R v MT
[2020] ACTSC 339
•16 December 2020
SUPREME COURT OF THE AUSTRALIAN CAPITAL TERRITORY
Case Title: | R v MT |
Citation: | [2020] ACTSC 339 |
Hearing Date: | 14 December 2020 |
DecisionDate: | 16 December 2020 |
Before: | Elkaim J |
Decision: | See [56] |
Catchwords: | CRIMINAL LAW – JURISDICTION, PRACTICE AND PROCEDURE – Judgment and Punishment – Sentence – young offender – murder – intentionally inflict grievous bodily harm – assault occasioning actual body harm – drug induced psychosis – extent of culpability of the offender |
Legislation Cited: | Crimes Act 1900 (ACT) ss 12, 19, 24 |
Cases Cited: | Forster-Jones v The Queen [2020] ACTCA 31 R v Martin [2007] VSCA 291; 20 VR 14 |
Parties: | The Queen (Crown) MT (Offender) |
Representation: | Counsel S Drumgold SC (Crown) K Archer (Offender) |
| Solicitors ACT Director of Public Prosecutions (Crown) Legal Aid ACT (Offender) | |
File Numbers: | SCC 272 of 2019; SCC 273 of 2019 |
ELKAIM J:
On 19 August 2020 the offender pleaded guilty to the following three counts in an indictment dated 7 August 2020:
(a)Murder, contrary to s 12 of the Crimes Act 1900 (ACT). The maximum penalty is life imprisonment.
(b)Intentionally inflicting grievous bodily harm, contrary to s 19 of the Crimes Act 1900 (ACT). The maximum penalty is 20 years’ imprisonment.
(c)Assault occasioning actual bodily harm, contrary to s 24 of the Crimes Act 1900 (ACT). The maximum penalty is 5 years’ imprisonment.
There are also two charges which have been transferred from the Magistrates Court:
(a)Possess prohibited substance contrary to s 171 of the Drugs of Dependence Act 1989 (ACT). The maximum penalty is 2 years imprisonment, a fine of $8000 or both.
(b)Possess cannabis contrary to s 171AA(1)(a) of the Drugs of Dependence Act 1989 (ACT). The maximum penalty is a fine of $160.
The Crown Tender Bundle (Exhibit A) contains a detailed Agreed Statement of Facts. It begins with this overview:
1.Just after 10.18pm on Friday 15 March 2019, [WI] and [QI] were dropping their friends [OD] and Richard Cater back to their home [redacted] after they had all attended a Belconnen Restaurant for dinner together.
2.Just as the car was turning into the driveway, the offender wrenched open the front passenger door, and as the car drifted forward, the offender started attacking [QI], including punching him knocking out a tooth implant and in one instance biting his hand (count 3). As he was doing this, he was repeatedly yelling that he was going to kill him, in such a way that made him fear he would be killed.
3.As the car rolled forward into the bushes, the driver [WI] attempted to help her husband by pushing the offender away, at which point he turned on her, leaning over [QI] and punching her and again on one occasion biting her hand leaving a large wound. At one stage he grabbed her head and pulled it forward so hard it fractured the facet joint of the spine and buckled the spinal cord at C6, causing a hyperflexion of the spine, straining the interspinous ligaments all along the cervical spine, effectively causing trauma to the spinal cord such that she temporarily lost sensation in her legs, and resulted in long term nerve damage (count 2).
4.At this stage, Richard Cater got out of the rear driver's side door to help [QI], who was trapped by his seatbelt. He ran to the side gate and got a garden spade and returned. Not a lot is known of what happened over the next few seconds, but by the time [QI] managed to undo his seat belt and get out, he saw Richard Cater laying in the gutter to the rear of the car and the offender stomp on his head, a blow that combined with others, caused a severe head injury such that he never regained consciousness and was declared dead 10 days later on 25 March (count 1).
I note here that the anonymisation contained in these reasons is a product of the young person having been under the age of 18 when the offences were committed (s 712A of Criminal Code 2002 (ACT)). I will refer to him in these reasons as the young person or as MT. At the request of the Crown, I also continued a suppression order made by Mossop J in relation to the victim’s names, other than the deceased.
The above overview describes the final events of this tragedy. What happened before 10:18pm is of critical importance.
The young person was just over 17 years of age. He was in Year 11 of High School. He drank alcohol from time to time, usually simply to become intoxicated. This is known as binge drinking and is a widely practised habit characterised by the stupidity of having the sole intention of becoming drunk.
