R v LV [2018] NSWDC 530

District Court New South Wales

Medium Neutral Citation: R v LV [2018] NSWDC 530 Hearing dates: 11 & 28 September 2018 Date of orders: 09 October 2018 Decision date: 09 October 2018 Jurisdiction: Criminal Before: Bennett SC DCJ Decision: Aggregate sentence of 3 years to be served by way of Intensive Corrections Order Catchwords: SENTENCING — Penalties — Intensive correction orders SENTENCING — Relevant factors on sentence — Multiple offences — Aggregate sentences Legislation Cited: Crimes Act 1900 Crimes (Sentencing Procedure) Act 1999 Cases Cited: Attorney General's Application under s 37 Crimes (Sentencing Procedure) Act 1999 No. 1 of 2002 [2002] NSWCCA 518 Borkowski [2006] NSWCCA 102 Category: Sentence Parties: Regina (Crown) LV (Offender) Representation: Romesh Kanakaratne (Crown) Peggy Dwyer (counsel) (Offender)

Director of Public Prosecutions (NSW) (Crown) File Number(s): 2017/00248917 & 2017/00248919 Publication restriction: Statutory non-publication order for the names of the Complainants and the Offender's name suppressed and to be published as LV

EX TEMPORE REVISED JUDGEMENT

INTRODUCTION 1. LV pleaded guilty in the Local Court to six offences of indecent assault contrary to s 81 Crimes Act 1900 for which the maximum penalty specified is imprisonment for five years. The legislation creating that offence current at the time of the offences committed between 1 March 1972 and 31 July 1973 has long since been repealed. There is no standard non-parole period for the purposes of Pt 4 Div 1A Crimes (Sentencing Procedure) Act 1999 for any of these offences. That is so because those provisions producing those arrangements of sentencing were not extant at the time of the misconduct and therefore they have no application here. 2. Another point that must be noted in this matter is that the law previously required the Court to determine sentence according to standards as they applied at the time of the commission of the offences, however the Crimes (Sentencing Procedure) Act 1999 now provides in s 25AA that in respect of a child sexual offence, of which this is one because it was an offence in Div 10B of Pt 3 Crimes Act 1900, requires the Court to have regard to sentencing patterns and practices at the time of sentencing, not at the time of the offence. It also requires that when sentencing an offender for child sexual offence the Court must have regard to the trauma of sexual abuse on children as understood at the time of sentencing which may include recent psychological research and the common experience of courts.