Regina v Williams [1999] NSWCCA 244

New South Wales Court of Criminal Appeal CITATION : Regina v Williams [1999] NSWCCA 244 FILE NUMBER(S) : CCA 60424/98 HEARING DATE(S) : 30 June 1999 JUDGMENT DATE : 30 June 1999

PARTIES : Regina Charles Stanley Williams JUDGMENT OF : Sully J; Bell J

LOWER COURT JURISDICTION : District Court LOWER COURT FILE NUMBER(S) : 97/31/0432 LOWER COURT JUDICIAL OFFICER : Job DCJ

COUNSEL : Appellant - in person R.A. Hulme - Crown SOLICITORS : Appellant - in person C. K. Smith - Crown CATCHWORDS : ACTS CITED : Crimes Act 1900 Justices Act DECISION : Leave to appeal granted; Appeal against sentences dismissed

IN THE COURT OF CRIMINAL APPEAL

60424/98

SULLY J BELL J

30 June 1999

REGINA v Charles Stanley WILLIAMS

JUDGMENT

1 SULLY J: On 31 July 1998 Mr Charles Stanley Williams stood for sentence in the Newcastle District Court before his Honour Judge Job QC. Mr Williams had pleaded guilty to a number of offences of dishonesty. 2 There had been presented against him an indictment containing eight counts, each of which charged him with having obtained money by deception, a contravention of s 178BA of the Crimes Act 1900 and attracting a maximum statutory penalty of imprisonment for five years. Mr Williams had earlier, and before a magistrate, pleaded guilty to three further charges of having obtained money by deception contrary to s 178BA. Those matters were dealt with by his Honour in the manner provided by s 51A of the Justices Act. 3 In connection with those latter three matters his Honour was asked to take into account a schedule containing a further six counts of obtaining money by deception; and his Honour was asked to take all of those into account in connection with the sentencing exercise upon which his Honour then embarked. 4 The eight counts in the indictment spanned a time frame from 24 November 1995 to 31 May 1997. The three matters that were dealt with in connection with s 51A were not so precisely dated. The first of them was laid at a time unspecified between 1 August 1996 and 18 November 1996; the second between 11 November 1996 and 13 January 1997; and the third between 23 September 1996 and 16 December 1996. 5 In connection with each of the eleven matters that were formally before him for sentence, his Honour imposed a sentence of imprisonment for four years, apportioned between a minimum term of three years and an additional term of one year. Each such sentence was ordered to be served concurrently. Mr Williams now seeks leave to appeal against those sentences. 6 He indicates that his ultimate purpose is to persuade the Court to replace the sentences of imprisonment with, in effect, a recognisance that he be of good behaviour for three years, or some such term. He assures the Court that he is sorry for the offences and that he will not repeat them. 7 Mr Williams is now aged seventy and he will be seventy-one on 23 December next. He has been assisted in the preparation of his submissions in support of his present application by a gentleman called Tony Saly who, I infer, was at the relevant time a fellow inmate in the Cessnock Correctional Centre. Mr Saly has prepared a document. It covers pages 3 and 4 of the appeal book, and it sets out, put simply, a number of submissions which stress various things that would be described conventionally as subjective matters particular to the applicant's condition. 8 The material facts are canvassed in some careful detail in the remarks on sentence of his Honour Judge Job, and it is not, I think, necessary now to take time to repeat them in their fine detail. It is sufficient to understand that over the time frame to which I have earlier referred the prisoner obtained from three particular victims sums of money of, respectively, $24,010, $6360 and $16,465. Those amounts have all been expended either in gambling or in some other personal pursuits of the applicant himself. 9 The victims were in all cases very elderly ladies. There can be no doubt that each of them has suffered a very significant and permanent loss by reason of the offences committed by the applicant. It does not take much imagination, I think, to understand the impact upon ladies who are, at least in two cases, in their eighties, of such an experience. 10 The learned sentencing Judge characterised the offences as being what his Honour called "nasty offences", and I think that sums up adequately the nature of what was done. It needs no emphasising, but the fact, that there is not the slightest hope of any recovery of any part of that very large sum of money lost in aggregate from the depredations of the applicant. 11 The present applications cannot succeed unless the applicant is able to demonstrate appellable error on the part of the sentencing Judge. It is not sufficient that he demonstrate that a different Judge might have taken a different, and a somewhat more lenient, view. It is not to the point to speculate whether the Judges of this Court, had they been sitting as the primary sentencing Judges, would have taken this or that particular view of the proper sentencing of the applicant. What is to the point is to ask whether there has been demonstrated any error in the approach taken by his Honour Judge Job. 12 I have read with care his Honour's remarks on sentence and I cannot see that his Honour made any such error as would call for the intervention of this Court. 13 It would be, I think, fair to understand that Mr Williams bases his present application significantly upon two bases. One is that he is sorry for what he has done. The other is that he is suffering from physical ailments of various kinds and of kinds that one would not be surprised to find in a gentleman of his years. 14 As to the first of them, it can be accepted that, at least in a sense and up to a point, he is sorry for what he has done. That is no comfort at all to those three elderly ladies who have lost, if not the whole of their resources, at least a significant portion of them. 15 As to Mr Williams' own present physical condition, I am properly sympathetic to it; but I see no reason to suspect that he is not receiving in his present custody proper and humane treatment in respect of those matters. For myself, I do not see that any basis has been made out for interfering with the sentences. 16 I would therefore propose orders as follows: 1. Leave to appeal granted. 2. Appeal against sentences dismissed.. 3. Confirm the recommendation on page 10 of the remarks on sentence. BELL J: I agree. SULLY J: There will be orders accordingly.. ***********