MT started using cannabis when he was 15 years of age. Initially he smoked the substance about monthly but then gradually increased his consumption to daily. He started to use other illegal drugs in social gatherings. These included cocaine and ecstasy. He had never tried methamphetamines or heroine.
He had however tried Lysergic Acid Diethylamide (LSD) on about three previous occasions. He bought the drug in a tablet form from a “random guy”. He found the effect of it to be unlike other drugs and that “things would be distorted”. Each use of LSD had a different effect. This may have been a product of the strength and constitution of the particular tablet he was taking.
MT told the authors of the Pre-Sentence Report that he had never had feelings of anxiety or paranoia during any of his previous uses of LSD. MT, in the witness box, said that on previous occasions when he had used LSD “it distorted my vision and gave me a feeling of euphoria.”
MT used to purchase cannabis on the Dark Web. This source, like the pernicious persons who sell drugs, did not have any element of quality control or conscience. On previous occasions LSD had cost about $25 per tablet. On the Dark Web the price was $4 per tablet. Instead of being wary of a purchase for such a small sum, MT bought five tablets. He did not anticipate that the tablets would be any different, in their effect, than those he had purchased from another person.
After school on 15 March 2019 MT and some friends walked to McDonald’s in Gungahlin. MT sold one of the tablets he had purchased from the Dark Web to a friend who took the tablet. At about 6:20pm, still at McDonald’s, MT took a tablet himself. Other friends also took the drug, although it is not clear if their tablets emanated from MT.
MT and his friends then went to his house in Palmerston. They sat in a courtyard smoking cannabis. At about 8pm MT took another of his LSD tablets. There was an almost instant effect. He told his friends he was “freaking out”. He went for a walk with a friend. He said he was “tripping, this is crazy”. He returned home and vomited. He left his home again at around 10pm. He walked into the street where the deceased lived with his wife.
The deceased and his wife had been out to dinner with their friends QI and WI. They were returning home and drove into the driveway of the deceased’s residence. Just before the motor car stopped MT opened the front passenger door and began punching QI. This was the start of the attack described above in the overview of the events.
The reason I have set out the events of the afternoon and evening before the attack is because of their importance to the sentencing process and in particular to the influence of the LSD and cannabis on MT’s condition when the attack commenced. There seems little doubt that he was in the midst of a drug induced psychosis.
Exhibit A contains a report from a drug expert, Professor McGregor. He explains the effects of LSD singularly and in combination with cannabis. He also attributes MT’s lack of memory of the incident to the large amount of Ketamine administered to sedate MT.
As pointed out by the Crown the principles to be applied have been set out in R v Martin [2007] VSCA 291; 20 VR 14. An issue before the Victorian Court of Appeal was whether a drug induced (but also self-induced) psychotic state leading to the commission of a crime could be regarded as a mitigatory factor in the sentencing process. Starting at [19] the Court said:
19 We respectfully agree with his Honour’s conclusion that, in the circumstances of this case, the applicant’s moral culpability is not reduced by reason of his psychotic state. We would not, however, endorse the general proposition which underpins this conclusion – that psychosis (or other mental illness) which is drug induced can never be a mitigating factor because it is the result of the offender’s own (illegal) act.
20 Cases can be imagined where the offender’s psychotic state is drug-induced but is nevertheless treated as lessening the offender’s culpability. For example, the offender might have had no awareness – because of a lack of prior knowledge or experience – that the ingestion of a particular drug might trigger a psychotic reaction. In such a case, the resultant impairment of mental capacity might be regarded as involuntary, notwithstanding that the taking of the drug was a voluntary act. Again – as in the case of R v Sebalj [2006] VSCA 106 the psychosis might occur in the course of the offender’s attempts to withdraw from the use of the drug which was, nevertheless, the cause of the psychosis. In Sebalj, the drug-induced psychosis was seen as substantially reducing the offender’s level of culpability for what he did while under the influence of paranoid delusions.
21 As these examples illustrate, the critical factor in determining the significance of drug-induced psychosis for sentencing purposes is the degree of foreknowledge on the part of the offender. There is an obvious parallel in this respect with sentencing for offences committed while under the influence of alcohol, where the concept of “reckless intoxication” has been developed.
22 One of the leading authorities is R v Coleman (1990) 47 A Crim R 306 in which Hunt CJ at CL said:
The degree of deliberation shown by an offender is usually a matter to be taken into account; such intoxication [ie at the time of the offending] would therefore be relevant in determining the degree of deliberation involved in the offender’s breach of the law. In some circumstances, it may aggravate the crime because of the recklessness with which the offender became intoxicated; in other circumstances, it may mitigate the crime because the offender has by reason of that intoxication acted out of character.
