DPP v Vincent [2016] VCC 312 (17 March 2016)

County Court of Victoria

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DPP v Vincent [2016] VCC 312 (17 March 2016)

Last Updated: 30 March 2016

IN THE COUNTY COURT OF VICTORIA

Revised Not Restricted Suitable for Publication

AT WANGARATTA
CRIMINAL JURISDICTION

CR 15-01746

DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROSECUTIONS
v
JARROD VINCENT

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JUDGE:	HIS HONOUR JUDGE GUCCIARDO
WHERE HELD:	Wangaratta
DATE OF HEARING:
DATE OF SENTENCE:	17 March 2016
CASE MAY BE CITED AS:	DPP v Vincent
MEDIUM NEUTRAL CITATION:	[2016] VCC 312

REASONS FOR SENTENCE
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Subject:
Catchwords:
Legislation Cited:
Cases Cited:
Sentence:

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APPEARANCES:	Counsel	Solicitors
For the Director of Public Prosecutions	Mr M. Perry	Office of Public Prosecutions
For the Offender	Ms N. Valos	Valos Black & Associates

HIS HONOUR:

1. Jarrod Vincent, you have pleaded guilty to one charge of trafficking in a drug of dependence, between 11 July 2014 and 11 September 2014, mainly methamphetamine; to one charge of possessing a drug of dependence, methamphetamine and MDMA; to one charge of handling stolen goods, namely three shotguns; and to one charge of being a prohibited person in possession of a firearm.
2. You also pleaded guilty to two related summary offences, one of possessing a prohibited weapon, namely a knuckle duster without exemption and another of possessing cartridge ammunition without licence.
3. The summary of the prosecution opening on the plea was tendered in evidence and I will append it to the sentence. It was submitted that this document did not represent the totality of the acts and matters involving you and the co-offenders named therein. The document is an agreed statement of facts for the purpose of this sentence only.
4. The charges you have pleaded guilty to all arise from Operation Juliet, a large police investigation involving drug trafficking, dealing with firearms, other types of weapons and stolen property in the Wangaratta area. Your involvement places you in the mid to high range of overall offending within the syndicate.
5. You are a drug associate of several co-accused, including Jessica Fogarty and Jessica Short. Together with a number of co-offenders you would source illicit drugs which you would then supply within Victoria's north east. The major drug sourced was methylamphetamine, ice. Fogarty was the most prominent figure in this criminal enterprise and you played a major role in distribution of those drugs supplied by her. The region experienced a sharp increase in firearm related burglaries committed upon rural properties around Wangaratta between the latter part of 2013 into early 2014.
6. Some of your co-accused were arrested and found in possession of some stolen firearms involved in the commission of offences. Firearms were used as a commodity to purchase drugs and satisfy drug debts amongst the syndicate. Some firearms were sold and/or traded to unknown criminal associates located elsewhere.
7. You have provided investigators with a signed statement which provided an insight into your personal circumstances and drug associations. You have made an undertaking to give evidence in relation to the parts of your statement where you have described the involvement of others. The Crown acknowledge that this evidence will be valuable in the prosecution of some of your co-offenders.
8. As to your direct involvement, you were a drug associate of most co-accused. You were commonly referred to as JV, your initials.
9. You would often communicate with Fogarty via telephone, sometimes using an encrypted telecommunication device when discussing highly incriminating details of your drug trafficking business.
10. Over a two month period police intercepted in excess of 600 drug trafficking-related telephone conversations between you and her. These conversations indicate that you were both engaged in the business of selling ice and other illicit drugs as well as handling stolen property including firearms. Fogarty relied heavily upon you to sell and pay for drugs supplied by her. She consistently contacted you to orchestrate the collection of money from drug sales. You were one of her most trusted associates, as indicated by the amounts of ice she would readily supply to you on credit and by the fact that she would disclose to you when expected to receive new stock.
11. Fogarty used your premises as a safe house, where she would meet with drug customers, both local and from interstate, perform transactions with them and collect payments from them. You would also supply her with cutting agents to assist with the preparation of drugs being sold. When she needed to pay for new suppliers of ice, Fogarty would often require additional funds from you. You were to provide these sums by paying your own debts, by collecting payments on her behalf and by distributing more of her drug which you had in stock.
