STATE OF TASMANIA v CALEB MICHAEL BRETTNER 4 NOVEMBER 2022
COMMENTS ON PASSING SENTENCE PEARCE J
Caleb Brettner, you plead guilty to trafficking in a controlled substance. I also agreed to deal with your pleas of guilty to possessing and using cocaine.
On 23 March 2022, in Kings Meadows, you were pulled over by the police for a breath test and an oral fluid test. After the oral fluid test proved positive to cocaine you were found to have a snap lock bag concealed in your underpants with two smaller bags inside respectively containing 27.5 grams and 27.4 grams of cocaine. Your home was then searched. A very small quantity of cocaine was found there along with some new and used empty snap lock bags. You admitted that you had used cocaine the previous evening.
You have pleaded guilty to trafficking on the basis that you had been given the cocaine you were carrying by another person, and you were transporting it on that persons behalf in return for being supplied with four or five grams of cocaine, worth something in the region of $2,000, as payment. You understood that someone intended to sell the cocaine. You admitted to the police that this was not the first time you had transported the drug on this basis. You did so on other occasions during the period of almost five months between 1 November 2021 and the date you were apprehended, although you had not done it all that often. It was the main way you funded your personal use. You also admitted having supplied a small quantity of cocaine to one of your acquaintances a few days earlier and that from time to time you gave cocaine to your friends on the basis that they would later return the favour. By transporting cocaine in the belief that another person was going to sell it, and by bartering in it, you trafficked in it.
You are aged 25. You were 24 when this crime was committed. You are a relatively young man but not so as to attract the mitigation which may arise from youth or immaturity. You have however no relevant prior convictions and your early plea of guilty is in your favour.
Since this crime you have moved to NSW and obtained employment. You have obtained a heavy rigid license. Abstinence from drug use will be critical to maintaining that type of employment. You are in the process of arranging for your partner and her two young children to move to NSW to accompany you.
The cocaine you had in your possession on 22 March was worth, depending on how it was sold, somewhere between about $15,000 and $28,000. The total value of the cocaine you trafficked throughout the indictment period cannot be ascertained. It was not intended that you realise that value, although you knew that someone was going to and that the drug would have been dispersed into the community. The evils of illicit drug trafficking have been explained on many occasions. This is not the most serious case, but you and others must understand that those who choose to engage in the trade will be punished. I have been asked to impose a fine. I have decided against doing so because in my view you have no reasonable capacity to pay the type of fine which would reflect the seriousness of your crime. I would have, as part of a sentencing order, ordered that you either be supervised in the community or undertake community service or both but I have concluded that it is more important that you be permitted to return to NSW to resume your stable employment because if you can continue with that then the community as a whole will benefit. However, as a result I have concluded that the only sentence which is properly open to me is a sentence of imprisonment but I will wholly suspend that sentence on conditions.
Caleb Brettner, you are convicted on the indictment and on counts 1 and 2 on complaint 32062/2022. On those two counts on that complaint I make no further order. On the indictment, pursuant to the Misuse of Drugs Act, s 36B, I assess the reasonable expense of and attending the analysis and examination of the controlled substance as $788 and award that sum against you as part of the costs of the prosecutor. I may only allow you 28 days to pay that amount. If you require longer you will need to enter into a repayment arrangement. On the indictment you are sentenced to imprisonment for six months. I wholly suspend that term for two years from today. It is a condition of that order that while it is in force you commit no other offence punishable by imprisonment. If you breach that condition then you will be returned to Court and the Court must order that you serve that sentence unless it is unjust.