State of New South Wales v Schmidt [2019] NSWSC 764

Supreme Court New South Wales

Medium Neutral Citation: State of New South Wales v Schmidt [2019] NSWSC 764 Hearing dates: 8 April 2019; 11 April 2019; 8 May 2019 Decision date: 21 June 2019 Jurisdiction: Common Law Before: Hamill J Decision: Extended supervision order for two years – for conditions see [69] Catchwords: CIVIL LAW – extended supervision order – assessment of risk – where offender guilty of two extremely violent offences and a number of other offences of violence – where pre-existing supervision order about to expire – breaches of orders – whether conditions counter-productive to rehabilitation – fine balance – recent improvement in attitude – too little too late – recent breaches of order – boundaries

CIVIL LAW – high risk offender litigation – surplus of material – repetition of material – dumb and unhelpful – complaints having no impact – parties should co-operate to streamline volume of material Legislation Cited: Crimes (High Risk Offenders) Act 2006 (NSW) Cases Cited: State of NSW v Schmidt (Preliminary) [2019] NSWSC 52 State of New South Wales v Schmidt [2016] NSWSC 41 Category: Principal judgment Parties: State of New South Wales Guillermo Marcelo Schmidt Representation: Counsel: D New (Plaintiff) A Hughes (Defendant)

Solicitors: Crown Solicitor's Office (Plaintiff) Legal Aid Commission (Defendant) File Number(s): 2018/00334101 Publication restriction: Nil

Judgment 1. By summons filed 31 October 2018 the State of New South Wales (the plaintiff or the State) seeks an extended supervision order for a period of two and a half years against the defendant, Guillermo Marcelo Schmidt. Mr Schmidt resists the making of any such order and, in the alternative, asks that the conditions proposed by the State be modified and relaxed. Mr Schmidt has been subject to a similar order for the past three years. There have been some difficulties with compliance that he says arise from a combination of the unnecessary strictness of the conditions and the unreasonable or inconsistent enforcement of those conditions by those charged with the responsibility of administering the order. Both of those assertions are controversial and denied by the State. 2. To understand the disputes between the parties, and the decision I have reached, it is appropriate to set out as briefly as possible the history of the matter in terms of Mr Schmidt's engagement with the criminal law and previous decisions of judges of this court under the high-risk offenders' legislation.