District Court New South Wales Medium Neutral Citation: R (Commonwealth) v Nelson-Olds [2012] NSWDC 253 Hearing dates: 15, 16 November 2012 Decision date: 16 November 2012 Before: Neilson DCJ Decision: Sentenced to 4 years imprisonment with a non-parole period of 2 years. Catchwords: CRIMINAL LAW - Sentence - Reckelssly import marketable quantity of border controlled drug - Cocaine Legislation Cited: Crimes Act 1914 (Cth) s 16A(2) Criminal Code Act 1995 (Cth) s 307.2 Cases Cited: R v Shrestha (1991) 173 CLR 48 Category: Sentence Parties: Regina (Commonwealth) Tammy Dianne Nelson-Olds (Offender) Representation: Mr D Huer (CDPP) Mr P Little (Offender) File Number(s): 2010/425792 Judgment 1Tammy Dianne Nelson-Olds stands for sentence as a consequence of adhering to a plea of guilty to a charge that on 23 December 2010 at Sydney in this State she did import a substance being reckless that the substance was a border controlled drug, namely cocaine, and the quantity being imported being a marketable quantity. That is an offence contrary to s 307.2(1) of the Criminal Code Act 1995 of the Commonwealth of Australia. The maximum penalty for the offence is imprisonment for twentyfive years and/or a fine of 5,000 penalty units. 2The terms of s 307.2(1), (2) and(3) are these: "(1) A person commits an offence if: (a) the person imports or exports a substance; and (b) the substance is a border controlled drug or border controlled plant; and (c) the quantity imported or exported is a marketable quantity. Penalty: Imprisonment for 25 years or 5,000 penalty units, or both. (2) The fault element for paragraph (1)(b) is recklessness. (3) Absolute liability applies to paragraph (1)(c)." 3By her plea of guilty the offender acknowledges that she was reckless, that being the averment in the indictment presented on 1 November 2012. 4The agreed facts tell me that Marlon Lancaster DiCaprio, an Australian citizen who was assisted by his wife, Isabelle Mary Borg and an American citizen, Micoy Neal Hamilton were organisers and recruiters of couriers for the importation of the illicit drugs. The method used by these drug "lords" involved the recruitment in the United States of America of its citizens as drug couriers, who would then convey approximately between one and three kilograms of cocaine inside false compartments of suitcases and transport it between Jamaica and Australia. 5On 23 December 2010 in Miami in the State of Florida, American authorities arrested Sabrina Nelson, then aged twentythree, and Rodney Nelson, then aged twentyone. These are children of the current offender. Sabrina Nelson was found to have approximately 2.5 kilograms of cocaine concealed within her luggage. The inference I draw from the agreed facts is that the 2.5 kilograms was of cocaine in its impure state. Both Sabrina Nelson and Rodney Nelson had arrived in Miami from Jamaica and were due to fly from Miami to Sydney via Los Angeles. Sabrina Nelson cooperated with the American authorities. She admitted attempting to import cocaine into this country. She also advised the American authorities that her mother, the present offender, had departed for Australia on an earlier flight and was carrying a concealed amount of cocaine in an attempt to import that drug into this country. 6At approximately 8.40am on Thursday 23 December 2010 the present offender arrived at Sydney International Airport on a United Airlines flight from Miami, travelling via San Francisco. The offender was travelling with two of her other children, a daughter, Salina, who was then sixteen, and her son James, who was then fifteen. The offender went through the immigration barrier and then attended the luggage carousel where she told her son, James, to pick out a tan coloured suitcase and place it on a trolley. He did so. At about 9.37am the offender went from the luggage carousel with her two children to the Customs barrier. She and her children were selected for examination by a Customs officer. The offender presented an incoming passenger card in which she declared that she was not bringing into Australia, inter alia, any illicit drugs. When she was questioned as to the contents of the tan coloured suitcase the offender informed the Customs officers that it contained the clothing that belonged to the two children who were travelling with her. When examined by Customs officers the tan coloured suitcase was found to contain concealed in its lining 1.492 kilograms of impure cocaine. 7The extent of the purity of the cocaine was 55.6 percent. Federal police forensic officers calculated that the pure weight of the cocaine was 830 grams. Any more than two grams of cocaine renders it a marketable border controlled drug. More than two kilograms of the pure drug makes it a commercial quantity. The penalty for importing a commercial quantity of cocaine is imprisonment for life. It has been estimated that the street value of the cocaine was between $592,536 and $663,640. Street level cocaine is normally sold at a purity of between thirtyfive and fifty percent. The police estimate the wholesale value of the cocaine was about $243,658. 