R v Kaddour

[2025] NSWSC 872

Supreme Court

New South Wales

Medium Neutral Citation:	R v Kaddour [2025] NSWSC 872
Hearing dates:	1 August 2025
Date of orders:	1 August 2025
Decision date:	05 August 2025
Jurisdiction:	Common Law
Before:	Fagan J
Decision:	Detention application granted
Catchwords:	CRIME – Bail – Variation application – Detention application – Large commercial drug supply, manufacture of prohibited drug, possession of proceeds of crime and other serious drug offences –– Bail Act 2013 (NSW) s 30A – Private electronic monitoring – Power of Supreme Court of NSW to hear detention application – Whether revocation within scope of power to vary a bail decision – Whether bail risks could be mitigated by conditions other than electronic monitoring – Bail revoked.
Legislation Cited:	Bail Act 2013 (NSW)
Category:	Principal judgment
Parties:	Rex (Applicant) Kali Kaddour (Respondent)
Representation:	Counsel: K Kanagasabapathy (Solicitor Crown) P Lange (Respondent) Solicitors: Director of Public Prosecutions (Crown) One Group Legal (Respondent)
File Number(s):	2025/242920

JUDGMENT

1. On Friday, 1 August 2025 there were listed before the Court two applications under the Bail Act 2013 (NSW) concerning a grant of bail that was made in favour of Kalid Kaddour by Weinstein J on 25 February 2025.

2. One of the conditions imposed by his Honour was that Mr Kaddour should be under home detention, not to leave his approved residence except in the company of one of three nominated persons, or to report to police, or to attend upon his legal representatives, or attend court, or to obtain medical treatment. One of the applications before this Court on 1 August 2025 was brought by Mr Kaddour seeking the addition of another person in whose company he might leave his approved residence.

3. A second condition of Weinstein J’s grant of bail on 25 February 2025 was that, at his own expense, Mr Kaddour should be fitted with an electronic monitoring device that he would keep operational and that would be monitored by a surveillance company. That condition is imminently to be removed by force of a new s 30A of the Bail Act that was inserted with effect from 11 June 2025 and by force of associated transitional provisions. It is submitted by the Crown that the electronic monitoring condition was a “core” basis for Weinstein J’s grant of bail on 25 February 2025 and that, with its statutory removal, Mr Kaddour’s liberty on bail can no longer be justified.

4. At the conclusion of the hearing on 1 August 2025 I revoked bail and ordered that Mr Kaddour be remanded in custody, next to appear before Penrith Local Court on 8 August 2025. These are the Court’s reasons for that decision. In consequence of those orders it became unnecessary to consider Mr Kaddour’s application for variation of his house arrest condition.

The charges and Mr Kaddour’s several bail applications

5. The most serious offence with which is charged is that on 6 March 2024 he supplied not less than the large commercial quantity of MDMA, specifically 30 kgs. Police allege that his co-accused, Matthew Rymer, handed over that quantity of drugs to an undercover operative in a transaction that was completed at Cranbrook. It is alleged that the supply was made in furtherance of a joint criminal enterprise between Mr Kaddour and Rymer, who it is said were also jointly operating a clandestine laboratory within a large shed at Cranebrook, in which the drug was manufactured. Sequence 3 is that between 25 February 2024 and 6 March 2024 Mr Kaddour manufactured 5.895 kgs of the same drug, being not less than the commercial quantity. Upon execution of a search warrant in the laboratory on 6 March 2024, that quantity of the drug, apparently recently manufactured, was found in a plastic bucket standing upon a set of scales. Sequence 1 is a charge of possession on 6 March 2024 of $11,300 in proceeds of crime. There are further charges of possession on 6 March 2024 of precursors for MDMA manufacture; importation between 1 June 2022 and 30 September 2023 of a commercial quantity of border controlled precursors and participation in a criminal group.

