STATE OF TASMANIA v TYRELL ANTHONY BAILEY 9 MAY 2024
COMMENTS ON PASSING SENTENCE PEARCE J
Tyrell Bailey, you plead guilty to dangerous driving. I also agreed to deal with your plea of guilty to the related summary charges of breaching a family violence order, evading police and dishonestly displaying a number plate in a way calculated to deceive.
All of these offences were committed on 16 September 2023. At about 9.30 am the police saw you sitting in the driver’s seat of a vehicle parked in the driveway of a bottle shop in Devonport. It later emerged that the car had number plates which were from another vehicle. The police had been looking for you. One police vehicle was parked in front of your car. Another police vehicle arrived and was parked behind it. Police from the first vehicle approached your car to speak with you. At that time a female walked from the bottle shop and sat in the passenger seat. At least one of the police knew that you were subject to a family violence order which prohibited you from being with that person. As a result, you were arrested and asked to remove yourself from the car. You did not do so. Instead, you started the car, reversed at speed into the police car parked behind you, then drove around the police car parked in front and out the driveway, contacting the corner of the building as you did so.
What then followed was a prolonged course of dangerous driving during which you drove from Devonport to Launceston apparently via the Frankford Highway. Although the police did not pursue you, your aim throughout the driving was to evade them. It had been raining lightly and all of the roads were damp. After driving away from the bottle shop you drove at speed along William Street, straight across the Middle Road roundabout and onto the Bass Highway. A vehicle travelling in the same direction was almost run off the road. After about four kilometres you turned off the Bass Highway onto Port Sorell Road and then, once you got to Port Sorell, to Parkers Ford Road. When on Port Sorell Road you drove across double white lines onto the incorrect side of the road, at one point for a distance of about 300 metres. You swerved erratically between cars, overtook other cars across solid double white lines when it was not safe to do so and almost collided with at least one car travelling in the opposite direction. At the intersection of Port Sorell Road and the road to the Devonport Airport you drove through the roundabout on the incorrect side of the road. One witness was so alarmed about the manner of your driving that the police were called. As you passed through Wesley Vale, where the speed limit was 80 kph, your speed was measured by a speed camera at 158 kph. Your car was photographed with you making an indecent gesture to the camera. Another speed camera on Parkers Ford Road measured your speed at 83 kph in a 60 kph zone.
You were next seen about 70 kilometres away speeding along the West Tamar Highway at Legana. Between there and Riverside you were seen by many witnesses to be closely tailgating other cars, slowing down and then speeding up behind them and overtaking when it was not safe. On at least two occasions you drove off the sealed section of the road at high speed in an attempt to get past other cars. You were next seen driving back towards Legana in the same way. You dangerously overtook three cars at speed, so close that your car clipped and broke the side mirror of one of those cars. Three separate witnesses phoned the police about the manner of your driving.
You were not apprehended until you were found by the police seven weeks later on 4 November 2023. You were taken into custody and you have been in custody since then.
You are now aged 27. You were educated to year 10 and had some employment for a couple of years. You have a 12 year old daughter and an eight year old son from a previous relationship and three year old twins from your current relationship. It seems that your life has been affected by criminal conduct and drug abuse. Your record of offending commences when you were young. It includes convictions for resisting, abusing, obstructing and threatening police and cultivating cannabis. There are some driving charges but none as serious as this. In December 2021 you were imprisoned for a series of family violence charges including three common assaults and a number of breaches of a family violence order. In April 2022 you were imprisoned again, this time for five weeks, for further family violence order breaches. In January 2024 you were sentenced to imprisonment for six weeks from 2 November 2023 for offences committed in 2022 and 2023. They include four counts of driving with an illicit drug, driving without a licence, four counts of breaching a family violence order and three counts of breaching bail by failing to appear. They are not prior convictions for sentencing purposes but indicate that at the time you committed the crimes for which you are now to be sentenced you were either on bail or in breach of the bail to which you had been subject. You drove away to avoid apprehension by the police when you knew that you had been caught on four separate occasions in the previous few months driving with methylamphetamine in your blood and when you should not have been driving at all because you did not have a licence. You have a bad record for family violence offences and were once again knowingly disregarding an order that you not be in the company of the female you were with. Even the false plate is serious in your case because it involves a dishonest attempt to avoid your legal obligations.
Your counsel correctly points out that despite your history of offending you have had very limited access to services in the community and would benefit from a period of supervision by and assistance from community corrections. Your rehabilitation is in the community interest if it can be achieved and a greater period of supervision is available as a condition of a suspended sentence rather than a part of a parole order.
for at least ten years there has been a general upward trend in the severity of sentences for serious driving offences. That increase reflects an increasing concern on the part of the community, the Parliament and the courts for dangerous driving behaviour. The dominant sentencing aims are general and specific deterrence, punishment, denunciation and protection of the public. This is a serious example of the crime. It involved a prolonged course of driving, well over an hour, at a time of the day when the roads would be busy. The road conditions were affected by rain. There were multiple instances of actual danger to others. The danger arose from both the speed and manner of your driving. Your speed as you drove through Wesley Vale would be shocking to any responsible person. The fact that you were driving to avoid apprehension added the factor of desperation to your driving and decision-making. All of your conduct displayed a contempt for the law and for the authority of the police. You were due to be released from the most recent sentence on 14 December 2023 and so the sentence I impose will commence then.
Tyrell Bailey, you are convicted on the indictment and on complaint 53586/23, counts 2, 4 and 5. I make compensation orders in favour of Donoj Pty Ltd in the sum of $439.11 and Dennis Blazely in the sum of $400. I may only allow 28 days to pay those sums. On the complaint, count 5, the false plate, you are sentenced to imprisonment for 14 days from 14 December 2023. On count 2, breaching the family violence order, you are sentenced to imprisonment for one month also from 14 December 2023. On count 4, evade police, you are sentenced to imprisonment for three months, cumulative to the term just imposed. You are disqualified from driving for one year from your release from prison. On the indictment, you are sentenced to imprisonment for 22 months cumulative to the terms just imposed. You are disqualified from driving for two years cumulative to the period of disqualification just imposed. I make no order for parole in respect to any of the sentences of imprisonment. However I suspend half of the 22 month term for three years from today on the following conditions:
- you are not to commit another offence punishable by imprisonment during that period. If you breach that condition, which will operate both when you are in prison and following your release, you will be required to serve the suspended term unless that is unjust.
- for 18 months from your release you will subject to the supervision of a probation officer. The conditions referred to in s 24(5B) of the Sentencing Act apply to this condition and will be set out in the order you will be given. These include that you must report to a probation officer at the office of Community Corrections in Launceston within three clear working days of your release, you must submit to supervision and comply with the directions given by your probation officer, you must not leave Tasmania without permission and you must notify of any change of address.
- in addition to the core conditions, the order will also include the following special conditions that you must, during the 18 month operational period of the supervision order:
- submit to the supervision of a Community Corrections officer as required by that officer;
- attend educational and other programs, undergo assessment and treatment for alcohol or drug dependency, submit to testing for alcohol or drug use and submit to medical, psychological or psychiatric assessment or treatment as directed by a probation officer;
- attend and complete the EQUIPS addition program as directed by a probation officer.
The total term of imprisonment I have imposed is two years and two months from 14 December 2023. You will serve 15 months from that date because I have suspended 11 months of the total for three years from today on the conditions I have stated, one of which is for supervision for 18 months from your release. In addition you have been disqualified from driving for three years from your release.