R v LD

[2024] NSWDC 645

District Court

New South Wales

Medium Neutral Citation:

R v LD [2024] NSWDC 645

Hearing dates:

13/11/24, 21/11/24

Date of orders:

21/11/24

Decision date:

21 November 2024

Jurisdiction:

Criminal

Before:

Bourke SC DCJ

Decision:

Convicted and sentenced to an aggregate term of imprisonment of 4 years 9 months with a NPP of 3 years (24/4/23-23/4/26). I find special circumstances.

Indicatives (taking into account a 25 percent discount):

Seq 1 – 2 years 3 months (Form 1 taken into account)

Seq 2 – 2 years 4 months (Form 1 taken into account)

Seq 4 – 2 years 3 months

Seq 6 – 2 years

Seq 8 – 1 year 8 months

Catchwords:

Crime – Sentence – Aggravated indecent assault – Sexual intercourse 10-16 – Indecent assault

Legislation Cited:

Crimes Act 1900

Crimes (Sentencing Procedure) Act 1999

Cases Cited:

Carr v R (2020) NSWCCA 214

R v Carey (2024) NSWCCA 90

R v G [2008] UKHL 37

R v Gavel [2014] NSWCCA 56

SW v R [2013] NSWCCA 255

Category:

Sentence

Parties:

NSW DPP – Crown
LD - Offender

Representation:

Mr A Lynch for Crown
Ms S Rostron for Offender

File Number(s):

23/131379

Publication restriction:

Non-publication order in relation to the identity of the victim and the offender.

remarks on sentence

1. LD is for sentence in relation to five offences to which he has entered pleas of guilty and in relation to two of those offences he asks that I take into account other offences on Form 1 documents. The substantive offences are as follows:

2. Sequence 1 being an offence of aggravated indecent assault under s 61M(1) of the Crimes Act 1900 which carries a maximum penalty of seven years' imprisonment and there is a Form 1 matter attached to that.

3. Sequence 2 being an offence of sexual intercourse with a person above the age of ten, but under 16 years, that being an offence under s 66C(1). That offence carries a maximum penalty of eight years' imprisonment and I note that there is a Form 1 matter attached to that offence also.

4. The third substantive offence is the sequence 4 offence of sexual intercourse with a person aged ten years or above and under 16 years which is again an offence under s 66C(1). It carries a maximum penalty of eight years' imprisonment.

5. Sequence 6 is a similar type of offence and carries the same maximum penalty.

6. And, finally, sequence 8 which is an offence of indecent assault, that being an offence under s 61L of the Crimes Act 1900 and carries a maximum penalty of five years' imprisonment.

7. The matters on the Form 1 documents are, firstly, the sequence 10 offence of committing an act of indecency towards a person under the age of 16 years, that being attached to the sequence 1 offence and, secondly, the sequence 3 offence which an aggravated indecent assault offence and is attached to the sequence 2 offence.

8. None of the offences carry standard non-parole periods given that these offences were all committed before the introduction of the standard non-parole period regime. The maximum penalties, however, are important guideposts in the sentencing exercise to which I have had regard. The offender has pleaded guilty at the earliest opportunity and therefore will be given a 25% discount by reason of the utilitarian value of those pleas of guilty.

FACTS

9. The offences were committed upon the victim between about September 1994 and January 2002 when she was aged between about 9 to 16 years. During that period of time the offender was aged between about 26 and 33 years. The victim is now aged 39 and the offender is now aged 56. The facts are essentially an agreed set of facts and in summary are as follows.

10. The victim’s natural parents separated in 1992 when she was aged about seven. Shortly after this separation the victim’s mother met the offender and they subsequently entered into an intimate type relationship. At all relevant times the victim, her brother and her mother were living in the Hunter Valley area and the offender became a regular visitor there. Also the victim’s family would go on bushwalks and camping trips with the offender.

11. The sequence 10 offence, which is on a Form 1 document, is an offence of commit act of indecency towards a person under the age of 16 years and occurred in the following circumstances. On a night between 5 September 1994 and 1 June 1996 the victim was in her bedroom in the house where they lived. It was around bedtime and she was, at that time, aged about 9 to 11 years while the offender was aged between about 26 and 27. Earlier that evening the facts note that the victim and her brother had been play wrestling with the offender.

