R v HANSON [2007] NSWDC 95

New South Wales District Court

CITATION: R v HANSON [2007] NSWDC 95

HEARING DATE(S): 23 March 2007

JUDGMENT DATE: 23 March 2007

EX TEMPORE JUDGMENT DATE : 23 March 2007

JURISDICTION: Criminal

JUDGMENT OF: Berman SC DCJ

DECISION: See paragraph [15]

CATCHWORDS: Criminal Law - Sentence - Supply prohibited drug on an ongoing basis

PARTIES: Crown Judith Faye Hanson

FILE NUMBER(S): 07/11/0023

SOLICITORS: NSW DPP Legal Aid Commission

SENTENCE

1 HIS HONOUR: Judith Hanson appears for sentence today for an offence of supplying a prohibited drug on an ongoing basis. The prohibited drug was cocaine. She supplied that drug to an undercover police officer on a number of occasions. On 10 August 2006 she supplied .07 grams of cocaine. On 18 August she supplied two separate quantities .15 of a gram and .16 of a gram of heroin. On 6 September she supplied .1 of a gram of cocaine. The quantities that she supplied to the undercover officer totalled thus .32 grams of cocaine and .16 grams of heroin.

2 What makes this offence serious of course is the ongoing nature of the criminality. The legislature responded to people who were, as Ms Hanson did, regularly supplying drugs by creating the offence of supplying them on an ongoing basis and by its maximum penalty indicated that it should be dealt with as seriously as those who supply on a single occasion much larger quantities of drugs.

3 This offence came about when Ms Hanson, who was dabbling in cocaine use at the time, invited a Mr Keating to move into her home. He was a drug supplier and he used the home that he shared with Ms Hanson as the base for his drug supply activities. Eventually Mr Keating left, but his customers would still come around knocking on the door and trying to get drugs. The offender decided that she would supply them. In that sense she took over Mr Keating's business. She says that she did so in order to get her own drugs for free. By this stage she wasn't merely dabbling in cocaine use but had a significant habit. By supplying drugs to others she was able to get drugs for her own use, this is not a case of a person profiting in the sense of making large sums of money by any means from what she did.