R v HANDLEY [2007] NSWDC 38

New South Wales District Court

CITATION: R v HANDLEY [2007] NSWDC 38

HEARING DATE(S): 20 February 2007

JUDGMENT DATE: 20 February 2007

EX TEMPORE JUDGMENT DATE : 20 February 2007

JURISDICTION: Criminal

JUDGMENT OF: Berman SC DCJ

DECISION: See paragraph [10]

CATCHWORDS: Criminal law - Sentence - Addiction to drugs - Demand money with menaces - Break enter and steal - Carried in a conveyance

PARTIES: Crown Scott Wallace Peter Handley

FILE NUMBER(S): 06/11/1019

SOLICITORS: NSW DPP Legal Aid Commission

SENTENCE

1 HIS HONOUR: Scott Peter Handley appears for sentence today after having pleaded guilty at an early stage to four offences. They were committed very soon after Mr Handley was released on parole for very similar offences. That is a matter of serious concern and is obviously a matter of serious aggravation. The offender was sentenced to imprisonment for an offence of break enter and steal. He was dealt with in, what appears to have been, a fairly lenient manner. All that leniency did was enable him to be released earlier than he might otherwise have been and that in turn enabled him simply to re-commence his criminal offending earlier than he would otherwise. The time for leniency in Mr Handley's case has passed. The time has come for sentences to be visited upon him which reflect the serious nature of his ongoing criminality, to protect householders from his repeated activity, and hopefully to deter him from continuing on the life that he has chosen to follow thus far.

2 The offender was released from custody on parole for an offence of break enter and steal, that was on 15 February 2006. For a short time he managed to remain drug free. I should interpolate here it is his addiction to drugs which has led to him committing such a large number of offences in the past. But it was only a relatively short time after his release that he relapsed and recommenced his drug use, gave up the job that he had managed to obtain and began supporting his drug habit through the commission of criminal offences. The first of those offences actually appears on a Form 1, that was committed on 21 May 2006. The Form 1 is attached to the offence of demand money with menaces which I will deal with shortly. The offence of 21 May 2006 involved the offender making a false statement to a pawnbroker when he produced some material to that pawnbroker in order to receive money for the item. The next offence is a matter that he is to be specifically sentenced for, that was an offence of break enter and steal on 26 May. He entered premises at Beacon Hill by removing two louvred sheets of glass. Once in there he took a Sony DVD recorder, a camera and a television. He left in a utility which I will mention again later because it is also the subject of an offence on a Form 1. He was identified as being the offender by his fingerprints being found there.