STATE OF TASMANIA v DARYL JOHN STREETS 4 APRIL 2025
COMMENTS ON PASSING SENTENCE JAGO J
Mr Streets, you have pleaded guilty to perverting justice. On 13 March 2024, a stealing was reported at Mitre 10 Devonport. Police viewed relevant CCTV footage from the store. The footage clearly showed you stealing an item. Later that day, police observed a male matching the description of the person involved in the stealing, standing on Raymond Avenue in Devonport. It was you. Police spoke to you. You falsely identified yourself as your brother, Milton Streets, and provided his personal details.
Your deception was discovered when you were brought into custody on an unrelated matter on 8 April 2024. For that matter, you were correctly processed as Daryl Streets. The police officer that had spoken to you at the time you provided the false information, recognised you as the same person. You were arrested for the perverting justice charge. You were interviewed. You told police that you had nothing to do with the stealing and that you had not provided a false name.
You are 46 years of age. You have a very long and relevant criminal history. A significant part of your adult life has been spent in custody. You have been sent to gaol on many occasions for serious offences, involving violence, dishonesty and driving offences. In 2013, you were sentenced to 15 months’ imprisonment for aggravated burglary and stealing. In 2016, you were sentenced to two years’ imprisonment for offences, including common assault, many counts of stealing and unlawful possession of property, together with driving and bail offences. In May 2018, you were again sent to gaol for stealing offences. In August 2019, you were sentenced by this Court for the crime of aggravated assault and the offences of drive whilst disqualified and destroy property. You were sentenced to 15 months’ imprisonment. In 2023, you were sentenced to a substantial period of imprisonment for further driving and dishonesty offences.
More recently, in August 2024, you were sentenced to a total of eight months’ imprisonment, commencing 19 August 2024. That sentence expired in December 2024. Because the sentence I impose will be in addition to that sentence, principals of totality must be borne in mind, but equally, it is necessary to recognise that you are now to be sentenced for a separate act of criminality, which warrants additional punishment.
I think it would be fair to say that you have persistently demonstrated, since about the age of 22, a complete contempt for the law and a disregard for your obligations to comply with it. I accept that much of your offending arises from your abuse of illicit drugs. That drug abuse is long standing, but there is little evidence that you have ever committed in any genuine way, to addressing it.
Perverting justice is regarded as serious as it undermines the integrity of the justice system. Persons who are convicted of the crime are almost always sentenced to imprisonment, not only for punishment but to send a clear message to those who may be tempted to act as you did, that prison is the likely outcome. In your case, you acted as you did to avoid being arrested in respect to the theft of items from Mitre 10. I accept it was not a particularly sophisticated or well thought out endeavour, particularly given the familiarity police in the Devonport area have with you. It was almost inevitable, in my assessment, that your falsity would be revealed at some point, but it is yet another example of your propensity for dishonest behaviour.
I make the following orders. You are convicted of the crime of perverting justice. You are sentenced to imprisonment for a period of five months, commencing 28 December 2024.