R v Hare

[2020] NSWDC 127

District Court

New South Wales

Medium Neutral Citation:	R v Hare [2020] NSWDC 127
Hearing dates:	6 March 2020
Date of orders:	06 March 2020
Decision date:	06 March 2020
Jurisdiction:	Criminal
Before:	Grant DCJ
Decision:	Released on recognisance order.
Catchwords:	Use a carriage service to groom a person under 16 for sexual activity
Legislation Cited:	Crimes Act 1914 Crimes (Sentencing Procedure) Act 1999 Judiciary Act 1903 (Commonwealth)
Cases Cited:	Director of Public Prosecutions (Cth) v Beattie [2017] NSWCCA 301 Director of Public Prosecutions (Cth) v Walls [2014] VSCA 323 DPP (Commonwealth) v De La Rosa [2010] NSWCCA 94 Markarian v The Queen 215 ALR 213 Parente v R [2017] NSWCCA 285 Pearce v The Queen 194 CLR 610 R v Asplund [2010] NSWCCA 316 R v Dood (1991) 57 A Crim R 349 R v Gajjar (2008) 192 A Crim R 76 R v Hemsley [2004] NSWCCA 228 R v Holder; R v Johnson (1983) 3 NSWLR 245 at 260 R v Moon [2000] NSWCCA 534 The Director of Public Prosecutions (Cth) v Garside [2016] VSCA 74 Yardley v Betts (1979) 1 A Crim R 329
Category:	Sentence
Parties:	Gary Zachary Hare (Offender) Regina (Crown)
Representation:	Counsel: Mr Trevallion (Offender) Solicitors: Mr Vail (Crown)
File Number(s):	2018/00296031

Judgment

1. HIS HONOUR: This is an extempore judgment.

2. Zachary Hare has a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder without intellectual impairment. What is autism? Autism describes a group of related neurodevelopmental disorders. The disorders are associated with abnormal brain development and the symptoms must therefore be present from early childhood. Impairment in social communication can present as a delay in development of spoken language, an inability to engage in reciprocal conversation, unusual or repetitive use of language, or abnormalities in pitch, stress, rate, rhythm, and intonation of speech.

3. Impairment in social interaction can involve difficulties of eye contact, lack of interest in other people, not giving or seeking comfort, or difficulty making friends, restricted or stereotype patterns of behaviour, interest and activities. This might present as an unusual and/or encompassing preoccupation, compulsive adherence to ritual, or unconventional use of play objects such as preoccupation with part objects. These social impairments in autism have been described as withdrawal from people, lack of attention to others, lack of communication gestures, treating parts of people as detached objects, lack of eye contact, treating people as inanimate objects, attention to non-social aspects of people, lack of awareness of the feelings of others. In social interactions there is a noticeable lack of turn taking in dialogue, an inability to participate in two-way reciprocal social interaction, deficits in the understanding of social rules governing what is acceptable in conversations. For example, a tendency to ask embarrassing questions such as, “How old are you?” to a total stranger.

4. Individuals with ASD may start to talk to people without first using boundary markers, such as “Hello”, or attempts to engage the listener’s attention by using eye contact, and have difficulty in taking another person’s perspective. Research indicates that many adolescents with…