R v Simon MUROE [2008] NSWDC 178

New South Wales District Court

CITATION: R v Simon MUROE [2008] NSWDC 178

HEARING DATE(S): 31 July 2008,18 August 2008

JUDGMENT DATE: 22 August 2008

JURISDICTION: Criminal

JUDGMENT OF: Berman SC DCJ

DECISION: Both appeals are dismissed and the sentence of the Magistrate is confirmed.

CATCHWORDS: CRIMINAL LAW - judgment - severity appeal - Crown appeal - supply prohibited drug to a child under 16 - death irrelevant in sentencing - jurisdictional limit and maximum penalty - breaches of conditional liberty

LEGISLATION CITED: Crimes (Sentencing Procedure) Act 1999 Drug Misuse and Trafficking Act 1985

CASES CITED: De Simoni v The (1981) 147 CLR 383 R v Ellis (1986) 6 NSWLR 603

PARTIES: The Crown Simon Munroe

FILE NUMBER(S): DC 2008/12/0874

COUNSEL: W Barber (Offender)

SOLICITORS: NSW DPP Ian Rolfe Solicitors (Offender)

JUDGMENT

1 HIS HONOUR: In October 2005 Ms Georgia Chant was living with the offender. She was fifteen years of age and in year 10 at Barrenjoey High School. He was twenty-five and a drug user. On 9 October he should have been in prison serving a sentence of periodic detention. Instead he was at his home with Ms Chant. He used some heroin and took some Murelax tablets in her presence. She then made the fateful decision to ask the offender to give her some of the drugs so she could try them. The offender gave Ms Chant what she requested and she took both drugs.

2 As a result of those actions, the accused was charged with, and later pleaded guilty to, an offence of supplying a prohibited drug to a child under the age of sixteen. That is an offence under the Drug Misuse and Trafficking Act carrying with it a maximum period of imprisonment of eighteen years. The Magistrate imposed a sentence of imprisonment of twenty months with a non-parole period of fifteen months. Both the Crown and the offender appealed against that sentence to this court.