6. Mr Kaddour was arrested on the above charges on 6 March 2024. Bail was refused in the Local Court. He applied to this Court for bail. That was refused by Dhanji J on 9 May 2024. Mr Kaddour made a further application on the basis of a change of circumstances under s 74 of the Bail Act. That was refused by Garling J on 12 July 2024. The application heard by Weinstein J on 25 February 2025 was Mr Kaddour’s third to this Court. Weinstein J was persuaded that a material change of circumstances had taken place and therefore heard the application on its merits. The change that his Honour considered material arose in the following circumstances.

Strength of the Crown case; Weinstein J’s decision of 25 February 2025

7. Part of the case against Mr Kaddour consists of encrypted messages on the Threema chat app that are alleged to have been exchanged early on the morning of 6 March 2024 between Rymer and the user of a particular Samsung A50 mobile phone. When Mr Kaddour was arrested mid-morning on 6 March 2024 he was in possession of that phone, as well as two others. Upon apprehension it is alleged that he broke the device in half and said, “You got nothing now”. Police allege that technical officers have been able to extract the message data from the broken phone and to display it on another device, from which they have produced photographic images of the communications.

8. The messages thus captured are highly incriminating of whoever was using the Samsung A50 at the time the messages were sent and received. The Crown alleges that those communications are open to be interpreted by a jury as instructions from the user of the Samsung A50 about the ongoing manufacture of drugs and about calculations of manufactured quantities on hand. An image that was transmitted amongst the messages is of a bucket and scales. Those items were found, after Mr Kaddour had been arrested, in the clandestine drug laboratory at Cranbrook. On 1 March 2024 Mr Kaddour had been observed, under police surveillance, in close proximity to the shed within which the laboratory was housed.

9. On 25 February 2025, the change in circumstances that Weinstein J regarded as sufficient for the purposes of s 74(3)(b) of the Bail Act was that Mr Kaddour had obtained a statement from a witness who said that his recently deceased brother, Bassam Turkmani, was the owner of the Samsung A50 and of two other phones that were in Mr Kaddour’s possession at arrest. From the perspective of the present date, that witness statement no longer appears significant, as police have since gathered evidence that Bassam Turkmani was an inpatient at the Royal North Sydney Hospital from 25 January 2024 until 25 March 2024. He could not have been the user of the phone on 6 March 2024. On that date, Mr Kaddour was under continuous surveillance up to the point of his arrest, at which time he had the device on his person. It is the identity of the user of the phone on 6 March 2024 that is significant to the Crown case, not the identity of the owner.

10. The Crown’s circumstantial case against Mr Kaddour includes that upon search of the vehicle he was using in February and March 2024 some orange disposable gloves were located. These bore traces of DNA that has been matched to Mr Kaddour. The gloves are identical in type to others that were found on grass near a shed at the property where the clandestine laboratory was set up. More gloves of the same type were found in a waste bin nearby. Australian currency of which Mr Kaddour was in possession at the time of his arrest included 172 notes with serial numbers that enable them to be identified as part of a payment that had been received by Rymer from an under cover operative as part of a large supply of MDMA on an earlier date.

11. In the application to Weinstein J on 25 February 2025 Mr Kaddour had to show cause why his detention was not justified, in accordance with ss 16A and 16B(1)(a) of the Act. His Honour found cause on the basis of two “most pertinent factors”. First, the Crown’s circumstantial case was assessed as “viable” but not “overwhelming, or very strong”. His Honour was of the view that “inroads” had been made by Mr Kaddour upon the strength of the case. Secondly, his Honour found that a trial could not take place before mid-2026, by which time Mr Kaddour would have spent over two years in custody, if bail should be refused.

12. The “inroads” that his Honour perceived were not identified in his reasons for decision. On the hearing of the present applications the Court was informed that the officer in charge of the investigation was cross-examined before Weinstein J about what circumstantial evidence the Crown would be able to adduce to establish that the Samsung A50 was in Mr Kaddour’s possession – and that therefore he must have been the user of it – at the time the incriminating messages were exchanged with Rymer early on 6 March 2024. Mr Kaddour’s counsel contended before me that the cross-examination showed “there was not a perfect coincidence of movements of that phone and of [Mr Kaddour]”. It was submitted that the phone “was, on occasions, moving independently of [Mr Kaddour]” and that “such deviations necessarily undermine the suggestion that [Mr Kaddour] possessed the phone”.

