R v Bayliss

[1996] QCA 32

[1996] QCA 032

COURT OF APPEAL

MACROSSAN CJ McPHERSON JA DAVIES JA

CA No 447 of 1995
THE QUEEN
v.

RICHARD BRUCE BAYLISS Applicant

BRISBANE
..DATE 02/02/96
020296 T21/SA M/T COA96/3
DAVIES JA: The applicant was convicted in the District Court at
Maroochydore on 13 October 1995 on his own plea of guilty on
three counts, one of breaking, entering and stealing, one of
obtaining money by false pretences and one of stealing with a
threat of actual violence, all committed on 7 July 1995.

On the first of those counts, he was sentenced to two years imprisonment. On the second, 12 months imprisonment, and on the third, seven years imprisonment.

The learned sentencing Judge added a recommendation that he be eligible for parole after three years.

The applicant who is 26 years of age has a substantial criminal
history extending over 14 years. It involved
13 Court appearances and 43 convictions, many of them for
offences of dishonesty.

His only sentence of imprisonment, which was one of 18 months, was imposed about three weeks after the commission of these offences for offences committed in February and March 1995 of receiving, five charges, and false pretences, two charges.

The subject offences were committed in Maryborough when the
applicant was, he said, en route to Townsville to take up
employment. The first was committed on the night of 6 and
7 July. He broke a front plate glass window of an auto repair
shop, ransacked the office and stole a quantity of cigarettes
worth $150, a fax machine and a cheque leaf.
020296 T21/SA M/T COA96/3
Early on the morning of 7 July, he used the cheque leaf at a
cafe to buy breakfast and to obtain a sum of $21 cash. This
constituted the second count. He was apprehended attempting to
sell cigarettes to a newsagent, having failed to sell the fax
machine to the cafe proprietor.

When apprehended, he made full admissions with respect to both offences. He appeared that morning before a Magistrate in Maryborough and was released on bail. In the afternoon of the same day, he went to the Bank of Queensland and handed a note to the teller threatening to blow up the bank and staff with three secreted bombs if he did not get some money. He was handed $3,395 and ran away. He was intercepted nearby by police and made admissions. However, he then fabricated the existence of a co-accused who, he said, acted as both lookout and driver and who, he said, had taken the money. The money, however, was found on him.

All of these offences appear to have been incompetently executed and the applicant blamed his conduct on ingestion of drugs, some of them being, he said, prescription drugs for an injury.

A report from a Community Correctional officer indicates that the applicant has a drug problem, particularly from abuse of prescription drugs. When to that is added his long history of dishonesty, there is no basis for concluding that if, when he committed these offences, he was, as he has said to us, under the influence of drugs that this was other than self-induced.

The incompetence which with which the offences were executed
020296 T21/SA M/T COA96/3
cannot dimish the seriousness of the robbery offence and the
understandable fear which his threat must have induced in the
bank staff.

Moreover, his pleas of guilty seem to have been caused more by recognition of the inevitability of conviction rather than by any remorse. Nevertheless, some allowance must be made for those pleas because of their promptness and, as he submitted to us, the consequent saving of money and time which resulted from them.

There is nothing else which can be said in the applicant's favour. He has a long history of offences of dishonesty. The robbery offence was a serious one with a frightening threat to its victims and, even when admitting his guilt to the police, he sought by deception to keep the money he had stolen.

Finally, in this respect, it must be recalled that he committed this offence shortly after being granted bail for the offences which he had committed earlier that day.

When the applicant was sentenced for these offences, he had served less than three months of his 18 months sentence, to which I have already referred. As the present sentences were not made cumulative on the earlier ones, it means that he was sentenced to a total period of a little under seven years and three months for both lots of offences.

When one considers that the present sentences could have been made cumulative upon those imposed shortly before he committed 020296 T21/SA M/T COA96/3

these and when one looks at the totality of the sentence imposed for both sets of offences, it cannot be said, in my view, that that totality was manifestly excessive.

I would therefore refuse the application.

THE CHIEF JUSTICE: I agree.

McPHERSON JA: I also agree.

THE CHIEF JUSTICE: The application is refused.

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