STATE OF TASMANIA v CHRISTOPHER REECE GALVIN 4 APRIL 2023
COMMENTS ON PASSING SENTENCE ESTCOURT J
The defendant, aged 24 at the time of the offending has pleaded guilty to one count of trafficking in a controlled substance, namely methylamphetamine contrary to s 12 of the Misuse of Drugs Act 2001, and also to a Commonwealth crime of failing to provide access to his mobile phone contrary to a requirement in a s3LA order, contrary to s 3LA of the Crimes Act 1914.
In December 2020, Tasmania Police with the support of the Australian Federal Police, established an operation to investigate the importation of methylamphetamine, cocaine and ketamine into Tasmania by high level drug traffickers. The primary focus of the investigation was on a female who directed the syndicate and would engage couriers to import the drugs into Tasmania, distribute it to purchasers and then take the cash obtained to her in either New South Wales or Queensland. The woman would pay the couriers between $10,000 – $20,000 each per trip.
The defendant became one of those couriers with the intention of using the payment made to him to assist his father’s ailing business. He was not aware of the scale of his employer’s drug trafficking operations.
The defendant had boarded the Spirit of Tasmania in Melbourne on 14 April 2021 and disembarked in Tasmania on 15 April 2021.
On 21 April 2021 as a result of surveillance, Tasmania Police obtained a search warrant for a room at a motel in Hobart’s northern suburbs. They located the defendant and his female companion in the room. They searched the room and located and seized, amongst other things, the defendant’s iPhone and nine packages of cash, which, when counted, totalled $220,200.
Police also searched the defendant’s vehicle and located and seized, amongst other things, a small snap lock bag containing 1.7 grams of cannabis bud and a total of 415 grams of methamphetamine in approximately one ounce, or 28 gram, bags.
Sergeant Gibson of the Australian Federal Police obtained a warrant, pursuant to section 3E of the Crimes Act 1914 requiring the defendant to provide information or assistance to allow access to the data on his phone, pursuant to section 3LA of the Crimes Act 1914. On 30 April 2021 Sergeant Gibson met with the defendant at the Hobart Reception Centre in relation to the section 3LA order. The defendant was asked to provide the pin codes and/or other security information in relation to the iPhone. He did not do so.
On 16 May 2021 the defendant’s employer’s telephone call with an associate was intercepted. She indicated that because of the defendant she was in debt to the “boss” – “$200,000 cash plus stock”.
On 29 May 2021 her residence interstate was searched and a diary was seized, which included details of the values that methylamphetamine was commonly being sold at:
- .1 of a gram was sold at $100
- 1 gram was sold at $1,000
- 14 grams was sold at $4,700; and
- 28 grams, or an ounce, was sold at $9,000
She was interviewed by Tasmania Police on 10 December 2021 and said, amongst other things, that the defendant was friends with her son and needed money so he became a courier. He got paid $20,000.
The defendant was likely to collect approximately $133,425 if the 415.10 grams, or 14.8 ounces, of methamphetamine was sold, as it was packed, in ounce amounts, at $9,000 an ounce.
The $220,200 is indicative of a further 24 ounces, or 680 grams, of methylamphetamine having been sold, at $9,000 an ounce.
Given that the defendant admitted to police to dropping three to four other “pillows” containing the same substance, if each pillow contained the same approximately 415 grams, then the defendant would have possessed for sale a total of 2,075 grams of methylamphetamine during his time in Tasmania.
If the 2,075 grams was sold in ounce amounts, at $9,000 an ounce, then the defendant had the potential to collect $666,964. However, the State cannot quantify the exact amount possessed or sold beyond the possession of the 415.10 grams and the $220,200 in cash.
The State seeks the costs of analysis of $2,685, pursuant to s 36B of the Misuse of Drugs Act 2001. I make that order on the understanding that the amount is sought on the basis that the defendant is jointly liable with his employer and other couriers.
The defendant has no relevant prior convictions. He is a young man of previous good character and industrious, and he has pleaded guilty at a relatively early stage, for which he is entitled to a significant discount on an otherwise appropriate sentence. I also take into account that he will have to serve a term of imprisonment in a different State to the one in which his family is located.
I have heard submissions as to the sentences passed on other couriers engaged by the same woman who engaged the defendant. Those sentences range from two years and ten months and four years and seven months. However, as might be expected, they may all be differentiated from the defendant’s case in terms of age, amounts of drugs and cash involved and the number of courier runs involved.
I will however, respectfully adopt the words of his Honour Acting Justice Porter in the closest of those other cases to the defendant’s, noting that the motivation for becoming a courier was in that case different to the present. His Honour said “Crystalline methylamphetamine is a highly addictive substance that causes great harm to individuals and to the community generally. It is a source of very considerable ongoing concern. Its use and trade generates a great deal of other criminal activity, especially serious crimes of violence and dishonesty. As has been made clear in the past, people who set out to make money from commercial dealings should expect to go to prison for long periods. General deterrence and condemnation are very weighty factors in the offending of this type.” Justice Porter said “Although I was told the defendant was a user, it was not suggested that she was in the grip of an addiction, desperate to fund supplies”. Having said that, his Honour said “I accept the defendant was vulnerable and in very difficult financial circumstances, part of which may have involved a drug debt. But this was a considered decision”, his Honour said, “to become involved in a significant enterprise designed to earn money. As the defendant’s counsel accepted, without people who are willing to carry drugs, drug trafficking operations would be far harder to conduct”.
The defendant is convicted of both the State offence and the Commonwealth offence. On the State offence he is sentenced to two years’ and six months’ imprisonment backdated to 13 February 2023 to take into account time he has already spent in prison. He is not to be eligible for parole until he has served half of that sentence. On the Commonwealth offence the defendant is sentenced to six months’ imprisonment to be served concurrently, that is, at the same time, as the State sentence. For the record, that that sentence is to commence on 31 January 2023.
To explain, in total, the defendant must serve 15 months’ imprisonment from 31 January this year and will be eligible for release on parole on or after 30 April next year.