13. Having found cause shown, Weinstein J proceeded to assess bail concerns. The risks that his Honour identified were of non-appearance, of commission of a further serious offence and that Mr Kaddour might endanger the safety of individuals or the community. His Honour concluded “after some considerable initial hesitation” that the identified risks could be reduced to an acceptable level by imposing conditions. Significant among the conditions that his Honour found it necessary to include was that which required electronic monitoring.

Mr Kaddour’s prior drug offending

14. Mr Kaddour’s criminal record was before his Honour, as it is before me. In 1998 Mr Kaddour committed discrete offences of knowingly take part in the manufacture of a prohibited drug of not less than the commercial quantity and conspiracy to manufacture a prohibited drug. The particulars of those offences apparently established them as two separate criminal episodes, both having occurred in the one year. The first offence was not dealt with by the District Court until 17 May 2002, at which time Mr Kaddour was sentenced to 5 years and 6 months imprisonment with a non-parole period of 3 years and 5 months. Mr Kaddour was not sentenced for the second matter, the conspiracy, until 8 July 2005, when a term of 6 years imprisonment with a non-parole period of 3 years and 6 months was fixed, after intervention by the Court of Criminal Appeal. The second sentence was made cumulative on the first by nine months. The combined effective sentence for those two drug matters was therefore 6 years and 9 months with an effective non-parole period of 4 years and 3 months.

15. When the sentences for the two 1998 drug manufacturing offences were passed, Mr Kaddour was already serving a term of 4 years with a non-parole period of 3 years for dangerous driving occasioning grievous bodily harm. That sentence had commenced on 3 March 2000. The first term of imprisonment for the drug manufacturing matters was ordered to commence from the expiry of the non-parole period for the dangerous driving matter, that is, from 2 March 2003. In total, Mr Kaddour served 7 years and 3 months in prison for all of those offences. He was released to parole on 21 June 2007.

16. Commencing from a date ten months into his parole, Mr Kaddour committed another offence of conspiring to manufacture a large commercial quantity of a prohibited drug. He was arrested on that charge on 20 November 2008 and initially remanded in custody. After 1 year and 11 months he was released to bail, which continued until Mr Kaddour was finally dealt with for that matter on 10 December 2017. The District Court imposed a sentence of 6 years and 3 months with a non-parole period of 4 years and 2 months. The commencement of the term was backdated to allow for time served on remand. Mr Kaddour was released to parole on 9 September 2018.

Events since Weinstein J’s grant of bail on 25 February 2025

17. Over the past five months Mr Kaddour has complied with all conditions attached to Weinstein J’s grant of bail. On 21 March 2025 he applied to the Local Court to add the name of an additional person in whose company he could be permitted to leave the address at which is required to reside. The learned Magistrate before whom that application came refused to consider it upon the basis that, because the condition had been set as part of a bail decision by the Supreme Court, s 69 of the Bail Act precluded the Local Court from dealing with the matter in the absence of “special facts or special circumstances” – which the Magistrate did not find. A second variation application to the same effect was made on 4 April 2025. On that occasion the same Magistrate considered that s 74 was applicable and that, in the absence of a material change of circumstances, the proposed variation could not be dealt with.

Statutory prohibition of electronic monitoring conditions

18. The substituted s 30A, to which references been made above, is in the following terms:

30A Bail conditions must not require electronic monitoring other than under s 28B

A bail condition must not require an accused person be subject to electronic monitoring other than a bail condition imposed under section 28B.

[Subst 2025 No 28, Sch 1[6]].

Section 28B concerns bail for charges of serious domestic violence offences and is not presently relevant.

19. Transitional provisions relating to the new s 30A, introduced at the same time, are as follows so far as relevant for present purposes:

Schedule 3 Savings, transitional and other provisions

Part 6 Provisions consequent on Bail Amendment (Ban on Private Electronic Monitoring) Act 2025

16 Definitions

In this part—

amendment Act means the Bail Amendment (Ban on Private Electronic Monitoring) Act 2025.

commencement date means the date of assent to the amendment Act.

