STATE OF TASMANIA v DESW 27 MARCH 2024
COMMENTS ON PASSING SENTENCE BLOW CJ
D, you have pleaded guilty to a charge of armed robbery. On a Saturday afternoon last December you went into a bottle shop in Mowbray armed with a knife. There were three other people there – the manager and two customers. The manager became suspicious and took your bag from you. You showed him your knife, and he stayed away from you after that. You helped yourself to some drinks and tried to get your bag back, without success. You took some more drinks, and left with three four-packs of premix drinks. You left your bag behind. It had your name in it. The police found you a little later and arrested you. You have been in custody ever since.
You are only 15 years old. You do not have any prior convictions, and that counts in your favour. You pleaded guilty in the Magistrates Court, and that also counts in your favour. Sometimes people who get robbed at knifepoint develop terrible psychological symptoms, but that seems not to have happened in this case. They can develop later, so there is a risk there.
I have been provided with three reports about you – one by a psychologist, one by a psychiatrist and one by a youth justice worker. It is clear to me that some bad things have happened to you in the past, and that you have got all sorts of problems. But there are people willing to help you. Terresa Leslie loves you and wants you to come back to her place. Arrangements have been made for you to go to T4 instead of an ordinary school. The people at Ashley have got you started on some medication that seems to be making life easier for you. You have the support of the people from the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre. There are a lot of people that want to help you to stop doing crime. It would be awful if you end up spending time in gaol when you are older.
Armed robbery is a serious crime because of the mental health problems that it can cause for robbery victims. That is why you have been held in detention. I am going to sentence you to some time in detention as a punishment, and I am going to make a probation order so that you can get some help from youth justice workers.
I convict you and sentence you to 8 months’ detention with effect from 9 December 2023. The earliest release date is fixed at 9 April 2024. I make a probation order, to operate for 18 months after your release from detention, with special conditions that:
(a) that you must attend educational, personal, health and other programs as directed by your assigned youth justice worker, and
(b) you must undergo medical, psychiatric, psychological, and drug counselling and treatment as directed by your assigned youth justice worker.
I order that you pay the proprietor of Cellarbrations at Mowbray compensation for its loss, and adjourn the assessment of that compensation sine die.