IN THE COUNTY COURT OF VICTORIA	Revised
Not Restricted
Suitable for Publication 	
AT Melbourne 
CRIMINAL DIVISION
CR-20-01143
Indictment No. L11278299

DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROSECUTIONS		
		
v		
		
KEVIN CARTER		

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JUDGE:	HIS HONOUR JUDGE TINNEY	
WHERE HELD:	Melbourne	
DATE OF HEARING:	30 October 2020	
DATE OF SENTENCE:	4 November 2020	
CASE MAY BE CITED AS:	DPP v CARTER	
MEDIUM NEUTRAL CITATION:	[2020] VCC 1757		

REASONS FOR SENTENCE
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Subject: Burglary (2) thefts (x4). Separate theft of firearm. Residential burglaries including one exceeding $60,000. Prohibited person possess firearm, handle stolen motorbike; summary offences, fail to stop, unlicensed driving and commit indictable offence on bail. 44 years old with lengthy relevant criminal history. Early guilty plea.

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APPEARANCES:
	Counsel	Solicitors	
For the Office of Public Prosecutions	Mr F. Cameron (For Plea)
Mr T. Crouch (For Sentence)	Office of Public Prosecutions	
			
For the Accused	Mr A. Patton	Valos Black	

HIS HONOUR:

1	Kevin Carter, you pleaded guilty last Friday to two charges of burglary and four charges of theft, three of which pertained to those burglaries.  There is also a separate charge of theft of a firearm.  Though that rifle was also stolen in the first burglary, there is a specific offence dealing with such a crime with a higher maximum penalty in play.  See s.74AA(1) of the Crimes Act 1958.  The theft which was unrelated to the burglaries (Charge 9) was from a parked vehicle in West Brunswick.  So, at a different location and on a different day, being the day of your ultimate arrest by police.  In addition, you have pleaded guilty to one charge of being a prohibited person in possession of a firearm and one charge of handling a stolen motorbike by way of dishonest retention of that bike.  Finally, there are three summary matters, being fail to stop on police request, unlicensed driving and committing an indictable offence on bail.  It is a cumbersome indictment and one must be acutely conscious of the need to avoid double punishment, given the relationship between some of the charges. 
2	The agreed summary correctly sets out the maximum penalties.  You are now 44 years of age and have a quite lengthy criminal history before the courts.  It is of obvious  relevance to my task.  That much is conceded.
3	This matter was opened to me last Friday by the prosecutor Mr Cameron.  He opened in accordance with a quite lengthy amended written summary dated 
30 October 2020, which was marked as Exhibit A.  There had been an issue with the earlier filed summary which did not even mention the circumstances of Charge 9.  That was rectified.  Further, there had been an error in the quantum or the amount of the theft from the Templestowe burglary and finally, leave had been granted to amend the dates of the prohibited person charge.  It did not cover the occasion where you admitted to attending on 5 May in Bundoora, endeavouring to swap the gun for a motorbike.  The date was expanded to embrace that admitted event.  So, the prosecutor opened the matter and then filed the amended written summary.
4	Your counsel, Mr Patton, told me that it was an agreed summary and in those circumstances, I see no need to descend to the full detail of the sentencing facts.  I will sentence in accordance with that agreed summary.  There are also a number of photographs attached to the depositions.  There was no need to mark those as exhibits.
5	So, I will say something only very briefly about the facts.  The lengthy written summary describes the nature of the two residential burglaries which you committed.  The first was committed upon the McPhee's house in Nungeroo Court, Eltham North, between 30 April and 2 May this year (2020).   
6	This burglary involved forced entry through a rear door.  The master bedroom, walk-in robe and study area was ransacked.  You made off with a large quantity of property valued in excess of $26,000. 
7	The property included a firearm, which also forms the basis of Charge 3.  Charge 3 includes your possession on 5 May when you went to swap that gun.  A gun safe was forcibly removed from its secured position in the walk-in robe using a pick or mattock.  Then it was forcibly opened.  You were a prohibited person, courtesy of the recency of your last prison term and, for that matter, your last community corrections order with a supervision condition.
8	The chronology then assumes some importance.  That burglary had occurred sometime between the 30 April and 2 May of this year.  At about 9.25 pm on 2 May, you were observed driving a stolen Toyota vehicle and you were arrested.  This was in Eltham.  You are not before me charged with the car theft.  That charge and a number of other charges are pending, and there is a case conference date in the lower court later this month.  Police interviewed you though on 2nd and into 3rd May in relation to that arrest and their suspicions as to the car and of course what was within it.  A large amount of property was found in the car you were driving, including jewellery, but at that point there had been no report made of the burglary in Eltham North.  It had not even been discovered as the owners had been interstate and that was the position until a few days later. 
9	So on 2 May, the car was towed to a police facility following your arrest.  You were released on bail in the early hours of 3 May with a number of conditions, including that you live at a fixed address and that you not drive a vehicle until you were licensed.  In that lengthy police interview on 2 and 3 May, you gave a cock and bull account to the police as to why you were there in Eltham, why you were in the car and your complete lack of connection to anything else in the car.  A convoluted set of lies about a Tinder date and doing a favour to fix the car of a female friend of the person you had met on Tinder. 
10	When the McPhee's returned to their house and discovered the burglary and reported it, only then were the police able to match up some of the items which were in that car that you had been driving as coming from that burglary.
11	Charge 6 relates to your dishonest dealings with a motorbike which had been stolen between 28 and 30 April 2020.  You are not charged with the theft.  You were handling the motorbike on the evening of 5 May.  The particular is that you dishonestly undertook the retention of the motorbike.  You were riding it on that night at about 10:10pm.  In fact, as is admitted, you were riding it to a meeting where you intended to swap the firearm you had stolen in the Eltham North burglary.  You were in possession of that firearm on 5 May.  Police, in an unmarked four-wheel drive vehicle came upon you on the stolen motorbike alongside the person you intended to swap the gun with.  This was on a corner near a milk bar in Bundoora.  You were both on motorbikes.  It looked suspicious and for good reason; it was.  You knew they were police.  You both took off when you saw the police and they pursued you but lost you.  You hid the gun in a bush out in Thomastown.  You had at least removed the bolt.  So, that event is the subject of Charge 6 on the indictment, as well as the summary offences of fail to stop and unlicensed driving.  It is the end date of the prohibited person in possession of a firearm charge (Charge 3).
12	Again, the chronology is instructive for Charges 7 and 8, relate to a serious burglary committed upon the home of Robert and Julie Cardinale at 65 Smiths Road, Templestowe.  That was sometime between 9 and 11 May.  So, after you had been chased by police on 5 May, after you had been arrested and charged and bailed on 2 and 3 May. Again, forced entry, this time through a window at the front of the house.  You stole the many items particularised in the schedule to the charge.  As I have said, you were on a bail undertaking that you had entered on 3 May. 
