STATE OF TASMANIA v TRENT JAMES JONES 31 JULY 2019
COMMENTS ON PASSING SENTENCE BRETT J
Mr Jones, you have pleaded guilty to one count of dangerous driving. You also pleaded guilty to summary offences related to the same course of driving, in particular driving while disqualified, evading police with aggravated circumstances, using an unregistered and uninsured motor vehicle and dishonestly displaying a licence plate in a way calculated to deceive.
The driving took place on 2 January 2018. Police observed you driving along the road between Penguin and Ulverstone. Your driving was in breach of a court ordered driving disqualification. When police tried to intercept you, you sped away from them, travelling at excessive speed despite the narrow and winding road. On a number of occasions you crossed onto the incorrect side of the road while travelling at speed. Also, a number of times, you drove your vehicle on the wrong side of the road into blind crests and obscured curves, and past a number of obscured driveways and side roads. On some of these occasions, you were overtaking other vehicles. As you approached the township of Penguin you travelled past residential houses at a speed which, you concede, was in the order of 120 km/h. The speed limit was 60 km/h. You overtook another vehicle while travelling at this speed, and in doing so entered the gravel verge of the road on the incorrect side. You drove towards Penguin CBD and passed an area where pedestrians, including children, were crossing the road, still travelling at excessive speed. At this point, police discontinued the chase and you were able to escape. The driving which I have described took place over a distance of approximately 3½ kilometres.
You were not located by police until 30 January 2018. When police came to arrest you, you ran away from them but you were subsequently caught and arrested.
You are 35 years of age. You have an extensive criminal history, which includes repeated and persistent serious offending related to driving. This includes numerous convictions for driving whilst disqualified, as well as convictions for evading police, driving whilst unlicensed and offences relating to the manner of your driving. In 2014, you were sentenced to a wholly suspended term of imprisonment for numerous offences, which included evading police. Your conduct on that occasion demonstrated a propensity to drive in a reckless manner through areas of high vehicle and pedestrian traffic in order to escape from police. At the time of committing the offences with which I am dealing, in addition to being disqualified from driving, you were also subject to a drug treatment order. You had absconded from this order and were at large. It seems that you had committed a number of offences in the months leading up to the commission of these offences, and you were convicted and sentenced for these shortly after your arrest by police on this matter. Further, since that time, you have committed a number of serious offences, including another example of evading police with aggravated circumstances, reckless driving and disqualified driving. You were sentenced to a term of imprisonment on 6 March 2019 in respect of these offences, and, as I have confirmed today, you are currently serving that sentence.
The persistent and regular history of your offending and the nature of the conduct, in defiance of orders of disqualification and other sentencing orders such as the conditions of the drug treatment order, suggests that specific deterrence and the protection of the public require significant emphasis in this sentence. Your driving on this occasion manifested real and significant danger to other road users, pedestrians, police and yourself. The danger was aggravated by the desperation inherent in fleeing from police. Your refusal to be bound by orders of disqualification and your propensity to drive recklessly and dangerously, including for the purpose of escaping from police, poses an ongoing and significant risk to the community. The sentencing order I impose must take account of and respond to that risk.
Your counsel has described in some detail the difficulties which you have endured in your life, and I have also read the reports relating to your assessment for the DTO and the subsequent report recommending its cancellation, together with some of the medical material with which I have been provided. I note the concession today that there is no evidence of an acquired brain injury, but you have attempted suicide in the past, and I also note in a general way the learning difficulties and dyslexia. You have children but the breakdown of your relationship with their mother means that you do not see them. You have a significant and probably longstanding problem with the use of illicit drugs. Since being remanded in custody, you have been assaulted and otherwise have had a difficult time while in custody.
In my view, these difficulties, while they are relevant in a general way to your personal circumstances for the purposes of sentencing, do not adequately explain, and certainly do not excuse, your continued offending and refusal to be bound by court orders. Addressing these problems will clearly be important if you are to rehabilitate yourself and lead a law-abiding life into the future. However, a fundamental prerequisite of rehabilitation is a decision by you to commit yourself to a law-abiding life. I see little evidence that, to date, you have made such a commitment. You have been given a number of opportunities by sentencing courts to utilise available support and otherwise avoid imprisonment, but you have regularly breached suspended sentences and rejected the opportunity offered by the drug treatment order. Your conduct in respect of the commission of these offences and your ongoing offending thereafter suggests that you have yet to make the necessary commitment. You have entered a plea of guilty but this plea came at a very late stage in the proceedings. You should be given some credit for its utilitarian benefit, but otherwise I do not regard the plea as evidence of contrition or insight.
I am required to impose a separate sentence for the charge of evading police with aggravated circumstances. You are also currently serving the sentences imposed for the offences which you committed after this conduct. Accordingly, I will take into account the issue of totality. However, I am also mindful of the need to impose a sentence which is proportionate to the very serious nature of this offending and which will make clear to you that conduct such as this will simply not be tolerated in the future.
The orders I make are as follows:
1 You are convicted of the crime and the offences to which you have pleaded guilty.
2 For the crime of dangerous driving, and the offence of driving whilst disqualified, you are sentenced to a global term of two years’ imprisonment. This sentence will be served cumulatively on the last of the sentences which you are currently serving.
3 Pursuant to s 17(2) of the Sentencing Act, I order that you not be eligible for parole until you have served one half of that sentence, which is a period of 12 months. Further, in respect of those offences, you will be disqualified from driving for a period of three years. That period will commence from the conclusion of the last period of disqualification imposed on you by the Magistrates Court on 6 March 2019.
4 In respect of the charge of evading police, you are sentenced to imprisonment for a period of six months. That sentence will be served cumulatively upon the said global sentence. I order that you not be eligible for parole until you have served one half of that sentence. In respect of this charge, you are disqualified from driving for a period of two years, which is the mandatory minimum. That driving disqualification will operate cumulatively upon the three year disqualification imposed for the other offences.
5 In respect of the remaining offences, I impose no further penalty.
6 For the purposes of s 92A(3) of the Sentencing Act, I specify that:
(a) The total term of imprisonment which you are liable to serve in respect of all of the above sentences is two years and six months.
(b) The total period that you must serve before you become eligible for parole is the aggregate of the non-parole periods relating to the said sentences, which is a total period of 15 months.