17 Application of amendments

An amendment made to this Act by the amendment Act extends to offences committed, or alleged to have been committed, or charged before the commencement date.

18 Transition period for private electronic monitoring

(1) This clause applies if, immediately before the commencement date, the grant of bail for an accused person was subject to a condition (a private electronic monitoring condition) that the accused person be subject to private electronic monitoring.

(2) During the transition period—

(a) the private electronic monitoring condition continues to apply as if the amendment Act had not commenced, and

(b) the private electronic monitoring continues as if the amendment Act had not commenced.

(3) If, at the end of the transition period, the accused person’s bail has not been varied by a court to remove the private electronic monitoring condition—

(a) the accused person is taken to have failed to comply with the bail condition, and

(b) the accused person must be dealt with under section 77, other than section 77(1)(a) or (b), as if the accused person had failed to comply with the bail condition.

(4) The fact an accused person will no longer be able to rely on compliance with a private electronic monitoring condition at the end of the transition period constitutes a change in circumstances for the purposes of section 74.

(5) In this clause—

private electronic monitoring means electronic monitoring conducted by a person other than the Commissioner for Corrective Services.

transition period means the period—

(a) starting on the commencement date, and

(b) ending on the day that is 3 months after the commencement date.

20. Transitional cl 18 applies to Mr Kaddour, by force of sub-cl (1). Given the date of commencement of the amending legislation, sub-cl (5) of cl 18 creates a transition period commencing on 11 June 2025 and expiring on 10 September 2025. Sub-clause (3) of cl 18 does not specify who may apply to vary the conditions of an accused person’s bail that was in force at the date of commencement of s 30A. The transitional provisions do not stipulate that an application is even necessary, as opposed to a court being empowered to delete a private monitoring condition of its own accord. In view of the automatic adverse consequences to the accused person if such a variation should not be made, I interpret cl 18(3) widely, as having the effect that either party may apply for removal of the condition and that a court may of its own motion vary the grant by removing it. At least the court that fixed the monitoring condition in the first place may so act of its own motion.

21. Sub-clause (4) of cl 18 is of limited utility and scope. Section 74, to which the sub-clause refers, contains the following:

74 Multiple release or detention applications to same court not permitted

(1) A court that refuses bail for an offence, or that affirms a decision to refuse bail for an offence, after hearing a release application is to refuse to hear another release application made by the accused person for the same offence, unless there are grounds for a further release application.

(2) A court that grants or dispenses with bail for an offence, or that affirms a decision to grant or dispense with bail for an offence, after hearing a detention application is to refuse to hear another detention application made by the prosecution for the same offence, unless there are grounds for a further detention application.

(3) For the purposes of this section, the grounds for a further release application are—

(a) the person was not legally represented when the previous application was dealt with and the person now has legal representation, or

(b) material information relevant to the grant of bail is to be presented in the application that was not presented to the court in the previous application, or

(c) circumstances relevant to the grant of bail have changed since the previous application was made, or

(d) the person is a child and the previous application was made on a first appearance for the offence.

(4) For the purposes of this section, the grounds for a further detention application are—

(a) material information relevant to the grant of bail is to be presented in the application that was not presented to the court in the previous application, or

(b) circumstances relevant to the grant of bail have changed since the previous application was made.

22. The effect of sub-cl (4) of cl 18 is that an accused person who has been granted bail on terms that he or she should submit to electronic monitoring may make a fresh release application for bail upon different terms, invoking s 74(1) and relying upon the change in material circumstances brought about by the introduction of s 30A.

23. However, the situation that would more commonly arise is that the Crown, not the bail applicant, would wish to revisit the grant. Electronic monitoring has in the past usually been made a condition of bail where the bail authority has considered the requirement efficacious to reduce a perceived risk, either of flight or of the commission of further offences or both. As the amendment to the Act has the effect of removing that risk-reduction condition from any past grant, with effect from the expiry of the transitional period on 11 September 2025, or from an earlier date if a court should order deletion of the condition under cl 18(3), it has been plainly foreseeable from when the amendment was introduced that the Crown would in many cases wish to make a detention application, seeking revocation of a grant that was made conditional upon electronic monitoring, or at least to apply for a variation to incorporate compensating conditions.

