STATE OF TASMANIA v RICHARD FRANCIS CLARKE 26 SEPTEMBER 2019
COMMENTS ON PASSING SENTENCE PEARCE J
On 16 April 2019 I made a drug treatment order following Richard Clarke’s plea of guilty to being found prepared for the commission of a crime. The custodial part of the order is imprisonment for 14 months. Mr Clarke was found by the police at about 5.40am on Friday, 16 November 2018 in a car parked in suburban Kings Meadows with a backpack containing a beanie, gloves, a face mask, a torch and a glass-breaking hammer. He admitted that all of those items were for making entry into a building or a vehicle, and he had no lawful excuse for their possession. Mr Clarke has a 30 year record for dishonesty with a high risk of re-offending. The drug treatment order was made in an attempt to address the obvious direct link between his offending and long history of illicit substance abuse and because past sentences of imprisonment had not been effective in stopping him from committing crime. However, he has found himself unable to comply with the conditions of the order. He has re-offended whilst subject to the order and is now the subject of a sentence of imprisonment imposed by a magistrate on 6 September 2019. He was sentenced to imprisonment for 12 months with a non-parole period of six months. That sentence, to take account of custody already served, was expressed to commence on 29 March 2019. I am satisfied as a result that continuation of the treatment and supervision part of the order is unlikely to achieve any of the purposes for which the order was made and because of the change of circumstances he is unable to comply with the terms of the order. I am required to take into account the extent of his compliance with the treatment and supervision part of the order. The reports indicate that he was compliant for a period of three months but it is inescapable that he was offending also during that period. I see no reason to reduce the custodial term because of the extent of that compliance. I will, however, permit eligibility for parole, but only after Mr Clarke has served the minimum period of custody I consider is required. I also take into account in determining the parole non-eligibility period the principle of totality having regard to the sentence if imprisonment he was required to serve by a magistrate.
Richard Clarke, I order that the treatment and supervision part of the drug treatment order made 16 April 2019 is cancelled. I activate all of the 14 month custodial part of the drug treatment order and order that the term be served cumulatively to the sentence imposed by a magistrate on 6 September 2019. I order that you not be eligible for parole until you have served nine months of that term.