13	The summary sets out the details of a conversation that you had in an unguarded moment with an associate, Kristy Penrose.  That was on 11 May and it came back to bite you as she had recorded the exchange.  You had boasted about the Templestowe burglary, the yield of handbags from that burglary, as well as the event where you had been trying to swap the stolen rifle from the Eltham burglary.  You said you had been riding the stolen motorbike at the time and hoped to swap the firearm for another motorbike before being disturbed by the police and fleeing the scene.  You described how you had stolen that firearm from an Eltham property, ripping open the gun safe with a pick.  In fact, later that same day, one of your housemates sent a series of texts to a woman named Samantha, arranging the sale of the valuable designer handbags stolen in the Templestowe burglary.
14	Ms Penrose had also taken some photographs of the handbags and on 12 May, she presented to the police and made a statement as to her dealings with you. 
15	The stolen motorbike, the subject of Charge 6, the charge of handling, was involved in a collision in Broadmeadows on 12 May.  Police attended.  Your prints were found on the motorbike.  I am not dealing with you for riding the bike on that day or being involved in that collision.  Indeed, you stoutly denied in the police interview that you had been involved in any accident at all and just lied point blank on that topic, for your counsel concedes that you were the rider. 
16	Charge 9 relates to a theft from a car.  This, as I have said earlier, was on the day of your ultimate arrest.  The owner had parked his car in West Brunswick and forgotten to take out some items.  When he came back to it the next morning, his wallet containing cards and $100 cash had been stolen.  You were arrested on 
27 May, and the wallet was found in the house. 
17	Probably the less said about this interview on 27 May the better.  The trouble is though, your counsel relies so heavily on that interview as illustrating your contrition and remorse.  I do not know why he does, and I suspect you are probably puzzled as well, for you know that you told numerous lies throughout the interview.  It is true that you made a number of admissions.  For instance, you at least made admissions about the theft from car, the subject of Charge 9, but even that was not complete.  You said there was no cash.  As to the first burglary, you bounced the ball by saying that you had no involvement (see Question 79).  You went on then to make some very incomplete admissions to the two burglaries and admissions to the handling of the motorbike.  It is clear that you were prepared to lie pretty much whenever it suited you.  That is not a matter in any way in aggravation.  So, you denied knowledge of the stolen firearm until confronted with the account received from Penrose.  That was miles into the interview, at Question 681.  You had earlier lied about the property in the Toyota when you had been interviewed on 2 and 3 May.  You maintained that lie in this later interview, repeating the ridiculous story about the Tinder date meeting.  The police in this later interview were rightly puzzled by the coincidence of your admitting a role in that burglary and yet somehow the property finding its way into what you said was a completely unrelated car, a Toyota, not the Mitsubishi you had mentioned, and without your having any role in keeping any of the property.  It was, of course, total nonsense.  As to the handbags from the second burglary, you said that you had never possessed them.  That was again until confronted with your own words to Penrose.  This was hundreds of questions into the interview (at Question 504).  So, you were prepared to say just about anything, really.  When confronted with the reality of the Penrose account, you just shrugged off all the lies and started to tell something perhaps resembling the truth. 
18	So, before that moment when confronted with the Penrose account - and at that stage of course the writing was on the wall, prior to that, you had been pretending to tell the truth, saying you were putting everything on the table, saying that you had no reason to cover anything up, saying why would you lie, given the admissions you were making; well, you told lie after lie.  Telling the police repeatedly and emphatically that you had not touched the gun or opened the safe or possessed the property from the first burglary or possessed the bags from the second burglary.  You told the police by way of explanation that you were respectful of people's property, in the sense that you did not go in for wanton damage or mess, that you had a conscience and would not have caused the damage required to remove the gunsafe or taken any of the christening jewellery.  All of it totally false.  When confronted with Penrose's account, you barely missed a beat and simply denounced her as a rat and a dog.  Yes, you had in fact maintained the possession of the handbags,  you said.  Yes, you said you had sold them to a female, Sam.  Then later when confronted with the Penrose account of the firearm and your role in that, again you denounced her.  Yes, you had stolen the firearm, yes, you had intended to sell it.  That was the setting for you ultimately providing details to the police about the location of the gun and the details of the person who the bags had been sold to.  Details which undoubtedly you would not have provided had your earlier account to the police not been demolished by the Penrose photograph and tape.  It is at least to your credit that you volunteered the location of the firearm and it was recovered.  Police also executed a warrant upon the female, Sam, and recovered some of the handbags.  Again, that is owing to your account and that is to your credit, though I will return to the claimed motivation for this in due course. 
19	To describe your interview as involving full and complete cooperation and voluntary disclosure of these admissions and your assistance being motivated by remorse and contrition is just farfetched.  Mr Patton suggests that initially you were not as frank as you were in later parts - this is in his written submissions.  Again, that really does not grapple with the true nature of the interview process.  This was not a few introductory falsehoods quickly retreated from, there was a level of duplicity, as you made some admissions but totally misrepresented certain matters, and that was not just initially.  It went on and on until you were confronted with the existence of the Penrose materials.  It raises the question pretty squarely as to why I would act on any part of your interview or your letter.  
20	You have been in custody since your arrest on 27 May, a period of 157 days, not including the day of the plea.  That has risen by a few days and sits now at 162 days. 
21	So much then for my brief summary of the summary.
Impact
22	There are two victim impact statements placed before me, but one would hardly need one to understand the impact of a residential burglary.  It is an invasion of a person's home that can shake a person's confidence. These burglaries occurred amidst the COVID-19 pandemic.  Pretty worrying times for most of us.  One of the families had relocated to a beach house.  It goes beyond merely the taking of and loss of property. I say merely.  Of course the loss of property is important enough.  Ms McPhee's police statement sets out the impact pretty eloquently.  She was left feeling unsafe and violated.  Knowing someone had been in her house was awful and she felt particularly scared at night and when alone.  A great effort has been spent in relation to beefing up home security.  Her husband describes his increased worry.  Well, their impact statements develop those same themes.  They have been significantly affected by your crimes.  The husband has changed his role at work to avoid regional and interstate work.  That has come at a financial cost but has been done to support his family, who no longer feel safe in their own home.  The house was a safe place.  It no longer feels safe.  Their children are worried about the 'robbers' coming back and they hide their things.  So, it is not just financial loss.  It is a sense of invasion, violation and loss of security and safety.  That is what you have brought about.  I take into account the impact here.  