Then, at [30] the Court continued:
30 Voluntary ingestion of drugs should be approached no differently from intoxication, in our view. The critical question will be what the probable consequences of the ingestion of the particular drug by the particular offender were, and whether the offender foresaw those consequences.
In R v Gagalowicz [2005] NSWCCA 452, the New South Wales Court of Criminal Appeal was considering an appeal from the sentencing of a young man who had killed his friend while suffering from a drug induced psychosis. A jury found him guilty of manslaughter. The trial judge sentenced him to eight years imprisonment with a nonparole period of four years. The appellate Court concluded that the trial judge had “treated the respondent’s use of drugs as a mitigating factor”. The Court, in changing the sentence to 10 years with a nonparole period of 6 years, said that the proper approach was not one of finding the drug use as mitigating the sentence but rather of excluding the use as an aggravating factor. This was said at [36]:
We accept that his Honour was entitled to find that, notwithstanding the respondent was aware that his use of amphetamine could result in psychosis, that he did not appreciate that it might lead to an act of violence to any person. But such a finding was not mitigatory of the respondent’s culpability for the killing. Had the respondent a realisation that one of the effects of his use of drugs might have been that he would act violently toward some other person, this would have been a matter of serious aggravation.
MT was a high school student. He has no criminal record nor is there any suggestion of violent behaviour before these events. His use of drugs such as cannabis and ecstasy was reasonably established. His use of LSD was limited. His previous use of LSD had not produced any psychotic reaction or any tendency to be violent.
In my view there is no basis upon which I could conclude that MT knew, or even had regarded as a possibility, that his use of LSD would induce the psychosis in which he descended into a raving and violent marauder, a state distant from anything he had experienced before and far distant from what might be described as his normal personality.
It might be said that any person taking mind altering drugs should be aware of at least the possibility of undergoing a major personality change. I would agree that this is an ever-existing possibility and one which every user of drugs should take into account. But it is a much further step, and one which I decline to take, to conclude that MT had any notion of the changes that would be induced by his use of the LSD.
My conclusion therefore is that the use of the LSD is not an aggravating factor, but nor is it a mitigatory factor.
This conclusion does not mean that I cannot take into account the fact that MT was acting under the influence of the drugs. Murrell CJ in R v Pahl (No 2) [2017] ACTSC 155 said this, from [16]:
16 Pursuant to s 33 of the Crimes (Sentencing) Act 2005 (ACT) (Sentencing Act), it is relevant to take into account the degree of responsibility of the offender for the commission of the offence. Under sub-s (1)(p), it is relevant to consider whether the offender was affected by alcohol when the offence was committed and the circumstances in which he became affected.
17As with the other offences, the fact that the burglary offence was the product of psychotic delusions diminishes the offender’s moral culpability to a limited extent.
As to the objective seriousness of the offence of murder, to give it a classification suffers the danger of demeaning the seriousness of the offence. Every murder is objectively serious, but of course some have ingredients which demand a greater sentence than others. Such elements might include premeditation, planning, the use of weapons and a significant criminal record. Where such elements exist a longer sentence is likely to be imposed.
For example in Forster-Jones v The Queen [2020] ACTCA 31, the Court of Appeal, in assessing objective gravity, pointed to the offender’s reckless indifference to human life by firing a shot gun through a closed door, repeated previous acts of violence against the deceased and the purpose of going to the victim’s home, to rob him and scare him. In addition the Court pointed to the factors of having a loaded gun available and the degree of planning. The offender was sentenced to 20 years’ imprisonment. I note there was a 5% discount arising from a very late plea of guilty.
The assault on WI had serious consequences requiring major spinal surgery. Those consequences remain today and are likely to remain for the balance of WI’s life. In addition she will also no doubt continue to suffer from the psychological effects of the attack on her, her husband and her friend. I think the objective seriousness of this offence is above medium.
As to the assault on QI, without diminishing its horror, it was obviously of lesser affect physically although once again the psychological effects have been and will be severe. This offence has an objective seriousness below medium.
The plea in this case occurred at an earlier stage than in Forster-Jones. The Victim Impact Statements clearly reveal a perception by the deceased’s family that there was deliberate delay in entering the plea, perhaps even a tactical plan to avoid the admission of guilt. The facts indicate otherwise. MT was entitled to obtain psychiatric evidence on the issue of mental impairment. MT’s counsel has submitted that the plea should be regarded as an early plea. I note that the Crown agrees. I will act accordingly and apply a discount of approximately 20%.