12. Her bedroom had a window which faced the gate and the next door neighbour’s fence line. While she was in her room she looked out her window and saw the offender standing at the window. When he noticed that she was looking, he pulled down his pants and held his penis and testicles in his hand and smiled at the victim. The victim shut her curtains quickly and jumped into bed thinking, “Did I just see that?” The facts note that while at the time she thought it a little bit humorous, she was nonetheless afraid to tell anyone as she did not think she would be believed and thought she would get in trouble.

13. That then brings me to the sequence 1 offence which is an offence of aggravated indecent assault. The facts note the following. The victim recalls that the offender wore a strong and distinctive cologne and he also had asthma and a “funny” way of breathing where he made a lot of noticeable sounds. On a night between 5 September 1994 and 1 June 1996 the victim was in her bedroom. She was, at that time, aged between 9 and 11 years while the offender was aged between 26 and 27 years.

14. The victim woke up to the smell of the offender and could hear him breathing. At the time he was kneeling at the side of her bed with an arm resting on the side of the bed. The victim was wearing silk boxer shorts and a t-shirt. She felt the offender’s hand tug at the side of her boxer shorts while she pretended to be asleep. The offender then moved his hand up inside her boxers and kept doing this until his hand was on the outside of her genitalia.

15. The offender touched the outside of her genitalia for an indeterminate period of time while the victim pretended still to be asleep. However, feeling uncomfortable, understandably, the victim rolled over eventually and pretended to make noises like she was waking up. It was at this point that the offender stopped touching her, stood up and walked out of the room. The next day the victim pretended everything was normal and did not say anything because she did not want her mother to be upset.

16. The offender thereafter continued to take the family on trips, buy presents and spend time with the victim and her brother. The facts note that the offender was younger than the mother of the victim and when he was not committing these sorts of offences he was “a lot of fun”. He would also often pick up the children from school.

17. The facts of the sequence 2 offence, which is an offence of sexual intercourse with a person aged above ten, but under 16 years, are as follows. On an occasion between 26 January 1995 and 1 June 1996 the offender came into the victim’s bedroom. Everyone else in the family were asleep. The victim was awake, but upon hearing the offender enter the room she rolled over to face the window because she thought that rolling over might stop the offender from touching her.

18. She could smell the offender and could hear him breathing particularly loudly on this occasion. He came over to the bed and started sliding his hand into her bed sheets towards her groin and then pulled her boxer shorts to one side and put his hands inside her shorts. He then put a finger inside her vagina and moved it around. Feeling pain, the victim started moving around and pretended to be waking up in order to push the offender away. The offender then stopped assaulting her and left the bedroom. The victim did not say anything to anyone at that time and she went back to sleep and again the next day she did not say anything and pretended that nothing had happened. At the time she was aged between 10 and 11 years while the offender was aged between 26 and 27 years.

19. That then brings me to the sequence 3 offence which is on a Form 1 document and is attached to the offence that I have just described. This is another offence of aggravated indecent assault.

20. During the same period of time, to which I have just made reference, the victim’s family and the offender went on a camping trip to Dungog. Everyone slept on blowup mattresses in a four-person tent. On this occasion the offender touched the complainant’s genital area on the outside of the tracksuit pants that she was wearing while she was laying on a mattress next to her mother and brother. At the time she was aged between 10 and 11 years and the offender was 26 to 27 years of age.

21. That brings me to the sequence 4 offence of sexual intercourse with a person aged 10 years or above and under 16 years. The facts are that at some point around 1995 the victim and her brother swapped bedrooms. On an occasion while in the new bedroom the victim woke up to find her bedsheets moving. She could smell and hear the offender. The offender then put a hand at the bottom of her shorts, pulled her underwear to the side and then digitally penetrated her vagina while the victim pretended to be asleep. After this, the victim still told nobody about the abuse. However, she would frequently feel sick and was in trouble at school.

22. Around that time she did go to a school counsellor but did not disclose the abuse at that time. This offence was committed when she was aged between 10 and 11 years and the offender was 26 to 27 years.

23. The sequence 6 offence is one of sexual intercourse with a person aged 10 or above and under 16 years and the facts are as follows.

24. In September 1999 the victim, her brother and their mother moved to a different house. At the time the victim was about 14 and a half years of age. The offender would stay at the house about two nights per week. On one night when the victim was 14 to 15 years of age she went to bed wearing a T-shirt and underwear. At that time the offender was 31 to 32 years of age.

