STATE OF TASMANIA v ETHAN DANIEL BAKER 31 JULY 2025
COMMENTS ON PASSING SENTENCE PEARCE J
Ethan Baker, you plead guilty to two counts of possessing a firearm when subject to a firearm prohibition order. I also agreed to deal with the summary charges of possessing and using cannabis, possessing methylamphetamine and possessing a smoking device.
On 27 February 2022 your car was left unattended at the Perth Football Club oval. In the early evening a person walking his dog looked inside and noticed part of a firearm. He took the object home and called the police. Within a couple of days the police learned that it was your car and your house was searched on 2 March 2022. Another firearm, a gel blaster imitation of a Glock pistol, was found. The police also found a snap lock bag containing 13.81 grams of cannabis, a snap lock bag containing 0.68 grams of methylamphetamine and a used methylamphetamine smoking device.
The object found inside the car was later examined and found to be the operating mechanism and barrel of an air rifle. From the photograph shown to me it appears to be all of the rifle but missing the stock. However the firearm was inoperable.
Your possession of these items was unlawful in any event but particularly so because you were subject to a firearms prohibition order. Firearms prohibition orders are made if the Commissioner of Police forms the opinion that a person is unfit, in the public interest, to possess or use a firearm. In your case the order was made on 3 September 2015 and served on you on 18 September 2015. The order operated until it was revoked and prohibited you from possessing or using a firearm. As a result your possession of a firearm of any nature while the order was in force was a crime. I infer that in your case the order was made because on 3 February 2015 you engaged in unlawful trafficking in firearms, an offence for which you were convicted in 2017. Even after the order was made you continued to commit firearm offences. In 2016 and again in 2019 you were sentenced for multiple instances of possessing firearms and ammunition along with other offending. On the first occasion a suspended sentence was imposed. On the second occasion a drug treatment order was made arising from the link between your offending and abuse of illicit drugs. Then, on 6 November 2020 you were sentenced in this court for recklessly discharging a firearm. The circumstances of that offence were that, on 6 April 2019, after an argument with your partner, you fired a rifle through the garage door of her home and then fled from the police in a stolen vehicle. You were also guilty of a number of other firearm offences. A 10 month term was suspended because, by then, you had begun to make positive progress on the drug treatment order. I infer for similar reasons the two terms imposed by a magistrate for the other offences committed on the same day were also suspended sentences. To your credit you successfully completed the drug treatment order and but for the matters I am now dealing with there has been no further offending since those offences were committed in 2019. However a significant complicating fact arises because by possessing these firearms in 2022 offences you breached all of the suspended sentences to which I have referred, a total term of 15 months. I must activate those terms unless I am satisfied that it is unjust to do so.
You are now aged 32. You have good family support. You have shared care of your son and since June 2023 you have been in secure employment with a civil contracting and land management company. You are well regarded by your employer who describes you as conscientious, punctual and trustworthy. You also pleaded guilty to, on 2 March 2022, using cannabis and using methylamphetamine and possessing the smoking device. You admitted at the time having smoked cannabis. I am informed that since those lapses you have distanced yourself from illicit drugs and that you have further overcome your addiction to methylamphetamine. You now only use prescribed drugs and you receive regular injections of buprenorphine as part of an ongoing addiction treatment program with which you are compliant. You maintain that you had the gel blaster and the inoperative rifle for your son’s amusement, and not for any sinister or criminal purpose. That claim is not challenged by the prosecution. You say that you were, in 2022, not sure of the status of gel blasters as firearms. They are firearms because they are imitation firearms and their appearance is such that they may be used to threaten. Having regard to your history of offending and the order which was in place you should have been much more careful. However I accept that you have not been in any other trouble for more than six years and, with particular regard to firearms, that is despite you having to avoid contact with firearms which are lawfully used within your extended family and friends and in the rural area where you live.
It is in your favour that you have pleaded guilty. There has been some delay in resolving this matter but that results primarily from the work necessary to establish that the object found in the car was in fact a firearm. There were proper reasons for you to, at least initially, take issue with that. You now agree that it was a firearm even though it was inoperable. The starting point is that the suspended sentences should be activated. However, I have decided that it would be unjust to activate any part of the suspended terms. The delay has enabled you to take significant steps in your rehabilitation. To order your imprisonment now would likely undo much of the good work you have done and would be contrary to the community interest. Although breach of a firearms prohibition order is always very concerning, the nature of the firearms involved in these breaches does not require activation of the sentences. I agree with your counsel that, in all the circumstances, sending you to prison would be a disproportionate response. A sentence can be imposed on the new offending which sufficiently reflects the need for punishment and general deterrence, and can provide a strong incentive for you to continue your rehabilitation and not re-offend. If you were to breach the firearms prohibition order again in any serious way it is unlikely that you would be given yet another chance and prison would be likely.
Ethan Baker, you are convicted on both counts on the indictment and on complaint 31248/22, counts 7, 8 9 and 10. In light of the sentence I will impose on the indictment I make no further order on the complaint. On the applications for breach of the suspended sentences I make no order. On the indictment I impose one sentence. You are sentenced to a term of imprisonment of five months. I suspend that term for two years from today. It is a condition of that order that while it is in force you commit no offence punishable by imprisonment. If you breach that condition you will be required to serve the suspended term unless that is unjust.