24. However, the transitional clauses make no express provision for such a detention application by the Crown. In the present case, sub-s (2) of s 74 does not apply because the Crown has not previously made a detention application and is therefore not seeking to have the Court “hear another detention application made by the prosecution for the same offence”. Sub-section (1) of s 74 does not apply because Mr Kaddour is not asking the Court “to hear another release application”.

Mr Kaddour’s submissions on the Court’s power to hear the Crown’s present detention application

25. Mr Kaddour’s counsel submits that, not only do the transitional provisions omit any procedure for the Crown to apply for revocation of the grant of bail by Weinstein J but, further, no authorisation for the Crown to bring its present application can be found amongst the general provisions of the Bail Act concerning types of bail applications that may be made, who may make such applications and to which bail authority they may be made, in various circumstances. For the reasons that follow, I do not accept that submission.

26. The first relevant section is s 48, as follows:

Part 5 Powers to make and vary bail decisions

Division 2 Powers of courts and authorised justices—bail applications

48 Powers of courts and authorised justices to hear bail applications

(1) A court or authorised justice may make or vary a bail decision, in the manner provided for by this Division, after hearing a bail application.

Note.

There are 3 types of bail application—

(a) a release application (which can be made by the accused person), or

(b) a detention application (which can be made by the prosecutor), or

(c) a variation application (which can be made by any interested person).

(2) A bail application can be made to, and heard by, a court or authorised justice only if the court or authorised justice has power to hear the application.

(3) A court or authorised justice has power to hear a bail application in the circumstances specified in Part 6.

Note.

In general, a court has power to hear a bail application if—

(a) proceedings for the offence are pending in the court, or

(b) proceedings on an appeal against a conviction or sentence of the court are pending in another court and the accused person has not made a first appearance before the other court, or

(c) the bail decision to be varied was made by the court.

However, additional powers, and restrictions on powers, also apply under Part 6.

27. The term “bail decision” is explained in s 8, as follows:

8 Bail decisions that can be made

(1) The following decisions (each of which is a bail decision) can be made under this Act in respect of a person accused of an offence—

(a) a decision to release the person without bail for the offence,

(b) a decision to dispense with bail for the offence,

(c) a decision to grant bail for the offence (with or without the imposition of bail conditions),

(d) a decision to refuse bail for the offence.

28. The list of different types of “bail decisions” in s 8 is not exhaustive of the types of orders that may be made on an application concerning bail with respect to an accused person. Section 8 makes no mention of some types of orders for which the Act elsewhere provides. One example is that the list in s 8 does not include an order to vary a bail decision, yet the definition of “bail application” in s 4(1) states that:

bail application means—

(a) a release application, or

(b) a detention application, or

(c) a variation application.

29. Given that an application for a variation of a bail decision can be made, it is a peculiarity of the drafting of s 8 that it does not list an order of a variation as one of the types of “bail decisions” that can be made. Section 48(1) explicitly states that a “court … may … vary a bail decision”. The Note to s 48(1) acknowledges the above definition of “bail application”.

30. In expressly conferring the power to “vary a bail decision”, s 48(1) confers a power to revoke a grant of bail earlier made. That is apparent from the following definition in s 4:

4 Definitions

(3) In this Act, a power to vary a bail decision includes—

(a) a power to revoke the bail decision and substitute a new bail decision, and

(b) a power to vary bail conditions.

31. The power of a court to hear a bail application, as conferred by s 48(3), of course includes the power to hear a detention application as defined in s 50. That section is in these terms:

50 Prosecutor may make detention application

(1) The prosecutor in proceedings for an offence may apply to a court or authorised justice for the refusal or revocation of bail for an offence or for the grant of bail with the imposition of bail conditions.

(2) An application under this section is a detention application.

(3) A court or authorised justice may, after hearing the detention application—

(a) dispense with bail, or

(b) grant bail (with or without the imposition of bail conditions), or

(c) refuse bail.

