HER MAJESTY'S ATTORNEY GENERAL IN AND FOR THE STATE OF NEW SOUTH WALES v Cameron [1994] NSWCA 130

HER MAJESTY'S ATTORNEY GENERAL IN AND FOR THE STATE OF NEW SOUTH WALES v Cameron

SUPREME COURT OF NEW SOUTH WALES — COURT OF APPEAL

GLEESON CJ, MAHONEY JA and COLE JA 13 October 1994

[1994] NSWCA 130

Gleeson CJ. This morning we made a declaration in terms of paragraph | of the summons in this matter. The Court has now been invited by the claimant to proceed to convict the opponent of contempt as alleged in the summons and we do so. The question then arises as to the future of the sentencing proceedings. Senior counsel for the claimant has urged the Court to proceed immediately to sentence the opponent to a custodial sentence. The solicitor for the opponent has applied for an adjournment of the sentencing proceedings upon two grounds. First, she wants to obtain from the Probation and Parole Service a pre-sentence report and, second, she wants to have the opportunity to amplify a psychiatrist's report which she has in her possession and on which she would seek to place reliance in relation to the matter of sentencing.

It should be said by way of background that although the opponent is only in his early thirties, he has a long history of, if I may adopt the phrase used by his solicitor, 'interaction with the criminal justice system'. He has been in prison on a number of occasions and back in 1987 he was convicted of a very serious offence involving the possessing of a firearm with intent to commit anindictable offence. He was granted a recognizance on that occasion but subsequently was found to be in breach of the recognizance and was sentenced to imprisonment for five years with a non-parole period of eighteen months. He has been in prison on other occasions, the most recent of which arose out of a conviction for attempting to pervert the course of justice and obtaining money by deception. In 1992 he was sentenced to imprisonment in respect of those offences. He had only been off parole for a few months at the time of the offence of contempt of court of which we have found him guilty.