STATE OF TASMANIA v BRADLEY MARK RILEY MARTIN AJ
COMMENTS ON PASSING SENTENCE 15 OCTOBER 2019
Mr Riley you have pleaded guilty to unlawfully setting fire to window furnishings inside a unit which caused damage something less than $1000. At the time of the offending you were 19, you are now 20.
You went to the unit during the afternoon of 6 June 2018 with another person and it was while you inside the unit that you set fire to the vertical blinds covering a sliding door. That fire spread to the floor and damaged part of the carpet and part of the window furnishings. However I am told, and I accept, immediately after you set fire to the curtains you realised what a foolish thing you had done and you extinguished the fire and threw the curtains outside to prevent the fire spreading.
When you were arrested you made full admissions. You told the police that you had been to the premises previously and you had gone there with a friend as the friend’s “backup”, whatever that means. There were others in the house and while you were there apparently someone else set fire to another part of the premises. You got into an argument with other males inside the house and it was when you were having that argument that you took up a lighter and set fire to the curtains.
Originally you were charged with arson. Subsequently that was amended to the current charge and very quickly after that you indicated that you would plead guilty, so I treat this matter as an early plea of guilty.
You were born and raised in the Launceston area. Your mother left the state when you were an adolescent. You then moved in with your father. Unfortunately, those circumstances involved anti-social and criminal behaviours which it appears you picked up. From teenage years you smoked cannabis and you became a methamphetamine user. Not surprisingly these circumstances, and your use of drugs, led to the commission of an exceptionally large number of offences for someone of your young age. Quite frankly, at your age it is an appalling record of offending. On this occasion when committing this offence you were in breach of two previous court orders, but I am told that you will be dealt with for breaches of those orders in the Magistrates Court, possibly next week.
Your counsel has urged that notwithstanding you record of prior offending, you have some prospects of rehabilitation. It seems to me that those submissions were based primarily on your youth and there is something to be said for that, but it must also be said that your use of drugs and your prior offending means that I cannot have any confidence that you have good prospects of rehabilitation. The courts can hope that you do, but at the moment the signs are certainly far from encouraging.
Obviously in cases like this it is important to impose a sentence which might have, hopefully, some effect on your future behaviour by deterring you from offending like this again, or for that matter in any other way. The public is also concerned about this type of offending and there is an element of general deterrence, that is deterring others from committing these types of offending, that must be considered in the sentencing exercise.
Having said that, this particular offending, in my view, was at the lowest end of the scale of seriousness. For all crimes there is a scale and this is at the lowest end for crimes of this type. It was a spontaneous act and you immediately set about rectifying what you had done, and that much is to your credit.
Mr Riley, as you have heard previously, I am going to impose a sentence that backdates to May so that in effect you have already served your sentence. You have been in custody on this matter. But, for what it is worth, you should understand that if you keep going down this path your future lies in prison, and that really is not to your benefit nor is it to the benefit of the community unless you can in some way see your way clear to try and stay out of trouble. But, it is up to you. Nobody else can do that for you.
You are convicted. I impose a sentence of 5 months’ imprisonment and direct that sentence commence on 12 May 2019.