R v Savvas

[2023] NSWDC 424

District Court

New South Wales

Medium Neutral Citation:

R v Savvas [2023] NSWDC 424

Hearing dates:

10/10/22-18/10/22, 19/10/22, 15/2/23, 10/3/23, 17/3/23, 31/3/23, 6/4/23, 26/5/23, 21/7/23

Date of orders:

21/7/23

Decision date:

21 July 2023

Jurisdiction:

Criminal

Before:

Bourke SC DCJ

Decision:

Convicted and sentenced to an aggregate term of imprisonment of 5 years 9 months with a NPP of 3 years 9 months (17/10/22-16/7/26).

I find special circumstances.

The indicative sentences are:

Count 1 – 2 years 3 months with NPP 1 year 5 months.

Count 2 – 2 years 10 months.

Count 3 – 3 years

Count 4 – 2 years 10 months.

Catchwords:

Crime – Sentence -Procuring a child for unlawful sexual activity - Intentionally sexually touching a child aged between ten and under 16 years of age - Sexual touching without consent

Legislation Cited:

Crimes Act 1900

Crimes (Sentencing Procedure) Act 1999

Category:

Sentence

Parties:

NSW DPP – Crown
Sonny Savvas - Offender

Representation:

Ms G Namat for Crown
Mr Robinson for Accused.
Ms V Zahra for Offender

File Number(s):

21/82847

Publication restriction:

Statutory non-publication order in relation to the identity of the victims.

sentence – ex tempore revised

1. I note that, in this matter, there is a provision of law which prohibits anybody from publishing anything which might identify either of the victims.

2. The offender, Mr Savvas, was found guilty by a jury in October 2022 of all four counts on an indictment involving the following offences, which I will describe in short form.

3. Count 1 - procuring a child for unlawful sexual activity, s 66EB(3) of the Crimes Act 1900, the maximum penalty for which is ten years and for which a standard non-parole period of four years is specified.

4. Count 2, being an offence of intentionally sexually touching a child aged between ten and under 16 years of age, the maximum penalty for which is ten years imprisonment, that being an offence under s 66DB(a) of the Crimes Act.

5. Count 3, being another charge of the same kind, for which the maximum penalty is ten years imprisonment.

6. And count 4 being an offence of sexual touching without consent, that being an offence under s 61KC(a) of the Crimes Act. And the maximum penalty for that offence is five years imprisonment.

7. The maximum penalties and, where applicable, standard non-parole period, are, of course, important guideposts in the sentencing exercise to which I have had regard.

8. There has been significant delay since the jury’s verdict in this matter, which is unfortunate, but has a reason. That was essentially because, after the verdicts were delivered, I stood the proceedings over for sentence hearing on an agreed date of 24 February 2023. However, shortly before then, the Court became aware that the offender was no longer legally represented and so the proceedings then went through a series of something like five mentions so as to facilitate Mr Savvas arranging representation, which he eventually did, and also arranging for a psychiatric report to be prepared, which…