R v Cranney

[2017] NSWDC 389

District Court

New South Wales

Medium Neutral Citation:	R v Cranney [2017] NSWDC 389
Hearing dates:	11 December 2017
Date of orders:	11 December 2017
Decision date:	11 December 2017
Jurisdiction:	Criminal
Before:	Berman SC DCJ
Decision:	The offender is sentenced to imprisonment for 18 months. He is to be released forthwith upon entering into a recognisance of $5,000 to be of good behaviour for 3 years.
Catchwords:	CRIMINAL LAW – Sentence – Dealing with the proceeds of crime - Concession by Crown that full time custody not required
Legislation Cited:	Commonwealth Criminal Code
Category:	Sentence
Parties:	The Crown Gregory Charles Cranney
Representation:	Counsel: Ms P McEniery – The Crown   Solicitors: Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions Bilias & Associates Solicitors and Barristers
File Number(s):	2013/43642

Judgment

1. HIS HONOUR: One of the ways that the authorities deal with the problems of offending is to attack the profits that can be made from criminal behaviour. The offence that the offender Gregory Cranney committed is an offence under s 400.5(2) of the Criminal Code. That is an offence which is, one of a relatively high number of offences that attempt to deal with the problems of crime through trying to make it unprofitable.

2. The offence is one of dealing with money that was the proceeds of crime being reckless to the fact that the money was in fact the proceeds of crime, at the time of the dealing the value of the money being $50,000 or more.

3. The offender has a brother. He is now serving a significant term of imprisonment for his involvement in a comparatively large‑scale operation by which pseudoephedrine was imported into Australia. The offender’s brother Chris Cranney was a Customs officer at Sydney Airport, as were a number of others involved. A number of quite substantial importations of pseudoephedrine occurred. Clearly, Chris Cranney was not doing this for anything other than financial reward. It is the offender’s involvement in that financial reward that has led to him facing sentence today.

4. Some of Chris Cranney’s co-offenders decided that although he was due to receive $100,000, he would be short-changed. It was intended, therefore, that he would only get $85,000 for his involvement. It was arranged on 28 June that he would receive payment that day. Payment was made to Chris Cranney at about 10.07pm. In anticipation of that occurring he had earlier asked his brother Gregory Cranney, the offender, to meet up with him, clearly having told him something of what was going to happen that evening. So although Chris Cranney got the money at about 10.07pm on 28 June 2017 it was really only in his possession for about an hour. The two Cranney brothers met up at a Caltex service station, the money was handed over, they spoke for about 15 minutes and they separated. Overnight the offender must have counted the money because he told his brother that it was “less 15”.

5. It is to be noted that the offence to which the offender pleaded guilty has as an element that he was reckless to the fact that the money was the proceeds of crime. The recklessness displayed by this offender was high. The circumstance that through a coded message their meeting was confirmed, that the meeting took place late at night in a Caltex service station, and that there is no suggestion anywhere that Chris Cranney could have obtained $85,000 cash from a legitimate source, means that the belief that Mr Cranney the offender had in relation to source of money, it being the proceeds of criminal behaviour, must have been approaching certainty.

6. Somewhat remarkably the offender has no previous criminal history and references tendered to me today speak highly of him. Mr Lewis who appears for the offender makes the point that when a family member asks you to do something it is much harder to say ‘no’ than when a stranger asks you to do that. That may be the explanation for the offender, a man of otherwise good character, becoming involved in what is clearly serious criminal activity and criminal activity which the offender must have known or must have at least suspected was something to do with the offender’s brother’s job as a Customs officer.

7. The offender pleaded guilty to this offence quite late. Part of that delay in the matter finally being resolved may be due to the fact that the major offenders, those actually involved in the importation, were to face trial before this offender and that in turn may have led to some of the vacations of the trial date involving this offender. Indeed the trial had been set down for five occasions. Twice it was vacated on the application of the accused. It was always open to the offender to plead guilty to his offence, he knew what he had done, he knew it was a crime, he knew that he had done the wrong thing and yet his plea of guilty only came many years after he was charged in the circumstances that I have identified. On top of that the Crown case is a strong one and really the plea of guilty only represents the offender’s belated recognition of the inevitable. Given that this is a Commonwealth matter I propose to regard the willingness of the offender to facilitate the course of justice as being minimal and so the discount for having pleaded guilty will be minimal as well.

8. The offender has written a letter to me. He speaks of the consequences for him of having been charged and then pleading guilty to this offence. Such consequences are entirely to be expected and commonplace where people commit offences of this type. Reference has also been made to consequences for the offender’s parents. It must be awful for them to find that not one, but two of their sons have been involved in serious criminal behaviour with the offender’s brother facing a non-parole period of eight and a half years and this offender facing sentence today in proceedings which really should also involve the offender in receiving a full-time custodial sentence.

9. The reason that the offender is not going to go to gaol full-time is simple to state, the Crown concedes that that is not the only sentence option available given the circumstances of this case. The Crown was able to provide me with two other cases involving sentences for this precise offence, one from Queensland and one from Victoria. In neither case was a full-time custodial sentence imposed. It would be wrong to conclude that those two cases provide any sort of a range for a judge to consider when deciding what sentence to impose on this offender. This offence carries a maximum penalty of seven years imprisonment. Given the offender’s willingness to be a safe haven for the money, to take custody of the money within about an hour of it being handed over to his brother and the high degree of recklessness, were it not for the Crown’s concession I would have sent the offender to gaol full‑time.

10. However, I recognise that Courts exist to resolve disputes before parties and where there is no dispute that a full-time custodial sentence is not imposed it would be very rare for a Judge to take a different view. I am not going to take a different view but I have, I think, sufficiently explained how close this offender has come to going to gaol. For those reasons I impose sentence as follows:

11. The offender is sentenced to imprisonment for 18 months.

12. He is to be released forthwith upon entering into a recognisance of $5,000 to be of good behaviour for three years.

13. Mr Cranney I am obliged to explain to you what I have done. In effect what I have done is released you from custody today so that you are not going to go to gaol today but you are on a bond to be of good behaviour for a period of three years from today. What that really means for you is that if you don’t comply with the bond you might end up in gaol after all. Now you are a man of otherwise good character, as Mr Lewis says, you were asked by a family member, your brother, to get involved in this, so I think it’s highly unlikely that you are going to breach the bond but you must be aware that if you do you might end up in gaol, and as you probably heard me say, that’s where I think you should have gone anyway today. So make sure that you don’t come back before me having breached the bond because if you do, as I keep saying you’ll be going to gaol after all.

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Decision last updated: 31 January 2018