STATE OF TASMANIA v JAKE CHRISTOPHER MORGAN 21 MARCH 2022
COMMENTS ON PASSING SENTENCE PEARCE J
Jake Morgan, on 1 September 2020 you were sentenced by Brett J for two counts of assault. You were sentenced to imprisonment for 21 months from 17 February 2020. Ten months of that term was suspended for 12 months. No provision was made for parole. One of the conditions of the order suspending part of the term was that you be subject to the supervision of a probation officer and you attend, participate in and complete the family violence offender intervention program as directed by a probation officer. You were released in late October 2020. It is unclear from the sentencing order whether the 12 months for which the order was suspended commenced on the day of sentence or on your release, but that is of no consequence.
Attempts to contact you about the family violence offender intervention program were not made until the end of April 2021, about six months after your release from that sentence, although I note that it seems that you remained in custody on other matters. It is a program which ordinarily requires attendance at between 20 and 22 sessions of about two hours each. As the name suggests, it is directed to addressing the factors which lead to family violence. You were directed to first attend on 10 May 2021. You were eventually suspended from the program on 5 July 2021. It is not the case that between those two dates you completely disregarded your obligation to attend. However by the time of suspension you had attended only five or six of the sessions. On some occasions you phoned to explain that you had slept in or had no transport. However when you did attend, the evidence of one of your probation officers, Mr Hart, persuades me that your participation was begrudging and positively disruptive. It is strongly indicative of an attitude that your attendance at the program was unnecessary, a waste of your time and, even after you had been in prison, it shows a lack of insight into the seriousness of your crimes. I am in no doubt that you breached the condition of the sentencing order which required not only that you attend, but participate in and complete the program. In the circumstances, apart from some very brief moments of engagement, your participation was really no participation at all.
Having found that you breached a condition of the order suspending the sentence I may activate all or part of it, order a different sentence, or vary the conditions by extending the time that you are subject to the order. When you failed to appear for the hearing of the application a warrant was issued for your arrest. You were taken into custody on 4 March 2020. Apart from that period of custody you have, since your release in October 2020, been in custody on remand for other unrelated matters. You are currently in custody facing charges in the Court of Petty Sessions for dishonesty and breach of bail.
It is apparent from Brett J’s sentencing comments that orders were made in those terms because the assault which the jury found proved, and the assault you pleaded guilty to, were both committed against your partner and thus were family violence offences. They were very serious assaults. They involved deprivation of liberty and violence which his Honour described as brutal. The sentencing judge had a pre-sentence report which suggested that you posed a high risk of future family violence. The sentencing judge recognised the need to punish you for what you did, but also to impose a sentence which was aimed at addressing that risk by providing you with incentive to not commit further crimes, particularly family violence offences, and to rehabilitate by education and programs.
The orders made by Brett J gave you an opportunity to avoid having to serve the suspended part of the sentence. Your record, and all of the other information given to me suggests that you have a long term disregard of authority and an attitude that you will do as you please. You have urged me to not send you back to prison and that you can do better. You say that your non-compliance was the result of a lapse into drug use, lack of stable accommodation and a chaotic lifestyle. You can, if you are released, live with your mother. You also claim to have been staying away from drugs. One of the things in your favour is that, while you have been charged with other offences since your release, none as far as I am aware relate to any actual or threatened violence against your former partner or, with one exception, any breach of the orders put in place to protect her. The exception is that you were fined for two counts of, in March 2021, failing to be contactable by phone in breach of the family violence order.
With some hesitation I am prepared to allow you a further opportunity to comply. You should not expect any further leniency, from me at least. One difficulty may be that you will remain in custody on Magistrates Court matters. Whether you are granted bail on those matters will be a matter for a magistrate. That may interfere with your ability to undertake the course. That is something which is beyond my control. I do not consider it appropriate to take into account any of the period of custody you have served since the sentence was imposed. For the most part, at least, that custody is attributable to unrelated matters.
For those reasons I find the application made out and that you are guilty of the breach. I vary the conditions on which the execution of the sentence was suspended by extending the period of suspension in the order by 12 months from today. In other words, you will remain subject to the suspended sentence for a further 12 months on the same conditions which require not only that you undertake the family violence offender intervention program when directed to do so by a probation officer, but to not re-offend, notify of any change of address and generally be subject to the supervision and direction of a probation officer.