STATE OF TASMANIA v CARLEY ANNE WATKINS 24 SEPTEMBER 2019
COMMENTS ON PASSING SENTENCE GEASON J
Ms Watkins you appear for sentence on two indictments. You were found guilty by a jury of aggravated assault, and computer-related fraud.
You also appear for sentence upon your plea of guilty to two counts of forgery, two counts of uttering, false swearing, and perverting justice.
And there is, as we have just discussed, an application before me to activate a three month suspended sentence.
The first group of charges, those the subject of the jury trial, were committed in the company of two others who have already been sentenced by me.
I sentence you on the basis of the factual matters alleged by the complainant in his evidence. That represents the appropriate factual basis for sentencing you because the jury verdict is consistent with its acceptance of his account.
On 6 July 2018 you were at your residence in Blackmans Bay. You invited the complainant into your home. Your co-accused, Dobson and Franklin were present. You were present during the course of aggressive questioning of him. You demanded his phone and demanded that he unlock his phone. The complainant was subjected to punching and threats.
There was a video captured of some of the episode and you were heard to be an active participant. That episode was frightening for the complainant whose victim impact statement is before me, and to which I have regard when fixing penalty.
I accept that some of your criminal responsibility arises as an accessory to the conduct engaged in by your co-accused. I also accept that events got out of control on this particular evening, in part due to drug consumption, but I take the view that you had every opportunity to intervene on behalf of the complainant if you had chosen to do so. But you did not.
Furthermore, this offending occurred against the background of the complainant having assisted you on a number of occasions. Your treatment of him was reprehensible, and it reflects poorly on you.
You appear before the Court without prior conviction for offences involving violence, and I take that into account. You have a number of prior matters involving dishonesty, and a significant number involving drug use. They are relevant to the conduct reflected in this indictment, and the dishonesty matters are also relevant to the second indictment.
On the first indictment, I sentence you to 15 months’ imprisonment. I backdate that sentence to take account of the time already spent in custody. All of that time, and I think it is about 170 days, about six months, will count as time served in respect of the sentence of 15 months’ imprisonment which I have just imposed. I further direct that you not be required to serve the remainder of that sentence upon entering into and complying with a drug treatment order. I have regard to the contents of the Drug Treatment report that I have been provided with, in determining that that is appropriate. In addition to the usual conditions that are applicable to Drug Treatment Orders, I will make the special orders that are recommended by the author of that report. I will not read out those recommendations. They will be incorporated into the Court’s memorandum of sentence.
The effect of a Drug Treatment Order, Ms Watkins, is that you are required to comply with its terms, and if you do not comply, the Court will activate the balance of the sentence that has been imposed. So you need to have regard to that as an extra incentive, on top of the desire that has been expressed through your counsel, for you to rehabilitate your ways.
On the second indictment I note your have pleaded guilty to those charges, and I discount the penalty that I would otherwise impose by 15% to reflect that plea.
That offending arose from a grant of bail made by Blow CJ in November 2018. You made an application to vary that bail based upon matters contained in an affidavit which you swore. You deposed to certain matters in that affidavit intended to provide a factual basis for the variation which you sought. None of the matters relied upon were true.
To sustain your claims you generated documents intended to give the impression that you had been accepted for participation in a UTAS seminar, and you advised dates and a location in the north of the State for that event. The application to vary bail was granted by Blow CJ on the basis of that material.
Your conduct was, in my view, a most serious example of perverting justice, and by your conduct you obtained an advantage to which you were not entitled.
I accept the submission made by Ms Morgan that personal circumstances necessitated, in your mind at least, the need to get away from things at that time, and so you constructed these falsehoods in order to achieve that. I accept that you have otherwise complied with your bail obligations.
Nevertheless, offences of this nature attract strong penalties. That is to discourage conduct which strikes at the heart of the proper operation of the system of justice. Such offending is relatively easy to commit, but the consequences are very serious, and that is why penalty which has a strong general deterrence is required.
For this offending I sentence you to nine months’ imprisonment wholly suspended on condition you commit no offence punishable by imprisonment for a period of three years.
That leaves the matter of the suspended sentence, and that is a matter I have given careful thought to. In my view that sentence should be activated. There is no proper basis for not giving effect to that sentence. If suspended sentences are to be effective, you and others need to understand that when they are breached there will be consequences. The suspended sentence of three months is therefore activated. I direct that that sentence is to operate concurrently with the sentence on the first matter, but only for a period of 1 month. In other words I direct that the operation of the activated suspended sentence is to commence on 23 August 2019, meaning there are two months left to serve of that suspended sentence.
Now, that is as gentle as I can be in all the circumstances, balancing the need to uphold the efficacy of suspended sentences which requires their activation when people breach them, and, because I have imposed a suspended sentence as part of the sentence in respect to your conduct today. Taking that course will achieve nothing unless you understand that if you do not comply, if you are not of good behaviour for the period of three years, there will be consequences. So that is why I have taken the view that the suspended sentence should operate, at least in part, and the net effect will be, Ms Watkins, that you have two months left to serve. That will effect the start date of the Drug Treatment Order. I do not have a new date for the start of the Drug Treatment Order, but that will be incorporated into the sentencing order, and provided to you.