STATE OF TASMANIA v DARYL JOHN STREETS 9 AUGUST 2019
COMMENTS ON PASSING SENTENCE PEARCE J
Daryl Streets pleads guilty to aggravated assault. I also agreed to deal with his pleas of guilty to the summary offences of evading police, driving while disqualified, using an unregistered motor vehicle, destroying property and unlawful possession of property.
At about 4.30 pm on 11 January 2019 Sergeant Shane Flude and Constable Glenn Martin were on mobile patrol in Devonport. They were in an unmarked police car but both were in uniform. They were informed that a blue Ford Falcon that they knew belonged to the defendant had been seen in a nearby car park. The police were looking for the defendant because there were warrants for his arrest and he had been seen over the preceding days driving while disqualified. When they arrived the defendant was sitting in the driver’s seat. Constable Martin, who was driving, positioned the police car directly in front of the defendant’s car, about a metre away. Constable Martin started to get out of the police car at which time the defendant accelerated heavily forward, ramming the front of the police car. The impact shunted the police car backwards and pushed Constable Martin off his feet from within the door frame of the car. He rolled sideways to avoid being struck. The defendant then accelerated away in his car with the front bumper hanging off and leaving a trail of fluid.
The police did not pursue the defendant. He was found and arrested by other police in Devonport about an hour later. He was a disqualified driver. The car he was driving was not registered. Analysis of a sample of his blood disclosed the presence of methylamphetamine. When the car was found in the grounds of the high school it contained clothing with K-Mart tags, a mobile phone, and a BMW key, all of which the police reasonably believed was stolen. By his plea, the defendant accepts that he cannot provide a satisfactory account of his possession of that property. The damage to the police car will cost about $5,000 to repair. Constable Martin suffered a graze to his knee and general soreness. I will make a compensation order but there is little prospect that the defendant will ever be able to pay it.
The defendant is aged 41. He is entitled to mitigation from his plea of guilty. He has a very long criminal history commencing when he was 22. A significant part of his adult life has been spent in custody. He has been to prison on many occasions for serious offences of violence and dishonesty, and driving offences. In 2013 he was sentenced to 15 months for aggravated burglary and stealing. There was a break of a couple of years until 2016 when he was sentenced to two years for offences including common assault, 21 counts of stealing, 5 counts of unlawful possession of property, 6 counts of driving while his licence was suspended, 15 counts of breaching bail and escape. On 2 May 2018 he was sentenced to imprisonment for six months from 21 March 2018 for 8 counts of stealing. The offences for which he is now to be sentenced were committed while he was either on bail or subject to a warrant for other offences to which he subsequently pleaded guilty and was sentenced by a magistrate on 22 March 2019 to a total term of imprisonment of one year from 12 January 2019. Those offences included 11 counts of stealing, common assault, 4 counts of breaching a police family violence order and driving while disqualified in August and November 2018. Most relevantly, the offences also included evading police in an unregistered car only three days earlier on 9 January 2019, driving while disqualified on multiple occasions on that day, as well as on 11 January 2019 when he was found to have methylamphetamine and amphetamine in his blood. Much of his offending over the last ten years arises from abuse of illicit drugs. He had been heavily using drugs in the lead up to these crimes. That is not mitigating, but he has resolved to address his addiction while in prison.
The defendant is not to be punished again for the offences he has already been sentenced for. The offences for which he was sentenced on 22 March 2019 are not prior convictions for sentencing purposes, but the pattern of his offending points strongly to him being a danger to the community when at large. He repeatedly demonstrates a contempt for the law and for authority and has done so again, although he has not been violent to the police before. By his plea of guilty to aggravated assault and evading police, he admits that he drove his car into the police car to not only get away from the police, but intending to apply force or threaten to apply force to Constable Martin to achieve that aim. He suffered only minor injuries but it could have been much worse. No doubt it was frightening for both officers. The police are entitled to the protection of the law and vindication of their authority in the performance of their duty. The sentence the defendant is presently serving is relevant to totality and will be taken into account, but the offences for which he is now to be sentenced involve considerable separate criminality and warrant additional punishment.
Daryl Streets, you are convicted on each count. I make a compensation order in favour of the Department of Emergency Services and adjourn the further terms of the order to a date to be fixed. In light of the sentence imposed by the magistrate on 22 March 2019, and the sentence I am about to impose, on counts 4 and 6 on complaint 50174/19, I record a conviction and make no further order. On count 2, evading police, you are sentenced to imprisonment for three months cumulative to the sentence you are presently serving. For that sentence I order that you are not eligible for parole. You are disqualified from driving for two years from your release. On all remaining other counts I impose one sentence. You are disqualified from driving for five years from your release. You are sentenced to imprisonment for one year and three months, cumulative to any other term you are serving or liable to serve. I order that you are not eligible for parole until you have served nine months of that term. I specify that the total term of imprisonment that you are liable to serve as a result of the orders I have made is one and a half years cumulative to the sentences you are currently serving, and that you are not eligible for parole until you have served one year of the total term I have imposed.