STATE OF TASMANIA v HUON WILLIAM GENDALL 2 OCTOBER 2024
COMMENTS ON PASSING SENTENCE PEARCE J
Huon Gendall, you plead guilty to trafficking in a controlled substance and dealing with the proceeds of crime.
During the afternoon of Sunday 25 June 2023 you were riding your motor cycle in the Huonville area. The manner of your riding drew the attention of a number of police officers. When they eventually pulled you over you tried to throw your mobile phone away. It was seized along with the backpack you were wearing. Inside the backpack there was $1,145 in cash and 59 individual snaplock bags each containing methylamphetamine, a total of 170.3 grams.
Later that evening the police searched your home. They found a bag belonging to you which contained digital scales with traces of methylamphetamine on the weighing pan, electronic scales, spare snap lock bags, a metal spoon, and three snap lock bags containing methylamphetamine, 1.3 gm, 2.48 gm and 4.7 gm respectively. Depending on the quantities in which it was sold the methylamphetamine found in your possession was worth somewhere between $30,000 and about $170,000. The cash in the backpack was the proceeds of drug sales.
You are now aged 32. Until you were in your early 20’s you had pro-social friends, family support and responsible employment. Since then your life has been substantially affected by illicit drug use. You were first convicted of possession in 2014. On 19 April 2018 you were sentenced by a magistrate to imprisonment for six months, wholly suspended for three years, for offences committed in late 2017 and early 2018 including two counts of selling a controlled drug, five counts of possessing a controlled drug or plant and two counts of driving with a controlled drug in your blood. On one of those occasions, in October 2017, you were apprehended with drugs and cash and mobile phones evidencing drug sales. That suspended sentence did not deter you. On 12 December 2019 you were sentenced for trafficking in methylamphetamine and a range of other drugs during 2018 and 2019. In an attempt to assist your rehabilitation a drug treatment order was made with a custodial part of two years. After some initial compliance you relapsed and seriously breached the conditions of the order. When the order was cancelled you served a term of 11 months from 24 September 2021. This crime was committed within about nine months of your release. You had returned to drug use. Some of the methylamphetamine found in your possession was for your own use but the balance was for sale. You say it was to fund your own addiction. Nevertheless, the individual bags found in your possession indicate that you intended a considerable number of sales in a substantial total quantity and of considerable value. As has been explained, this conduct was not isolated or out of character. It is an aggravating factor that you were on bail for other offences at the time, although those offences are yet to be dealt with.
You have been in custody since 26 June 2023. Your plea of guilty is in your favour but is also a recognition of the inevitable. You claim to now have confronted the reasons for your addiction, completed such programs as may have been available to you while in custody, and remained abstinent during that time. You express a wish to, with the assistance of your new partner, make fresh attempts to overcome your addiction and remove yourself from your drug and criminal associates. All prospect of rehabilitation is not lost. I was shown a favourable report from a Red Cross Volunteering program in which you participated which described you as “bright, passionate, driven and respectful”.
Even though addiction is at the heart of your offending the time has come to give greater weight to the need for punishment, general and personal deterrence and, perhaps most of all, protection of the public. As has been made clear to you in the past, those who traffic in illicit drugs should expect harsh punishment. The use of and trade in methylamphetamine causes terrible harm. It is a matter of great concern to the courts and the community and generates other offending, especially crimes of dishonesty and violence. You are a repeat offender despite the opportunities offered to you to assist your rehabilitation. I do not consider it appropriate to suspend any part of the sentence I am about to impose, but I will permit the opportunity for parole.
Huon Gendall, you are convicted on the indictment. I order that the following items on the police property seizure record be forfeited to the State: items 1, 4, 4a, 4b, 5, 5a, 5b, 5c, 5d, 5e, 5f, 6, 6a, 6b, 6bi, 6c, 6ci, 6d, 6e and 9. Pursuant to the Misuse of Drugs Act 2001, s 36B, I assess the reasonable expense of and attending the analysis and examination of the controlled substance as $3,152 and award that sum against you as part of the costs of the prosecutor. You have 28 days from your release to pay that amount. I am satisfied that the sum of $1,135 is tainted property as the proceeds of drug sales and that no hardship will result from its forfeiture. I order, pursuant to the Crime (Confiscation of Profits) Act 1993, s 16(1) that the money is forfeited to the State. You are sentenced to imprisonment for two years and nine months from 26 June 2023. I order that you not be eligible for parole until you have served half of that term.