STATE OF TASMANIA v DAMIEN CHARLES KNOWLES 22 AUGUST 2019
COMMENTS ON PASSING SENTENCE BRETT J
Mr Knowles, you have pleaded guilty to one count of robbery.
You committed the crime on 23 September 2017. The night before, you had verbally abused the complainant during a social event at at local hotel, because you believed that he had been in contact with a female whom you believed was in a relationship with you. On the day of the crime, by chance, you drove past each other. You gestured for him to stop and he did. He had his female child in the car with him. You both got out, and you demanded that he give you his phone. In order to ensure that you got what you wanted, you threatened him by telling him that you had a gun in your vehicle and you would use it to shoot him. The prosecution accepts that you did not actually have a weapon available to you, but clearly the complainant believed that you did. He gave you the telephone, and you left with it. However, the telephone was returned to the complainant by the police a few days later.
This is clearly a serious crime. It was an arrogant act of bullying and your threat to use a firearm aggravates your culpability. I do not know if his daughter was in a position to overhear the conversation, but it is, in any event, an aggravating factor that you committed this crime in the presence of a child.
You are 47 years of age. You have three children aged between 22 and 13. I am told that you are presently caring for your aged and infirm mother. Your criminal history demonstrates poor compliance with the law. You have been committing offences most of your life. You have a previous conviction for robbery but this was 23 years ago. There are also some offences of violence contained in your history. However, until you committed this offence, it had been several years since you last committed an offence of violence. On the other hand, at the time of committing this crime, you must have been on bail for charges which included drug trafficking. You were subsequently sentenced to a suspended sentence for that charge. I note also that you subsequently committed a serious assault on your partner, and served a significant prison sentence for this assault.
Your criminal conduct on this occasion deserves a sentence of imprisonment. However, there are a number of factors which cause me to refrain from imposing an immediate term of imprisonment. You did not actually have a weapon and did not administer any other form of actual violence. Your crime was not premeditated, but rather a rash and spontaneous act of anger. There had been a significant break in serious offending before you committed this crime. I conclude that, having regard to the fact that the plea was entered as soon as it was indicated, that another serious charge would not be proceeded with, the plea of guilty at the earliest opportunity. Finally, I take into account that you have in the intervening period served a significant period of imprisonment for a completely different offence. There must be some punishment and you and others must be deterred from such conduct, but I think that this can be adequately achieved by imposing a suspended sentence made conditional upon the performance of community service.
Accordingly, the orders I make are as follows:
1 You are convicted of the crime to which you have pleaded guilty.
2 You are sentenced to a term of seven months’ imprisonment. The whole of the sentence will be suspended for a period of 24 months on the following conditions:
(a) that you are not to commit another offence punishable by imprisonment during that period;
(b) that you will perform community service for a period of 182 hours. The court notes that the sections referred to in s 24(5A) of the Sentencing Act apply to this condition. For the purpose of those provisions:
(i) you must report to a probation officer at the office of Community Corrections in Launceston within three clear days of today; and
(ii) the operational period of the order is 24 months.