R v Buckley [2002] NSWCCA 44

New South Wales Court of Criminal Appeal

CITATION : R v Buckley [2002] NSWCCA 44 FILE NUMBER(S) : CCA 60799 of 1998 HEARING DATE(S) : 22/02/02 JUDGMENT DATE : 22 February 2002

Regina PARTIES : v Robin Andrew Buckley JUDGMENT OF : Meagher JA at 1, 16; Wood CJ at CL at 14; Bell J at 17

LOWER COURT JURISDICTION : District Court LOWER COURT FILE NUMBER(S) : 97/11/0683 LOWER COURT JUDICIAL Freeman DCJ OFFICER :

COUNSEL : A: Paul Byrne SC R: Richard Maidment SC SOLICITORS : A: Legal Aid Commission - David Barrow R: Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions CATCHWORDS : Application to vary sentence - whether non parole period could be reduced - appeal dismissed. DECISION : Appeal dismissed.

IN THE COURT OF CRIMINAL APPEAL CCA 60799 of 1998

MEAGHER JA WOOD CJ at CL BELL J

Friday, 22 February 2002 REGINA v ROBIN ANDREW BUCKLEY Judgment 1 MEAGHER JA: In this matter there is an application for an appeal by Mr Buckley who was found guilty in the District Court on a large number of cases, in fact seventeen counts arising out of financial dishonesty. The counts in question arose in some cases under New South Wales legislation and in some cases under Commonwealth legislation. His Honour grouped them in eight separate pairs of offences and the other was a single count, count 5. In relation to the eight separate pairs of sentences his Honour imposed concurrent sentences of six months and accumulated the sentences of eight pairs to give an overall sentence of four years in relation to those sixteen counts. 2 In relation to count 5 his Honour imposed a sentence of four years and made it cumulative on the sentence of other counts making a total sentence of eight years. In relation to the total sentence his Honour made it clear that his intention was that Mr Buckley should serve six years in custody and two years on parole. The present application is to vary the sentence of his Honour. 3 There is very little, if anything, in dispute. "I regard it", his Honour said, "as being one of the most serious examples of this sort of fraudulent behaviour with which the courts have had to deal. There is no present prospect of any refund". 4 What Mr Buckley did was approach various so-called investors and requested them to invest sums of money. Many of them did. Sometimes the sums were very high, $50,000 and more and sometimes less. The sort of thing which he said, if I may take his inducements to one investor, the unfortunate Mrs Becke, was this: