STATE OF TASMANIA v SHARNIE BRONWYN BOSWORTH 15 AUGUST 2019
COMMENTS ON PASSING SENTENCE PEARCE J
Sharnie Bosworth, you plead guilty to receiving stolen property. Early in the afternoon of 12 December 2017 you went with your then partner into a gift shop in Devonport. While you were elsewhere in the shop your partner put a box containing a gold pendant worth about $90 into his pocket intending to steal it. He was seen by the owner of the shop, who confronted him. When your partner falsely denied the theft the owner attempted to prevent him from leaving and was assaulted.
When the police went to your home the following day you produced the pendant as well as a letter opener which your partner had also stolen from the same shop.
You are now 25. You are no longer in a relationship with your co-accused. Your plea of guilty is in your favour. You were initially charged with more serious offences but have pleaded guilty as soon as the charge was amended to receiving. The State accepts that you were not party to the theft, but of course you knew the items were stolen. You returned them to the police when you were interviewed, and claimed to have been too busy to return them earlier. When this crime was committed you did not have a bad record for dishonesty. You were ordered to perform community service for stealing in 2014. Since this crime you have been sentenced to a short suspended term for making a false declaration. That term was activated in February 2019 when you were sentenced to a total term of 16 weeks for driving and dishonesty offences committed in late 2018. They are not prior convictions for sentencing purposes. This crime, and your recent offending is contributed to by abuse of illicit drugs, which you now abstain from. You have a six week old child and you are working with services to get your life in order. It is in your favour that you have agreed to give evidence in the trial of your co-accused. You know that if you fail to do so your sentence may be increased.
The circumstances of this offence, when taken with your personal circumstances, do not justify a sentence of imprisonment. I am satisfied that you cannot pay the sort of fine which this matter would warrant. I think that the appropriate sentence is to record a conviction and require an undertaking for 18 months that you be of good behaviour, so as to allow you the ability to demonstrate that you can be a responsible citizen.
Sharnie Bosworth, you are convicted. I adjourn the proceedings for 18 months and, on you giving an undertaking to not commit any offence punishable by imprisonment during that period you will be released. If you breach that undertaking you can be brought back to court and re-sentenced.