8In her interview with the American authorities, Sabrina Nelson admitted intending to travel to Sydney, admitted that a man known to her as "Troy" recruited her to carry cocaine from America to Australia and that upon her arrival in Australia "Troy" would be waiting either at Sydney Airport or a hotel to collect Sabrina and the suitcase containing the cocaine. Sabrina Nelson admitted that she communicated with "Troy" by sending emails to him at a certain email address. She also admitted that she previously imported cocaine from Australia into this country in July 2010 for "Troy". "Troy" appears to be an alias for Marlon Lancaster DiCaprio. 9The police lawfully obtained information from the email account maintained by DiCaprio using the alias of Troy Dyer. On 12 October 2010 at 1.30pm Sabrina Nelson expressed some concern to DiCaprio about making a further importation. However, she told DiCaprio that she could identify somebody else to assist DiCaprio, namely her mother, the current offender. The email continues thus: "But I [don't] have the money for her pass and the vgas" I assume the matter in the email referred to a passport and visas. 10I will shortly allude to other facts but suffice it to say at this stage that the offender believed that "Troy" was her daughter's intended fiancé and that he was paying for the offender's trip with her other family members to Sydney in order that they could witness the betrothal of "Troy" and Sabrina Nelson. 11On 14 December 2010 at 9.19pm the offender sent an email to DiCaprio. It was merely so that he would be aware of her email address. The offender "signed" the email "Mama T". There is nothing inherently suspicious about that email nor anything inherently inconsistent with the facts that the offender asks me to accept. DiCaprio sent an email in reply merely thanking the offender for passing on that piece of intelligence. At about 2.18am on 18 December 2010 the offender sent an email to DiCaprio, whom she still thought to be Troy Dyer. The substance of the email without abbreviations is this: "Hey baby boy. Will arrive flight 16. Long black skirt, black blazer, green shirt, black boots." 12The offender was so attired when she arrived at Sydney Airport on 23 December 2010. Again, there is nothing inherently suspicious about that email transmission nor anything inconsistent with the position that the offender asks me to accept she was in. One can see it as merely a description of how she appeared, such that "Troy" could identify her when she had passed through Immigration and Customs at Sydney Airport. 13The offender's position as to her criminality has been consistently reported. She was examined on 20 May 2011 by Dr Adam Martin, a forensic psychiatrist, at the Dillwynia Correctional Centre. Dr Martin took a history of the offender's crime. The offender was interviewed by the Probation and Parole Service on or shortly before 20 October 2011. The section of the report relating to the offender's conduct is this: "The offender had denied all prior knowledge that the drugs were in her luggage when she travelled to Australia in December 2010. Ms Nelson-Olds reported that her daughter lent her the suitcase to pack for a holiday in Australia. The offender reported she believed that the entire family were travelling to Australia for a holiday paid by her daughter's boyfriend so they could meet and he could allegedly propose in their presence. Ms Nelson-Olds claimed that the first she learnt of the drugs in her luggage was when she was searched at Sydney Airport. Despite this, Ms Nelson-Olds has accepted responsibility stating that even though the bag was given to her by her daughter she still should have checked it prior to packing her belongings in it and leaving the United States of America for Australia. The offender appeared to understand the seriousness of her current legal situation and the likely consequence of her actions." 14The offender was interviewed on 1 March 2012 by a clinical psychologist, Ms Danielle Hopkins, again at Dillwynia Correctional Centre. The only reference to the offender's conduct in that report is a statement in [12] that the offender told the psychologist that she came to Australia with her daughter for a "holiday". 15The offender prepared two documents, which became exhibit 15. Each is addressed to me. The first document is typewritten and bears the date 14 November 2012. The second is handwritten and bears the date 15 November 2012. The first paragraph of the typewritten document is this: "I really needed to tell you how sorry I am about this whole matter, not because I am in prison, but because if those drugs were to hit the streets, kids and/or citizens would partake in it. I have five children of my own and I would be heartbroken if they were to use cocaine. I see now how reckless I was for not checking the suitcase better. It was loaned to me by my daughter Sabrina Nelson and her friend Rashawn. I knew they smoked marihuana and Sabrina would most likely bring a stash to smoke. At no time did I think it would be 800 grams of marihuana and definitely not cocaine. She doesn't use cocaine to my knowledge. I thought nothing of it because she is my daughter; I had no reason not to trust her. Your Honour I truly and sincerely apologise from the bottom of my heart." 