STATE OF TASMANIA v SHARN LUKE REHRMANN 1 DECEMBER 2022
COMMENTS ON PASSING SENTENCE PEARCE J
Sharn Rehrmann, you plead guilty to armed robbery. I also agreed to deal with your plea of guilty to carrying a firearm with intent to commit a crime and possessing a firearm in relation to which a firearms licence may not be issued. Just before 8 pm on 4 October 2021 you went into the BP service Station at Youngtown. You put on a motor cycle helmet just before walking in the door. As the service station attendant came in from outside you demanded he hand over money. You produced what appeared to be a black handgun and pointed it at him. He gave you $610 in cash. You said sorry and left. You were quickly identified as the person responsible from the CCTV because your face was clearly visible from some of the images.
You were not arrested until the police went to your home on 28 December 2021. They found the motor cycle helmet you were wearing. You showed them the clothes you were wearing. They asked for the gun and you informed them that it was in fact a gel-blaster which by then you had smashed up, and you showed them the remains of it. It looked like a 9 mm pistol.
You are now aged 28. You come from a loving and supportive family. Since leaving school you have worked successfully as a landscaper both in Tasmania and Victoria. You suffer from ADHD for which you are medicated when required. I am satisfied that you are not a person of general criminality. You have no prior convictions of relevance. This crime arises solely from the abuse of illicit drugs. In about 2013 you began to use drugs on a recreational and social basis. However by 2017 your abuse of alcohol and drugs had become problematic. The problem escalated even further when you began using methylamphetamine because it was easier to source from your supplier. As has been stated by judges and magistrates so many times the drug is a scourge and its effects on your behaviour were damaging and dramatic. Before the night of this crime you had not used for three weeks. You purchased and used some of the drug and, under its influence you gambled away all of your money. Still affected you took up the imitation firearm you had purchased 12 months earlier and committed the robbery. It involved no careful planning and arose from what your counsel fairly described as your desperate circumstances. You already owned the imitation firearm and did not have any sinister reason for possessing it. When confronted by the police you fully admitted what you had done, co-operated with them and you have entered an early plea of guilty. Your counsel asked that I defer sentence to allow you to demonstrate your capacity for rehabilitation. I would readily accept that there are very good prospects, with access to the proper services, for you to address your drug use and to be a valuable member of the community.
All of those things are good reasons for lenience. However they are to be balanced against the fact that armed robberies of this nature are very serious crimes. This crime demands a sentence of imprisonment at least some of which is to be actually served. That is so principally because of the potentially devastating effect that the crime may have on victims. I have no information about the effect on the service station employee in this case but that does not mean the crime had no impact. Many victims are so traumatised that they suffer from lifelong psychological symptoms. Your crime was committed against a person who was working in the type of business which is an easy target, and in which such crimes are commonly committed. The firearm you had was not real but the victim was not to know that. The helmet you wore no doubt added to the terror he may have experienced. Very many such robberies are committed by persons who are motivated by reasons associated with illicit drug use. It may explain the crime but does not lessen the seriousness of it. It may well add to the need for general deterrence so that others may think twice before acting in this way.
Sharn Rehrmann, you are convicted on the indictment and on complaint 30121/22, counts 2 and 3. On the summary counts, in light of the sentence I am about to impose, I make no further order. On the indictment I make a compensation order in favour of BP Youngtown in the sum of $650. You are sentenced to imprisonment for two years from 25 November 2022, the day you were remanded in custody. I suspend one year of that sentence for 18 months from your release. It is a condition of that order that you do not commit an offence punishable by imprisonment while the order is in force. If you breach that condition then you will be required to serve the rest of the term unless that is unjust. I order that you not be eligible for parole until you have served half of the operative part of the term I have just imposed.