A number of persons read out Victim Impact Statements. Without any criticism intended, where any of those persons have made a recommendation of the sentence that should be imposed, I have not taken those suggestions into account. Victim Impact Statements are not designed to be instructions to the court on the sentence that it should impose. The Court will be guided by the Crown and legal representatives on the appropriate sentences. There will be rights of appeal.
I do not suggest that victims are not entitled to hate an offender and to wish upon the offender the harshest available sentence. Such emotions are understandable and probably even part of the grieving process. My point is simply that they are not the appropriate content of Victim Impact Statements.
What the Statements do show and what is the prime purpose of Victim Impact Statements, is the high regard in which the deceased was held as a member of a family, as a friend and as a very decent man. The Statements also illustrate the effects on the people who were close to the deceased and now must continue their lives in his absence. His wife told me:
Without Dick in my life I knew it would not be the same, but I wasn’t prepared for the feeling that life is not to be taken for granted, that evil and bad things happen, that it’s not safe. I no longer go out at night without some fear, certainly not alone, I’m very security conscious, constantly looking over my shoulder and always the car doors locked. Just someone running in a shopping centre or down the street is enough to bring back bad memories. The loneliness and fear just doesn’t go away.
WI, a friend of the deceased who was the driver of the car when the attack occurred and was herself injured said:
In terms of physical injuries, my neck was grabbed and pulled causing damage to my vertebrae. I was in severe pain, diagnosed with spinal cord injury and hospitalised for a week. I had to wear a neck brace for six weeks which was extremely uncomfortable before returning to hospital for spinal cord surgery in May 2019. I still suffer pain in my neck and I constantly suffer neuropathic pain all down my right arm and in my right hand. The fusing of the discs in surgery has also resulted in me having restricted movement in my neck. This makes driving quite challenging. I have also lost some strength in my right hand.
I have also suffered psychological impacts.
There is a sense of despair whenever I recall the events of the night. The sudden assault on my husband as the assailant screamed twice “I am going to kill you” as he tore at my husband’s face, and the sense of hopelessness as I watched him being attacked will stay with me forever.
We have lost a dear friend in Dick. Dick was a gregarious, decent and honest human being who was a good friend to both of us. He was always willing to lend a hand whenever my husband needed help, sometimes at short notice. It pains me to see how [OD] was robbed of a husband in such a brutal way. Dick and [OD] were a wonderful and loving couple.
The deceased’s son said:
I could talk to him forever but my greatest regret is that I never got to tell him how proud I was to have him as my father and to thank him for the way he gave me his love and generosity throughout my life.
It will always hurt me the way dad died, it is something that I find hard to get out of my head, that vision of him lying in the gutter beaten senseless.
Another son said:
The time spent in the hospital following the incident were some of the most painful seeing the horrific injuries dad had sustained from the attack. The family has suffered greatly as a result of the incident. I myself have suffered greatly and will never be able to remove the image of my dad laying in that bed on a life-support machine and the hours that followed after his life support was removed and the colour drain from his body will live with me forever.
…
My dad was a loving caring man who always made time for others, could be counted on to lend a helping hand or offer helpful advice. It’s a tribute to my dad as to the kind of family we are and I’m sure that is evident here today. Never having the chance to say goodbye or tell my hero how much I loved him and tell him what a legend of man he was and still is.
A grandson concluded his statement in this way:
To my grandad, thank you for 29 years of incredible memories, knowledge, love and support. For shaping my values, giving me the drive to achieve great things, telling your stories and making us all smile and laugh. I will always suffer the horrific pain of your loss and the way in which we lost you, that we were robbed of many years and great memories not lived. But know this, you are someone loved by many and your memory and stories will always be told. We love you. We miss you. Each and every day, always and forever.
A granddaughter told me this:
Ever since this day I have been filled with fear and worry. When I see someone that is visibly on drugs, I can no longer just cross the street and carry on walking. My stomach drops and I have an irrational fear that I am fearing for my life. I have never been this way, but now I will wonder for the rest of my life whether the seemingly innocent person will murder me. I worry for my Nan every single day. I worry whether she feels safe, whether she is happy, whether she will lose quality years of her life as she suffers from the grief and stress that you have caused her. I worry for my uncle and my father, whether they will be able to escape the images they have from that night, and whether they will ever be at peace.
