The Queen v Singleton[1999] QCA 381

HIS HONOUR: On 21 April 1999, on pleas of guilty, the applicant was sentenced to three and a half years' imprisonment with a recommendation that he be considered for parole after 18 months. The charges against him consisted of three counts of stealing and eight counts of receiving in respect of property totalling an excess of $13,500.

The applicant has an appalling record of dishonesty and other offences but his record of dishonesty is what is relevant here. He was, at the relevant time, plainly a professional fence, involved in what His Honour the learned sentencing Judge described as a slick, well-conducted operation which the applicant described euphemistically in his discussion with the under-cover operative as "going shopping".

It would seem that if anybody wanted to buy stolen property he need only mention it to the applicant and he would arrange to have it stolen and, indeed, it seems as though there were specific instances of that at the time. There was some complaint to suggest that the operative had instigated the offences by asking the plaintiff for particular property. However, it is quite plain that that was in accordance with the applicant's normal way of doing business and that the police were targeting him so that their method were only designed to obtain evidence as to the way in which he carried out his business.

The matter is complicated by the fact that these offences all took place during a period during 1 October 1997 and the end of December 1997, and the applicant had been sentenced on 31 March 1998 in the Brisbane Magistrates Court on various other offences of a similar kind during the same kind.

There were two counts of dealing, in respect of which he received sentences of imprisonment of six months and eight months respectively and a count of possession of tainted property during this period for which he received a sentence of 12 months imprisonment, all of them to be cumultive.

There were also two sentences of four months and six months respectively for breach of earlier suspended sentences, one of which related to a count of stealing during this same period which had been dealt with in December of 1997.

It was suggested that the police were in some way abusing the system because they didn't charge the applicant with all of the offences so that he could be dealt with on 31 March 1998. It is irrelevant to go into those matters because His Honour rightly for the benefit of the applicant took into consideration the feature that he should address the totality of the offences of which the applicant had been dealt with, and that should include the sentences that had been imposed upon him on 31 March 1998. His Honour specifically reduced the sentence which he imposed for these offences for that reason.

He approached it in this way, he said that the learned counsel on both sides had submitted much the same effect, that the sentences before him uncomplicated by other factors would normally attract a sentence of about five years' imprisonment, having regard to all the circumstances including the professional nature of the applicant's business and his prior criminal history. His Honour then said that in respect of the application of the totality principle he should look at the sentence which he would have imposed had all the matters been before him including those matters for which the applicant had been sentenced on 31 March 1998.

He then said that he felt that he should double the sentence of imprisonment that had been imposed upon him on that earlier occasion and subtract that figure from the sentence which he would have imposed had he been dealing with all the matters at that particular time and he arrived at a result of three and a half years' imprisonment. Now, it is quite implicit in that exercise that he was saying that if he was sentencing on all the matters including the earlier matters he would have usually imposed a sentence of five and a half years' imprisonment.

Now, in that respect, the normal period for consideration for parole would be something like two and three-quarter years after the sentence was imposed. His Honour's recommendation for consideration for parole after 18 months, if added to the period before which the applicant would have been considered for parole in respect of the earlier offences, would amount to two years by comparison with the normal period of parole after two and three-quarter years. On the hypothetical exercise that His Honour discussed that would demonstrate that His Honour had allowed the applicant something like nine months of what would normally have been expected if the matters had all been dealt with at the same time and in the application of the totality principle.

His Honour therefore allowed a quite substantial period of deduction in calculating the period for which consideration for parole would be recommended to account for the applicant's plea of guilty.

Quite plainly, this was perfectly adequate and there is no basis upon which the sentence could be attacked. It might be added that His Honour was probably slightly erroneously generous to the applicant in his original exercise of doubling the original sentence and then deducting it from the sentence that he would have imposed.

My understanding is that it should not be done in respect simply of a sentence that is imposed but in respect of time actually served when such an exercise is performed. However, that aside, there is no error demonstrated in relation to His Honour's calculations and indeed learned counsel for the applicant very properly acknowledged that with a proper regard for the way in which His Honour approached the matter there was really nothing for the applicant to complain about. In my view the application should be refused.

McPHERSON JA: I agree.

CHESTERMAN J: I agree the application should be refused. Given the age of the applicant and his criminal history he got off very lightly.

McPHERSON JA: The order of the Court is that the application is dismissed.