R v Timothy James DOYLE [2010] NSWDC 307

New South Wales District Court

CITATION: R v Timothy James DOYLE [2010] NSWDC 307

JUDGMENT DATE: 10 November 2010

JURISDICTION: District Court of New South Wales

JUDGMENT OF: Cogswell SC DCJ

DECISION: The offender is sentenced to 100 hours of community service.

CATCHWORDS: CRIMINAL LAW - sentence - assault occasioning actual bodily harm in company - plea of guilty - reasonably serious example of this kind of offence - no relevant criminal history - pre sentence report - s 9 bond not appropriate because of seriousness of offence - young offender - good prospects of rehabilitation - community service order 100 hours

LEGISLATION CITED: Crimes Act 1900 s 59(2) Crimes (Sentencing Procedure) Act 1999 s 9

PARTIES: Regina Timothy James Doyle

FILE NUMBER(S): 2009/227578

COUNSEL: Mr Robinson for Mr Doyle

SOLICITORS: Mr Thompson for the ODPP

JUDGMENT

SENTENCE

HIS HONOUR: Mr Doyle, I am going to sentence you now. What I have got to do first is to talk about the case and I say what you did and things like that and that will take about twenty minutes or so and then in the end I announce what the sentence is going to be. Do you understand that?

OFFENDER: Yes.

1. I am sentencing a young man who joined in a violent attack on a complete stranger who, the young man mistakenly thought, had assaulted the young man's mother. In fact the stranger had acted as a good Samaritan and had assisted his mother after she had fallen over. The sentence I impose on the young man has to reflect the seriousness of the assault but also take into account his youth and prospects of rehabilitation.

2. The young man's name is Timothy James Doyle. He turned twenty earlier this year. He pleaded guilty to an offence called assault occasioning actual bodily harm in company. That is an offence against s 59(2) of the Crimes Act 1900 and carries a maximum of seven years imprisonment. I have already convicted Mr Doyle of that offence.