STATE OF TASMANIA v CHARLES VINCENT READ ESTCOURT J
COMMENTS ON PASSING SENTENCE 25 JULY 2025
The defendant, Charles Vincent Read, now aged 25, has pleaded guilty to two counts of aggravated burglary and one count of possessing a firearm in contravention of a prohibition order. I have also agreed to deal with the related offending charged as counts 4 – 9 inclusive on complaint 7074/2023, the facts of which are included in the Crown Statement of Facts published to me.
On 13 April 2023 the defendant was served with a Firearms Prohibition Order pursuant to s 130 of the Firearms Act 1996. The Order prohibited the defendant from possessing or using a firearm. He was not the holder of a firearms licence.
On 1 June 2023, a Police Family Violence Order was issued against the defendant for the protection of [name suppressed]. Amongst other conditions, it also prohibited the defendant from possessing any firearm, part of a firearm or ammunition.
On 24 July 2023, the defendant had been admitted to bail on a number of complaints in the Hobart Magistrates Court. His next appearance date was 1 August 2023 and conditions of his bail included:
- He not possess any firearms or ammunition; and
- He not leave the residence of [address suppressed] except in the company of his mother, Mary-Anne Read, or Michael Cornick, and only for the purpose of carrying out employment, Mondays to Fridays, 5am to 9pm inclusive.
On 29 July 2023, the complainant, [name suppressed], was at her rented unit which is on the ground floor of a two-storey house situated at [address suppressed]. The unit is accessed via a door adjacent to a double garage at the top of a steep driveway. The complainant was alone within her unit at the time however her landlord, [name suppressed] resided in the dwelling on the second floor of the house and was home at the time of the relevant events.
At about 1:00pm the complainant was asleep in her bed. At that time, the defendant and another male person entered the complainant’s residence by forcing the front door. The defendant was in possession of a shot gun and the other male was carrying a large machete style knife. Once inside the residence, it is alleged that the defendant fired a single shot from the shot gun into a wall. The sound of a gunshot woke the complainant, and it was also heard by the complainant’s landlord. On hearing the gun shot her landlord called the complainant to ask what was happening but she was crying and unable to tell him.
The defendant and the other male then entered the complainant’s bedroom where she was lying in bed. The two men began yelling at her, calling her a “fucking slut” and asking her where a person by the name of “Crystal” was.
The other male searched through the complainant’s room and as he did so the defendant was brandishing the shot gun, waving it around and pointing it at the complainant. Whilst doing this the defendant said to the complainant, “I should bash you. I should kill you.” The defendant also grabbed the complainant by the front of her shirt.
Both men then left the residence.
Just after 6.00pm that evening, police went to [address suppressed] and shortly thereafter the defendant was arrested and taken to the Hobart police station.
By possessing a firearm on 29 July 2023, the defendant was in breach of the Firearms Prohibition Order as well as unlicenced, in breach of the Police Family Violence Order and in breach of his Magistrates Court bail. By possessing ammunition on that date, he was in breach of the Police Family Violence Order and committed the offence of possessing ammunition without a firearms licence.
The defendant was also in breach of his bail by being absent from his bail address at 1:00pm on that date and not in the company of his mother or Mr Cornick, or acting in the course of his employment.
A small amount of damage was caused to the front door upon entry, and the internal wall when the defendant fired the firearm into it. A claim for compensation is sought in favour of [name suppressed] and I make that order with the assessment of any compensation to be adjourned to a date to be fixed.
Mr Read has spent time in custody, but nothing is attributable to moderate the sentence that I now impose. I have, however, taken into account a length of time that he has spent in custody.
There is no Victim Impact Statement.
