R v Turoa HC Auckland CRI 2008-055-001629
[2008] NZHC 2670
•31 October 2008
IN THE HIGH COURT OF NEW ZEALAND AUCKLAND REGISTRY
CRI 2008-055-001629
THE QUEEN
v
ADAM CLINTON TUROA
Charge: Possession of cannabis for supply x1
Plea: Guilty
Appearances: B Finn for Crown
S Blake for Prisoner
Sentenced: 31 October 2008
9 months’ home detention
SENTENCING NOTES OF VENNING J
Solicitors: Crown Solicitor, Auckland
S Blake, Auckland
R V TUROA HC AK CRI 2008-055-001629 31 October 2008
[1] Adam Clinton Turoa, you have pleaded guilty to and are for sentence in this Court on one count of possession of cannabis for supply. The maximum penalty for that offending is eight years’ imprisonment. You are for sentence in this Court as the District Court declined jurisdiction because the case was serious.
[2] The facts appear from the summary to which you have pleaded guilty. On 16
April this year the police executed a search warrant at an address in Citril Place in Papakura. It was the address of your cousins. When the police arrived you ran away. You were later found by a dog unit at a nearby address. When you were arrested you were found to still have a backpack with a plastic container that had 111 tinnies in it. You told the police that you had been selling cannabis from your cousin’s place for two months between February and April. You had been buying the cannabis from a supplier and then dividing it into tinnies and on-selling them for
$20 each. The value of the tinnies and the cannabis in your possession was $2,220.
[3] At the time you were 19. You are now 20 years old. You say you left school because you were bullied. You then got a job with a logistics firm but you only worked there for a short time and you said you left because you didn’t like the way your uncle, who worked there also, was disciplining you. You then had a job for a time making nutritional supplements for a company called Voyager Groups but you left that employment because you didn’t like the way a supervisor was operating the business and treating you.
[4] Well Mr Turoa you have to realise that in this world there are going to be people you aren’t going to like and get on with and there might be jobs you have to do that you don’t like. But I’m afraid that’s life. And there is no easy way to avoid that.
[5] The probation report isn’t a particularly positive one. It shows that you don’t accept or haven’t yet accepted responsibility for your actions. You told the probation officer you were sick and tired of waking up at 6 or 7 a.m. to get up and go to work, that you wanted a break and that is why you got into selling cannabis.
[6] You have been before the Courts before even though you are a young man. In August last year you were sentenced to 80 hours community work on a charge of breach of a previous order of the Court. You have completed 53 of those 80 hours. You failed to report in March 2008 and thereafter at about the same time as you got involved in this offending. You also have outstanding fines.
[7] Well Mr Turoa you need to change your attitude. People have to get up at 6 or 7 in the morning and go to work and stick at it. There is no easy way to make money Mr Turoa. You have to work and you have to earn your money. Crime is not the answer. It’s not an easy road. The sort of crime that you have become involved in leads to more serious offending and that leads to more time in jail. I hope Mr Turoa that your experience in this case and the fact that you have spent four months in jail has told you that.
[8] In sentencing you I take account of the following purposes:
• to hold you accountable for the harm done to the community by drug dealing;
• to promote in you responsibility for and acknowledgement of that harm;
• to denounce drug dealing and selling drugs, the conduct that you were involved in; and
• to deter you and others from similar offending.
[9] I also take into account the principles of the Sentencing Act including:
• the gravity or the seriousness of the offence which is reflected in the maximum sentence of eight years’ imprisonment;
• the seriousness of your particular offending in this case;
• the need to be consistent with other sentences of the Court; and
• the least restrictive outcome appropriate in the circumstances of your case.
[10] As your lawyer has discussed with the Court the leading authority is the Court of Appeal decision of R v Terewi [1999] 3 NZLR 62. The Court of Appeal set out three bands for offending. The Court of Appeal confirmed that those bands apply in the case of supply of cannabis in the cases of: R v Andrews [2002] 2 NZLR
205 and R v Gray [2008] NZCA 224. And as you have heard Mr Turoa, your counsel accepts that your offending falls into the second of those bands. It is not the most serious but it is also not the least serious. It is in the middle. It is commercial dealing of cannabis. But as I have accepted it was commercial dealing at a relatively low level.
[11] I take a start point of two years six months’ imprisonment for you for that offending. I do not consider there are any personal aggravating features that would lead to an increase in your case. While you do have previous convictions none are as serious as the current charge. While you have a previous drug related offence that was over three years ago. I do not add any uplift for your previous offending but you have now got to the stage where you obviously do not get any credit for a clean record and if you offend in the future the fact that you have these convictions will simply add to any ultimate sentence.
[12] I then have regard to your personal factors. There are matters I can take into account in your favour Mr Turoa. And the first is your early guilty plea and acknowledgement to the police of your responsibility and involvement. And the second is your age. You are still a young man. You have got a chance to turn your life around.
[13] The probation report as I said is not a particularly positive one from your point of view. But you have youth on your side and taking those factors into account I propose to give a discount of nine months from the start point.
[14] Mr Turoa would you stand please.
[15] That leads the court to the view that a sentence of imprisonment of one year nine months’ imprisonment would be appropriate. The issue then is whether home detention could be an alternative sentence. Home detention is less restrictive than
prison but it is still a restrictive sentence. Mr Blake your counsel has argued strongly for home detention both in his oral submissions this morning and in the papers he has put before the Court.
[16] There are matters on your file and your background that cause me concern and which frankly do not support a sentence of home detention. They are your failure to comply with earlier orders of the Court and your failure to comply with bail conditions which led to you being breached and serving the four months in jail that you have served while on remand. Those matters frankly cause me concern Mr Turoa. However, you tell me that the four months you have spent in jail have taught you a lesson and you do want to change things. I have to say I have some reservations still Mr Turoa. But given your age and the support I am told that you have from your family and that the home detention residence proposed is away from where the offending took place I am prepared to give you a last chance in this matter. I am influenced by the fact that you have already spent time in prison.
[17] I am going to impose a sentence of home detention and in fixing the appropriate length of that term I take into account that you have spent four months approximately in jail.
[18] Having regard to that Mr Turoa you are sentenced to a term of home detention for nine months from today’s date. You are to travel from the Court directly to 15 Galilee Avenue, Papakura. You are to await the arrival of a probation officer and security company at that address. You are to remain at that address at all times unless your absence from the address is authorised by a probation officer. You are to abstain, in other words you are not to consume or to have any possession of alcohol or illegal drugs during the term of home detention. You are to undertake such treatment for alcohol and drug use as the probation officer may direct. You are also to undertake and complete the Medium Intensity Rehabilitative Programme as directed by the probation officer to the satisfaction of the programme facilitator and the probation officer.
[19] Mr Turoa you are essentially getting a last chance to avoid spending more time in prison. You are getting that because you have been to prison. You know
what it is like and you tell me that you do not want to go back there. You are also getting it because of your age. But it is a last chance Mr Turoa. That’s all, stand
down.
Venning J
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