STATE OF TASMANIA v JESSE MICHAEL DENNIS BRIERS 12 MAY 2025
COMMENTS ON PASSING SENTENCE CUTHBERTSON J
Jesse Michael Dennis Briers, you have pleaded guilty to charges of burglary, stealing and receiving stolen property. On 16 May 2023, you broke into the garage of a residential property in Mount Nelson with two other people, one of whom was Danielle Latham your former partner. You were all wearing black clothing with hoods and your faces were covered. One of you entered the garage by forcing a window open before letting the others in. Once inside, you all went through the property in the garage. The three of you took an electric bicycle, three boxes of documents and artwork, putting it in Ms Latham’s car before driving away. These activities were captured on CCTV. The total value of the items stolen was $7,000.
Your involvement in these crimes was detected when police went to an address in Kingston to clamp a vehicle which had been involved in an evade incident in the preceding days. When they entered the unlocked vehicle to apply the clamp, they noticed a computer which they believed had been stolen in another burglary. Police obtained a telephone search warrant for the residence. At the premises, police located you, Ms Latham and your brother. During the search they found property they believed to have been stolen, including most of the items stolen from the Mount Nelson property. That property included a Remarkable electronic notebook computer, a Chrome notebook computer and a number of boxes containing personal documents and papers. Police later established these items were stolen from homes in the Kingston area over the previous month.
You were arrested and interviewed by police. You admitted being involved in the Mount Nelson burglary, telling police you helped load the stolen items into the car. You also told police you had seen the stolen items located during the search and helped sort through them and dispose of them. You admitted you had been using the Remarkable electronic notebook and had tried to reset it so it could be sold. You told police you had reset and kept the Chrome notebook computer. You also admitted trying to access a Nikon camera that you knew had been stolen, but when that attempt was unsuccessful, you threw it away.
The receiving stolen property charge relates to the two notebook computers, the Nikon camera and the boxes of personal papers and documents. The computers were returned to the owners. All items of property stolen from Mount Nelson, apart from the artwork valued at approximately $200, were recovered and returned to the owner.
At the time of committing these offences you were subject to a suspended sentence of imprisonment and a community corrections order, which had been imposed in the Magistrates Court in February 2023 for charges of trespass, destroy property, common assault and breaches of bail. This suspended sentence has been activated following breach proceedings dealt with in the Magistrates Court in November and December of last year. At that time, you were also sentenced to a further period of 15 months’ imprisonment for new offending. The total effective sentence imposed upon you was just over 18 months. That sentence was backdated to take into account some periods of time spent in custody. A non-parole order was made in respect of that sentence and I am told that you have been eligible for parole since October 2024. You have been in custody on a continuous basis since 20 May 2024. You have not applied for bail in respect of these matters since being remanded.
You are now 25 years old. At the time of this offending you were 23 years old. You had a difficult start in life. You are one of a number of children to your parents. You have been diagnosed with Foetal Alcohol Syndrome Disorder. This has resulted in you experiencing impairments in intellectual and adaptive functioning. You have been exposed to trauma and abuse throughout your childhood. I am told that misuse of alcohol and other drug use was a prominent feature in your family, leading to a volatile situation. Your father spent considerable periods of time in custody during your childhood as a result of his own offending. This contributed to the instability of your family environment. Your grandparents have been involved with your upbringing and have been supportive of you, but your childhood was described to me as chaotic.
Unsurprisingly, given this background, you commenced using drugs and alcohol at an early age because it formed a prominent part of the environment that you were raised in. This has been a major feature in your offending. Your prior convictions include offending commencing when you were 15 years old. You have spent considerable periods of time in custody since that time. You had been released from prison in 2023. These offences were committed very shortly after your release.
You now have an 18 month old child from a former relationship. That relationship ended during this current custodial episode. This has impacted your visits with your child and made your time in custody generally more difficult.
I am told that you are a participant in the National Disability Insurance Scheme. When in the community, you are funded to receive up to twenty-six hours of direct support, together with occupational therapy and behaviour support. You have been engaging with your coordinator of supports and key support worker while in custody to prepare you for release. It seems you had made some inroads into addressing your issues prior to being remanded in custody last year. Since being in custody, you have accessed support from the Alcohol and Drug Service, including pharmacotherapy, and you will remain on that program on your release.
You were originally charged with a number of other offences. The matters to which you have pleaded guilty could have been dealt with in the Magistrates Court. The matters for which you were sentenced in November and December 2024 included charges of burglary and stealing, motor vehicle stealing, common assault, breaches of bail and like offences. It appears to me that if these matters had been dealt with at the same time, it is unlikely that you would have received a significantly longer period of imprisonment. There is also a period of 14 days that you spent in custody on these matters which has not yet been taken into account.
This offending, however, does warrant the imposition of a period of imprisonment. I will, however, take into account the issues I have already mentioned, particularly the sentence you are already serving, by ordering the sentence of imprisonment be backdated to take into account the period of time you have spent in custody, which is yet to be allocated to a sentence imposed upon you to date, and also order that it operate concurrently with (that is at the same time as) the sentence you are currently serving. The effect of this is that your release date will not change, Mr Briers.
Jesse Michael Dennis Briers, you are convicted on each of the charges. You are sentenced to a period of two months’ imprisonment, backdated to 28 April 2025 to be served concurrently with your current sentence.
I make compensation orders, pursuant to s 68(1) of the Sentencing Act. There are two orders. One of those is in favour of Sally Siew, in the amount of $1,300, in relation to the Nikon camera. The further compensation order is made in favour of Anthony Johnston, in the amount of $200, which relates to the artwork that was not returned.