STATE OF TASMANIA v NICOLE MAREE MCGOWAN WOOD J
COMMENTS ON PASSING SENTENCE 1 OCTOBER 2019
I have before me an application to breach a community service order in relation to Nicole Maree McGowan. The history of the matter is as follows. On 11 December 2013 Ms McGowan was sentenced in relation to one count of aggravated burglary and one count of stealing, to a term of 12 months’ imprisonment with three months suspended on conditions including that she comply with the supervision of a probation officer for a period of 12 months from the date of her release.
Ms McGowan was not compliant with that condition of her partially suspended sentence being the supervision order, there were breach proceedings, and on 22 December 2014 I imposed a substituted sentence of 56 hours of community service and a 12 month period of supervised probation.
Subsequently, Ms McGowan was not compliant with the community service order. She completed just 5.25 hours of the 56 hours of community service. Numerous attempts to arrange for her to undertake community service were unsuccessful. She breached her order by committing further offences involving driving offences, stealing, unlawful possession of property and breach of bail. It is a condition of a community service order that the person must not reoffend while subject to their community service order.
I have adjourned this application a number of times since January this year for the purpose of receiving pre-sentence reports. Reports were provided dated 4 February 2019, 29 July 2019, and 27 September 2019. Ms McGowan has been experiencing personal crises. Her children were removed from her care in 2018 and her children have been subject to Child Protection Orders and, so was her baby born in April this year. There were mental health concerns in 2018 involving suicidal ideation. Her accommodation was not stable. A forensic mental health assessment was provided in March of this year by Dr Tuck and raised considerable concerns, indicating depressive and anxiety symptoms with traits of Borderline Personality Disorder. Largely, since the time I made the community service order, engagement with community corrections has been sporadic, but with community corrections persisting with their attempts to engage with Ms McGowan, no doubt very conscious of the difficulties she was confronting.
Ms Katherine Dent’s attempts to engage with Ms McGowan in the last two months have been successful. Her report of 27 September 2019 notes that Ms McGowan has attended a number of appointments with Community Corrections and is “engaging well” in supervision. There have been difficulties but generally Ms McGowan is making good progress. A very positive development was the offer of accommodation at the Hobart Women’s Shelter. This has proved to be a very supportive environment and the report that I have been provided with this afternoon by Ms Caitlyn Wilkinson of the Hobart Women’s Shelter notes many positives including “Nicole is a wonderful tenant who pays rent and Aurora on time … Nicole has overcome significant barriers in her life, and we have had the privilege to witness Nicole’s hard work and perseverance. Nicole is an incredibly resilient and organised woman, who has become a positive member of the Hobart Women’s Shelter community.”
The Hobart Women’s Shelter only offers short term accommodation but another option will be available in November 2019 through a transitions program and Catholic Care will ensure accommodation in the interim. It is noted by Ms Dent that while Ms McGowan has missed some appointments, she has maintained telephone contact and now has a level of stability in her life. She has been actively engaging with Catholic Care and the Hobart Women’s Shelter and is seeking to engage with Child Safety Services. I have a report provided this afternoon from M’Lynda Stubbs of the Child and Family Centre which is very positive about Ms McGowan’s engagement at the Child and Family Centre with respect to her access visits in relation to her baby Hudson and her other children. So these are indeed very encouraging developments, and Ms McGowan is to be commended for all of the efforts she has been making in recent times.
Ms Katherine Dent makes the following recommendations in her report of 27 September 2019:
“Since the previous report dated 29 July 2019 [Ms McGowan] has positively engaged with Community Corrections and complied with the conditions of her order in a satisfactory manner. [She] has reported a level of stability and acceptance of Community Corrections support since the previous report. Bearing this in mind, Community Corrections recommend a period of 12 months’ probation to continue supporting [Ms McGowan] with obtaining stable housing and engaging with a mental health plan.”
I am positively persuaded that this is now the appropriate order to make.
I will make the order that is recommended by Ms Katherine Dent and pursuant to s 36(6)(c) of the Sentencing Act I cancel the community service order and I make a community corrections order for 12 months. The operational period of the order is 12 months from today. A community corrections order is like the new probation order. In addition to the core conditions Ms McGowan you must submit to the supervision of a probation officer as required by the probation officer, and you must submit to medical, psychological or psychiatric assessment or treatment as directed by a probation officer.