R v Ferreira Carlos

[2009] NSWDC 417

CITATION:	R v FERREIRA Carlos [2009] NSWDC 417
HEARING DATE(S):	12/03/09
JUDGMENT DATE:	12 March 2009
JURISDICTION:	CRIMINAL
JUDGMENT OF:	Finnane QC DCJ
DECISION:	In relation to the offence of robbery I sentence the offender to a non parole period of two years and six months. In relation to the related matter which is one of dealing with property suspected of being the proceeds of crime, I sentence him to three months imprisonment.
CATCHWORDS:	CRIMINAL LAW - sentence - robbery- sentencing orders
LEGISLATION CITED:	s 166 Criminal Procedure Act 1986 (NSW)
PARTIES:	Regina Carlos FERREIRA
FILE NUMBER(S):	2008/01/0372
SOLICITORS:	Director for Public Prosecutions Legal Aid Commission

1. HIS HONOUR: The offender, Carlos Ferreira, appears before this court on a serious charge of robbery.

2. The robbery occurred on 30 June 2008. On that day at about 8.40am, a woman working at a business called, Cashstop Financial Services in Parramatta Road, Petersham was about to enter the premises. The premises were the subject of some considerable security precautions. She was required, apparently, to look around and make sure the shop had not been broken into, and then to ring on her mobile phone and provide a password. That then permitted her to open the premises by putting a key in a lock in the front door.

3. She then had to walk through a man trap door and then through a second man trap door. However, as she went to the first man trap door there was the offender behind her. He had a beanie on, a black cloth covering his face with an opening for his eyes, a black glove on his right hand and he pushed her with his left. She started screaming, he covered her mouth with his left hand and he told her to keep quiet he needed money, if he got the money he would let her go; otherwise he would kill her. Understandably she was extremely scared.

4. They then went through the second man trap door. She deactivated the alarm but entered a duress code on a keypad.

5. The victim pleaded to him not to hurt her, he said, “I don’t want to hurt you just give me the money. Don’t press any panic alarm, if police come in here I’ll take you along with me.” She presumably took this as some indication that she would die with him. She attempted to open a safe, she took some money from a float, which was at the bottom of the safe, he took this cash and put it in a recyclable bag that he had with him. This consisted of $3,450 Australian dollars, US$1,829, one UK pound and $10 in Hong Kong currency and seven hundred euros.

6. Because the duress code had been keyed in, obviously the alarm alerted someone and police arrived. She was ordered to go out the front and indicate she was fine. He then ordered her to go out the back; she unlocked the door and ran out. He tried to escape through a rear window but it was barred. He ran to the front and after speaking to the police he opened the door. I have no doubt that he surrendered after some relatively short discussion because he was not armed and the police were. He was wearing an expensive silver watch which he claimed to have bought from someone in a street. This is the subject of a related charge under s 166 of the Criminal Procedure Act 1986 (NSW).

7. He is a thirty year old man. He has an extensive criminal history. That criminal history commenced in the Children’s Court with stealing. He has been a thief from his childhood; he has been convicted of many breaking and entering offences and other offences of dishonesty. In 2003, the Drug Court suspended some sentences and put him on program. He ignored their program, he was ejected from their program. The Drug Court program, which is a very fine program, attempts to bring people face to face with the reality of being drug dependant. Very many people go through this program successfully and go on to achieve great things. All he did was ignore it and go back to taking drugs, committing driving offences and offences of dishonesty until he decided to become a criminal of a more significant type by engaging in robbery.

8. He has written me a note. The note indicates to me that he can read and write quite well. He expresses sorrow; he said that in the witness box. A prison chaplain has sent along details of his attending Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. He has given, in the witness box, no indication of the significance of any of those meetings and the mere fact he goes to a meeting and signs a register in my opinion means absolutely nothing. The real question is has he gone to these meetings for any particular purpose other than getting a certificate from someone that he has attended.

9. He came from a family where his father was Brazilian, his mother was Maori. He has a sister and a brother. Both of them lead ordinary respectable lives. There have been tragedies in his life, his mother died when she was thirty-five and he was only seventeen. His father was not at home at the time, and he somehow arranged to take his mother’s body with his younger siblings back to New Zealand for a family funeral. When they got back to Australia some weeks later they discovered his father had been murdered probably just before his mother died. These are traumatic events and there is no doubt anybody would be very seriously affected by them. However, he is now thirty. These were events of thirteen years ago.

10. Since that time he was given the opportunity of going to the Drug Court program and no doubt these matters would have been looked at had he bothered staying. He cannot use as an excuse for his actions the grief that he felt when his parents both died. He has to get on with life. His parents left him some money, he wasted all the money on drugs and other things of no value. He has had some training as a painter of houses but he has not really done very much of it. He told a psychologist that he drank a lot which may be true. It is hard to say. There is nothing wrong with him mentally. The psychologist thinks there is a fairly good chance of his getting back into drug crime again. I think so too.

11. I do not think there is anything much going for him. He managed to create terror in a young woman. His explanation was he did not have any plan in mind, he was just across the road and he was stoned. Well that must indicate that he carries around disguises with him just on the off chance that something might turn up that he could steal or somebody could be there and he could rob them. That might be true. Who knows?

12. The consequences of what he did on this day are very serious. He frightened the life out of a woman; he stole a significant sum of money. He did not have it for very long because the police arrived and intercepted him. The robbery itself, one would have to say, was pretty stupid, walking into a place that is subject to a whole lot of security precautions which obviously were in place. However he frightened her, he created enormous upset, caused the police to be called out, damaged the window, made yet another person whose employment was working in a place with cash worried as to whether she could continue working in that place, I would imagine. I have no statement from her saying that, but that would be a natural thing.

13. This court has had before it in its civil jurisdiction a number of claims over the years by people working in TAB offices and similar places with large sums of money who have been robbed and those people have sued their employers because of the trauma suffered by them as a result of the robberies. Anybody who is the victim of a robbery suffers trauma. I think it is a significant crime, I do not see any great circumstances of a subjective type that operate in his favour. He was on a s 12 bond at the time and there is no doubt in my mind that when he was put on that bond he was told, breach the bond and you will go to gaol, just as he has been told this thing on many other occasions.

14. He has appeared before judges of this court on a number of occasions. On each occasion the judges have bent over backwards to try and assist him by giving him short sentences and I have no doubt that on each occasion the judges have been told about this tragic set of circumstances that occurred when he was seventeen years old. It really is about time he just got on with life and stopped involving himself in crime. I have no confidence at all that he will do anything much to remove himself from drugs. I do not see any great reason to make a finding of special circumstances because I do not think there is anything terribly special. I will give him the benefit of some finding of special circumstances which will not be extremely significant.

15. In relation to the offence of robbery I sentence him to a non-parole period of two years and six months. That sentence will go from 30 June 2008 to 29 December 2010. The balance of the term will go from 30 December 2010 to 29 December 2012. He is to be released on parole on 29 December 2010. I recommend that he be given the benefit of drug and alcohol and grief counselling and that that be pursued by the parole authorities.

16. In relation to the related matter which is one of dealing with property suspected of being the proceeds of crime, I sentence him to three months imprisonment, that sentence commences on 30 June 2008 and concludes on 29 September 2008.

17. I could refer him, of course, although I have not been asked to, because hardly ever anybody ever bothers to do so, I could refer him again to the special program run by the Drug Court for convicted prisoners but I will leave that to the Drug Court. I am not going to do anything, I have not been asked to do anything and previously he just ignored what they offered him anyway.

**********