Robert James Hickman

[2016] NSWDC 383

District Court

New South Wales

Medium Neutral Citation:

Robert James Hickman [2016] NSWDC 383

Hearing dates:

8 September 2016

Decision date:

09 December 2016

Jurisdiction:

Criminal

Before:

Sides QC DCJ

Decision:

The offender is sentenced to an aggregate term of imprisonment of 10 years. Non-parole period of 5 years 25 April 2015 and which will expire 24 April 2020.

Catchwords:

Indecent assault upon person under the age of 16 years – sexual intercourse without consent - Priest exploits trust of 11 victims and their families.

Cases Cited:

Flaherty v R [2016] NSWCCA 118; PR v R [2013] NSWCCA 192; PL v R [2015] NSWCCA 100; Magnuson v R [2013] NSWCCA 50

Category:

Sentence

Parties:

Regina (Crown)

Robert James Hickman (accused)

Representation:

Mr Peach (Crown)

Mr Smith SC (of Counsel)

File Number(s):

2015/126145

Publication restriction:

NON-PUBLICATION ORDER MADE IN RELATION TO ANYTHING THAT MAY IDENTIFY THE COMPLAINANTS

Judgment

1. The Offender Robert Hickman appears for sentence consequent upon his adhering to guilty pleas to a total of 13 offences plus pleading guilty just now to a fourteenth offence on indictment.  Thirteen of the fourteen offences are indecent assaults upon persons under the age of 16 years.  The other offence is a sexual intercourse without consent.  All the victims were under the age of 16 years and, with the exception of sequence 17 and the offence on the indictment, the CANs are not pleaded in accordance with the legislation but they do mention the age of the complainant.  No objection was taken to the terms of the CANs and, although they do not refer to the complainant being under the age of 16, they do refer to the age of the complainant.

2.  He committed the 14 offences upon 11 different victims in a period from 1975 to 2002 [corrected to 1992].  The details of the offences are set out in the Crown Sentence Summary that now does have some writing and highlighting on it, although that does not contain the dates of the offences. 

3. There are a total of ten matters on six different Form 1 schedules the Court took into account when considering deterrence and retribution.  The details of those matters are also set out in the Crown Sentence Summary.  All but two of the offences are indecent assaults on a person less than 16 years old.  The other two are committing an act of indecency and inciting a person under 16 to commit an act of indecency.

4. Sexual intercourse without consent has a maximum penalty of 10 years imprisonment and the indecent assault offences have a maximum of six years imprisonment, with the exception of sequence 15 that has a maximum penalty of four years imprisonment and sequence 17 that has a maximum penalty of seven years imprisonment.  The two offences involving the act of indecency on the Form 1 schedule have a maximum penalty of two years imprisonment.  There are no applicable standard non-parole periods. Whilst all the offences bar the offence of intercourse can be dealt…