviate his throat pain. The Parole Board warned Mr Bakewell about his cannabis use on 25 July 2017.
On 25 October 2017 Mr Bakewell again tested positive to cannabis. He again admitted to using cannabis for pain relief. He was at that time diagnosed with ADHD and prescribed dexamphetamine by psychiatrists. After yet another positive test on 3 November 2017, the Parole Board issued a warrant for his arrest on 15 November 2017.
Mr Bakewell was interviewed on 3 April 2018 when the Parole Board agreed to release him on 5 April 2018.
After his release, Mr Bakewell tested positive for cannabis on 22 August 2018. A warrant was issued and he was returned to custody and interviewed on 30 October 2018. The Board agreed to release Mr Bakewell on 2 November 2018, however, positive tests for cannabis were returned on 11 January 2018, 8 March 2019 and 5 April 2019. Yet another warrant was issued on 25 April 2019. At that time Mr Bakewell was living in Waikerie having moved there in 2019. Sadly, just a week after moving there, Mr Bakewell’s wife suffered a stroke and passed away. Mr Bakewell was released again on 16 October 2019 but on condition that he reside in the Adelaide metropolitan area and comply with electronic monitoring.
On 10 September 2020 Mr Bakewell returned a positive urine analysis which he claimed was due to passive inhalation. Mr Bakewell was interviewed by the Parole Board on 9 February 2021 as he had returned another positive test on 4 February 2021. There were two further positive tests on 11 February and 18 February 2021. On 10 March 2021 Mr Bakewell provided a sample which was positive to amphetamine. A warrant was issued and he was returned to custody. He denied using methamphetamine and the result was discovered to be a false positive. However, he returned a positive test to cannabis whilst in custody. Nonetheless he was released into the community on parole.
Mr Bakewell’s current condition and drug use
For the purposes of this application, I have received a report by Dr Chris Kneebone, a neurologist, dated June 2020 provided to Mr Bakewell’s general practitioner. The summary of the review by Dr Kneebone reveals a diagnosis of chronic, probably secondary progressive multiple sclerosis and records that there are significant issues with bladder control and gait ataxia causing falls.
A review of Mr Bakewell by the neurologist Dr Jackson Harvey on 10 March 2021 confirmed a probable or suspected diagnosis of long-standing multiple sclerosis in its progressive phase. Dr Harvey took a history of Mr Bakewell falling three to four times per week.
Mr Bakewell is supported by a welfare support worker provided through the NDIS scheme. His welfare worker has provided a report on Mr Bakewell which outlines the day to day living support he receives and generally speaks positively of his engagement and behaviour.
After oral submissions, I suggested that Mr Mead might obtain fuller instructions about Mr Bakewell’s cannabis use. I was then provided a further written submission to the effect that Mr Bakewell’s cannabis use is intermittent and not purely for recreational purposes. He also uses it to help him sleep, improve his appetite and to relieve pain. He usually smokes cannabis by adding a little of it to a tobacco cigarette. He has not used cannabis more than twice a week. He has not spoken openly about his cannabis use in the past because of his fears that his parole might be cancelled and returned to prison for life. He hopes to be prescribed medicinal cannabis in the future.
Victim Impact Statement
Ms Eileen Culleton (Ms Culleton), who is the younger sister of Anne-Marie has provided a victim impact statement. Ms Culleton described her distress at the failure of the legislative attempts to increase Mr Bakewell’s statutory non-parole period. She described the trauma she suffered in her public attempts to campaign through the media to have Mr Bakewell’s parole cancelled due to his breaches so that women are safe in the community. Ms Culleton believes that Mr Bakewell remains a danger to the community.
Ms Culleton explained that she wrote a letter of forgiveness to Mr Bakewell as part of a process of coming to terms with the impact on her of her sister’s murder. Ms Culleton emphasised that she forgave Mr Bakewell only for the impact of his crimes on her, and that in no way has she forgiven him for the crimes of raping and murdering her sister in themselves. Mr Bakewell responded to Ms Culleton’s letter. However, his response caused Ms Culleton to doubt his ‘sincerity, credibility and motivation’. Ms Culleton spoke to discovering discrepancies between Mr Bakewell’s letter and the transcript and other court documents related to his application on the voir dire to have his confession excluded. Ms Culleton was also concerned by a suggestion in Mr Bakewell’s letter that he might establish a foundation using Anne-Marie’s name to provide a prison art prize in the hope that engagement in artistic endeavour might promote the rehabilitation of some prisoners.

