STATE OF TASMANIA v STEPHAN MARK HRVOJEVIC 26 OCTOBER 2023
COMMENTS ON PASSING SENTENCE PEARCE J
Stephan Hrvojevic, you plead guilty to trafficking in a controlled substance and dealing with property suspected of being the proceeds of crime. On 12 November 2021, at a road house near Kempton, your car was searched by the police. They found what turned out to be $19,700 in cash in various denominations in a shopping bag, a snap lock bag containing 83.55 grams of cocaine and a fabric pouch containing 13.24 grams of cocaine. They also found two mobile phones, one of which contained messages which evidenced sales or planned sales of an illicit drug. When you were interviewed you substantially admitted what you had been doing. You admitted that you had recently started selling cocaine, you had, on three or four occasions purchased about two ounces from a male you did not identify and sold the cocaine in smaller quantities to your mates. You claimed to not make much money from it.
There are some things apart from those admissions which are in your favour. You pleaded guilty as soon as the basis of your plea was established. You were 23 and still a relatively young man when these crimes were committed, although you are now 25. You presently live with your parents, siblings and grandmother in Longford. You have demonstrated a capacity for responsible and stable employment since leaving school in year 10. For the last six years you have been employed as a painter and blaster and have gained trade qualifications. You are well regarded by your employer. You are engaged in pro-social sporting activities. You have been a recreational drug user but not failed any employment related drug test. You do not present a risk to the community in any other respect. Apart from your plea there has been no sign of remorse but there has been other valuable co-operation with the authorities.
But the significance of your relative youth and the other matters of mitigation is reduced because it is not the first time you have trafficked in drugs. In February 2018 I sentenced you to imprisonment for 11 months wholly suspended for two years on condition that you perform community service. On that occasion you were only 18 or 19 but you trafficked in MDMA in considerable quantities for at least a year. There was no breach of that suspended sentence. You completed the community service without incident but you did not learn your lesson and you are no longer entitled to claim the absence of any prior convictions. A reasonable person could have been left in no doubt of the seriousness of what you had done or the type of risk you took by deciding to sell drugs again, but apparently, for you, the message did not sink in.
On the information given to me yours was not a large scale commercial enterprise but it was still significant enough. You are not a drug user and so your crime was motivated solely by a wish to make money to maintain your lifestyle. At the time you were building a house and came under some financial pressure to maintain your mortgage payments. Instead of making sacrifices in other respects you decided to sell drugs to make extra money. Of the money in your possession the State accepts that only $4,700 was the proceeds of drug sales. The rest was to be used to buy a motor cycle which was why you were on the way to Hobart. However the cocaine in your possession, sold as you were selling it, was worth in excess of $30,000.
I ordered an assessment of your suitability for the making of a home detention order. The report suggests that you still do not have sufficient appreciation or understanding of the seriousness of your criminal conduct. Trafficking in illicit drugs is serious for reasons which have been stated many times. Sentences must serve, as far as a court can achieve, to dissuade you and others who may be inclined to engage in the sale of illicit drugs for profit from doing because of the consequences of apprehension and conviction. You are suitable for home detention, but only if you are confined to your parent’s home. Your employment requires you to, for substantial periods, live and work in Savage River and electronic monitoring is not possible in that location. As a result if I make such an order it is likely that you will lose your job. Of course, the result would be the same if you went to prison. I think an order which results in the loss of your employment would be contrary to the overall community interests and so I have decided to not make such an order. With some hesitation I have decided to offer you a further opportunity to avoid actual imprisonment. You should be left in no doubt that if you re-offend in any serious way in the future, particularly if it involves selling drugs, that prison would be almost inevitable. I will impose a term of imprisonment but again wholly suspend it. However I will also require performance of the maximum number of community service hours that I am permitted to impose.
Stephan Hrvojevic, you are convicted on both counts on the indictment. I am satisfied that the sum of $4,700 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. I order that the iPhone listed as exhibit 4 on property seizure record 673132 is forfeited to the State. I assess the reasonable expense of and attending the analysis and examination of the controlled substance seized on 12 November 2021 as $394 and award that sum against you as part of the costs of the prosecutor. You have 28 days to pay that amount.
You are sentenced to imprisonment for 12 months, wholly suspended for two years from today. It is a condition of that order that while it is in force you do not commit any offence punishable by imprisonment. If you breach that condition then a court must order that you serve that term unless it is unjust. I impose a further condition that, within the two year operational period of the order you perform 240 hours of community service. The further conditions which the law imposes on that order include that you must report to a probation officer at 111-113 Cameron Street, Launceston on or before 5.00 pm on 27 October 2023, you must, during the operational period of the order, report to a probation officer as required by the probation officer and comply with the reasonable and lawful directions of a probation officer or a supervisor, you must not, during the operational period of the order, leave, or remain outside, Tasmania without the permission of a probation officer and you must, during the operational period of the order, give notice to a probation officer of any change of address or employment before, or within 2 working days after, the change. If you breach any of those conditions you may be brought back to court and re-sentenced.