R v Lane

[2020] NSWDC 643

District Court

New South Wales

Medium Neutral Citation:

R v Lane [2020] NSWDC 643

Hearing dates:

14 August 2020

Decision date:

14 August 2020

Jurisdiction:

Criminal

Before:

Haesler SC DCJ

Decision:

Aggregate sentence of 3 years 9 months with a non parole period of 2 years.

Catchwords:

CRIME – Supply prohibited drug commercial quantity; two rolled up offences - MDMA- Cocaine – supply and agreement to supply - use of undercover operative

SENTENCING — Relevant factors on sentence — early guilty plea - part of criminal group- Form 1 matters - drug user - strong family support - lessons learned in custody - release plan in place - special circumstances – COVID 19 considered

Legislation Cited:

Confiscation of Proceeds of Crime Act1989

Criminal Procedure Act 1986

Drug (Misuse and Trafficking) Act 1985

Cases Cited:

Abas, Bodiotis, Taleb and Amoun v R [2013] NSWCCA 115

Attorney General’s Application No. 1: (2002) 56 NSWLR 146

DW v R [2012] NSWCCA 66

Category:

Sentence

Parties:

Shaun Terry Lane (the offender)
Director of Public Prosecutions

Representation:

Counsel:
Mr D McCallum (for the offender)

Solicitors:
Morrisons Law (for the offender)
Ms A Bird (for Director of Public Prosecutions)

File Number(s):

2019/00255934

SENTENCE – EX TEMPORE REVISED

Introduction

1. Shaun Lane is still a young man. He was born in June 1999. All the material before me indicates that when very young he and his family suffered what his psychologist, Ms North, refers to as “childhood trauma,” because of the domestic violence and other problems generated by his father’s behaviour. That trauma has had a continuing influence on him.

2. It is not at all surprising that a dysfunctional family environment, poverty and early exposure to drug use and violence can normalise both violence and drug use in a young person. Lane took up the use and abuse of illicit drugs from a relatively early age. It would appear that by 2019 that drug use was the most important thing in his life. He no longer cared about his own health, or his family or his work. He was an apprentice carpenter and studying at TAFE. That sort of work and that sort of study is inconsistent with heavy drug use and it would appear gambling.

3. That accepted, the law is very, very clear: A drug addiction or an associated gambling addiction, cannot mitigate the penalty that must be imposed following the commission of a serious crime. Neither can they excuse in any way the supply of drugs to others. If they did it would only perpetuate the very problem that the community faces from the illicit distribution of drugs.

4. Many, including retired Police Commissioners, have said we cannot gaol our way out of the problem of illicit drug use. But courts must apply the law. Parliament has set heavy maximum penalties and standard non‑parole periods for drug supply offences. The punishment demanded by reference to those maximums is, for the moment, our community’s major response to the harm illicit drug use causes individual users, their…