R v Watt

Edward Watt pleaded guilty to a charge of providing false and misleading information to a director of Canberra Concrete Recyclers Pty Ltd (CCR) as an officer of the corporation. The court had to consider the nature and circumstances of the offence, the offender's character and antecedents, the plea of guilty, and the effect of imprisonment on the offender's family, among other factors. The court also considered an application for a reparation order in favour of CCR. The offender was sentenced to imprisonment for a period of 15 months, reduced to six months on account of the plea of guilty, subject to a recognizance release order. The court refused to make a reparation order as it was not possible to quantify the loss suffered by CCR beyond reasonable doubt.

In reaching its decision, the court considered a number of sentencing principles and factors, including the need for general and specific deterrence, the offender's acceptance of responsibility and contrition, and the effect of imprisonment on the offender's family. The court also considered the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the offender and his family. The court took into account the existence of the pandemic and the likelihood of some additional burdens of imprisonment as a result of measures to address the risks posed by the pandemic. Those impacts would fall both upon the offender as well as upon his family.

The court also considered an application for a reparation order in favour of CCR. The Crown submitted that a reparation order should be made in favour of CCR in the sum of $895,147.38, which represented the difference between the total amount paid by Tip It for the dumping of waste and the total cost of sending to landfill the proportion of that waste which is non-recyclable. The court refused to make a reparation order as it was not possible to quantify the loss suffered by CCR beyond reasonable doubt. The court noted that there were differing estimates of the percentage of material in Tip It loads which would be required to be sent to landfill, no evidence as to whether the undocumented truckloads of material were in fact processed, and minimal evidence as to any existing compulsion upon the business to remove unlawfully dumped waste from the site. The court held that the refusal of a reparation order did not affect any rights CCR had to recover from the offender in civil proceedings.