R v QTV

[2003] SASC 424

R  v  QTV
[2003] SASC 424

Court of Criminal Appeal:  Prior, Bleby and Anderson JJ

The Court:       

Background

1. The appellant appeals against a sentence of 11 years imprisonment with a non-parole period of six years and six months, imposed in the District Court upon his being sentenced there for four counts of robbery with violence, one of attempted armed robbery and one of assisting an offender to escape apprehension.  Those offences were committed between 13 September and 9 October 2002.  At the time, the appellant was not quite 18 years of age.  He was born on 18 October 1984 and had appeared on eight previous occasions before courts on drug and vehicle theft charges between December 1999 and July 2002.

2. In the Youth Court the appellant pleaded guilty to and was committed to the District Court for sentence on three counts of armed robbery and one count of attempted armed robbery. He was committed for trial on other charges, but in the District Court pleaded guilty on a fresh Information to one additional count of armed robbery and one count of assisting an offender. The latter charge attracted the operation of s 29(2) of the Young Offenders Act 1993. A District Court Judge sentenced the youth as an adult on all counts.

3. In this appeal the head sentence and non-parole period are said to be manifestly excessive. Further complaints are made. It is said that the sentencing Judge erred in that he did not properly or adequately consider or apply the provisions of s 29(2) of the Young Offenders Act 1993, although this point was abandoned at the hearing of the appeal. It is also said that his Honour failed to give adequate weight to indications that the adult co-offender was the dominant personality in the relationship between the two offenders, or alternatively, that the sentencing Judge should have invited further submissions or oral evidence to resolve a manifest dispute between the appellant and the co-offender as to their respective degrees of influence in the offending. However, these points were not argued on the appeal.

4. A further complaint is that the sentencing Judge did not properly or adequately consider, apply or balance the competing provisions in s 3 of the Young Offenders Act. It is also complained that the sentencing Judge did not properly or adequately consider the provisions of s 36 of that Act.

   The offences

5. The armed robbery offence of 13 September 2002 was committed by the appellant on his own.  Armed with a knife, he robbed a 15-year-old schoolboy whom he had followed in his car.  He then held a knife to the boy’s throat, demanded money and ran off with the boy’s wallet, which contained $25.  The offence constituted a breach of two good behaviour bonds.

6. The other offences were all committed in company with a man named Quach.  Two were committed in the same adult bookshop at Holden Hill.  On the first of those two occasions, 4 October 2002, the appellant was in company…