MT did not have the benefit of the upbringing that is obvious in the family of the deceased. The deceased and his wife obviously strived to raise their family in an environment of love and support which created the calibre of persons who read out Victim Impact Statements.
MT was a regular user of cannabis. He was experimenting with LSD. He was not a drug addict and he was not a criminal. He had no criminal record. This much was conceded by the Crown.
MT was born in Canberra in 2002 and he is now 18 years of age. He is the second of four children. In 2012 child protection authorities removed him from his home after concerns of physical abuse from his mother. His mother suffered from mental health issues. He was in care for about four months. For this and other reasons MT displayed a resilience which kept him in school and away from crime.
MT has a close relationship with his father, who operates a landscaping business. He hopes his son will join him in this business when he is released from custody.
As noted above, MT was a “young person” when the offence occurred. The fact that he has now reached majority does not preclude him from the benefits, in respect of sentencing, which apply to minors. These include an emphasis on rehabilitation and, pursuant to s 133G(2) of the Crimes (Sentencing) Act 2005 (ACT), that the sentence of imprisonment be for the “shortest appropriate term”. Murder carries a potential maximum penalty of life imprisonment. Section 133G(4) says a young person may not be sentenced to imprisonment for life.
The Pre-Sentence Report says that the young person has “largely been of good behaviour since being remanded, and that this has improved over time”. The Report continues:
During interviews, [MT] has demonstrated extensive insight into his offending, namely the impacts it has had on the victims, and links between substance use and the offences. Observations of [MT] during interviews regarding his Statement of Facts reflected that he has a lot of emotions regarding his offending and may benefit from therapeutic supports to assist him in processing what has happened and how to plan for the future, which may also include elements of drug and alcohol counselling.
As emphasised in Forster-Jones, at [79], the principle of totality must be applied so as to arrive at a “just and appropriate measure of the total criminality involved”. This means both a recognition of the whole of the criminal conduct but also takes into account that there should not be a crushing sentence, in particular for a young person. At the same time I think it is important that the offences against QI and WI are recognised in a specific degree of accumulation.
The transfer offences are minor and will be dealt with accordingly.
More generally speaking the provisions of the Crimes (Sentencing) Act 2005 (ACT), in particular ss 6 and 7 must be taken into account.
Reaching the right balance of sentencing in this case is difficult. On the one hand there is an horrific series of events which include the murder of a good man much loved by family and friends as well as serious acts of assault on two of his friends. On the other hand there is a young man, with no criminal record, who did not intend to do what he did. I think he has shown remorse, is susceptible to rehabilitation and is entitled to the opportunity to eventually return to the community and to embark on a law-abiding path through life.
In respect of remorse the offender entered the witness box and read out a letter to the family and friends of the deceased. I thought he spoke genuinely. This impression was confirmed by him not being cross-examined and the frank and fair concession by the Crown that it was accepted that his remorse was genuine and his prospects of rehabilitation were good.
Both parties provided helpful written submissions. The Crown has obviously conducted a comprehensive search of authorities both in the ACT and the rest of Australia. There are no immediately comparable cases. There is only one case in the ACT involving a conviction for murder of a young person. This is R v JJ (unreported, Supreme Court of the Australian Capital Territory, Refshauge J, 8 October 2013).
In JJ, quoting from the Crown’s written submissions, “the offender and co-accused left the offender’s house with a machete and baseball bat, intending to commit a robbery. They encountered the victim, who was walking home from the Jolimont Centre, on Northbourne Avenue. In the course of robbing the victim, the offender and co-offender struck the victim a number of times with the machete and baseball bat”. The victim died. JJ was sentenced to 17 years’ imprisonment, suspended after 10 years and 6 months. His Honour said:
Of significance is [JJ]’s age. While some authorities suggest that he loses the mitigation that this otherwise entitles him to receive because the offence is one that is of such seriousness, that is not always so. As the New South Wales Court of Criminal Appeal pointed out in R v AEM Snr [2002] NSWCCA 58 at [97]:
It is well accepted that in the case of youth, general deterrence and public denunciation usually play a subordinate role to the need to have regard to individual treatment aimed at rehabilitation: see R v DAR (unreported, New South Wales Court of Criminal Appeal, 2 October 1997); R v Mazzilli [2001] NSWCA 117. However, important as that principle is, it cannot defeat the primary purpose of punishment nor, in the circumstances where young offenders conduct themselves in a way which an adult does, can it stand in the way of the need to protect society. Lee AJ commented on this in Nichols at 395:
“True it is ... that the courts consistently point out the need to give young offenders a chance and to refrain from sending them to gaol or dealing heavily with them if that course can be avoided ... However, there is a point at which the seriousness of the crime committed by a man at 19, even though a young man, is of such a nature, is so great, that that principle must, in the public interest, give way.”
