TASMANIA v ALAN JOHN SEABOURNE 30 OCTOBER 2009
COMMENTS ON PASSING SENTENCE CRAWFORD CJ
Alan John Seaborne was found guilty by the jury of cultivating a controlled plant and of possession of a controlled substance, but, of course, not guilty of the more serious charges that required establishing that he had an intention to sell.
I find that in a period of a few months from November 2008 to February 2009 he was growing 12 or 13 cannabis plants at his property at Bridgenorth and when the police searched the property on 25 February this year he had harvested some of them and still had some more to harvest. According to the analysis he had harvested about 1.6 kilograms of cannabis head and was still to harvest more and so he might have finished up with 4 or 5 kilograms of cannabis head it seems to me on the evidence, particularly based on admissions he made at the interview.
The jury's verdicts are of course fully accepted and in no sense is he to be sentenced on a suspicion of an intention to sell, but nevertheless the amount of cannabis head that he had and was likely to have, was quite substantial and worth quite a lot of money. It was substantially more than the trafficable quantity prescribed by Parliament and so the offence cannot be treated lightly.
He is now 41 years old. He has no record for relevant offences and I think in the circumstances the appropriate punishment is one of a fine.
Convictions are recorded. Alan John Seaborne you are fined $2000. It is ordered that you pay $100 by way of victims of crime compensation levies. Payment is ordered within 28 days.