R v Togher

[2012] NSWDC 276

District Court

New South Wales

Medium Neutral Citation:	R v Togher [2012] NSWDC 276
Hearing dates:	6 December 2012
Decision date:	06 December 2012
Before:	Berman SC DCJ
Decision:	Sentenced to imprisonment. The overall sentence is one consisting of a non-parole period of 2 years with a head sentence of 4 years.
Catchwords:	CRIMINAL LAW - Sentence - Form 1 - Aggravated enter with intent - Take and drive conveyance - Dishonestly obtain property by deception - Breach of bond
Category:	Sentence
Parties:	The Crown Hamish Patrick Togher
Representation:	Director of Public Prosecutions Legal Aid Commission
File Number(s):	2012/90945

SENTENCE

1. HIS HONOUR: Hamish Togher is now twenty-nine, and once again he is in gaol. He has been in gaol so much that really he does not regard it as punishment anymore. In fact I rather get the impression that he finds it sometimes more comfortable living in gaol than he does living in the community. But for a relatively brief period recently he was achieving something with his life and doing things that he was proud of. Sometime in the future, and I hope it is soon, Mr Togher is going to realise the futility of living his life in gaol and yearn for a life outside gaol, a life where he can once again achieve things and be proud of them.

1. His criminal offending began when he was living on the streets in these circumstances: His parents separated when he was quite young. He lived with his father who brought him up and things were going well until his father remarried. This occurred when the offender was fourteen. He explained that he was becoming a teenager, going through puberty at a time when a new person began competing for his father's affection. In those circumstances he just did not get on with his stepmother and left home and began to live on the streets. Since then he has spent a great deal of time in custody and in fact in the last eleven years, since he turned eighteen, the longest time he has been out of gaol is fourteen months.

1. When he was last in gaol things were progressing reasonably well. He was on work release, an opportunity that allows prisoners to become rehabilitated. Work release being the subject of some criticism by, what I will describe, the law and order brigade. They seem to think that the best thing that can happen is that a prisoner spends the entirety of their custodial sentence in prison, deprived of amenities and deprived of the ability to see what life is like outside gaol. Prisoners in that position are usually released and the shock of having to deal with life outside gaol, completely unprepared for it, often leads to the offender committing further offences in short order and going back to gaol. The law and order brigade would say well that is where the person belongs. What they fail to take account of is that such policies lead to more offending…