R v Tukuafu [2022] NSWDC 717

District Court New South Wales

Medium Neutral Citation: R v Tukuafu [2022] NSWDC 717 Hearing dates: 13 December 2022 Date of orders: 13 December 2022 Decision date: 13 December 2022 Jurisdiction: Criminal Before: Haesler SC DCJ Decision: Aggregate sentence of 1 year 1 month to be served in the community subject to Intensive Correction Order Catchwords: CRIME – Supply prohibited drug - participate in a criminal group SENTENCING - Relevant factors on sentence – early guilty plea - young immature offender - acting under influence of older brother – parity - lengthy time on remand – deterrent effect of time on remand - need for monitoring and supervision in the community - community safety best served by ICO Cases Cited: Clarke-Jeffries v R [2019] NSWCCA 56 R v Tukuafu [2022] NSWDC 671 Category: Sentence Parties: Samiu Tukuafu (the offender) Director of Public Prosecutions Representation: Counsel: Mr A Booker (for the offender)

Solicitors: Morrisons Law (for the offender) Ms S Knox (for Director of Public Prosecutions) File Number(s): 2021/00251475

SENTENCE – EX TEMPORE REVISED

Introduction 1. Sentencing judges must attempt to deal with every matter put in dispute and synthesise all relevant factors and explain the reasons for their decision. Today I must be as succinct as possible because it is late in the day and we have already lost video link transmission to Parklea gaol on multiple occasions and will do so again. In light of the orders that I will be imposing, the sooner I can finish it the better. These constraints do not mean however that I can ignore my obligations to give a sentencing judgment. 2. Today Samiu Tukuafu adhered to guilty pleas entered in the Local Court to two serious offences: supplying a prohibited drug, being a quantity of methylamphetamine, and participating in a criminal group. He asks that when I sentence him for the supply matter, I take into account two other supplies on a Form 1. 3. His guilty plea justifies a reduction of 25% on the otherwise necessary sentence to reflect its utilitarian value. 4. The matters on the Form 1 do operate to increase the sentence of the matter to which they relate. I do so as part of my instinctive synthesis approach, but greater weight should be given to personal deterrence and retribution for the crime for sentence. Here, matters on the Form 1 help illustrate the sort of drug supply business that the offender engaged in. 5. There are two matters for sentence. An aggravating feature of the supply offence is that it was part of organised criminal activity. But there is separate charge of participating in a criminal group. And the particulars of participation are essentially the same as the matters that aggravate the sentence for the supply offence's sentence. Accordingly concurrent sentences are required, because to do otherwise would double count matters going to the seriousness of the principal offence.