16In the following paragraph, which is lengthy, the offender tells me about the history of current proceedings and in essence repeats her averment as to how she became involved in this attempted importation of cocaine. In the manuscript document of 15 November the offender said, inter alia: "Your Honour, I know now that I was stupid and very reckless. At that time 2009-2010 I had four major surgeries and almost died with a fourth one due to massive infections. I did not know Sabrina had imported drugs six months prior to my arrest, probably because at that time my brother died, my husband left me and my aunt died, all in a matter of weeks. I was so depressed for months. I love my daughter. She offered a family vacation and I accepted because I knew she was trying to help me through my pain. Her fiancé, from Australia, paid for everything. I was so out of it, that I didn't question her a lot. I knew she and her friends smoked marihuana, so I could have guessed she would have some put away. God, I was so stupid, and I am so sorry." 17In essence, the offender says that she was an unwitting courier of drugs into this country, that her criminality was mere recklessness; she knew her daughter was a smoker of cannabis, she realised her daughter might try to import cannabis for her own use, she accepted the lending of a bag and did not check it out and that bag contained the cocaine which the offender attempted to bring into this country. 18The only "benefit" that the offender was to receive for committing this offence was a free holiday in this country, but she did not know that it was in payment of her being a courier. One can be very cynical of such "facts". Persons of prior good character are often recruited to act as drug couriers because they excite no one's suspicion. 19At the time of the offence the offender was forty-four years old. She is currently forty-five years old and will shortly attain her fortysixth anniversary. She is a mature woman and not someone who might be expected to be importing illicit drugs. She had with her her two teenage children, and the use by drug couriers of children as "cover" is well known. 20However, the offender entered the witness box and swore on oath that the two communications she gave to me, that of 14 November and that of 15 November 2012, were true and swore on oath that the history she gave to the psychologist, Ms Hopkins, was also true. She was asked not one question in crossexamination. In those circumstances, I accept what she averred on her oath and I accept that she told me the truth in the two communications, which are exhibit 15. 21In passing sentence I must consider the objective criminality of the offender. The only objective criminality is the recklessness of accepting the loan of a suitcase from her daughter, whom she knew to be a user of cannabis. That recklessness could equally be categorised as stupidity, because she trusted her daughter albeit that she knew her daughter to be a smoker of cannabis. The criminal law punishes people for their criminality not for stupidity. 22The parties have placed before me a large number of authorities relevant to the question of sentencing. Exhibit 1, the Crown bundle, contains a précis of thirty cases for the offence of importing a marketable quantity of cocaine. In addition, the Crown put before me four full judgments on the same topic and the defence put before me one full judgment on the same topic. Suffice to say that, as far as I can glean, all the cases indicate that the drug courier was aware, consciously aware, that he or she was importing an illicit drug and in most of the cases the drug courier admitted obtaining a benefit, either the promise of a reward in money, the forgiveness of a debt, or the obtaining of money for an ulterior purpose, even a charitable purpose. 23In many of the cases it is obvious that the importer of the drug must have been aware of what he or she was doing. Many drug couriers ingest drugs in balloons which are eventually passed through the gastro intestinal system. Swallowing a drug is something of which one must be unaware. Many secrete illicit drugs on their person, such as in their underwear or sewn into their bras, and in one case having the drug braided into the courier's hair. There are a number of cases in which drugs were secreted in articles being imported, such as bags, but in each of the cases drawn to my attention the offender was aware of what he or she was importing prior to getting on a plane to travel to this country. 