12. You would discuss with Fogarty the quality of the drugs and the way poor quality ice would affect your enterprise. You were heard arranging for the return of poor quality batches to her. You would also discuss stock levels and the sale results you expected those supplies to yield, both in terms of quantity and value. You would notify her when associates of yours were seeking to source drugs from you and, in turn, you needed to source drugs from her. When her stock was running low, she would sometimes direct her customers to attend upon you. She expected you to supply those customers with drugs you had previously sourced from her and kept in stock.
13. On one occasion Fogarty had arranged for co-accused Walker to collect drug moneys owed by you. Later you were heard discussing with her the possibility of you supplying ice to Walker and his likelihood to repay you. On another occasion you attended her new premises to deliver a payment. You did so, and during the visit you assisted her with installing a security camera.
14. Ice was not the only drug subject of your dealings with Fogarty. Telephone intercepts indicate that on at least one occasion you agreed to supply her with an unknown amount of OxyContin.
15. On one occasion Fogarty was intercepted, advising you to operate your police scanner, as she was suspicious of police travelling nearby.
16. You both had direct involvement with the co-offender, Orcher. Whilst at your premises, Fogarty provided him with $5,000 worth of ice without seeking immediate payment. In a signed statement to police, Orcher provided details of the event, indicated that you were present as Fogarty weighed the drugs and discussed the deals.
17. In a later conversation with you, she complained that she needed Orcher's debt repaid in order to be able to purchase new stock.
18. In a different call you indicated to her that had co-offender Partington not repaid a debt, you had ensured that he ended up in hospital.
19. On 11 September 2014 you were arrested and a search warrant executed at your home address. Police retrieved further evidence in respect of drug trafficking including $865 cash, drug sale ledgers, zip lock bags containing seven grams of ice approximately, a bag containing one and a half ecstasy tablets, another containing seven grams of cannabis, electronic scales, large quantity of seal bags, drug cutting agents and mobile telephones. Analysis of the drug ledgers seized from you indicated several thousand dollars in drug sales.
20. As a result of the search, a plastic canister was located buried in the rear yard. It contained firearm ammunition, a firearm magazine, a knuckle duster. Further located within the container at the home, shotgun ammunition with solid projectiles.
21. Police located unsecured firearms, ammunition and firearm butts, within your home. These included a double-barrel Boito brand sawn-off shotgun, a Winchester single barrel lever action .22 calibre rifle, a Niko brand under and over sawn-off double-barrel shotgun, a sawn-off Winchester brand 12 gauge double-barrel shotgun, a homemade metal firearm silencer, a plastic tub containing gunpowder and assorted ammunition. It is noteworthy that you are not the holder of a firearms licence. You are, in fact, classed as a prohibited person.
22. Enquiries and analysis in respect of these firearms revealed that three were stolen from two separate firearm burglaries. The Winchester and Niko shotguns were both stolen during a burglary and theft from a Wangaratta residence in February 2014, where six other firearms were also stolen. The Boito shotgun was stolen during a burglary and theft which occurred at a rural property in Whorouly, which occurred on 31 December 2013. The stolen firearms had been altered with their barrels shortened and partial serial numbers erased.
23. After you apprehension, you were interviewed in regards to your involvement with Fogarty and the rest of the drug syndicate. In response to all allegations put to you, you initially opted not to comment.
24. After making the statement to police that I have previously referred to, you were then bailed in January of 2015 and have served 125 days by way of pre-sentence detention.
25. The scale of the harm to victims of trafficking must be taken into account by the court. The impact of such trafficking in a small rural community and surrounding areas is significant. The potential harm done to victims and the consequences to persons addicted to ice, their health, the consequences on their families, consequential criminality and the community must be considered when the court looks at the intent to traffic and its gravity.
26. Trafficking is often difficult to detect. Ice is the most addictive drug and the community generally is alarmed by its prevalence, particularly the propensity for violence it often provokes. It is a pernicious drug and its trafficking is a significant social evil with serious consequences.
27. Drugs of addiction wantonly sourced and distributed and used constitute and continue to present to a modern society a heavy and hardly tolerable burden. Society looks to the court to denounce such conduct in clear terms, to protect it by the imposition of appropriate punishment which will deter generally and specifically those who would be minded to engage in it.
28. Where people (like you) are placed in an organisation in the middle level of involvement, it is obvious that they should expect significant punishment. Those who deliberately cynically and greedily seek the profit on a large scale from such unlawful conduct, those involved in the business of trafficking, can expect little mercy from the court. This applies particularly as you knew the very high stakes involved and potential punishment if caught.
29. The just punishment involved must make clear to those tempted to indulge in trafficking that detection will lead to severe punishment. General deterrence and community protection therefore must be the primary consideration of your sentence.
30. This also implies that personal circumstances will have lesser weight than might otherwise be given, although they remain relevant. In this context it is relevant that you were motivated in part by the need to fund your own habit, which makes you somewhat less culpable than if the motive was purely greed.
31. I take two matters into account in your favour amongst many others. By pleading guilty, you have facilitated the course of justice, and this plea, given at the earliest opportunity at the committal mention, has a utilitarian value of having saved the community the costs of a trial. The plea, I accept, is in demonstration of remorse on your part, and it will attract a discount on your sentence by operation of law.
32. The second matter is that having provided assistance to the investigators, you have not only provided statements but have undertaken to the court on oath to give evidence about the contents of that statement, which the prosecution consider to be valuable. This assistance will of itself attract a significant reduction in your sentence.
33. There is sound public policy which lies as the basis for such reduction. It is, of course, valuable to the safety of the community and to the disruption of criminal behaviour that offenders be encouraged and ultimately rewarded for informing on their criminal associates. This way criminal behaviour is not only disrupted, but prosecuted and ultimately punished.
34. I will have noted in the records of the court that you have made such an undertaking and make clear the reduction consequential on that promise.
35. You have a prior criminal history which I take into account. Your priors begin in 1999 with cannabis use and possession of firearms. On the same occasion you were convicted of cultivation of cannabis and placed on a community-based order. Later that same year you were placed on a community-based order for intentionally cause injury, recklessly cause injury and assault, an order which you breached in 2000.
36. There was then an eight year break before you returned to court in 2008 for using a drug of dependence, possession of a gun, and again, cultivation. A community-based disposition was again ordered.
37. In December 2012 you were placed on another community disposition for possession of cannabis, amphetamine, hashish, ice and prescription drugs as well as a weapons charge. You contravened that order in 2013 by more drug charges related to use and possession of speed and weapons charges, and charges of driving offences were also included. That contravention led to a suspended prison sentence.
38. In April 2014 the community corrections order, which was till on foot, was cancelled and you were imprisoned because of further offences related to the possession of drugs of dependence.
39. Although this history reflects primarily your continuing possession and use of drugs as a descent into ever greater use, as well as your apparent fondness for firearms or weapons, it does not contain a prior for trafficking, although it seems inevitable that your record would eventually lead to such a grave criminal behaviour.
40. Such priors are an element of the assessment of your prospects of rehabilitation, and given the longevity of the problem with drugs, it must be said and sound a note of caution for such prospects. There are no subsequent matters or pending matters.
41. I take into account your personal circumstances. You are 34 years of age, the younger of two sons. Your parents separated when you were young and both have re-partnered. You have a good relationship with both of them but limited contact with your brother, who has also had a history of trouble with the law.
42. You grew up in Wangaratta and were schooled to Year 10. You moved to Queensland with your mother at some stage and there attended a number of schools. This unsettled pattern did not change when you returned to Victoria to live with your father. Your mother left to work in the Middle East as a nurse and has recently returned to work in Queensland as a nurse.
43. After leaving school, and indeed whilst still studying, you did seasonal work on tobacco and fruit farms as well as you worked with your grandfather, who was an apiarist. For some eight years you had steady work with a textile company which supplied the defence forces. You left for a job for a lucrative contract cutting timber. Thereafter you commenced an apprenticeship in nursing, but your prior history militated against your future prospects in that field and you dropped out of the course.
44. You have, however, not worked much in the last three years due to drug use. You have done some volunteer work, teaching students to build a project through Evolve through training, an organisation which delivers a nationally accredited course in carpentry. Mr McDonald, a director, has written a reference in which he attests your competence and diligence. You have mentored young students and he considers you a standout apprentice.
45. The gaps in your offending do suggest you have some stable periods in your background. You were married for ten years and have two sons, now aged 15 and nine. You separated some five or six years ago and you have some contact with your younger son. You were devastated when your wife left you and ultimately she was granted full custody, your drug use even spoiling those relationships. However, you obviously did not see the relationship between your drug use and the break-up and loss of your family, because you got into ever deeper use, moving on to ice.
46. You have attempted suicide by hanging but have not engaged in further self-harm.
47. Although you do have a history of some indeterminate head injury due to a motorbike accident, this has had no further investigation. You found the death of a young cousin by suicide traumatic. Your response to stress and negative triggers appears to be increased drug use. This is the opinion of Carla Lechner, an experienced consultant psychologist who provided the court with a report.
48. You began smoking cannabis at age ten, smoking daily by age 13 up to age 28. You have tried most drugs except heroin. Your ice use after your break-up escalated up to a gram a day. You told Ms Lechner your offending was essentially selling to support your habit. You apparently love hunting and, due to your licence cancellation in 2008, you would take up stolen firearms when you could.
49. As to your drug use, it appears you have been abstinent for three or four months. You spent a period of four months on remand before being bailed. That period will be counted by way of pre-sentence detention.
50. Ms Lechner conducted tests which confirmed your current situational depression as well as a stimulant-use disorder in early remission. You expressed regret for your offending in a period when your own drug use may have undermined your judgment. I understand that you are determined to move out of the area where these offences were committed and to break ties with co-offenders.
51. I take into account letters of reference tendered from Lyst Strassler, your aunt. She attests to your affection for your sons and your generosity in helping others. You have lived with her since January. She confirms you have been drug-free. Marianne Frankie also wrote as a personal family friend. She attests to the deep impact drug use has had on your life and on the attempts you have made to make changes. Melissa Lewis has been in a relationship with you for some nine months. She says you are kind, dependable and honest. She says you have taken up the role of stepfather to her son, and she attests to your efforts to turn your life around. Your mother has also written a reference confirming much of your personal circumstances. She attests to some positive goals and aspirations. Your partner's father has also written a reference of support. A friend, Wendy Thompson, has done the same. She has offered the prospects of work overseas in the Emirates. Benjamin Muncie has employed you as a concreter on a casual basis for some 20 years and he speaks of your qualities in the work environment. Finally, Matthew King, of CVGT, Australian Apprenticeship Centre, which provides training for employment, has written of your attendance and commitment in order to search and find work.
52. I have taken this body of support which enhances, through its positive aspects, your prospects of rehabilitation.
53. To confirm your instructions, I was provided with drug screens or a sample of 16 December and one of 28 January, both which showed negative results for drugs of dependence.
54. A recent report from Matthew Ryan, a psychologist with Hume Psychology, was also tendered. You had been referred by a GP who organised a mental health plan due to depression and drug disorders.
55. As of 18 February, you had completed five counselling sessions with other opportunities to come. You are extremely depressed and are experiencing some chronic pain.
56. At the end of your plea I sought and subsequently received an assessment from the Correctional Services in relation to a community corrections order as part of the sentencing disposition. The report which was received found you to be a high risk of re-offending. However, it was said that you could be afforded an opportunity to address your many issues by a new order which could encompass supervision, community work and treatment and rehabilitation options.
57. The sentence in the circumstances of this case must primarily concern itself with the gravity of the offending, punishment, denunciation by way of general deterrence and specific deterrence.
58. Of course, equally important, sentencing principles must be taken into account such as rehabilitation and community protection. These later aims often create an exquisite tension inherent in all sentencing dispositions, especially where an accused has made some recent efforts to reform. Such reclamation is often, in the long-term, in the best interests of the community. However, the principles which lie at the other end of the spectrum of sentencing aims continue to be valid. Often efforts at rehabilitation can ameliorate a sentence significantly. In my view here the essential benefits outlined before by way of reduction of sentence all coalesce into a sentence which must combine incarceration and a subsequent community disposition.
59. It is my intention that even though a disruption of the current life you are attempting to lead is inevitable, that this be proportionate and adequate according to principles of parsimony and mercy and not designed to put an end to those prospects of rehabilitation which clearly exist.
60. Would you please stand?
61. On the charge of trafficking in a drug of dependence, you are convicted and sentenced to four years' imprisonment; on possession of a drug of dependence, you are convicted and sentenced to two months' imprisonment; on handling stolen goods, you are convicted and sentenced to nine months' imprisonment; on the possession of a firearm, you are convicted and sentenced to nine months' imprisonment; on the possession of a prohibited weapon, you are convicted and sentenced to one month imprisonment; and on the possession of ammunition without a licence, you are convicted and sentenced to one month.
62. I order that two months on the handling count and one month on the possession of firearms count be cumulative on the trafficking charge. That makes a total of four years and three months.
63. After taking into account your co-operation, I impose a term of 24 months of imprisonment to be followed by a community corrections order for two years with conditions outlined in the report. You will then perform 100 hours of community work and be supervised.
64. I note that but for your plea upon this matter, I would have sentenced you to five and a half years with a non-parole period of three and a half years.
65. I note that you have served 125 days by way of pre-sentence detention.
66. I have signed disposal and forfeiture orders pursuant to s.464ZF. I should say to you that if a request is made for your biological sample and at the time at which that request is made, if you refuse, then an authorised police officer will be able to take a blood sample from you using reasonable force. Do you understand?
67. OFFENDER: Yes.
68. HIS HONOUR: Are there any other matters, Mr Perry or Ms Valos?
69. MR PERRY: No, Your Honour.
70. MS VALOS: No, Your Honour.
71. HIS HONOUR: Yes, thank you both. Just so that it is perfectly clear. Pursuant to the report of Corrections, the conditions imposed by that order are supervision, community work, drugs and mental health treatment and rehabilitation and programs and courses to reduce re-offending, and the duration is 24 months.
72. The relevant office will be the Wangaratta Community Corrections Office.
73. MR PERRY: Thank you, Your Honour.
74. HIS HONOUR: I will wait on the Bench while the orders are made and I will sign them. Take a seat, Mr Vincent.
75. Ms Valos, my Associate is taking down the component of the community corrections paperwork so that your client can sign it, so he is going to be asked to sign the community corrections documentation in a moment.
76. MS VALOS: Thank you, Your Honour.
77. (Community corrections order signed and acknowledged.)
78. HIS HONOUR: Yes, all right. That having been done, I will just stand down for a moment. Thank you, Ms Valos. Mr Perry, I won't be very long. I will just wait for the prisoner to be taken out and for Mr Lam to be brought in, which shouldn't take too long.
79. MR PERRY: Thank you.
80. MS VALOS: As Your Honour pleases.