STATE OF TASMANIA v CURTLY JAMES HODGE 22 FEBRUARY 2022
COMMENTS ON PASSING SENTENCE PEARCE J
Curtly Hodge, on 9 June 2020 you were sentenced to imprisonment for 16 months from 21 November 2019 for a very serious assault. I ordered that you be eligible to apply for parole after having served 10 months of the sentence. I also made a community corrections order which provided for supervision by a probation officer for 18 months following your release.
About two weeks after that sentence was imposed a magistrate ordered that you serve an additional 12 weeks or so for firearm, bail and dishonesty offences committed at the end of 2019. As events occurred you did not apply for parole. You were released on 20 May 2021 having served a total term of 18 months. In accordance with the community corrections order you attended once for an induction on the day of your release, but you admit that you breached the order by, after that, failing to attend any further appointments, despite reminders and warnings issued to you over time. Apart from that first attendance, you did not engage with the process at all.
The circumstances of abuse and neglect to which you were exposed in your early life, your lack of education, drug abuse and criminal history, are set out in my earlier sentencing comments. It is not necessary to repeat them. Ironically, they are likely to have led to your choice to not take advantage of the aspects of the sentencing orders, parole and supervision, which were intended to help your successful re-integration into the community. A community correction order has some punitive effect, but it also is aimed at fostering rehabilitation. Since 13 December 2021 you have been back in custody. You are charged with serious indictable offences to which you have pleaded not guilty. In all of the circumstances there is little point in persisting with the community corrections order, even though it is still current. I will impose a substitute sentence. I may deal with you for the assault which was the subject of that order as if you had just pleaded guilty.
I order that the community correction order made 9 June 2020 is cancelled. I order that the head sentence of imprisonment imposed on that day be increased to 17 months, the effect of which is that you are required to serve an additional term of one month which, taking into account the time you have spent in custody, will commence on 13 December 2021.