24As I said, all of the authorities that I have looked at indicate the doing of this for an advantage such as a large monetary reward or to obtain the forgiveness of a debt or, for example, to obtain money in order to fund surgery for a child. Some of the cases suggest that the persons bring the drugs into this country with the intention of selling them, thereby intending to make a profit. Here there is no such element. Objectively speaking, this case must be at the bottom of the range of objective seriousness. The only complicating factor is the quantity of the drug that the offender was seeking to import; 830 grams of cocaine with an estimated street value of around $600,000, and one could see that DiCaprio, if the drugs were given to him, might make a profit of almost $400,000. 25However, there is no suggestion that the current offender would get any advantage other than a free trip to Australia, which she thought was arranged by her daughter to give her a break from her life, which had become complicated, and in order that she could witness her daughter's betrothal to "Troy". Had the current offender knowingly imported the 830 grams of cocaine with the intention or knowledge that she would see a monetary advantage, I would have had to consider imposing upon a head sentence of some seven years imprisonment with a non-parole period of four years. That is consistent with the authorities and judicial statistics. However, this case is otherwise. 26I turn now to the offender's personal circumstances. The offender was born on 14 December 1966. She is currently forty-five years old and will soon achieve her forty-sixth anniversary. She was born in Washington in the District of Colombia and appears to have been living for a large amount of time in Utica in the State of New York. She is the mother of five children. The Crown bundle tells me that the children are aged twentyfive, twenty-three, twentyone, sixteen and fifteen. Those, clearly, were their ages at the time of the importation of the cocaine on 23 December 2010. Each would now be approximately two years older. 27The offender is, essentially, a lady of prior good character. The Crown puts before me no criminal record either from the District of Colombia or the State of New York or from any other American jurisdiction. The only thing that can be said about the offender's apparent forensic history is what is contained in the report of Dr Martin of 25 May 2011. It is this: "This is apparently her first time in custody and she denied serious criminal issues in the States. She said there had been one 'trespass violation', but denied misdemeanours or felonies." 28At common law all crimes are divided into one of three classes: treasons, felonies and misdemeanours. I do not know what a "trespass violation" is, but it might be some form of statutory offence. Of course, the tri-partite division of offences at common law has been abolished in this State to be replaced by a distinction between summary offences, indictable offences and serious indictable offences, with the complication that some indictable offences can be tried summarily. Whether this was any positive law reform is a moot question. 29However, all I can infer is that the offender admits to one minor offence in her native country and which did not earn her any time in custody. An offence of "trespass" is very different to the current form of offence. I therefore accept that the offender comes before this Court as a lady of prior good character, although as the authorities make clear such is of less moment in cases of this nature because, as I have already said, drug couriers need to be "clean skins" otherwise they draw unnecessary attention to themselves. 30The offender's life has been hard, but the evidence establishes that she has been a good mother and provider to her five children. I do not need to go into any great detail about the offender's background other than to quote a summary made by Ms Hopkins in her report of 8 March 2012. It is this: "Ms NelsonOlds is a forty-five year old woman has pleaded guilty to the current charges and is awaiting sentencing. She reported a difficult childhood, marked by instability and separation from her mother and multiple child protection risks. She noted that she had little contact with her biological father and that she had a poor relationship with her stepfather given that she was the product of an extra marital affair. It seems her mother's family rejected her due to racial bias and the high prevalence of major mental illness and anti social behaviour in her family further compromised her development. By the age thirteen, Ms NelsonOlds was living a pseudoadult lifestyle and was not provided with boundaries or guidance from her mother. During this period her psychosocial functioning reduced and she endorsed alcohol use and detrimental activities such as attending clubs under age. Her relationship with her mother was turbulent and she reported that her mother had an affair with her boyfriend when she was fourteen years of age. Despite relocation to her sister's residence, she returned home to her mother shortly after departing. To her credit, she was able to progress through school and complete her year twelve, despite her difficult family environment and this suggests that she has some resilient traits. Ms NelsonOlds has been involved in three relationships and has five children and seems to have been dependant on them throughout her life for support. As such, she described her family as her only source of social support. She noted that she has experienced chronic mental health problems and was finally diagnosed with bipolar disorder when she was thirty-seven years of age. Her chronic pain continues to impact on her experience of low mood and depression. Ms Nelson-Olds stated that she had used alcohol and substances as a means of coping with her pain and mental health issues prior to, and after her diagnosis and has longterm substance use problems. Her description of more recent stressful life events and her battles with crack cocaine addiction have marked her poor adjustment in the past few years. Indeed, she reported to me that her mother died in 2008, followed by her brother and auntie in 2010. She noted a brief period of residential rehabilitation (possibly only for detox) followed by a relapse into alcohol and crack cocaine use. Given these issues and her poor functioning around the time of the offences she was unemployed when she decided to travel with her daughter to Australia. She is not only at risk of decompensating in her mental state, which is precarious, but also suffers severe pain for which it appears she has been unable to obtain appropriate recognition...whilst in gaol." 31There is before me medical evidence from both the United States and Corrective Services New South Wales about the offender's general health. According to Justice Health the offender currently is on seventeen prescribed medications. Since being arrested on 23 December 2010 she has had two one-week admissions to hospital. The records of Justice Health also tell me that the offender has mental health issues, "multiple medical issues", chronic pain from arthritis, asthma, and is on the methadone program. 32Records from a practice in New York indicate that the offender has problems with anaemia, anxiety, asthma, back pain, depression, high blood pressure, gastric reflux, spinal canal stenosis, osteoarthritis, a problem in her right hip, chronic constipation as well as bipolar disorder. The evidence tells me that in the past the offender has fractured her right hip, leading it to being pinned and plated. She has undergone a hysterectomy, gastric banding surgery, and she requires the removal of her gall bladder, a cholecystectomy. She also has problems in both her cervical and lumbar spines and there is reference to discal lesions in both the cervical and the lumbar spines. The offender's health problems have, it would appear, been chronic since about 2008, leading to the offender's unemployment. 33I accept that there were multiple psychosocial stressors affecting the offender during 2010 and stressors affecting her physical health. I accept that she was "down", to put it bluntly, and that led to her accepting her daughter's suggestion of going to Australia for a holiday, thereby rendering her an unwitting drug mule. 34In the circumstances, the offender's criminality is even further attenuated because being "down", being the subject of the bereavements to which I have referred, and the mental and physical health problems to which I have referred, made her less suspicious of her daughter, made her accept what her daughter was doing, inhibited her about checking the bag, and therefore contributed to the offender's recklessness. 35I also accept that the offender's physical and mental health have made her experience of custody much more onerous than it normally would be. In her letter to me of 14 November 2012 the offender remarked that the Corrective Services officers were complaining to her that her medications were costing Corrective Services "a ton of money." I can accept that. 36The final paragraph of her letter of 14 November 2012 is this: "Your Honour, I am scared most of the time, I've been beaten up three times in the last two years. Sometimes I feel as if I'm going to die here and never have a chance to see my kids again. I've been without them for two years. I humbly beg you to show me compassion and allow me to go home soon. I will never leave my country again and I'll never be stupid enough to borrow anyone's suitcase." 37In her handwritten communication of yesterday the offender pleads to me that it was "killing" her not to be able to see her five children. From what I have quoted from Ms Collins's report, it is clear that the offender's purpose in life is centred around her nuclear family, her five children, which give her her only social support. 