R v HALATOA [2010] NSWDC 293

New South Wales District Court

CITATION: R v HALATOA [2010] NSWDC 293

HEARING DATE(S): 9 December 2010 EX TEMPORE JUDGMENT DATE : 9 December 2010

JURISDICTION: Criminal

JUDGMENT OF: Berman SC DCJ

DECISION: For the offence of aggravated enter a dwelling with intent, I sentence the offender to imprisonment for a fixed term of two years. For the offence of assault police in the execution of his duty and cause actual bodily harm, the offender is sentenced to imprisonment. I set a non-parole period of two years with a head sentence of four years.

CATCHWORDS: CRIMINAL LAW - Sentence - Opportunistic offending - Aggravated enter dwelling house with intent - Assault police officer in execution of duty causing actual bodily harm - Recent release from custody - On probation and parole at time of offending

PARTIES: The Crown Ricky Halatoa (Havea)

FILE NUMBER(S): DC 2010/00019995

SOLICITORS: Director of Public Prosecutions Aboriginal Legal Service

SENTENCE

1 HIS HONOUR: Ricky Halatoa appears for sentence today after having pleaded guilty at an early stage to two offences, both committed at around the same time on 21 January 2010. Mr Halatoa had only recently been released from custody when he committed these two serious offences.

2 He and a friend were out one evening. They went past a boarding house in Redfern, they noticed that one of the windows was open. They therefore went into the boarding house and went to the second storey, where they entered a bedroom shared by two men, who from the nature of the property stolen appear to have been tourists. The offender and his accomplice then stole a significant amount of property, some of it quite valuable, from the premises. Fortunately the acts of taking the property disturbed one of the men sleeping. He saw two silhouettes leaving his bedroom, got up and realised what was happening. The police were, therefore, called.