Ms Culleton understood Mr Bakewell’s letter to suggest that he discovered an ability to draw whilst in prison whereas trial transcript revealed that he was already drawing prior to the murder of her sister. He used money obtained from selling portraits to buy drugs and alcohol. Ms Culleton came to the view that Mr Bakewell had attempted, by his letter of apology, to manipulate the Culleton family to agree to his proposal when it was in fact motivated entirely by self‑interest. Ms Culleton said that she felt duped, manipulated, foolish, horrified, angry, outraged and fearful.
Ms Culleton explained that she was just one year younger than Anne-Marie and that they had been very close. She last saw Anne-Marie three weeks before her death when they celebrated Eileen’s 19^th birthday. Anne-Marie’s death changed her life forever.
Ms Culleton described Anne-Marie as ‘a talented, budding artist who loved beauty and painting nature scenes … she loved classical music … was a beautiful, talented young women with a bright future ahead of her. With dreams she never got to realise’. Ms Culleton learnt of Anne-Marie’s death two weeks after her birthday whilst interstate at university. Ms Culleton was angry that she was not able to say goodbye to Anne-Marie because her body was badly decomposed. Ms Culleton attributed that to Mr Bakewell washing her body in scalding hot water under the shower and that her body had remained immersed in scalding hot water. Ms Culleton said she was still haunted by those circumstances.
Understandably Ms Culleton’s sense of personal security has been seriously threatened. She has upgraded the security of her property.
Ms Culleton and her family have been traumatised and devastated by Anne‑Marie’s murder. Ms Culleton has been anguished by witnessing the grief and heartbreak of her mother. Ms Culleton kept Anne-Marie’s rape and murder a close personal secret so as not to upset or frighten her friends. Ms Culleton explained that she turned anxiety, fear and grief and trauma into a drive that allowed her to help and empower others.
In 2015 Ms Culleton described her life as ‘shattered’ by the news that Mr Bakewell was soon to be released on parole. Her post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms were debilitating. Ms Culleton explained that the continual breaches of parole and repeated chances the judicial system has given Mr Bakewell fuels a different kind of re-traumatisation. Each time he is released on parole, I am trapped into a vortex of trauma, anger and fear for the community’.
Ms Culleton said that she resents the fact that Bakewell’s crime and continued breaches of parole impact every aspect of her life. She has resigned her position as Chief Executive Officer of the charity she founded and is now on a disability support pension. That is the source of shame and social stigma for her. She suffers from social anxieties, is hypervigilant and feels very and extremely uncomfortable in crowded places. She described her alarm that Bakewell has breached his parole on six occasions. She found it galling that the crime had been characterised as a crime of lust, when in fact it is a crime of power and control.
Fixing a Non-Parole Period
Section 47 of the Sentencing Act relevantly provides:
(1)Subject to this section, when a court, on convicting a person of an offence, sentences the person to imprisonment, the court must –
(a) If the person is not subject to an existing non-parole period – fix a non-parole period; or
…
(2) If the sentence of imprisonment is imposed for an offence committed during a period of release on parole or conditional release from a previous sentence of imprisonment or detention, the court, in fixing a non-parole period under subsection (1)(a), must have regard to the total period of imprisonment (or detention and imprisonment) that the person is, by virtue of the new sentence and the balance of the previous sentence, liable to serve.
(3) If a prisoner is serving a sentence of imprisonment but is not subject to an existing non-parole period, the sentencing court may, subject to subsection (5), fix a non‑parole period, on application by the prisoner or the presiding member of the Parole Board
(4) The fact that the prisoner has completed a non-parole period previously fixed in respect of the same sentence of imprisonment, or that a court has previously declined to fix a non-parole period in respect of that sentence, does not preclude an application under subsection (3).
