R v Raymond John CADD

[2007] NSWDC 244

CITATION:	R v Raymond John CADD [2007] NSWDC 244
HEARING DATE(S):	30 October 2007
JUDGMENT DATE:	30 October 2007
JURISDICTION:	Criminal
JUDGMENT OF:	Berman SC DCJ
DECISION:	On each count, the offender is sentenced to imprisonment with a non-parole period of three years and a head sentence of four years.
CATCHWORDS:	Criminal Law - Sentence - Supply prohibited drug - Methylamphetamine - Cannabis - Depression
PARTIES:	The Crown Raymond John Cadd
FILE NUMBER(S):	07/31/0157
COUNSEL:	J Booth - Offender
SOLICITORS:	NSW DPP Mandy Hull & Associates

SENTENCE

1 HIS HONOUR: Police went to Raymond Cadd’s premises on 27 February 2007. They obviously had information that he was a drug dealer. That information turned out to be correct. When they got to his home they entered the premises and discovered three brown paper bags. Each of those paper bags contained within it a clear resealable bag with cannabis inside.

2 Mr Cadd was thus arrested and taken to Singleton Police Station. The police continued searching his premises with his daughter, twenty-six years of age, observing the search. It is worth noting that also present during the search was the offender’s grand-daughter, who is four years of age. I wonder, in passing, what sort of example the offender is setting to his daughter and grand-daughter.

3 Police then continued searching and they discovered more cannabis. This was in a jar on the kitchen bench. They found also some clear plastic bags containing methylamphetamine. They found some scales and a large amount of cash, indeed $5000 bundled in $1000 lots.

4 When they had finished searching they interviewed the offender. Eventually, during that interview, he admitted that the drugs were his and admitted that he was supplying them. The total amount of drugs found by police was 248.7 grams of cannabis and 9.4 grams of methylamphetamine.

5 This is not the first time the offender will serve a sentence of imprisonment for drug supplying. Indeed, it is the third.

6 He was dealt with in Tamworth Local Court in 2001 for supplying a prohibited drug, three counts in fact, and was sent to gaol for three months. Then, in Tamworth District Court, in 2002 he was again dealt with for supplying a prohibited drug and sent to gaol for three years with a non-parole period of two years.

7 There comes a time when it is clear that personal deterrence just ceases to operate. It is clear that personal deterrence is not going to work. There is nothing significant that has changed between the offender’s situation in 2002 and now. He has, he tells me, re-established contact with a son and his daughter, Kylie. He has had another grandchild too, but these are not the sort of things which are likely to make a substantial difference to someone like Mr Cadd who, he says through stupidity, continues to commit drug supply offences despite having gone to gaol for drug supply in the past.

8 When personal deterrence does not work, all the courts can really do is to keep offenders in a position where they are unable to commit crimes, that is preventative detention. Of course, that is not to say that the sentence can be increased from what would otherwise be appropriate but it is to recognise that one of the purposes of sentencing, namely personal deterrence, is probably not going to have much impact on the sentence I will shortly announce.

9 The offender says that he did this to supplement his income. He was gambling at the time, he wanted to take one of his sons down to visit his mother, (that is his son’s mother who was in custody) and he wanted to supplement his Disability Pension.

10 Nothing that I have heard today would suggest that the offender will, when he wants to supplement his income again, be in a position to say to himself, “I’m not going to do it through drug supply.” There is easy money to be made through drug supply and the fact that there was $5000 cash found in the offender’s premises is testament to that.

11 He said to police that he was doing what he was doing to make ends meet. No doubt he will come under financial difficulties in the future and I have got no confidence at all that the offender will have learnt any lesson at all upon his release from custody.

12 As Mr Booth said, as far as the offender is concerned, he has not had a lot of luck in his life and he has suffered a few knocks. These are all detailed in a psychological report which was tendered by Mr Booth on behalf of the offender.

13 The offender had an unhappy childhood with his parents’ relationship being inherently unstable. His mother finally left the home, leaving the offender in the care of his father. But his father was a heavy drinker and was always at the pub. He began associating with peers who indulged in anti-social activity and that too became his lifestyle.

