STATE OF TASMANIA v BILLY GALVIN GORDON RILEY 22 MAY 2019
COMMENTS ON PASSING SENTENCE BLOW CJ
Billy Galvin Gordon Riley, you have been found guilty by a jury on a charge of attempting to commit aggravated armed robbery. On the afternoon of 28 October 2017, you and another man went to an address in the Launceston metropolitan area, where you attempted to rob two people. One of you went to the robbery with a replica pistol. It was incapable of firing but it looked like a real pistol, and was just as capable of putting people in fear of being shot as a genuine weapon. There was also a pogo stick at the address that you visited. Either you or your companion seized that pogo stick and used it as a threatening weapon, as well as threatening the people with the replica pistol.
It may well be that you and your companion made a mistake as to who those people were. There was evidence at the trial that you and your companion repeatedly demanded money and that things were said about drug money. It was said later, in front of a man who gave evidence at the trial, that you should have got away with $3,000. The people from whom you demanded money turned out to be a couple of French backpackers who had gone to the address in question because they were interested in possibly purchasing a used car from the householder. You and your companion did not get away with any money.
It seems not to have been a well planned robbery. You were addicted to Ice at the time. Your companion may well have been in the same situation. There seems not to have been a getaway plan. Your companion rang a friend who answered his phone. He showed up in his car, picked you both up, and quickly drove you away. If he had not answered the phone, it would seem that you might not have had any means of transportation from the scene of the robbery, except perhaps the pogo stick. You were identified and apprehended very soon. You were arrested some days later on 1 November at your home. At that point you spent seven days in custody.
The French backpackers did not provide victim impact statements, but it is clear from their police statements, that the husband feared for his safety. They did not give evidence at the trial. Apparently they had left Launceston long ago. The female backpacker said in her police statement that she had grown up in a tough city in France and was not scared, but that she was concerned for her husband, and that afterwards she feared that somebody might come back and shoot him.
The serious thing about this attempted robbery is that doing something like that can result in terrible psychiatric consequences for the people who are held up. And sometimes those consequences do not show up until some event occurs years later that triggers a psychiatric collapse. It is fortunate that in this case there is nothing to indicate that there were any long-lasting psychiatric consequences on the part of the victims.
You were 22 years old when all of this happened. You are now 24. You have some serious prior convictions but there is not much in your record in relation to violence. You committed an assault in 2015. You have two convictions for assaulting police officers in 2017. But you have no serious prior convictions for crimes or offences involving violence. You were sentenced to community service orders as a youth in 2014 and as an adult in early 2017. However you had not been to prison before committing this crime. It does appear, however, that you have spent time in custody since.
As I have said in discussions with counsel earlier, you were in custody from 28 June 2018 to 18 October 2018 in relation to a subsequent allegation that you had committed an offence. That period in custody was taken into account by a magistrate who sentenced you in April of this year for a series of offences, some of which were committed before the crime that I am concerned with. The magistrate sentenced you to three cumulative sentences, and the effect of those sentences is that the only time that you have spent in custody in relation to this crime alone comprises seven days in November 2017 after you were first arrested, and the period from 28 March 2019 to date. So I am going to backdate the sentence that I impose to 21 March.
You did this because of Ice. You have made efforts before and after the day you committed this crime to keep off drugs. For four or five years, commencing in 2012, you were working on Chapel Island and in gainful employment. In the period that you were on bail from November 2017 through to March 2018, you were on Flinders Island, not using Ice, and keeping out of trouble. It seems that, when you leave the islands and come back to the mainland of Tasmania, you have been in the habit of getting involved with people with whom you get into trouble.
You have a 5-year-old daughter. She is the focus of your life, or certainly a very strong positive aspect to your life. You have strong support from family members. However, for doing what you did, I am going to have to impose a significant sentence of imprisonment. I am taking into account the fact that the sentence that I impose will come on top of periods totalling five months imposed by the magistrate, and that the magistrate made no provision for parole. Because of those factors, the sentence I impose will be a little shorter than it otherwise would be. And because of those factors, and the fact that you have shown yourself capable of staying away from hard drugs, I am going to impose the shortest possible non-parole period.
I convict you and sentence you to 16 months’ imprisonment with effect from 21 March 2019. You will not be eligible for parole until you have served 8 months of that sentence. I make an order under s 65(1)(a) of the Sentencing Act requiring the District Registrar to return the pogo stick, exhibit P7, to the possession of the daughter of Chantel Dance from whose possession it was removed.