The defendant’s background and criminal history is well summarised by Pearce J in sentencing the defendant for dangerous driving on 2 October 2024. His Honour said:
“You are now aged 25. Your plea of guilty is in your favour although it is not a particularly early one. Your personal circumstances were outlined to me by your counsel and in a report prepared by Dr Georgina O’Donnell. Although your mother was a good influence on you and has offered you every opportunity, your father was a notorious criminal. He left the marriage to your mother when you were young. You were mostly brought up by her but also spent time with him. He died in 2014 but not before introducing you to a high level criminal lifestyle. You have been abusing alcohol and various illicit drugs since you were young including methylamphetamine, heroin, cannabis and MDMA. Your drug use became worse after your long term girlfriend broke up with you before this crime was committed. According to Dr O’Donnell you likely suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder from cumulative effect of the trauma to which you were exposed as a child for which you have been self-medicating with alcohol and drugs. It has not been suggested that the methylamphetamine found in your possession on 15 February 2023 was other than for your personal use. The evidence of your mental state is relevant to the chance of your reform and the extent of the future risk you may pose, but nothing is advanced to suggest that it is otherwise relevant to sentence.
The matters to which I have referred reflect in your recent record. On 1 September 2021 you were sentenced to imprisonment for six months, wholly suspended for three years, for a number of drug and alcohol related driving offences. You were disqualified from driving for three years. On 5 January 2022 a further month, wholly suspended, was added for another two drug related driving offences. You breached those suspended sentences by committing further offences. The further offending included offences of dishonesty, more driving offences, possessing ammunition, possessing a dangerous article, multiple breaches of bail, evading police and assaulting a police officer. Some of those offences were committed before the offences for which I am to sentence you and some were committed afterwards. On 29 December 2023 you were sentenced to a total term of 15 months from 3 June 2023 as well as two separate three month wholly suspended terms. Because you were not sentenced to until 29 December 2023 none of the convictions ordered on that day are prior convictions for sentencing purposes, and you have not breached the suspended terms. It is relevant that the crimes I am dealing with were committed while you were already on bail and subject to suspended sentences, and also that, even after your arrest, you kept committing offences. You served all of the 15 month term, so you have already been in custody for more than a year. You completed that term on 2 September 2024 and so the term of imprisonment I impose will commence then. To take account of the total time to be spent in custody I will moderate the sentences. According to your counsel you have not used drugs while you have been in prison and want to remove yourself from criminal associates on your release. I accept that your father’s notoriety has been a problem for you but the time has come for you to take responsibility for your own behaviour and to get the therapy which Dr O’Donnell suggests might help you. Your behaviour while in prison has not been exemplary.”
I am told without demur that if the defendant is sentenced for this matter he will be moved to minimum security and will have the benefit of a drug and alcohol counselling programme. I am told that in his over 600 days of current imprisonment, his behaviour has improved despite the mental health affects of constant lock downs of 300 of those days in the prison. He has been working everyday at the prison as a yardsman and a landscaper.
I am also told that he has had the benefit of using the last 22 months to reflect on his offending and develop insight into the impact on the victim in this matter. He expresses genuine remorse through Counsel.
He pleaded guilty at an early opportunity in this matter when the Crown facts were presented to him.
I have taken into account all that has been said on the defendant’s behalf by his counsel, but it needs only to consider the facts that I have just set out to appreciate just how extremely serious the defendant’s crimes are, and despite the lack of a victim impact statement, the effect that the offending is likely to have had on the complainant.
Nonetheless, given the principle of totality and the defendant increasing insight into his behaviour, I will moderate his sentence while still reflecting the high degree of criminal culpability. The defendant is sentenced to three years’ imprisonment, to commence at the conclusion of any sentence he is currently serving, with the last 12 months of that three years suspended on condition that he commit no offence punishable by imprisonment for a period of twelve months from his release from prison. He is not to be eligible for parole until he has served half of the custodial portion of my sentence.
The effect of that Mr Read, is that you have been sentenced to three years’ imprisonment from the end of the sentence that you are now serving, but the last 12 months of my three year sentence is suspended, and you have been given the minimum parole period on that sentence.
I make a disposal order in respect of the ammunition seized by police.