25. After going to sleep the victim woke up and found that the offender was digitally penetrating her vagina. She was understandably scared and felt, “dirty and angry”. At the time she pretended to be asleep and rolled over and the offender then stopped and left the bedroom.

26. The final offence for sentence is the sequence 8 offence which is an indecent assault. The facts are as follows.

27. In late 2001 the victim, her brother and their mother visited the offender at his residence where they stayed overnight. The victim slept on a blowup mattress in an upstairs bedroom. During the night, however, she awoke to the offender placing his weight on the mattress. He then placed his hand down the front of her pants and touched the top of the outside of her genitalia. This enraged the victim and she started screaming and punching the offender to the face. As he was being punched the offender said, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

28. At the time of this offence the victim was aged 16 and the offender was between 32 and 33 years of age. The mother of the victim entered the bedroom after hearing the commotion and turned on the light. At that time the offender’s nose was bleeding. The mother, however, consoled the offender and yelled at the victim saying, “What have you done?”

29. The victim said, “It’s not what I’ve fucking done, ask him what he’s fucking done,” and she started dry retching and felt like she was going to vomit. The offender and the victim’s mother went downstairs while the victim packed a bag, went downstairs and told her mother that she was leaving. To this her mother said, “I want to know what happened, LD says he’s sorry, he thought it was me.”

30. The victim, however, replied, “That’s a fucking lie he knew it was me.” The offender, however, kept repeating, “No, I thought it was your mum.” The victim started crying. She then disclosed to her mother what the offender had done to her and when. In response the offender said, “Yes, I’m sick. Please don’t tell anyone, I’ll get in lots of trouble. I promise I won’t do it again.”

31. After this, the victim, her brother and their mother drove to their own home. The next day, however, the mother said to the victim, “Don’t tell anyone, he’ll get in lots of trouble, think of everything he has done for us.” A few months after this, the victim moved out of the home.

32. The agreed facts note that when she had been younger she had not told her mother about what the offender was doing to her because she did not want to break up the family nor have her mother being lonely.

33. It was on 23 April 2023 that the victim attended the police station at Singleton where she telephoned the offender. This call was lawfully intercepted under a warrant. During the call the offender raised the sexual abuse by saying, “I’m very sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you or anything.” The victim said in response, “Are you talking about when I was a kid?” After this the victim and the offender spoke about the sexual abuse. The offender apologised for sexually assaulting the victim and he acknowledge that it did happen on multiple occasions. The victim asked, “Was it something that I did?” To which the offender responded, “You have done nothing wrong, it’s all me ... I’m really sorry that I did that, it’s terrible, I really am ... that should never have happened.” He also said, “I just, you know, hope that you feel better knowing that I have apologised. But if you did, if you want to go to the police and put in a complaint I will say I did it.”

34. The next day, 24 April 2023, police arrested the offender. He was taken to a police station where he was interviewed. During that interview he said, “I’m admitting to everything, I am. I’m not going to argue.” He admitted to indecently assaulting the complainant.

35. The offender’s memory was that he did not penetrate the vagina or genitals of the victim until she was 15. However, when answering questions about earlier acts of penetration he said, “If she said it did, well, it did so as far as I’m concerned cause she’s telling the truth.”

36. Those are the facts of the offences on which the offender is to be sentenced.

OBJECTIVE SERIOUSNESS

37. I turn then to consider the objective seriousness of the offences. Firstly, the maximum penalties mark them as offences that ordinarily must be regarded as serious, as sexual offences usually are. That is because sexual offences and especially those against children are presumed to result in very serious and long-term effects which often remain with the victim for many years if not their whole lives.

38. In this particular matter there are a number of common features to all of the offences which affect their objective seriousness. Firstly, each of the offences were committed in or at a home and indeed on the facts in the bed which the victim was occupying. These homes included either the victim’s own home or a place such as a tent or on one occasion, as I recall, the offender’s home where she was temporarily residing and should have been safe from predatory conduct such as this.

39. The second common feature to all of the offences is that they involved a breach of trust, given the offender’s age relative to the victim and also the fact that he was in a de facto relationship with her mother.

40. Thirdly, there was as significant age differential of around 16 years between the offender and the victim.

41. Fourthly, on the other hand, none of the offences involved threats or coercion or any gratuitous violence beyond that inherent in these types of offences. However, and while the offences would have been made more serious if there had been threats or additional violence, the absence of these aspects does not reduce the seriousness of the offences. As any informed person would know, it is a common, if not almost invariable fact that children subjected to sexual abuse usually do not fight, do not protest, and often do not tell anyone about the abuse, often for years.

