R v Le

CITATION:	R v LE [2010] NSWDC 101
HEARING DATE(S):	22 February 2010 24 March 2010
JUDGMENT DATE:	7 May 2010
JURISDICTION:	District Court Criminal
JUDGMENT OF:	Berman SC DCJ
DECISION:	The offender is sentenced to imprisonment. I set a head sentence of eighteen years with a non-parole period of twelve years to date from 23 August 2007. The offender’s non-parole period will expire on 22 August 2019.
CATCHWORDS:	CRIMINAL LAW - Sentence - Attempt possess methamphetamine - Failed claim of duress - Controlled delivery
PARTIES:	The Crown Tan Phuong Le
FILE NUMBER(S):	DC 2008/18555
COUNSEL:	Mr M Johnston - Crown Mr F Santisi - Defendant
SOLICITORS:	The Director for Public Prosecutions Tsambas & Co Solicitors

JUDGMENT

1 HIS HONOUR: On 24 March 2010 after a four and a half week trial a jury found the offender guilty of attempting to possess a quantity of methamphetamine which had been imported into Australia. The quantity was significant, it was fifteen kilograms of a powder which contained ten kilograms of pure methamphetamine. The maximum penalty for that offence is life imprisonment. It is, as the maximum penalty demonstrates, a very serious offence indeed, and the quantity involved was thirteen times that which exposed the offender to that maximum penalty of life imprisonment.

2 The offender played a very important role in the process of importing what he believed were drugs from Canada and making them available to drug users in Australia. He was responsible for taking delivery of the drugs and passing them on to the distributor, a man by the name of Chan. The offender was intimately involved in the operation, using his own initiative in making decisions. He was far from a mere foot soldier.

3 The drugs were secreted in three hard shell suitcases sent from Canada to Sydney. Once they arrived in Australia police deconstructed the suitcases, removed the powder secreted within and replaced that powder with an inert substance. That explains why the offence with which the offender was charged was an attempt. The suitcases were put back together and ultimately a controlled delivery was carried out. Undercover police posing as delivery men took the suitcases to the offender where he was living. He then took custody of the suitcases and passed them over to others involved in the operation, after they first checked by means of an angle grinder that the bags contained what they thought was the quantity of drugs. Although the time during which the offender possessed the suitcases, believing them to have drugs secreted inside, was very short, his involvement in the matter extended over a significant period. He was responsible for organising the delivery of the suitcases to himself after they had arrived in Australia. This process was not straightforward, because of two particular complications. The first was that the offender’s telephone number was incorrectly recorded on the shipping documents, particularly the bill of lading. The second was that another man, whom the offender had intended to actually take possession of the suitcases…