[emphasis in original]
Nevertheless, that does not mean that, for such a serious offence, youth and the principles laid down by the courts in sentencing youthful offenders cannot play a part. It does so regularly in sentencing, even for the most serious offence of murder.
In the first place, the legislature has prohibited me from imposing a sentence of life imprisonment: s 133G(3) of the Crimes (Sentencing) Act 2005 (ACT). That immediately makes a statutory distinction from the sentencing of an adult.
In the second place, the statute sets out a separate regime for the sentencing of young offenders: see ss 133A-133ZD of the Crimes (Sentencing) Act 2005 (ACT). I am not satisfied that this regime is to be set aside simply because of the seriousness of the offence without further consideration. Nevertheless, [JJ] was at the time of the offence, a few months short of his 18th birthday.
There is a further point that is highlighted by JJ. By reason of s 64(2) of the Crimes (Sentencing) Act 2005 (ACT) a nonparole period cannot be imposed on a young offender. The only viable alternative is a suspended sentence. It initially occurred to me that the period before suspension, in this circumstance, should perhaps be longer than a nonparole period because the inmate will be certainly released at the end of the period before suspension and there will be no consideration of a right to release on parole. On reflection I think that to take this approach would be an error. It cannot have been the intention of the legislature to keep young persons in prison for a longer period than might have been the case if they were subject to a nonparole period.
I note that JJ was subject to an appeal but only concerning a technical aspect of the Good Behaviour Order imposed in the sentence (R v JJ [2014] ACTCA 23).
Accordingly, I will approach the length of time before suspension in the same way as I would have calculated a nonparole period. In this case the nonparole period would have been dictated by the positive prospects of rehabilitation.
The Crown summary of cases involving young offenders convicted of murder revealed that in New South Wales the range was 12 to 31.5 years’ imprisonment, in Victoria 12 to 20 years’ imprisonment and in Queensland, 12 years to life imprisonment. Clearly these extensive ranges reflect the very different facts of the individual cases. Nevertheless I have looked at the cases and am grateful to the Crown for its extensive research.
Some of the persons who read out Victim Impact Statements called for a life sentence or at least a very lengthy term of imprisonment. They will probably be disappointed in my decision, but they should know that the law is not solely concerned with punishment but is overwhelmingly concerned with justice. Justice considers punishment, the rights of the victims, the concerns of the community (including deterrence) but also the rights of offenders and, in particular where young persons are involved, the entitlement to become a productive member of society through rehabilitation.
MT has been in custody since 16 March 2019. His sentences will be backdated to this date.
I make the following orders:
(a)For the offence of murder (CH274/2019), the offender is sentenced to 12 years and 6 months’ imprisonment (reduced from 15 years) to commence on 16 March 2019 and end on 15 September 2031.
(b)For the offence of intentionally inflicting grievous bodily harm (CH229/2019), the offender is sentenced to 4 years’ imprisonment (reduced from 4 years and 9 months) to commence on 15 March 2029 and end on 14 March 2033.
(c)For the offence of assault occasioning actual bodily harm (CH226/2019), the offender is sentenced to 2 years’ imprisonment (reduced from 2 years and 4 months) to commence on 16 March 2032 and end on 15 March 2034.
(d)For the transfer offence of possess prohibited substance (CAN575/2019) the offender is sentenced to 6 months’ imprisonment to commence on 16 March 2019 and end on 15 September 2019.
(e)For the transfer offence of possess cannabis (CAN512/2019) the offender is fined $100 payable forthwith.
(f)The total period of imprisonment is 15 years to commence on 16 March 2019 and end on 15 March 2034.
(g)The above sentences of imprisonment are suspended from 15 September 2027 on the condition that MT signs an undertaking to comply with an offender’s good behaviour obligations under the Crimes (Sentence Administration) Act 2005 for 6 years and 6 months until 14 March 2034, with a probation condition that for that period MT it is on probation subject to the supervision of the Director-General or his/her delegate and obeys all reasonable directions of the person delegated to supervise MT.
| I certify that the preceding fifty-six [56] numbered paragraphs are a true copy of the Reasons for Sentence of his Honour Justice Elkaim. Associate: Date: 16 December 2020 |
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