42. It is the compliant nature of children as well as the common belief that they will, “get in trouble”, which renders them easy targets for predatory sexual conduct such as the subject of this case.

43. Turning then to the individual aspects of the various offences, commencing with the sequence 1 offence. This offence involved the offender using his hand to rub the victim’s genitals whilst she was lying in bed. She was aged between about 9 and 11 while he was aged 26 to 27 or there abouts. The victim was thus well under the 16-year threshold for this type of offence. The touching was skin on skin and only stopped because the victim, who was pretending to be asleep, rolled over. The precise duration of the offence is unknown but it was not fleeting. I regard this as an offence around the mid range of objective seriousness.

44. There is, in addition, the sequence 10 offence on the Form 1 document which involved the offender exposing his genitals to the victim when she was about the same age. While this offence does not increase the objective seriousness of the sequence 1 offence, Form 1 matters may operate in an aggravating way on sentence by reason of the aspects of personal deterrence and retribution. In my view, personal deterrence is of less significance in this case but retribution remains relevant and I consider that the Form 1 offence should result in some upwards pressure on the penalty for the sequence 1 offence.

45. Turning then to the seriousness of the sequence 2 offence. This involved the offender penetrating the victim’s vagina with his finger while she pretended to be asleep. It caused her pain and only stopped when she started moving around. She was aged about 10 or 11 at the time and therefore well under the 16 year threshold for this type of offence. The duration of the offence is unclear but it was not brief. I regard this as an offence slightly below the mid range of objective seriousness.

46. Again, there is a Form 1 offence which involved the offender rubbing the victim’s genital area on the outside of her clothing as she lay on a mattress during a camping trip. While this Form 1 offence does not increase the objective seriousness of the substantive sequence 2 offence, it ought to impose some upward pressure on the sentence for that offence for the same reasons that I have set out in discussing the sequence 10 offence on the Form 1 attached to sequence 1.

47. Turning then to sequence 4 and its objective seriousness. This offence involved the offender penetrating the victim’s vagina with his finger while she pretended to be asleep. She was aged about ten and so well under the 16 year threshold. The offence was relatively brief but more than fleeting. I regard this offence as being slightly below the mid range of objective seriousness.

48. Going to the sequence 6 offence. That offence is another example of the offender penetrating the victim’s vagina with his finger. It is apparent that the offence commenced while the victim was asleep and it only stopped when she pretended still to be asleep and rolled over. She was aged 14 to 15 at the time and so slightly under the 16 year threshold for this type of aggravated sexual intercourse offence. I regard this as an offence that is below the mid range of objective seriousness but not in the low range.

49. Finally, the sequence 8 indecent assault offence. This offence involved skin on skin touching of the outside of the victim’s genitalia while she was trying to sleep. The offence stopped when the victim started screaming and punching the offender. At the time the victim was aged 16 and the offender aged about 32 or 33. I regard this as an offence that sits slightly below the mid range.

VICTIM IMPACT STATEMENT

50. There is a Victim Impact Statement which was read by the victim this afternoon. That document speaks eloquently of the consequences which the victim has endured and continues to endure by reason of the offender’s actions. The offending has, as she has said, affected her sleep, her mental health and personal relationships, and her parenting, and has left her with difficulties in trusting men. Not surprisingly, it has also adversely affected her relationship with her own mother who, sadly, seems to at least initially have prioritised her relationship with the offender over that with her own daughter.

50. While the Crown does not rely on the Victim Impact Statement as aggravating the offences there can be no doubt that these offences have had devastating and long term effects on the victim which are similar to those that have been spoken about in numerous cases that have come before the Courts.

51. For example, in R v Gavel [2014] NSWCCA 56 it was said that,

“This Court has observed that child sex offences have profound and deleterious effects upon victims for many years if not, the whole of their lives.”

53. It has also been said that the sexual abuse of children will inevitably give rise to psychological damage: see SW v R [2013] NSWCCA 255 at para 52. There have been other observations, such as those noted in R v G [2008] UKHL 37 where reference was made to the,

“Long term and serious harm both physical and psychological which premature sexual activity can do.”

54. Of course the absolute prohibition on sexual activity with a child is intended to protect children from the physical and psychological harm that must be taken to be caused by premature sexual activity. As I have said, the Victim Impact Statement read out this afternoon confirms that these offences have had very serious consequences for the victim.