	In Mitigation
23	Mr Patton conducted a plea on your behalf with the aid of a written outline dated 
28 October of this year.
24	He took me to your background.  It had been difficult one, he said.  He conceded that you had a highly relevant criminal history.  You had been given many chances and had not taken them.  He placed before the court a report from a psychologist, Ms Matilda Douglas, as well as a letter from you.  There were some drug screens and course certificates, as well as a brief letter in relation to drug counselling. 
25	A strange aspect of the plea was disclosed early on when I was raising questions from the Bench with Mr Patton as to why the interviews had seemingly not been provided to Ms Douglas.  It seemed odd to me that they had not been.  Surely, they were relevant for her to see, given that she was giving opinions as to remorse and whether there was an entrenched criminal belief system.  So, I raised with Mr Patton some aspects of the first interview on 2 and 3 May.  That exchange disclosed that, for whatever reason, Mr Patton had not seen the first interview at all.  It was part of the depositions.  Hence, the matter has been listed today for further plea and sentence, lest there be any other submissions that he wished to make arising from viewing that interview which was provided to him on Friday.  He has not sought to make any further  submissions and has conceded that the matters that I raised on Friday were well founded.  
26	I repeat it was part of the depositional material and I have no idea how he did not have access to it.  The same firm of solicitors are acting in relation to the charges arising from the 2 May arrest and interview.  I have still not received any satisfactory response as to the failure to provide any of these materials to the Ms Douglas.  They were just not provided, that is what I have been told.  It is, by the way, not Mr Patton's fault.  He came into the matter only very recently.  He conceded both on Friday and again today that they should have been provided to the expert. 
27	Mr Patton  conducted a thorough plea on your behalf and raised a number of matters in mitigation. 
28	They were principally:
•	Your early guilty plea;
•	Your remorse, as well as the admissions that you made and your cooperation with police;
•	Your disadvantaged background;
•	An increased custodial burden owing to the COVID-19 virus;
•	An increased burden owing to the impact of your post-traumatic stress disorder ('PTSD'), with the submission that there could be some modest application of the fifth limb of the case of Verdins; 
Your counsel conceded that there had to be a measure of cumulation here, but also some real caution exercised as to double punishment, given the relationship between a number of the offences.  There were of course, as he accepted, different offences, differing elements, differing times and places as well as differing impacts upon different victims.  Your counsel conceded the seriousness of the offending, as well as the inevitability of a term of imprisonment and one of a dimension requiring the fixing of a non-parole period.  He argued that you had at least some guarded prospects of rehabilitation.
Prosecution
29	Mr Cameron, who appeared on behalf of the Director of Public Prosecutions, made some brief oral sentencing submissions.  He submitted that your letter to the court was of very little weight and was self-serving.  In fact, initially, the prosecutor had objected to the tender of that letter.  I took the view that it could be tendered but said that I would consider what weight should be given to it.  The prosecutor accepted that the fifth limb of the case of Verdins had some modest operation here.  The Director of Public Prosecutions was calling for an immediate term of imprisonment with a non-parole period, something your own counsel had of course already conceded as inevitable. 
Background
30	Let me turn now to your background.  I shall do so quite briefly.  It is referred to in the written outline marked as Exhibit 1, as well as in the report of Ms Douglas.  It is based on your account.  You have demonstrated that you are not that reliable.  However, it is one thing to lie to police in the moment.  That is easily understandable.  Panic and self-preservation come to the fore.  It seems to me less likely you are lying about your background.  Not without some hesitation, I am prepared to act on your account of your family background. 
31	As briefly as I might then.  You were born on 27 March 1976, so are now 44 years old, and were that age at the time of the offending.  You were one of five children raised in a dysfunctional setting.  I am not going to set out all the incidents which are described in the materials.  The report does that.  But alcohol, violence to you and observed by you, and criminal offending was commonplace in your upbringing.  You committed crimes with your own father.  You were also sexually abused by others.  You completed primary school.  That is it.  Unsurprisingly, you did not have the pick of the jobs.  You have had sporadic employment, seasonal agricultural and labouring jobs mainly.  Prison intervened often enough.  You had a job of some substance for some years that is referred to. It is neither here nor there whether it finished in 2011 or 2014.  You told the author of the report you have not been employed since 2011; that seems likely.  
32	With the start in life that you had, it is no wonder that you started using drugs.  Drug and alcohol use commenced at an alarmingly young age.  You took to heroin and ice much later in life, following the tragic death of your oldest daughter.  You have had a number of relationships and have had five children.  You have no contact with the oldest boy and very limited contact with the surviving three.  Your parents are now both dead and you have no contact with your siblings either. 
33	As I mentioned, your eldest child, Paige, died in 2014 and you have never really come to terms with that tragedy.  You have little by way of support or structure in the community.  You are very isolated. 
34	You have tried in-patient alcohol and drug counselling on a couple of occasions, I was told, and have also done courses whilst in custody.  Attempts have been made to address drug use with conditions attached to various community corrections orders.
35	Yours was plainly a background of trauma, dysfunction, disadvantage and the absence of positive role models.  Not just that, but the presence of negative influences.  People who should have protected and nurtured you did not; they did the opposite.  It is no great wonder you turned out as you did.  You saw your own father committing crimes and assisted him. 
36	An offender's individual circumstances will always be of importance to a court.  The effects of childhood deprivation and trauma do not diminish with the passage of time.  They are not just matters of some historical curiosity.  The case law recognises that disadvantage leaves a mark.  Of course it does.
37	Your background probably explains a fair bit about the trajectory of your life.  About the poor decisions that you have made and continue to make.  You had no positive role models, you had abuse, dysfunction, exposure to crime and to drugs as your norm.  You had very limited schooling. 
38	It was an unenviable background.  You were in no way well equipped for adult life.  Your use of drugs and commission of crimes as you grew up is not that surprising, but as you must know, you are not powerless in all of this.  Your background, as bad as it was, does not lock you into a pre-determined course.  
39	Some people from very unfortunate backgrounds prosper and succeed in life despite their poor start.  You are not one of those, that is for sure. 
40	Courts have intervened.  Courts have tried to lead you away from making poor choices with no success at all.  You have been making poor choices by way of committing crimes for over 25 years.
41	What the case law in this area makes clear is that it will always be a matter of what weight to attribute to evidence of a disadvantaged background in a given case.  The cases law stresses that social disadvantage will not attract the same weight in every case or in the same way.  Sometimes it might lead to reduction or even a substantial reduction in moral culpability, and also sizeable reductions in the weight given to general and specific deterrence.  Sometimes it might be enough to take it into account in a general way, without those reductions.  It does not, by the way, all head in one direction.  As the case law makes plain, it can lead also to greater weight being given to the protection of the community, as a background of disadvantage which has led to entrenched conduct will cloud a person's rehabilitative prospects.  Your bad background will not just evaporate and be replaced by a good one.  It has marked you and will continue to do so.  It is not easy to overcome.  
42	The weight to be given to disadvantage will depend on the nature and extent of the disadvantage, the nexus, if any, with the offending, but also the nature of the crime and the relative importance in a particular case of sentencing considerations, including deterrence, community protection and rehabilitation (see the case of Terrick).  It is clear from the case law that where there is a strong nexus then the mitigatory value will rise (see the case of Snow from earlier this year).
43	Plainly, here there can be some reduction in your moral culpability on these Bugmy principles.  Also some reduction in the weight given to the other purposes of sentencing.  So some moderation consistent with your counsel's submissions.  After all, you have post-traumatic stress disorder linked to your background, and drug use and alcohol abuse which are to some extent linked to dealing with your symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder.  It is a vicious cycle. I give full weight to your background as that phrase is used in the case law (see Bugmy, Marrah, Snow and Terrick).
44	I accept that your disadvantaged background is something that can be taken into account in this case in the ways urged upon me by your counsel.  It has not been an easy background at all, and I take it into account as far as I am able to.  However, it must be said, a background such as yours cannot just operate as an excuse to keep on offending.  It does not and cannot operate as an excuse and, though always relevant, surely less weight can be given to it when time after time over the years, the courts have dealt with an offender and even endeavoured to foster rehabilitation and the person continues to offend, as has happened in your case.  At some point, mitigation will yield in the face of the need to protect the community. 
45	Unfortunately, part of your background is a long criminal history before the courts.  It is of obvious relevance to my task.  I am not going to waste my time or yours working my way through your history in a line by line audit of it.  It shows that you have committed many crimes of dishonesty.  You have an adult criminal history stretching back some 26 years.  You have breached many court orders.  You have been sent to prison on many occasions.  There have been a number of occasions where there has been a parole period provided for.  You have breached parole.  Courts have tried to provide for your rehabilitation with release onto community corrections orders.  You have breached many such orders.  In fact, you were dealt with upon a breach of such an order on 6 August 2019.  No further order was made, and you received 246 days prison for a consolidation of offences, which included five burglaries and an attempted burglary, also car theft and retention of stolen goods. 
46	Complaint was made by your counsel and by you about the circumstances of your release on that occasion from the cells without being taken back to prison to get your essential documentation.  Though not desirable, it did not lock you in to commit crime.  If it occurred in the way described, well it would not be the best way to reintegrate you back into the community.  But the first sensible step the next day would be to ring Corrections or to go to Centrelink and explain what had taken place.  Not to resume drug use after 246 days of detoxification.  I am dealing with offences the following year, in any event, many, many months later.
47	There are, in your criminal history, multiple appearances in the past for a variety of dishonesty offences.  You received 324 days and a community corrections order for a larger consolidation in August 2018.  That order likewise was breached.  There are also a range of offences dealt with in New South Wales, including firearms offences, robbery, larceny and break and enter.  So, it is a highly relevant history. 
48	Of course, you do not fall to be sentenced a second time by me for any of these past offending.  You received the sentences and served them.  That past offending does not aggravate the offending I must deal with, nor relieve me of the need to pass only a proportionate sentence for each offence before me.  However, as I said in the course of the plea on Friday, I have to make an assessment as to your prospects of rehabilitation and your risk of re-offence, and the extent of the need to deter you and to protect the community from you.  Your past offending and preparedness to continue to offend is of course relevant to that task.  So too actually is the chronology of the offending that I am dealing with.  Courts have tried to deter you.  Courts have tried to lead you away from crime with no great success.  You have reached a point in your life where you can no longer have any legitimate expectation of any significant leniency.  There will necessarily be a lesser focus on your past unfortunate background and a greater preparedness to punish, to protect the community from you and to deter you.  Prison has not deterred you.  Nor community corrections orders.  Nor even undertakings of bail.  You just continue to offend. 
The report
49	I have referred already to the report of Ms Douglas.  I do not intend to set out the report in any detail.  Let me just observe, as I did in the course of the plea and again earlier this morning, that it strikes me as bizarre for an expert not to be provided with the police interview.  The expert cannot be awake to what you have said if the account is not provided to them.  Well, the author is being asked to give an opinion as to the presence of remorse.  She speaks of your remorse.  Well, she is observing you and what you say to her and making a judgment. Plainly, she should have been given your interviews with the police.  She would have been awake to your preparedness to lie convincingly on multiple occasions and only to tell the truth when your lies were exposed.  She also really should have had the transcript of the taped exchange with Penrose, as that casts a bit of light about your criminal mindset and connections. 
50	Ms Douglas says that your behaviour (presumably your criminal behaviour) is more likely to be a reflection of, as she puts it, underlying psychosocial adversity, untreated psychological symptoms and unresolved grief and self-medication with substances.  That is, rather than being evidence of a criminal belief system.  It is, in my view, a naïve view and one which I am not satisfied of on the balance of probabilities.  These are crimes of dishonesty with monetary reward in mind.  They are not that hard to understand actually, and they are committed by a man aged 44 years of age, who has committed many such crimes in the past. 
51	It is surprising that she would suggest that there does not appear to be evidence of a criminal belief system.  Of course there is.  You were born into crime and have committed crime throughout your adult life.  The thrust of the plea was of a childhood and adolescence where you had many negative influences and were actually encouraged to commit crimes by your own father.  How would you not have deeply entrenched views?  Well, the interviews and the Penrose taped transcript and all that I know of you suggests that there is strong evidence of a criminal belief system.  You denounce Ms Penrose as a dog and a rat when you learn that she exposes the lies that you were telling to the police.  You talked then about the criminal world these days, your world, saying, 'the criminal world these days is fucked' (see Question 705).
52	Well, Ms Douglas is being asked to make these judgments, and without much of the material which should have been provided to her.  The police interview process demonstrates how easily you can lie.  You do so whenever there is something to gain.  It is, as far as I am concerned, completely unacceptable that she did not have access to your interviews and, to a much lesser extent, the Penrose transcript.  These things might have significantly altered her view or at least alerted her to the need to exercise some caution in taking your utterances at face value.  I flagged these matters with your counsel as a matter of fairness.
53	Anyway, I have got that criticism off my chest and having done so, I make it clear that  the report is still of use to me.  The worth of some of her opinions is called into question to some extent, but that is all.  I have some reservations about remorse here.  I recognise though that there is the distinction between the answers that you gave the police in May of this year and your account to and appearance before 
Ms Douglas some months later in September.  People will lie to the police for all manner of reasons.  Panic or hoping to avoid the laying of charges are just two obvious reasons which apply here.  A person can be remorseless at one stage when offending or, for that matter, when first arrested or interviewed and yet the same person can possess remorse at a later stage.
54	The report sets out your background in detail, it is useful in that respect.  Your counsel argued that the fifth limb of the case of Verdin's is raised here.  He argued that some modest weight could be given to the impact of your post-traumatic stress disorder upon your burden of imprisonment.  He suggested it was not a large matter on the plea and was almost, as he put it a 'lineball' as to whether the fifth limb was engaged.  The prosecution did not challenge the operation of the fifth limb of that case, and I am prepared to make some very modest allowance for that increased burden. 
55	There is nothing in the report leading to any reduction in your culpability over and above the reduction I have already factored in arising from your most unfortunate background.  It is not mitigatory that you are under the effect of drugs when you offend or that they may have some role to play in your decision to offend. 
56	Unsurprisingly, you are judged to have a high risk of reoffending.  The author seemingly is impressed by your motivation for change.  Your desire to develop relationships with your family and to seek treatment and re-engage in religious services and you have, as she says, positive attitudes to intervention.  I wonder how many times it has been said on your behalf that you wish to change and that you wish to assume some meaningful role in the lives of your children or are sick of the life that you are leading.  Maybe you have those attitudes but putting them into action once released into the community has been beyond you, as the criminal history chronology makes clear.  The author speaks of what is required by way of treatment and speaks of perhaps the usefulness of a community corrections order.  That is again quite naïve, as it is out of the question here, as is conceded by your counsel.  
57	I take into account that report. 
Guilty plea
58	Let me turn now to the other matters raised on your behalf, the first of those being your guilty plea.  You have pleaded guilty at what I will treat as the earliest stage.  You have taken this early responsibility for your crimes.  Witnesses have been spared the experience of coming to court, either this court or the court below.  The community has been saved the time, the cost and the effort associated with a contested committal or a trial.  You have in this way facilitated the course of justice.  Your guilty plea also took place in the setting of the interrupted operations of the court brought about by the COVID-19 virus.  Any trial would have been significantly delayed.  I take all these matters into account in mitigation.  You also cooperated to a degree in the course of the interview.  You made some admissions and identified where you had hidden the firearm and what became of the handbags.  As I said earlier, you took some persuading to reach that mindset.  Plainly, you told a number of lies and were happy enough to deceive the police as to your role, but you were hauled in by the taped conversation with Penrose.  Ultimately, you made more detailed admissions and I take that into account in your favour.  Whatever the motivation, it must be to your benefit that you provided the detail as to the location of the firearm and the handbags.  Once your lies were uncovered, it would have been open to you to provide no further detail.  That is not what happened and as a result, those items were recovered.  The loss to your victims was in this manner reduced.  So, I take those disclosures into account in your favour.
	Remorse
59	Your counsel argues that you are remorseful.  He points to your early guilty plea and to your account to the author of the report, as well as your written apology.  Also to the interview with the police and the information as to the location of the bags and the firearm.  A guilty plea is often but not always indicative of some remorse.  I have said more than enough already about your interviews with the police.  I am not satisfied on the balance of probabilities that they disclose any remorse at all.  You lied as often as you felt you could.  That is, as I have said, in no way a matter of aggravation.  Though I have taken into account in your favour already the fact of information being provided which led to the recovery of the rifle and the bags, I do not accept for one moment your counsel's suggestion that it was 'voluntary' and motivated by contrition or remorse.  You would have departed the interview without uttering a word about the bags or the firearm, but for being tripped up by the Penrose material.  As I said earlier, you disclosed that detail over 500 questions into the interview.  No doubt, that information was ultimately provided as you felt it might benefit you.  It is true you could have said nothing more. It was voluntary in that sense; it had nothing to do with contrition for the offence or benefiting the victim.  As I have said already, you get credit for making that choice to disclose.  It was the right choice, but it had nothing to do with remorse or contrition for your crimes.
60	The case was an overwhelming one.  That does not impact upon the weight I have given to your guilty plea.  That weight is unaffected by the strength or otherwise of the case or whether I find that there is remorse or not. 
61	However, the strength of the case may make less strong the claimed inference of remorse flowing from a guilty plea. 
62	You are something of a career criminal doing what you do.  You have committed enough burglaries in the past and, from your interview, obviously enough have some level of insight into the way they impact upon victims.  Yet you continue to commit them.  That does not mean you are not sorry after the event.  I have the views expressed by Ms Douglas and I do not entirely reject her opinion.  I have your letter.  Of course it is self-serving, and it must be viewed with a level of caution.   
63	Ultimately, having reviewed all the materials, as I have in the days since the plea, I am prepared to find the presence of some remorse in this case.  I take the existence of some remorse into account in mitigation here.  Having some is better than none.
64	I turn now then to the issue of the COVID-19 virus.

COVID-19

65	I am confident that there is no such thing as a good time to be sent to prison.  At the moment, it is a particularly bad time to be sent there, as you well know.  The COVID-19 virus and the response to it by those running the prisons has changed prison life to a degree.  It has and will continue to increase your prison burden.  Prison is a more stressful environment currently.  That state of affairs has existed since you were received there in May. Prisoners cannot make a decision to self-isolate.  Social distancing is not easy in a prison setting.  No doubt, there is worry about catching the virus in such a setting where there is no level of true autonomy. 
66	It is very difficult for me to know precisely how the virus or the response to it by those running the prisons will impact upon you in the future.  There have been some lockdowns, but they do not exist across all prisons, or even all prisoners at a given prison.  I certainly cannot conclude that they would necessarily apply to you in the future.  Visits have already been suspended and so have some courses and programs.  Other courses have been available with Zoom type meetings.  You are doing some counselling as well.  It would seem that you are better off than many.  There has been an issue though with video or 'virtual' visits in your case, owing to some issues within the Department of Health and Human Services. 
67	I cannot really know how long the present state of affairs will persist. 
68	It is impossible for me to forecast the impact of this virus either on those in the community or those in prison.  There had been fears of a massive spread of this virus in a prison setting and thankfully that has not come to pass.  There have actually been very few cases and they have been very well contained.  We have been riding something of a roller-coaster out in the community, with movement into, out of and then back into lockdown.  We are now coming out the other side.  Over the last few weeks, things have looked up a great deal, with lowering of daily infections and a gradual opening up of businesses, with further relaxations announced last week and more coming into play hopefully at the end of this week.  These are big positives, but they do not suggest to me that there will be any prospect in the short-term of the prison conditions being returned to the pre-COVID-19 setting.  We are adjusting to a new COVID normal setting in the community which will be anything but normal, and I am sure there will be caution in lifting restrictions in a prison setting.  So, prison life is tougher for those who are sent there with the prospect of less time out of cells, less access to in-person programs and courses and no access to in-person visits.  Also, you had a 14-day isolation when you were first received at prison.  None of this is easy.  
69	I take this increased custodial burden into account in your favour in the ways urged upon me by your counsel.  That is on top of the Verdins limb 5 moderation that I discussed earlier.  Though there was no oral submission made, I also take into account the physical issues spoken of in the outline at paragraphs 29 to 31.  You have had some physical injuries, still have some pain and have gained a good deal of weight and are worried by that fact, given the family histories.  That is also a source of anxiety. 
	Rehabilitation
70	I turn now then to you prospects of rehabilitation.  As to your prospects of rehabilitation, your counsel was submitting that you had some prospects.  He conceded that those prospects could only be viewed in a guarded fashion.  He could put it no higher than that.  There is no point making unrealistic or extravagant submissions and he did not.  You are no teenager committing a first offence before the court.  You are a mature man, a seasoned enough criminal.  You were doing what you do, committing crimes.  Court orders mean little to you.  So too bail undertakings.  You have not taken your chances.  As a result of the chronology before me, the past criminal record and lack of response to court orders, as is disclosed, I can only be very guarded.  It is very difficult to make any optimistic predictions as to your future prospects. 
71	Perhaps you can move into a law-abiding life, but it is a long road back for you.  You have been committing crimes for over 25 years.  You have had serious enough issues with drugs.  Treatment has not been successful in the past.  You have the disadvantaged background, which is always there.  It is many years since you actually worked.  You have few supports or structure.  You are very isolated.
72	You have breached community corrections orders which have been granted to you later in life.  That is not encouraging.  Nor the chronology before me.  Picked up by the police on 2 May, bailed with conditions including a condition you not drive.  Then within days, riding a ‘hot’ motorbike down to a milk bar to swap a stolen rifle for another stolen motorbike, then within days of that, committing the second of the burglaries that I am dealing with.
73	Perhaps there will be some deterrent effect from the time you have already spent in custody, as well as the sentence I will soon pronounce, but it is pretty apparent that past sentences have not greatly deterred you. 
74	You at least have pleaded guilty at the earliest opportunity and have some remorse.
75	I have your letter.  The Crown were critical of your letter.  It would be easy enough to be dismissive of it, but I am not.  I also have the views of Ms Douglas.  Let me tell you and, for that matter the Crown, why I give some weight to your letter.  I have the reality of your life over the last several years, if not much longer.  Why would I think you would want to keep living the life you have been leading?  What sort of life is it going in and out of prison, having no role to play in your children's lives, missing out on all the things that you have been missing out on.  Why would anyone actually want more of the same?  So why would you not want to change?  Who would not want to?  It is just possible that you may have reached an age where you might want to make big changes in your life and be able to follow through with it.  If not now, well when?  You are 44 years old.  Your life is just passing you by. 
76	I have the decent efforts you are making in custody currently.  Courses, urine screens suggesting abstinence, as well as the counselling that you are getting something out of.  The counselling will be the key for you.  It is easy enough to do these things in custody but not everyone does.  It is easy enough to speak of motivation and desire for change.  They are just words.  The test will come upon your ultimate release and it is a test you have failed often enough, but one lives in hope.  It would be easy enough to write you off and say that you have no prospects at all into the future.  That is, in my view, too gloomy a view.  I am not going to write you off.  I am prepared to find that you have some prospects of rehabilitation.  I assess those prospects as being relatively poor but there are at least some.  They are not completely illusory.  There is obviously a high risk of reoffence. 
General remarks
77	I will now make some general remarks about the purposes of sentencing, as well as the many matters that I must take into account, including the nature and gravity of your crimes. 
78	Let me start with that last matter.  This was serious offending.  Serious residential burglaries, sizeable theft by a man with highly relevant criminal history.  Your counsel spoke of your being recruited into the burglaries to satisfy your drug debts, to feeling like you had no choice but to offend.  To being directed by the other or second offender to remove certain items from the house and being directed to enter and assist with the removal of the gun safe, to having no role in the planning (see paragraphs 14 to 16).  I am not satisfied on the balance of probabilities of any of those matters.  You mentioned some of these aspects in the interview, but at one point described it as being a 50/50 arrangement (see Question 642 to 653). 
79	That reluctant role, that role of being someone given direction by others is inconsistent with the way you described the burglaries in the secretly taped exchange with Ms Penrose, where you described what you had done and why.  The police interview involved much by way of minimisation.  Further, you were the person coming away with the gun and still had that gun on 5 May, when you were endeavouring to swap it.  This direction by this other man to get the gun is hardly convincing, given who came away with it and who was swapping it, and who was lying consistently about it in the interview.  You also had a large amount of the jewellery in your possession in that car on 2 May.  You were the person with a number of the handbags on 11 May.  In the Penrose tape, you described someone who was going to pick you up at one of the burglaries.  I am not even satisfied there was a second offender who entered the houses.  Maybe there was, but I do not know that.  It does not really matter.  I am certainly not satisfied on the balance of probabilities that you were in some inferior or subservient role.  I am not satisfied that you were recruited into the burglaries or had some subservient position or lack of any choice.   At least some of the property has been recovered and that is to your credit.  As a result of that, the loss is not as large as it otherwise might have been. 
80	Charge 6 relates to a valuable motorbike handled by you.  As to the gun that you stole, that theft was itself a serious crime.  Further, you were a prohibited person and had no business being in possession of any firearm, stolen or otherwise.  You were attempting to pass it on to another criminal associate.  Serious stuff, and falling easily into the second and more serious category of offences as referred to in the case of Berichon.  Plainly, Charge 9 is the least serious of the charges on the indictment.
81	I also have the summary matters.  You have a pretty unimpressive driving history.  Yet again, here you were unlicensed.  You were riding a motorbike you knew or believed to be stolen when there was a condition of bail forbidding any driving at all.  You failed to stop when directed to, and all of the offending beyond Charge 5 occurred whilst on the undertaking of bail entered on 3 May. 
82	Sentencing always involves the balancing of a number of purposes or principles.  One of the purposes relates to your rehabilitation.  I have to take into account your prospects of rehabilitation.  Those prospects are, as I have said, relatively poor.  Rehabilitation surrenders some sizeable ground to other sentencing purposes here.  
83	I am required to manifest this court's denunciation of your criminal conduct, and I do.  That is an important purpose of sentencing.
84	I am required to punish you justly and proportionately.  Not to impose disproportionate sentences owing to your past criminal history.  As I said earlier, you served those past sentences and I am not to in any way sentence you again for them. 
85	Punishment is an important purpose in this sort of case but proportionate to the seriousness of this offending.  
86	I must seek to deter you, as well as others, from committing this sort of offence.  
87	Specific deterrence is obviously important here.  That is the need to deter you.  There is, in my view, a high risk of reoffence.  You just keep offending.  You have quite poor prospects of rehabilitation.  You must be deterred.  I will try again to deter you. 
88	General deterrence is also important.  This court must send a message loud and clear to others in the community who might be minded to commit these sorts of serious offences, be they firearms offences or residential burglaries and thefts or handling of stolen goods. 
89	I very evidently must protect the community from you.  That is obvious.  Yet again, innocent members of the public have been impacted by your crimes of dishonesty. 
90	I must take into account the impact of your crimes, as well as the maximum penalties.
Current sentencing practice
91	I pay regard to current sentencing practices.  It is not a single controlling factor but is one of the matters a court must have regard to.  I have looked at material held at the Judicial College of Victoria new Sentencing Manual, as well as some statistical material, both some old sentencing snapshots, No.183 for Burglary (2016) and No.167 for Handling (2015) as well as more recent SACSTAT data for those and the other offences.  Theft covers a multitude of different settings and values, and the statistical material is even more unhelpful.   
92	In fact, all of the statistics have inherent limitations.  They will never tell much of the real story.  They are just numbers, and sentences are imposed by a court by taking into account a whole range of matters of aggravation and of mitigation.  The sorts of things that I have been working my way through in these reasons and which are simply not disclosed in the statistical material.
93	Other examples of sentences imposed on other people provide only very limited assistance, if any at all.  That is because every crime is different and so too is every offender.  

94	There have been many cases over the years dealing with the crime of a prohibited person possessing a firearm.  See cases of Best, Powell and Simpson, which all refer to the earlier decision of Berichon, which I mentioned earlier in these reasons.  That offence has undergone many changes in definition and even in penalty, with penalty increases and penalty reductions along the way.  Those cases described the two broad categories of offending, as well as sentencing practices and range for each of the bands.  The first band being the least serious grouping of cases, where it is not open to conclude that the possession was associated with some ongoing criminal purpose, and the more serious second category, where the evidence enables that conclusion of possession for a criminal activity or specific criminal purpose.  The prohibited person charge can cover a large range of factual settings.  A person could have a non-functioning firearm without any ammunition, one obtained years earlier out of curiosity or interest, but left for years undisturbed down the back of a garden shed or wardrobe, or hanging almost like an ornament on the wall, with no desire to move it or touch it at all, but a prohibition arising as a result of a court outcome.  Conversely, a person could be perched outside a milk bar or building society almost ready to press a firearm into use in a serious criminal offence and there is virtually everything between these two extremes. Well, you have liberated the weapon from a secure gun safe in a house.  That was the theft.  You then possessed it and were trying to arrange a swap to a criminal associate.  It was a fully operational weapon.  You have past firearms history.  We are sick of guns falling into the wrong hands.  Your hands were the wrong hands.  Your counsel concedes you fall into the more serious category.  
95	I have given consideration to the overall effect of the sentences imposed by me.  I have engaged in a last look at the overall effect of the sentences in endeavouring to avoid a sentence that might be crushing upon you and to ensure that the overall effect is consistent with your overall actual criminality.  Regrettably, your criminality was high.  I cannot just roll all this criminal conduct into a single sentence.  I must be on guard to avoid double punishment.  It is a strange indictment and I have not found it easy to deal with.  We have two burglaries.  Charges 7 and 8 illustrate the manner in which a burglary and theft are normally pleaded.  It is not customary to differentiate between separate property owners in the related theft charge.  Not to my experience anyway. Indeed, before the case of Newman v Turnbull, presentments, as they were then referred to, generally only contained a burglary charge.  That seems a long time ago now. 
96	There is a link between the first five charges on the indictment.  You entered as a trespasser, intending to steal at the McPhee's house.  You stole.  That was the transaction, as far as you were concerned.  The theft is broken down in a number of ways.  Firstly, the firearm is specifically charged as there is a relatively new offence of theft of a firearm.  That in fact has the highest maximum penalty of all of the matters I am dealing with.  That same gun was then possessed by you then and later, as a prohibited person.  So there is that link.  Different offences and elements and a different vice, but the same weapon.  Then I have the two other particularised thefts in Charge 4 and 5, broken down dependent on the owner of the property (Elene or Matthew McPhee).  The handle stolen good charge is quite separate.  So too the next brace of offences, a burglary and theft, which was essentially a single transaction.  Then the last theft.  The summary offences of fail to stop and unlicensed driving occurred on the day of the handle stolen goods.  I also have to pay regard to s.16(3C) of the Sentencing Act 1991 and the deliberate removal of the presumption of concurrency for the offences occurring on bail.  It does not, however, remove the need for me to apply the principle of totality.
97	So, Charge 1, 2, 4 and 5 involve a single transaction, so too Charges 7 and 8.  Charge 3, the prohibited person charge, arose from your taking the rifle, but it is distinct from that charge.  You possessed it well beyond the date of the theft and had it on 5 May when on the motorbike.  The prohibited person charge does not depend upon the rifle being stolen.  If you had found a rifle on the street, you could not have taken it into your possession; you were prohibited.  There is the explanation for your failing to stop on the night in question.  You were handling a stolen motorbike and were a prohibited person possessing a firearm that also happened to be stolen.  So, there are these various links and inter-relationships between the conduct.  I have concluded, consistent with the submissions made on your behalf by your counsel, that there must be some moderation of sentence and cumulation to avoid double punishment and to give appropriate weight to the principles of totality.
98	Plainly, prison is the only option; so much is conceded. 
Compensation orders
99	There are two compensation orders.  Opposition was taken to the making of the compensation order based primarily on your inability to pay them.  Your counsel described it as 'formal' opposition.  I take into account the matters set out in s.86 of the Sentencing Act 1991, including your financial means, but believe it is appropriate to make each order against you.  There has been a loss suffered, of that there is no doubt.  You are not presently in a position to pay and may never be and, in that sense, there is no great burden arising from such an order being made.  One cannot get blood out of a stone.  But one never knows what lies ahead for you.  There is always some chance, remote though it may be, of your position altering for the better. 
100	So, I have signed both those orders and pronounce them now in abbreviated form.  Firstly, in relation to the McPhee's, having convicted you of burglary, theft of a firearm and theft, I am satisfied that as a result of the offence that Elene or Matthew McPhee have experienced financial loss, as particularised in the document, I order that you pay to Elene or Matthew McPhee compensation in the sum of $16,840.34.  So I have signed that order.  
101	Secondly then, the order made in favour of the Cardinale's, again, you have been convicted of the charges of burglary and theft, I am satisfied that Julie and Robert Cardinale have experienced financial loss.  I order that you pay to Julie and Robert Cardinale, compensation in the sum of $61,094.05.  I have signed that order as well.  
	Sentence
102	So, I will have you remained seated and I will go through these orders. At the end of this, you will have the chance, to confer with your counsel.  I would normally have you standing up at this stage, but because you are not in open court, I will not do that.   
103	I believe it is open to pass some aggregate sentences here, given the link and relationship between the offences I have already mentioned.  No doubt, I could pass individual sentences for each charge, pronounce one as the base sentence and then make a number of orders for partial cumulation in some instances, but the end position would be the same. 
104	On Charges 1, 4 and 5, so, that is the burglary and two of the thefts from the McPhee's, you are convicted and sentenced to an aggregate of 20 months' imprisonment.  On Charge 2, the specific theft of the firearm from the McPhee's, you are convicted and sentenced to 12 months' imprisonment.  On Charge 3, prohibited person possessing that firearm, you are convicted and sentenced to 21 months' imprisonment.  On Charge 6, the charge of handling stolen goods, you are convicted and sentenced to 12 months' imprisonment.  On 
Charge 7 and 8, the burglary and theft upon the Cardinale's, you are convicted and sentenced to an aggregate period of 24 months in prison.
105	On Charge 9, the theft from car, I convict and sentence you to two months' imprisonment.
106	On the summary matters, on the charges of fail to stop and unlicensed driving, I convict and sentence you to an aggregate of two months' imprisonment.  On the charge of committing an indictable offence whilst on bail, you are convicted and sentenced to one month's imprisonment.
Cumulation
107	The base sentence is the 24 months imposed on Charges 7 and 8. I make the following orders for cumulation.
108	 I direct that:
•	nine months of the aggregate sentence imposed on Charge 1, 4 and 5;
•	six months of the sentence imposed on Charge 3;
•	three months of the sentences imposed on Charge 2 
•	four months of the sentence imposed Charge 6;
•	the one month sentence imposed on Charge 9; and finally
•	one month of the aggregate sentence imposed on the summary offences of fail to stop and unlicensed driving;
is to be served cumulatively upon the base sentence and upon each other. 
TES
109	This produces, by my calculation, and this is my intended effect, a total effective sentence of 48 months or four years' imprisonment. 
110	I am running the sentence imposed on the summary offence of committing an indictable offence whilst on bail concurrently with these other sentences.  This may seem strange at first blush, but I have treated the fact of being on bail as a matter of aggravation when dealing with you for those matters committed whilst on bail.  To then cumulate the individual sentence for the offence of offending on bail would arguably doubly punish you.  So, I make it plain that I otherwise order pursuant to s.16(3C) of the Sentencing Act and these orders that I have pronounced set out the intended effect.
 
Non-parole period
111	Given the dimensions of the head sentence, I am required as a matter of law to fix a non-parole period.  It is not for me to speculate as to whether you will be released on parole or not.  I am prohibited from considering that matter.  That will be entirely in the hands of the Adult Parole Board and no doubt they will look to your efforts taken whilst in custody.  So, keep doing such courses and counselling as are open to you, continue to abstain from drug use.  Those things would maximise your chances of succeeding upon your ultimate release from prison, whenever that is.  
112	 I fix a period of two and a half years, during which you will not be eligible for release on parole.
Section 18 pre-sentence detention
113	You have already served 162 days by way of pre-sentence detention and that is to be entered into the records of the court pursuant to s.18 of the Sentencing Act.  
Section 6AAA  
114	I have taken into account your guilty plea.  If you had pleaded not guilty and been found guilty of these various offences by a jury, I would have sentenced you to a term of five years' and four months' imprisonment.  I would have fixed a non-parole period of three years and ten months.  
115	That statement is to be entered into the records of the court. 
Licence order on Summary offence
116	On the summary charge of fail to stop, all licences to drive are cancelled and you are disqualified for a period of six months.  Given the dimensions of the sentence imposed by me, I see no point in deferring the operation of this order or linking it to the point of your first release from prison, whenever that is, so that it would have some actual impact upon you.  The order will take effect from today's date, a six month licence order from today.  
117	Let me just see if there any other matters.  Are each of you confident that you understand the structure of the individual terms and the levels of cumulation?
118	MR CROUCH:  Yes, Your Honour.
119	MR PATTON:  Yes, likewise.  Your Honour, could I just clarify, I missed, Your Honour, the sentence imposed on Summary Charge 11, which was the fail to answer - (indistinct) contravene or offend whilst on bail.
120	HIS HONOUR:  It was offending on bail, it is an individual sentence of one month's imprisonment. 
121	MR PATTON:  Thank you, Your Honour.
122	HIS HONOUR:  And that is running fully concurrently.  So, have you each had a chance to - my mathematics is not my strong suit but I make it 48 months or four years' imprisonment.  No issues in terms of the mathematics of it?
123	MR PATTON:  No, Your Honour, that all adds up.
124	MR CROUCH:  (Indistinct words), I have done the maths.
125	HIS HONOUR:  There is a non-parole period, as I have said, of two and half years and I have made the s.18 declaration and the 6AAA declaration and the licence order effective from today.  Are there any other matters then that I need to deal with at all?
126	MR PATTON:  No, Your Honour. 
127	HIS HONOUR:  I will sign the formal orders in one moment.  Mr Patton, again, I know there are difficulties having gaol conferences and virtual conferences and the like, we have got the link for a little bit longer, are you wanting to use the link for a brief time to speak to your client about what has occurred or not?
128	MR PATTON:  Your Honour, if it were not too inconvenient, I would appreciate that, thank you.
129	HIS HONOUR:  The same deal applies, I mean I will not be here and the various parties connected to the prosecution will be exited from the meeting but it will be, I am not sure if Ms Valos is joining the Webex or not but if she is then she can stay online and you can and your client can and you can use the facility.  But if there is a need for a lengthier conference you will need to make other arrangements - - -
130	MR PATTON:  Yes, Your Honour. 
131	HIS HONOUR:  - - - and bear in mind my staff are present in court, anything you say - - -
132	MR PATTON:  Yes, Your Honour. 
133	HIS HONOUR:  - - - it is not a private setting (indistinct words).  Let me just look at the formal order and I will sign that, give me a moment.
134	MR PATTON:  Thank you, Your Honour.  Yes, all right, well that order seems to be appropriate.  I have signed the formal orders so I will shortly have the court adjourned to 9.30am.  You will stay online, Mr Carter, and can have a chat to your legal team, all right?
135	OFFENDER:  Thank you, Your Honour. 
136	HIS HONOUR:  Yes, all right, 9.30 tomorrow please.
- - -