38Since being in custody the offender has been incarcerated at Dillwynia, at Wellington and at Silverwater. Although Dillwynia is the most attractive of those three centres, the offender finds it more congenial at Silverwater because she can obtain both psychiatric and medical treatment at that institution rather than at the other institutions. I would have thought that being sent to Wellington would be a form of exile for a person of the offender's background, a now fortyfive year old AfricanAmerican woman. Clearly the onerous nature of her incarceration is a circumstance to allow a longer than usual period on parole, to reduce the nonparole period. The High Court of Australia has made it clear that the likelihood of deportation if a convicted person is subsequently released on parole should not of itself compel a sentencing judge to conclude that it is inappropriate that the person should be eligible to be considered for release on parole at some future time: R v Shrestha (1991) 173 CLR 48 at 71. 39It has been submitted that the offender's family is suffering from hardship because of her incarceration. The two children with whom she travelled to Australia would now be seventeen and eighteen years old, doing their final school classes and perhaps trying to obtain sufficient academic status to go to, as we would call it, university or, as the Americans would call it, college. However, it is well established that the probable effect of any sentence on an offender's family or dependents can only be taken into consideration "in an exceptional case." I cannot take that into account, but I do take into account the fact that the hardship is really on the offender by being separated from her only sources of social support, her children. 40In sentencing for a federal offence I am required to take into account all the matters referred to in s 16A(2) of the Crimes Act 1914 of the Commonwealth of Australia. Paragraph (a) requires me to take into account the nature and circumstances of the offence. I have sought to do so. 41Paragraphs (b) and (c) of the subsection are not presently relevant. I am required to take into account the personal circumstances of any victim but here there was no victim as such, although if the drugs had found their way into the illicit drug market there could have been dire consequences for many citizens, as the offender herself acknowledged in her typewritten letter to me of 14 November 2012. 42Under paragraph (e) I am required to take into account any injury, loss or damage resulting from the offence. Fortunately there has been none. I am required under paragraph (f) to take into account the degree to which the offender has shown contrition for the offence by taking action or making reparation for any injury or in any other matter. Clearly there could be no reparation for this attempted importation. I accept that the offender does realise that what she did was wrong; that she was foolish in not checking what her daughter had given to her when she rightly suspected that her daughter may have been using the bag to cache illicit drugs. The contrition is shown in the communications to me which I have already quoted. There is nothing to require me to consider the provisions at paragraph (fa) of the subsection. 43I am required to take into account if the person had pleaded guilty to the charge. I shall now do so. The history of the current proceedings is complicated. In her typewritten letter to me of 14 November 2012 the offender tells me this: "After my arrest, I was very confused. I was advised to plead guilty in [the] Local Court, by my second solicitor Ms Thelma Gray, in order to receive 25% discount off my time. So I did so with the understanding I would get no more than two years for my charge. I was given a sentencing date for [the] District Court. My first appearance, my barrister did not show [up]. It was adjourned. Then two days prior to the second sentencing date, my second barrister...met me. I was advised that I needed to plead in the District Court before I could be sentenced. He also advised me that I was given misinformation regarding the amount of time I would receive. I was now being told that I was looking at double the time Ms Gray had given me. So we adjourned so that [the second barrister] could familiarise himself with my case and he advised that I may want to go to trial. I was so confused. I told [my second barrister] to proceed for trial, but in the meantime, [my second barrister] and my third barrister, Mr Peter Little, came to meet with me. Twentytwo months into being on remand, they explained much more clearly to me that because I thought my daughter, Sabrina Nelson, would most likely bring recreational drug of marihuana with her, and that she and Rashawn was loaning my teenagers a suitcase for their clothing, that I was reckless in not checking the suitcase out much more thoroughly. So now I understand my charge, therefore I did not want to waste the Court's time with the trial. So when my date came to put my first plea into District Court, I pleaded guilty. I am so sorry, because my mental illness it takes me a lot longer to absorb information." 