(4) If a bail decision has already been made, a court or authorised justice may, after hearing the detention application—

(a) affirm the bail decision, or

(b) vary the bail decision.

(5) A court or authorised justice is not to hear a detention application unless satisfied that the accused person has been given reasonable notice of the application by the prosecutor, subject to the regulations.

(6) To avoid doubt, a prosecutor may oppose a release application made by an accused person to a court or authorised justice without making a detention application.

32. Although sub-s (1) enables a prosecutor to apply for “refusal or revocation of bail”, sub-s (2) does not expressly include a power to revoke amongst the ways in which a court may dispose of a detention application. According to its ordinary English meaning, the term “refuse” would be apposite only to a situation where bail has not already been granted, but is sought, and the court declines to make a grant. However, sub-s (4)(b) empowers the court after hearing a detention application to vary an existing bail decision, which, as seen in s 4(3) quoted at [30] above, includes “a power to revoke the bail decision and substitute a new bail decision”. The “new bail decision” may be a refusal.

33. Section 51 permits any of the accused person, the prosecutor, and other categories of persons, to make a variation application. The power of a court is provided in sub-s (4) and limited by sub-s (9). Section 51 is extracted as follows, so far as relevant:

51 Interested person may make variation application

(1) An interested person may apply to a court or authorised justice for a variation of bail conditions.

(2) An application under this section is a variation application.

(3) Each of the following persons is an interested person—

(a) the accused person granted bail,

(b) the prosecutor in proceedings for the offence,

(c) the complainant for a domestic violence offence,

(d) the person for whose protection an order is or would be made, in the case of bail granted on an application for an order under the Crimes (Domestic and Personal Violence) Act 2007,

(e) the Attorney General.

(4) A court or authorised justice may, after hearing the variation application—

(a) refuse the application, or

(b) vary the bail decision the subject of the application.

[…]

(9) A court must not revoke bail on a variation application unless revocation is requested by the prosecutor in the proceedings.

34. The effect of the above provisions of Pt 5 Div 2 of the Act is that, upon the prosecutor in proceedings for an offence applying for revocation of an existing grant of bail, that application may be characterised as either a detention application under s 50 or a variation application under s 51. However characterised, it is clear that there exists power in a court to make an order for revocation and for substitution of a decision to refuse bail.

35. Part 6 of the Act is entitled “Powers to hear bail applications”. That title suggests repetition of the subject matter of Pt 5 but what Pt 6 is really concerned with is which, of the various bail authorities, can exercise any of the statutory powers with respect to bail in various given circumstances. The sections and parts of sections that are material to the present situation are the following:

Part 6 Powers to hear bail applications

Division 2 General powers

[...]

63 Power to hear variation application for own decision

(1) A court may hear a variation application for a bail decision made by the court (however constituted).

Division 3 Additional powers

[…]

66 Powers specific to Supreme Court

[…]

(2) The Supreme Court may hear a detention application or variation application for an offence if a bail decision has been made by the District Court, the Local Court, an authorised justice or a police officer.

36. Contrary to the submission of Mr Kaddour’s counsel, this Court is empowered, under either or both of the above sections, to hear and determine the Crown’s present application for revocation of the bail granted by Weinstein J and for substitution of a decision refusing bail. First, for the purposes of s 63, the broad meaning of “a power to vary a bail decision” as provided for in s 4(3) and the broad scope of a “variation application” under s 51 have the effect that revocation is embraced within the Act’s concept of variation. The Crown’s present application is squarely within s 63(2).

37. Secondly, for the purposes of s 66(2), the prerequisite that “a bail decision has been made by … the Local Court” is fulfilled in Mr Kaddour’s case. There was such a decision, refusing bail, prior to his first application to this Court, heard by Dhanji J on 9 May 2024. The submission of Mr Kaddour’s counsel is that this prerequisite can only be fulfilled if there has been a prior bail decision of the Local Court on a detention application to the same effect as that for which s 66(2) is now sought to be engaged. In other words, Counsel submits that this Court could only act under s 66(2) if there had first been a decision, at a lower level in the hierarchy of bail authorities, adverse to the Crown’s present application for detention or variation. It is submitted the if the subsection were not read in that restrictive manner there would follow an absurd and unintended consequence, namely, that after a decision at a lower level made early in the prosecution process, this Court would find itself having to hear a much later detention or variation application arising from subsequent circumstances that had never been considered in the Local Court or by a justice or police officer.