SUBJECTIVE MATTERS

55. I turn then to consider the subjective features of this offender’s own circumstances and background. His subjective case has been placed before the Court by means of the psychological report of Ms Carolyn Hare, as well as by means of a short affidavit from the offender himself. The offender is now fifty-six years of age and he has no other criminal history. He was raised on a rural property in the Singleton area. Although his father was emotionally distant, strict, and sometimes used excessive physical discipline, the offender was not exposed to domestic violence, neglect or drug and alcohol abuse. His father however was imprisoned for sex offences when the offender was sixteen and the offender had little to do with him until his death a few years ago. I note that it is not suggested that those sex offences were committed against the offender.

56. The offender still enjoys the support of his mother with whom he has telephone calls in prison at least fortnightly. The offender also retains a good relationship with his youngest brother who is supportive and is apparently assisting the offender in managing his properties while he is in custody.

57. The offender struggled somewhat at school and left in Year 10. He then commenced a pre-apprenticeship course but did not complete it due to injuries that he suffered in a hit and run incident. This left him with significant injuries and a long period involving various surgeries and recoveries. He still suffers lasting effects from these injuries including pain, mobility issues and the inability to fully straighten one of his legs. He sometimes uses a walking stick or knee brace, although these are not available to him in prison. His only long term relationship lasted about thirty years and was with the victim’s mother. Although this relationship continued until the offender’s arrest, the offender considers that the relationship is now at an end given that he has had no contact with his former partner in recent times.

58. The offender acknowledged his offences to the psychologist and agreed that he knew they were wrong at the time. The psychologist concluded that the offender suffers marked anxiety in the form of agoraphobia which is triggered by crowds and being in busy areas. She does not suggest that this or any other mental health diagnosis provided any material contribution to the commission of these offences.

REMORSE

59. Turning then to questions of remorse, in my view there is significant and genuine remorse in this case. The offender expressed his remorse firstly, to the victim when, in a recorded phone call he apologised and said that if she wanted to go to police, he would admit his offending, which of course he did. He also made admissions to police and he maintained that position when speaking with the psychologist. He has also said in an affidavit placed before the Court that he understands that his actions have impacted the victim her whole life and ruined her relationship with her mother and caused her to lose trust in people. He has also said that he wants to say that he is really sorry to the victim and sorry for the pain and suffering that he has caused and that he feels really bad about what he did to her. He also acknowledged to the psychologist that the offences involved a breach of trust and power.

60. In my view, the remorse demonstrated in this case must be given significant weight. It is the experience of the Courts that it is a relatively rare thing for an offender to make the sort of admissions that have been made in this case and also to express remorse as this particular offender has done.

RISK AND REHABILITATION

61. Turning then to questions of future risk and the prospects of rehabilitation. The psychologist noted that testing seemed to place the offender in the low to moderate risk category in terms of sex offending. However, based on other matters and in particular, the offender’s apparent longstanding period of non-offending since these offences, she suggests that his risk of re-offending is minimal. Given the offender’s general pro-social background, and lack of any other offending, either before or since these offences, I am in general agreement with this assessment. There is however the remaining concern noted by the psychologist that the offences may point to at least an historical presence of sexual deviance which the offender himself may be unwilling to acknowledge. Having assessed all of these matters, in my view the offender is a moderate to low risk of re-offending and I consider that his rehabilitation prospects are reasonably good.

HARDSHIP IN CUSTODY

62. Although the psychologist concluded that the offender was coping adequately with custody in a mental sense, his physical disabilities are such that they have and will continue to make his time in custody more difficult by reason of the pain and restricted movement that he suffers and the serious limitations upon access to painkillers in custody. There is also the offender’s anxiety in the form of agoraphobia that is triggered in crowds or groups of people and the fact that, as noted in the psychological report, the offender’s mother does not visit him in gaol given the distances she would have to travel. These are also aspects which I consider are likely to make his experience of custody more difficult to some degree.

DETERMINATION

63. I intend to impose an aggregate sentence in this case, given that there are a number of offences to be dealt with. In those circumstances, I am required to set out the indicative sentences that would otherwise have been imposed for each of the separate offences and then take into account questions of concurrency and/or accumulation.