44It would appear that the offender was given conflicting legal advice and that led to her giving instructions to change her plea from guilty to not guilty, but when formally arraigned she did plead guilty and maintains her guilt. Clearly I cannot accept that this is a plea of guilty at the earliest available opportunity because of the subsequent change of plea. 45However, the plea shows great cooperation with the federal law enforcement authorities because it may have been very difficult for the Crown to prove the case against the present offender, especially if she raised a defence under s 307.2(4). The onus of proving that defence would have been upon her. I have presided over enough jury trials over the last nine years to know that the offender may well have been found not guilty by a sympathetic jury. Therefore the offender's plea of guilty should be given great weight because it does show assistance with the law enforcement authorities. However, I cannot give 'the full discount' for the plea of guilty, but I will allow a twenty percent discount because of the significance of the plea, not so much its timing. What I have just said also covers the grounds set out in s 16A(2)(h). 46Under paragraph (j) I am required to consider the deterrent effect of any sentence or order that may be passed might have on the offender. I am confident that, chastened by her present experience, the offender will not ever leave her native land again, as she has set out in her typewritten letter of 14 November 2012. I am confident that her prospects of rehabilitation are excellent and that there will be no recidivism. 47Under paragraph (k) I am required to take into account the need to ensure that the person is adequately punished for the offence. I have attempted to do so. Paragraph (m) requires me to take into account the character, antecedents, age, means and physical or mental condition of the offender. I have sought to do so. Paragraph (n) requires me to take into account the prospects of rehabilitation. I have already mentioned that. As I said, I accept that the offender will not reoffend. I have already adverted to the contents of paragraph (p) of the subsection. 48To be extremely blunt about it, this case is far less serious than all the other cases to which I have been referred. Here I have a case of criminality that could be categorised as being next to stupidity. Of course, the offence is a major offence punishable by imprisonment for up to twentyfive years. As I said, if the offender had knowingly imported the cocaine with the prospect of obtaining for herself some form of financial or pecuniary reward, I would have had to consider a head sentence of some seven years and a nonparole period of four years. 49This case is far from that. I have come to the view that, in this sentencing exercise, the theoretical starting point should be a head sentence of five years. I discount that by twenty percent to reduce the head sentence to four years. I believe the appropriate non-parole period is a period of two years. The end result is that the offender will be released from custody on 22 December next. 50It is highly likely that she will be deported from the Commonwealth of Australia on her release from custody. I heartily suspect that the offender wants that to occur. This might offer the offender the chance to spend Christmas with her children. However, I would not hold my breath about that because that would require the Department of Immigration and Ethnic Affairs to be prompt in arranging transport from Sydney to New York on 22 December, which might be problematic owing to the Christmas season. The offender, however, could probably expect to be home at least for New Year's Eve. 51I have enquired of the solicitors for the parties if any further reasons for sentence are required and am told that none are so required. 52Tammy Dianne Nelson-Olds, on the charge that on 23 December 2010 at Sydney in the State of New South Wales you did import a substance being reckless that the substance was a border controlled drug, namely cocaine, and the quantity imported was a marketable quantity, you are convicted. I sentence you to imprisonment for a period of four years. The sentence commences on 23 December 2010. I set a nonparole period of two years, which expires on 22 December 2012. I have found special circumstances. You are to be released to parole at the expiration of the nonparole period. ********** DISCLAIMER - Every effort has been made to comply with suppression orders or statutory provisions prohibiting publication that may apply to this judgment or decision. The onus remains on any person using material in the judgment or decision to ensure that the intended use of that material does not breach any such order or provision. Further enquiries may be directed to the Registry of the Court or Tribunal in which it was generated. Decision last updated: 18 February 2013