R v Delinicolis and Dellosa

District Court

New South Wales

Medium Neutral Citation:

R v Delinicolis & Dellosa [2021] NSWDC 684

Hearing dates:

10 December 2021

Date of orders:

17 December 2021

Decision date:

17 December 2021

Jurisdiction:

Criminal

Before:

Berman SC ADCJ

Decision:

Delinicolis – Convicted - sentenced to imprisonment for a period of 2 years. Order that sentence to be served by means of an Intensive Corrections Order with offender to perform 400 hours of community service

Dellosa – Convicted - sentenced to be subject of a Community Corrections Order with offender to perform 300 hours of community service

Catchwords:

CRIMINAL LAW – Sentence – Misconduct in a public office – Misuse of positions – Using position as police officers to pick up women for sexual purposes – Breach of trust – Damage to Police Force reputation - Not isolated offending - Parity

Cases Cited:

Blackstock v R [2013] NSWCCA 172

R v Obeid (No12) [2016] NSWSC 1815

Category:

Sentence

Parties:

The Crown
James Delinicolis - Offender
Angelo Franco Dellosa- Offender

Representation:

Counsel:
K Prince – Crown
P Strickland SC – Offender Delinicolis
M Cunneen SC – Offender Dellosa

Solicitors:
Director of Public Prosecutions – Crown
Bilias & Associates – Offender Delinicolis
Longton Legal – Offender Dellosa

File Number(s):

2020/228067 & 2020/228071

Publication restriction:

There is to be no publication of the name of the complainant or of any material which may tend to identify the complainant

Judgment

1. The two offenders appearing for sentence today, James Delinicolis and Angelo Dellosa have each pleaded guilty to the common law offence of Misconduct in Public Office.

2. That offence is committed when public officials, in the course of or in relation to their public office, wilfully and intentionally culpably misconduct themselves. In the present case the two offenders were police officers who admit that they culpably misconducted themselves by misusing their positions as police officers to meet and then have consensual sexual intercourse with women, in particular a schoolgirl who I will call Violet, although that is of course a pseudonym.

3. Misconduct for that purpose is unusual. This makes other cases where sentences have been imposed for this offence of less assistance. Nor is there an analogous statutory offence which would, if it existed, have a maximum penalty which would help in determining the sentence to impose in the present case. Further adding to the difficult nature of this sentencing exercise is the circumstance that some of the conduct of the two officers which many people would find distasteful, occurred as part of consensual sexual activity between Violet and the two offenders. The statement of facts tendered by the Crown had explicit details of who did what to whom during the consensual sexual encounter. These details are unnecessary, because it must be recognised that Violet, who was 17 years old, was perfectly capable of consenting to the sexual activity which took place. There was nothing illegal in what occurred. I will return to this topic later.

4. I also have to recognise that while the focus of…