STATE OF TASMANIA v JLK 30 NOVEMBER 2020
COMMENTS ON PASSING SENTENCE PEARCE J
JLK, you plead guilty to one count of penetrative sexual abuse of a young person. The crime was committed on 26 June 2020. On that night you had sexual intercourse with a girl aged 14 years and five months. You were aged 18 years and almost three months. You had been friends with her as boyfriend and girlfriend for a few months but you had not engaged in sexual intercourse until this occasion. She was with friends in a park. You were drinking at a nearby hotel. You arranged via snapchat to meet in the park and then had vaginal sexual intercourse. The encounter was only brief. The intercourse was consensual. You did not ejaculate but you did not wear a condom. She did not become pregnant and there is no evidence that she contracted any sexually transmitted disease. The matter came to light when she told a counsellor and her parents. The police were notified. You immediately attended the police station when asked and fully admitted what had happened. You have not seen her since. Such a relationship as there was is now over.
Your upbringing was not a stable one. Your parents separated and you lived between one and the other or with friends. You left school in grade 7 and you have limited literacy. You got into some trouble when you were living in Burnie, before you turned 18, but not for offences like this. You gave up alcohol and moved to live with friends at Rocky Cape, partly to escape others who were a bad influence on you. You have some labouring work but you are looking for more. You now have a partner of an appropriate age.
The law recognises the need to protect young persons from the consequences of decisions they lack the emotional and intellectual maturity and judgment to make for themselves. You should have resisted temptation when it was presented to you. You were affected by alcohol but that is not mitigating. However it is not a serious example of this crime. It was a single occasion. Had she been 15, or had the age difference been three years or less, rather than three years and ten months, the conduct would not have been unlawful. She did not engage in sexual intercourse because she was pressured, fearful or overborne. This crime lacks any element of predatory behaviour. There is no victim impact statement. It is not currently suggested that the complainant suffered any psychological harm although it is possible that there may be some later impact. You have some prior convictions but none relevant to this. You admitted what you did and entered a very early plea of guilty.
Because you engaged in this act, I am not satisfied that there is no risk that you will commit a reportable offence within the meaning of that expression in the Community Protection (Offender Reporting) Act 2005. I must therefore make an order placing your name on the register. I will not order a long period of reporting, but the order will have some punitive effect on you. Because you live at Rocky Cape, community service will be difficult. The crime is not of sufficient seriousness to warrant a term of imprisonment, suspended or not. I have concluded that the appropriate sentence is a conviction and an order requiring that you be of good behaviour for two years.
JLK, you are convicted. I make an order under the Community Protection (Offender Reporting) Act 2005 directing that the Registrar cause your name to be placed on the Register and that you comply with the reporting obligations under that Act for a period of two years from today. I adjourn the proceedings for two years and, on you giving an undertaking to be of good behaviour for that period, I order your release. If you breach that undertaking you may be brought back to court and re-sentenced.