64. In determining the indicative sentences and the ultimate aggregate sentence, I have had regard to some prior decisions of the Court of Criminal Appeal including those to which my attention was drawn by the Crown. These have included R v Carey (2024) NSWCCA 90 and Carr v R (2020) NSWCCA 214. I do not suggest that any of the cases which I have considered, including these two, are strictly comparable to the current case. In Carey where the Court of Criminal Appeal held that the sentence was manifestly inadequate, there had been no plea of guilty and so the victim had to endure giving evidence at trial. There was also no insight or remorse and there was a greater level of manipulation of the victim. On the other hand, the offences in that case were committed over a much shorter period of time than in the case now before me. There are of course other differences including the fact that the offences in Carey, or some of them, carried higher maximum penalties. Nonetheless the decision in Carey is of some broadly comparative assistance. I note that in that case the sentence was increased by the Court of Criminal Appeal to an aggregate sentence of five years nine months with a non-parole period of three years six months.

65. In the decision in Carr there had been late pleas of guilty but the offences were more serious than in the case now before this Court, plus the charges were “representative” of a larger range of offending, although they were committed over a shorter period of time than in the case now before me. In that case, the Court of Criminal Appeal dismissed a severity appeal against the aggregate sentence of eight and a half years with a non-parole period of five and a half years. There were of course other differences between that case and this but again, the decision provides some guidance in a broad sense.

66. I have had regard to other cases as well which have been of some general assistance as a sounding board to my own assessments.

67. In determining the ultimate sentence and the indicative sentences I have had regard to the purposes of sentencing set out in s 3A of the Crimes (Sentencing Procedure) Act 1999 which I do not intend to recite. It seems to me that they are all of relevance, although I accept that the importance of personal deterrence is reduced to some degree by reason of the comments that I have already set out. For clarity however in particular, those being the remorse that has been demonstrated and the lack of any offending since the last of these offences was committed.

68. I am satisfied that each of the offences can only appropriately be dealt with by a term of imprisonment. As I have said, I intend to impose an aggregate sentence given that there are five offences for which sentences need to be imposed.

69. An aggregate sentence of course does not simply involve adding up all the indicative sentences. Rather, the Court must have regard to what are known as totality principles and consider the question of to what extent there should be any notional accumulation among the sentences or whether the offences should be partly or totally concurrent. I will come back to that issue in just a moment.

70. The indicative sentences are as follows and all of these are after the twenty-five per cent discount for the plea of guilty.

71. LD these are not the ultimate sentence, these are what are called indicative sentences. I will make clear the ultimate sentence in just a moment.

72. The indicative terms are as follows; for sequence 1 including the matter on the Form 1, a head sentence of two years three months. For sequence 2, including the matter on the Form 1, a head sentence of two years four months. For sequence 4, a head sentence of two years three months. For sequence 6, a head sentence of two years and for sequence 8, a head sentence of one year eight months.

TOTALITY

73. As the offender is to be sentenced for five offences with Forms 1 attached to two of them, it is important that I have close regard to totality principles. As I have said, the ultimate sentence is not to be determined by simply adding up the indicative terms. Rather, I must make an assessment of the overall criminality and determine the appropriate penalty for that criminality while seeking to avoid imposing a crushing sentence. In this case, that involves consideration of the extent to which there should be any accumulation among the sentences. Although there is one victim only, there were multiple offences committed against her on separate occasions over a period of around seven years. There should therefore be a degree of notional accumulation to acknowledge these aspects.

74. I have made a finding of special circumstances for adjusting the standard ratio between head sentence and non-parole period. I do that based upon the following matters. Firstly, this the offender’s first experience of custody. Secondly, his reasonably good prospects of rehabilitation based especially on his genuine remorse when confronted with his offending in 2023. Also, the hardship in custody by reason of his physical and other problems and finally, the need for a reasonable period on supervised parole so as to assist in his reintegration into society.

75. I impose a head sentence of four years nine months. I impose a non-parole period of three years. Each of those will date from 24 April 2023. The head sentence therefore will expire on 23 January 2028, the non-parole period will expire on 23 April 2026.

76. Mr Crown, Ms Rostron, anything you want to raise about any of that?

77. LYNCH: I'm just doing the maths your Honour.

78. ROSTRON: Nothing for me your Honour.

79. HIS HONOUR: All right, Ms Rostron, you’ll speak to your client and explain all of that.

80. LYNCH: That calculation is correct your Honour.

81. HIS HONOUR: All right thank you.

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Decision last updated: 19 February 2025