Woodard v Police

[2009] QDC 85

[2009] QDC 85

DISTRICT COURT
APPELLATE JURISDICTION

JUDGE RICHARDS

COLIN MARK WOODARD	Appellant (Defendant)
and
POLICE	Respondent (Plaintiff)
IPSWICH ..DATE 06/04/2009

JUDGMENT
HER HONOUR: This is an appeal from a sentence imposed in the

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Magistrates Court at Gatton on the 14th of October 2008, wherein the appellant was convicted of five counts of stealing and two counts of possession of tainted property.

The learned Magistrate ordered that the appellant be subject	10
to an 18 month probation order and convictions were recorded. and the sentence, and he has a New South Wales criminal history, although it is very old.
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MR HARRISON: Your Honour, I hate to interrupt, that-----
HER HONOUR: That's wrong.
MR HARRISON: -----New South Wales criminal history is not	30
correct as we understand.
HER HONOUR: Yes. He has a - sorry, I'll correct that. He
has a criminal history in Queensland dating back to 1980-1981
for dishonesty offences. But, because of their age and his	40
age at the time of the offending, they were not taken into
account on sentence, and that was appropriate. The offences,
themselves, relate to the theft of various items from the
Plainlands Hardware Store, together with the theft of petrol
from the BP College View, and the possession of two motor	50

cycles reasonably suspected of being tainted property.
The appellant represented himself at this appeal and indicated 2 JUDGMENT 60

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that during this period of time, that is from June 2008 to
July 2008, he was suffering from depression, and a report was
handed up to the Magistrate in relation to treatment he'd
received for that depression. And, it seems from the report,

that he'd been suffering from ongoing depression since about	10
August of 2004 and had been taking medication - initially
Zoloft, but that, apparently, was not helping, and then from
March 2008, Efexor, but this was still not helping. And he
was still suffering from depression, anger, memory loss,
headaches, poor concentration and he was referred to a	20
psychiatrist, and at the time of the sentence, was receiving psychiatric treatment for his condition.
At the time of sentence, the appellant was working as a motor
dealer having his own car yard called Lockyer Valley Motors,	30
where he would sell second hand cars. To sell second hand
cars, he needs a motor dealers' licence, and to have that
licence, he is not able to have a conviction recorded against
his name for offences of dishonesty that attract a head
sentence of three years or more.	40
Unfortunately, he did not make the learned Magistrate aware of
this problem. Although he may have done, had the Magistrate
thought to ask him about whether a conviction should or should
not be recorded or, at least about whether he wanted to make	50
any submissions about that. The learned Magistrate doesn't seem, in his judgment, to have considered the provisions of section 12, and therefore, did not ask for any submissions on

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the subject and submissions were not made. In my view, that

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does amount to an error of law, and then it follows that it

falls to me to sentence Mr Woodard afresh.

time of the offences, and that that seems to have affected his	10
ability to concentrate and his memory, and that much was said during the sentencing submissions, that, despite his age, the sentence of probation was appropriate.
However, given the fact that his employment of 20 years has	20
effectively been terminated by the recording of convictions, it's my view that the recording of convictions were too harsh a penalty, and that it was not appropriate to record the convictions.
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I'm now told that the affect of the recording of convictions
is that this appellant is verging on the brink of bankruptcy,
so the appeal's allowed. The sentence is set aside to the
extent that no convictions are recorded, otherwise the
sentence will remain.	40
You’re seeking a costs order?
MR HARRISON: I am, your Honour.
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HER HONOUR: Yes. Anything you want to say about that?

Given the fact that he was suffering from depression at the

MS CHRISTOPHERSON: Your Honour, could I----- inviting submissions unless there's some special reason why it shouldn't be? 4 JUDGMENT 60

MS CHRISTOPHERSON: No, I don't have any submissions, your	10
Honour.
HER HONOUR: All right. I'll order that the respondent pay
the appellant's costs, to be assessed unless otherwise agreed.
Thank you.	20

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