The Queen v PK

[2013] QChC 23

AUSCRIPT AUSTRALASIA PTY LIMITED

ABN 72 110 028 825

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TRANSCRIPT OF PROCEEDINGS

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CHILDRENS COURT OF QUEENSLAND

CRIMINAL JURISDICTION

JUDGE REID

THE QUEEN

v.

PK

BRISBANE

10.08 AM, FRIDAY, 3 MAY 2013

ORDER

WARNING:  The publication of information or details likely to lead to the identification of persons in some proceedings is a criminal offence.  This is so particularly in relation to the identification of children who are involved in criminal proceedings or proceedings for their protection under the Child Protection Act 1999, and complainants in criminal sexual offences, but is not limited to those categories.  You may wish to seek legal advice before giving others access to the details of any person named in these proceedings.

HIS HONOUR:   The applicant who was born on the 4^th of November 1996 has appealed against a sentence imposed by the Brisbane Children’s Court on the 28^th of February 2013 in respect of a charge of unauthorised dealing with shop goods.  No conviction was recorded but the applicant was sentenced to a six month good behaviour bond.

The applicant was born on the 4^th of November 1996 and so was 16 years of age at the time.  He stole a pair of earphones valued at almost $50 from Myer.  Apparently he’d taken them into the change room and removed them from the packaging. He was apprehended at the store.  Although the property was therefore returned to the store it could not be re-sold. 

The applicant had no prior criminal history and entered an early plea.  His solicitor who appeared before me submitted that a caution would have been appropriate or alternatively that a reprimand ought to have been imposed.  In considering whether a caution ought to have been imposed I’m not entitled to have regard to the earlier caution delivered when he was 15 years of age. 

As I’ve said, I expunge that knowledge from my mind.  The question is whether a person of 16 years of age who commits an offence of dishonesty as a first offence and then enters a timely plea of guilty ought be sentenced to a reprimand or to a good behaviour bond. 

In my view, a bond is appropriate in such circumstances.  I consider that a young man who is on the brink of adulthood ought to have understood the need to behave in an appropriate way.  There does not appear to be anything put before me about his particular circumstances that might cause me to think that by reason of a deprived upbringing or lack of parental supervision that his capacity to understand the norms of society was affected.

In the circumstances the application for review is dismissed.

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