STATE OF TASMANIA v KHRISTEEN ANNE TAYLOR 7 DECEMBER 2020
COMMENTS ON PASSING SENTENCE PEARCE J
Khristeen Taylor, you plead guilty to robbery. The crime was committed on 25 July 2019. On that day you went to Target at the Mowbray shopping complex with another female. While she distracted the checkout operator you walked out with three boxes of Lego worth $457. The assistant store manager ran after you and confronted you to try to prevent you from leaving. As you pushed away from her you made some contact with her cheek, which caused redness and swelling. You eventually left with only one box worth $49.95. You were identified from CCTV and arrested in southern Tasmania a few days later.
Your personal circumstances were described to me by your counsel and supplemented by a pre-sentence report. You are now aged 33. You have lived a life characterised by disadvantage of all forms. You were neglected by your parents. Your education was interrupted but you are literate and numerate. You have been in violent and abusive relationships. You are a long-term abuser of drugs and alcohol. You have five children, none of whom are in your care. This robbery formed part of a course of criminal conduct in July 2019 which also included stealing on the previous day. On 24 July you were with another female and together you stole a hundreds of dollars worth of perfumes from a pharmacy in Mowbray. It was a continuation of more than a decade of committing offences of dishonesty commencing around 2009, all driven by addiction to illicit drugs. In 2012 a drug treatment order was made with a custodial period of seven months for numerous summary offences including multiple counts of stealing, breaching bail and driving while disqualified. The order was cancelled after about a year for non-compliance and re-offending and you served part of the sentence. Since then you have been in an out of prison but the same pattern of drug, driving and dishonesty offences has continued each time you were released. In July 2019, you were taken into custody after having committed this robbery and other offences. In November 2019 you were sentenced by a magistrate to imprisonment for three months from 31 July 2019 for three counts of stealing, one count of making off without payment, as well as bail and driving offences all committed between October 2018 and July 2019. The effect of that sentence was that you were released into the community. A very significant factor in sentencing is the steps you have taken since then to address your addiction. You engaged with the drug and alcohol service and complied with the requirements of that service. You commenced the methadone program, ceased use of illicit drugs and now require only monthly injections. You have stable accommodation. You have re-engaged with your children and become a counsellor with the Salvation Army. In July this year you were sentenced by a magistrate to imprisonment for five months for driving with an illicit drug in your blood on 8 March 2019 and for stealing on 24 July 2019. In apparent recognition of your efforts at rehabilitation, the term was wholly suspended for two years on condition that you comply with a community correction order.
The value of the goods you stole in this robbery is not significant, but robbery is very largely a crime against persons. The force you used to overcome the store manager’s attempts to prevent your stealing would have been confronting and distressing for her. I have no victim impact statement, but the potential for significant psychological impact always exists. For that reason, a term of imprisonment is required. I have concluded that the community will benefit if you are given the opportunity to avoid serving that term by continuing with your rehabilitation. If you re-offend in any serious way it is virtually inevitable that you will go back to prison. In the opinion of the author of the pre-sentence report, supervision is not required because of the degree to which you have already voluntarily engaged with service in the community. However, I will order that you perform community service as an additional punishment.
Khristeen Taylor, you are convicted. I make a compensation order in favour of Target Australia Pty Ltd (Mowbray) in the sum of $49.95. You have 28 days to pay that sum. You are sentenced to imprisonment for 10 months. I wholly suspend that term for two years from today. It is a condition of that order that while it is in force you do not commit any offence punishable by imprisonment. If you breach that condition then a court must order that you serve that term unless it is unjust. I impose a further condition that, within the period the order is in force, that is, two years from today, you perform 105 hours of community service. The conditions which the law imposes on that order include that you must report to a probation officer at the office of Community Corrections in Glenorchy on or before 5pm on Wednesday, 9 December 2020. You must, during the operational period of the order, report to a probation officer as required by the probation officer and comply with the reasonable and lawful directions of a probation officer or a supervisor, you must not, during the operational period of the order, leave, or remain outside, Tasmania without the permission of a probation officer and you must, during the operational period of the order, give notice to a probation officer of any change of address or employment before, or within 2 working days after, the change. If you breach any of those conditions you may be brought back to court and re-sentenced.