38. I do not accept that that result would be absurd and therefore necessarily unintended. Section 66(2) is only concerned with detention or variation applications. It therefore proceeds upon the premise that a grant of bail has been made at some earlier time by an authority standing lower than this Court in the hierarchy. I do not see why it should be regarded as unintended by Parliament that a prior grant of bail by another authority should give rise to a power in the Supreme Court that would endure thereafter and be exercisable at any subsequent time, to hear and determine a detention or variation application by the Crown, irrespective of whether any further bail application had in the meantime been heard by a lower authority.

Mr Kaddour’s submissions against exercise of the Court’s power to revoke

39. The Crown’s present detention application is not in the nature of an appeal from Weinstein J’s decision. I am not bound by his Honour’s factual findings or reasoning. Nevertheless, I proceed with due regard for the assessments made by his Honour.

40. Mr Kaddour’s counsel submits that the Court should not revoke the existing bail in circumstances where the electronic monitoring condition is preserved in force by the transitional provisions for approximately a further five weeks. It is submitted that the Crown’s application should be dismissed or stood over, to afford Mr Kaddour an opportunity to apply for variation of his conditions, with a view to proposing alternative constraints that would ameliorate bail risks, sufficiently to compensate for the removal of electronic monitoring.

41. I see no justification for deferring a decision. The risks of flight and of further serious offending are high. With respect to the latter, Mr Kaddour’s criminal record shows that he has been a persistent offender with respect to manufacture of illegal drugs. The fact that the 2008 offence was committed whilst he was on parole in relation to similar matters committed 10 years earlier is of particular concern as to whether bail conditions can reduce the risk to an acceptable level. Conditions upon his liberty under a parole order did not deter him and, without the deterrent of electronic monitoring, the Court can have no confidence that conditions imposed in connection with bail would have any greater success. It is true that much time has passed since Mr Kaddour’s last proven offending in the field of drug manufacture. However, I bear in mind that imprisonment incapacitated him from committing further crimes for substantial parts of the years between 2008 and 2018.

42. Although Mr Kaddour would remain subject to monitoring until 10 September 2025 if the Crown’s present detention application should be refused, he must be aware that on that date he would be in breach and would likely be returned to custody if in the meantime he cannot secure continuance of bail on terms that do not include monitoring. The risk of flight is immediately exacerbated by this change of circumstances. If Mr Kaddour wished to propose any substitute conditions to replace electronic monitoring, the occasion for him to do so was in the hearing on 1 August 2025, in response to the Crown’s application. Having regard to the significant bail risks, I am not able to envisage any replacement conditions that could justify continued liberty pending his trial on the present charges.

43. Mr Kaddour’s counsel further submits that the Court should not determine the detention application without considering all the evidence that was placed before Weinstein J, which led his Honour to his assessment of the relative strength of the Crown case. That evidence included oral testimony of the officer in charge of the investigation, concerning limitations of the Crown’s circumstantial proof that Mr Kaddour was using the Samsung A50 phone when the significant messages to and from Rymer were communicated on the device. However, without reviewing the transcript of that evidence, I can proceed on the same general characterisation of the strength of the Crown case as Weinstein J made after hearing it, namely, that the Crown Case Statement discloses viable but not overwhelming circumstantial proof of the charges. Accepting that position and taking fully into account that the delay in Mr Kaddour being brought to trial in the District Court will likely extend up to late 2026, I consider that bail risks with respect to him will be unacceptable in the absence of an electronic monitoring and are presently unacceptable where the removal of the monitoring condition is imminent. Indeed, without electronic monitoring I do not consider that cause is shown why his continued detention is not justified.

**********

Decision last updated: 05 August 2025