R v Rudy CHANDRA [2009] NSWDC 254

New South Wales District Court

CITATION: R v Rudy CHANDRA [2009] NSWDC 254

HEARING DATE(S): 6 August 2009 EX TEMPORE JUDGMENT DATE : 6 August 2009

JURISDICTION: District Court Criminal

JUDGMENT OF: Berman SC DCJ

DECISION: See Paragraphs [23] [24] [25] [26] & [27]

CATCHWORDS: Criminal law - Sentence - Form 1 - Fraud - Gambling addiction

PARTIES: The Crown Rudy Chandra

FILE NUMBER(S): DC 09/11/0226

COUNSEL: S Russell - Offender

SOLICITORS: NSW DPP Conaghan Hunter Solicitors

SENTENCE

1 Rudy Chandra appears for sentence today on five separate offences. When I sentence him for the first of those, he asks that I take into account a number of other matters on a Form 1.

2 The offender pleaded guilty to each of those offences in the local court and so I will discount the sentence I would otherwise have imposed for each offence by twenty-five percent to reflect the utilitarian value of his pleas of guilty.

3 The offender has committed a number of various forms of what could loosely be called fraud. He says that he did this because he was in debt due to his gambling. It is as well to state some fundamental principles. Gambling is an addiction and people do act less than rationally at times because of that addiction, but this is not to ignore that gamblers have a choice when they run out of their own money. They can either recognise that fact, or they can attempt to obtain money through other means, most usually, illegal means.

4 That is what the offender did in this case. It is his criminal decision to engage himself in illegal activity which forms the basis of his moral culpability.

5 Not only in this case did gambling form the genesis of the offender's misconduct, but it also, in many ways, provided the means. For example, the offender said and I accept immediately, that at the various casinos can be found people willing to facilitate the commission of criminal activities by those who are in need of further money.