(5) The above provisions are subject to the following qualifications:
…
(b) if fixing a non-parole period in respect of a person sentenced to life imprisonment for an offence of murder, the mandatory minimum non-parole period prescribed in respect of the offence is 20 years;
…
The application made by Mr Bakewell enlivens the power conferred by s 47(3) of the Sentencing Act because the non-parole period fixed in the Northern Territory has long since expired. If s 47(5)(b) of the Sentencing Act were applied literally, I would be required to fix a non-parole period of 20 years. The result of that literal construction in this case would be that Mr Bakewell would return to prison to resume serving a non-parole period of in excess of 48 years. In this case, and in the generality of the cases that would be, as Vanstone J observed in R v Brady,[3] an absurd result.
[3] R v Brady [2015] SASC 115, at [9].
On a proper construction of s 47(5)(b), the scope of its operation must be read down so that it applies only when ‘fixing [for the first time] a non-parole period in respect of a person sentenced to life imprisonment’. Accordingly, the discretion to fix a non-parole period pursuant to s 47(3) is to be exercised judicially but free of the dictate in s 47(5)(b) of the Sentencing Act.
The relevant considerations are:[4]
·    The prospects of rehabilitation on parole.
·    The gravity of the offences on which the offender was imprisoned and then paroled.
·    The gravity of the breaching offences on which the offender was imprisoned or the breach of the designated condition.
·    The need to deter the offender and others from commission of offences of the type with respect to which he was on parole and offences of the type that breached that parole, or the need to deter the offender and others from breaching a designated condition.
·    The need to deter the offender and others from breaching parole.
[4]    R v Fricker [2017] SASC 107, at [20].
Consideration
The failure of Mr Bakewell to comply with the condition of his parole which prohibits him from using cannabis is plainly enough concerning. I accept that Mr Bakewell has medical conditions and symptoms which are alleviated by his cannabis use. I accept, therefore, that he uses cannabis no more than several times a week for recreational and self-medication purposes.
It is significant that notwithstanding the frequency of his use, Mr Bakewell has not relapsed into offending. The submissions made before Kearney J and the sentencing remarks of Kearney J give no indication that his use of cannabis before the offending, played any material part in it.
However, I have been referred to the remarks of Southwood J in Director of Public Prosecutions v Bakewell:[5]
[26]A report from Mr Ré Acacio is in evidence. Mr Bakewell told Mr Ré Acacio that he believes that he was responsible for the crimes that he committed.
Mr Bakewell said that he could have avoided the crimes if only he had stopped taking drugs and alcohol. He could keep himself from committing crimes by complete abstinence from alcohol and other drugs and by staying in his present relationship and starting a business. He told the psychologist that he is absolutely regretful for his offending because he not only ended the life of the victim of his crimes but he also stuffed up the lives of many other people. Mr Bakewell said that it was not in his nature to make anyone a victim. He said that he continues to have a hard time living with what he did. He said that although he has had no contact with those related to his victim he feels strongly that what he has done must have made their worlds fall apart and devastated them. It was not a good thing for him to live with the memory of the harm that he has caused.
(underlining added)
[5] Director of Public Prosecutions v Bakewell [2007] NTSC 51, at [26].
I do not read the underlined sentence to mean that Mr Bakewell expressed the view that the alcohol and drug intoxication in themselves made him violent and aggressive. In context, I take him to be referring to the lifestyle into which he had lapsed. The immediate following sentence is consistent with that understanding. In any event, Mr Bakewell referred to both alcohol and other drug use and it is the experience of the criminal courts of this State that alcohol is much more likely to disinhibit aggressive tendencies than cannabis.
Accordingly, notwithstanding his use of cannabis, I am confident that Mr Bakewell poses a very low risk of reoffending. Having regard to the relevant considerations I have set out above, I am satisfied that the period he has served in custody is a sufficient reminder to Mr Bakewell of the importance of complying with his conditions. That time in custody will hopefully prompt him to explore the prescription of medicinal cannabis.
I am conscious of the need to deter others from breaching parole conditions but because of Mr Bakewell’s explanations, in the absence of any associated offending, little can be achieved in that respect of his case. Of greater relative importance is promoting Mr Bakewell’s continued rehabilitation by returning him to the accommodation which has been kept available for him.
Conclusion
I fix a non-parole period of six months commencing on 22 October 2021.