R v Handley
[2007] NSWDC 38
•20 February 2007
CITATION: R v HANDLEY [2007] NSWDC 38 HEARING DATE(S): 20 February 2007
JUDGMENT DATE:
20 February 2007EX TEMPORE JUDGMENT DATE: 20 February 2007 JURISDICTION: Criminal JUDGMENT OF: Berman SC DCJ DECISION: See paragraph [10] CATCHWORDS: Criminal law - Sentence - Addiction to drugs - Demand money with menaces - Break enter and steal - Carried in a conveyance PARTIES: Crown
Scott Wallace Peter HandleyFILE NUMBER(S): 06/11/1019 SOLICITORS: NSW DPP
Legal Aid Commission
SENTENCE
1 HIS HONOUR: Scott Peter Handley appears for sentence today after having pleaded guilty at an early stage to four offences. They were committed very soon after Mr Handley was released on parole for very similar offences. That is a matter of serious concern and is obviously a matter of serious aggravation. The offender was sentenced to imprisonment for an offence of break enter and steal. He was dealt with in, what appears to have been, a fairly lenient manner. All that leniency did was enable him to be released earlier than he might otherwise have been and that in turn enabled him simply to re-commence his criminal offending earlier than he would otherwise. The time for leniency in Mr Handley’s case has passed. The time has come for sentences to be visited upon him which reflect the serious nature of his ongoing criminality, to protect householders from his repeated activity, and hopefully to deter him from continuing on the life that he has chosen to follow thus far.
2 The offender was released from custody on parole for an offence of break enter and steal, that was on 15 February 2006. For a short time he managed to remain drug free. I should interpolate here it is his addiction to drugs which has led to him committing such a large number of offences in the past. But it was only a relatively short time after his release that he relapsed and recommenced his drug use, gave up the job that he had managed to obtain and began supporting his drug habit through the commission of criminal offences. The first of those offences actually appears on a Form 1, that was committed on 21 May 2006. The Form 1 is attached to the offence of demand money with menaces which I will deal with shortly. The offence of 21 May 2006 involved the offender making a false statement to a pawnbroker when he produced some material to that pawnbroker in order to receive money for the item. The next offence is a matter that he is to be specifically sentenced for, that was an offence of break enter and steal on 26 May. He entered premises at Beacon Hill by removing two louvred sheets of glass. Once in there he took a Sony DVD recorder, a camera and a television. He left in a utility which I will mention again later because it is also the subject of an offence on a Form 1. He was identified as being the offender by his fingerprints being found there.
3 The next offence for which the offender is to be sentenced occurred on 30 May 2006. Remarkably the victim of this offence, demanding money with menaces, is the offender’s mother. Perhaps even more remarkably she remains supportive of him and is in court today. She was at the Harbord Diggers Club, the offender approached her and demanded money from her. When she refused, (no doubt being aware that he intended to use it to get drugs) he blocked her path and would not let her pass. This upset her quite understandably and she became shaken and scared. The whole incident was captured on security footage in the club. The incident ended when the offender’s mother’s friend suggested that they would obtain assistance from a security guard there. The offender responded by saying to his mother “fuck you” and left the club. Then a few days later on 6 June 2006 the offender committed another offence of break enter and steal. This time he entered through a closed kitchen window. It seemed that he was watching the premises and waiting for the owner to leave and when she returned she actually saw the offender rushing out of the house. He did not actually manage to take from the house the plasma television which he had picked up, so fortunately for that household the plasma television was not taken.
4 The final matter I should mention concerns the motor vehicle that the offender was using to carry out his offences. It was a stolen vehicle and the offender is to be dealt with for being carried in a conveyance. Also in that utility when it was stopped by police was found some property that led to an offence of goods in custody which is the second matter on the form one.
5 The offender was arrested on 8 June 2006, as I have noted he was on parole at the time and, his parole was subsequently revoked. He has been in custody continually since 8 June 2006, so I will commence the sentences I will shortly announce from that date.
6 The offender has a lengthy drug history. It commenced soon after his father died when the offender was fifteen or sixteen years of age. As is the way of these things it began with alcohol and softer drugs before progressing to the offender’s drug of choice which is now heroin. He says that he has been able to control his addiction to the extent that he does not spend more than fifty dollars a day on heroin when he is using, but despite many efforts in the past, he has been unable to effectively rehabilitate himself from drug use. And, as his criminal history reveals, he has been continually committing offences for the purposes of obtaining money for drugs. Thus it is, in this case the offender needs to be both personally deterred from committing further offences but also to be given some assistance in rehabilitation. For that reason I will find in favour of the offender as regards special circumstances, as Mr Fraser asked me to do.
7 The offender qualified as an electrician and indeed works as an electrician whilst in custody. He is capable of being a productive member of society. As I said, after he was released from parole early in 2006, he got work but gave it up once the drugs became a problem for him once again. I am satisfied that if the offender can overcome his drug addiction he will have a lot to contribute to society. The offender, I suspect, realises this. He seems to accept that he is wasting his life whilst in prison and being in prison is solely due to him using drugs whenever he is released from custody.
8 The offender wrote me a letter which I have read today. In that he notes that he is hurting the only people that he left, that is his mother and his two children. He is effectively denying his children a father, a circumstance which he feels poignantly, having lost his own father when he was quite young. I should note that the offender will do his time in custody harder because of what occurred to him in 1994 whilst he was in custody at that stage. I have taken that letter into account and will impose a sentence which is lower than it would otherwise have been because of those circumstances. I am also going to impose a lower sentence because of the offender’s early plea of guilty. I will discount the sentence I would otherwise impose by twenty five per cent to reflect that fact.
9 The offender is remorseful in a sense that he recognises that he has done the wrong thing but he clearly recognises that at the time he commits the other offences and it does not prevent him from doing so. The need for him to obtain drugs overwhelms him. Again this is a matter where personal deterrence is important. If the offender is unable to control his criminal activities through recognition of how wrong they are, he must learn to control his criminal activities through recognising that if he offends, as he has, he will end up spending more time in gaol. Things are not all bleak, as I mentioned the offender’s mother has stood by him, she is supportive of him. The offender has, at times, been able to have short periods where he is not using drugs and he is reaching an age where he must realise he should do something about it unless he is to spend substantial parts of the remainder of his life in gaol. Mr Fraser, who appeared for the offender, recognised that an element of accumulation of the sentences was required in order to reflect the separate acts of criminality. Although they did occur over a short period where the offender was committing offences whilst addicted to drugs, every time he committed an offence there were victims of that offence. Those separate acts of criminality should be dealt with by separate sentences. As I said I will make a finding of special circumstances in the offender’s favour. There is rehabilitation required if the offender is to give up his life of crime. This is not yet the time to give up hope that the offender will be able to do something about his addiction to drugs.
10 The sentences I impose are as follows. For the offence of break enter and steal committed on 26 May 2006 I set a non-parole period of two years, to date from 8 June 2006, the total sentence in that matter being of four years. For the offence of demanding money with menaces, taking into account the matters on the Form 1 the offender is sentenced to imprisonment for a fixed term of two years, to commence on 8 June 2006. That is a fixed term because of the other sentences I am imposing. For the offence of break enter and steal committed on 6 June 2006 I set a non-parole period of two years, to commence on 8 June 2007 and I set a head sentence of four years. For the offence of being carried in a conveyance I set a fixed term of two years he is also to commence on 8 June 2006. It is also a fixed term because of other sentences. The effect of my sentences is this, the offender has an effective non-parole period of three years and a period of eligibility for parole of two years, making a total sentence of five years.
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