14 He has worked in the past and had a number of jobs before his working life was interrupted in a significant way when he was involved in a motor vehicle collision. This was in 1982 and the consequences for Mr Cadd extend to this day. He underwent a spinal fusion operation in 1986 and since then has been unable to work for any length of time. He did drive the Sackville ferry for about eighteen months but had to give it up as it was too much for him.

15 He is now on a great variety of medication, all designed to deal with his constant pain. If he was free in the community he would be more appropriately medicated but drugs which would be available to him if he were a free man are not available to him in prison because of the risks that the supply of those drugs present to the prison community. Thus, to say succinctly what the problem is, he will do his time in custody harder because of his inability to obtain optimum medication.

16 However, not too much should be made of this. After all, the offender went into this with is eyes open. He must have known full well the consequences of serving a sentence of imprisonment in so far as they affect his ability to get analgesic medication.

17 It is always a bit rich for an offender to rely on circumstances such as this when offenders such as Mr Cadd understand the consequences for them of their offending behaviour in the event that they are caught. Nevertheless, I will make an allowance for the fact that Mr Cadd will do his time in custody harder than would otherwise be the case.

18 That is also going to be the case because of Mr Cadd’s mental condition. He suffers from depression and, unlike many people, that depression is not just simply related to his present predicament.

19 The offender pleaded guilty at the earliest opportunity, although he was re-arraigned today because of some defect in the committal document. I will discount the sentence I would otherwise impose by 25 per cent to reflect the utilitarian value of his pleas.

20 As I mentioned, the offender does have prior convictions for supplying a prohibited drug. In case I have not made myself clear, I will regard this as a case where the offender has displayed a continuing attitude of disobedience towards the law, particularly in relation to drug supply matters and formulate the appropriate sentence in the light of that attitude.

21 As Mr Booth quite fairly recognises, there is one significant matter which makes the offender’s conduct even more serious than is often the case and that is that the offender was not a drug user himself. This is not a case where the offender was a drug addict, merely fulfilling his addiction by taking drugs for himself or herself off a larger amount that he or she supplied. This is a case where the offender went into this activity for a very cynical reason and that is solely to make money. True it is that he was not spending that money on luxury items and the trappings of wealth were not in any way apparent, but he was able to do things with the money that he would not otherwise have been able to do. The courts have traditionally regarded non-user dealers such as Mr Cadd as the most serious type of offender.

22 In so far as some of the money was spent on gambling, that hardly explains, let alone justifies, a decision to become once again a drug dealer, a decision to supply others with harmful drugs simply so that the offender could put a few dollars through the poker machines from time to time and thus forget about his unhappiness. In any case, it does not appear that this is the sort of gambling addiction which is often before the courts. The fact that the offender had $5000 in cash in his premises when the police searched them suggests that the offender was, if addicted, certainly able to control his addiction.

23 The offender is clearly sorry for the consequences which must flow from his offences. He became quite tearful in the witness box when he spoke about him losing his contact with some of his children. I am, of course, satisfied that he is sorry for the consequences for him but not at all persuaded that the offender is remorseful in the sense that it is a mitigating featurem.

24 Mr Booth says I should find special circumstances in this case. There are two reasons I am not going to. The first is that I can see no utility at all in the offender having an extended period of supervision on parole but the second and more important reason is that the sentence I am about to announce has a non-parole period which is as low as it can properly be. Any lower non-parole period would fail to reflect the objective gravity of the offender’s conduct.

25 I will make the sentences wholly concurrent, despite the fact that there were two different sorts of drugs involved. I will impose concurrent sentences as a measure of leniency towards Mr Cadd.

26 The sentences are, therefore, as follows:

On each count, the offender is sentenced to imprisonment. I set a non-parole period of three years to date from 27 February 2007 and a head sentence of four years. The non-parole period will thus expire on 26 February 2010 on which day the offender is eligible to be released to parole.

**********