STATE OF TASMANIA v SAMUEL ADRIAN WEBB GEASON J
COMMENTS ON PASSING SENTENCE 18 OCTOBER 2019
Mr Webb, you appear for sentencing today on your plea of guilty to a single count of trafficking in a controlled substance.
The factual basis for that charge is relatively narrow, it is that you trafficked in MDMA on 25 February 2019 by having in your possession 252 tablets with the intention of selling at least some of them and that you trafficked in MDMA over the period from August 2018 to February 2019 by making intermittent sales of up to 80 MDMA tablets to at least six persons.
According to a report which I have received, in the period of your offending, and this matter is reinforced in the submissions made by your counsel, you were intent on “partying” and using drugs. It appears to me that your behaviour was out of control and this is exemplified by your behaviour just before you were apprehended, arriving at Hobart’s airport at about 4am and asking to buy plane tickets to Melbourne with cash. This was, according to your counsel, apparently to continue “partying”. In my view you exhibited a good deal of immaturity. When police attended at the airport, having been contacted by Virgin Australia staff, you were observed to be twitching involuntarily and exhibiting signs of having consumed drugs. You were searched, and 19 orange tablets were found in your underpants. You told police these were MDMA and analysis confirmed that to be so. An amount of $2200 in cash was taken from you.
In your record of interview you told police that you had been using MDMA since you were 17 and that you used it regularly. You also told police that you had bought between 200 and 300 tablets that weekend and that you had probably taken 50 yourself.
It appears that at this time you owed a considerable sum of money for those tablets, according to your record of interview, it was a sum in excess of $13,000, and you told police you were going to make money to pay that back, by selling some of these drugs. If sold in tablet form the pills recovered from you had a potential street value of between $5000 and $7500.
Your offending was sporadic and occurred over a period of only 6 months. Your admissions are consistent with only a modest amount of MDMA being sold to a limited number of people. This was not a commercial venture.
You appear before me without relevant prior convictions. This State accepts that this offending is towards the lower end of seriousness for this kind of offending and I agree. I give you credit for cooperating with police and for your plea of guilty.
You have been residing in Victoria with your mother and step-father. You are presently undertaking an apprenticeship in Victoria and I understand that you will return to Tasmania to complete any community work I impose as part of your sentence. That may interrupt your apprenticeship or it may be that you can transfer it to this State. You do have work here and that is a relevant matter from my perspective in framing a sentence.
The sentencing considerations relevant to you include your youthfulness but also the need for general deterrence. MDMA is a scourge and the consequences of its use are devastating for users and for the community. General deterrence is therefore an important sentencing consideration and in my view a term of imprisonment is therefore required.
I have determined that a sentence of 12 months’ imprisonment is appropriate. I turn to the question of suspension of that sentence. As a youthful offender appearing for the first time, and noting that the offending is at the lower end of the range and you derived nothing from it, I have determined that I can suspend the sentence while meeting the relevant sentencing principles I am required to apply. I will however require you to perform community service hours to restore a punitive element to that penalty.
Mr Webb you are convicted. I sentence you to 12 months’ imprisonment, wholly suspended on condition you commit no offence punishable by imprisonment for a period of three years. I make a community based order with an operational period of 12 months and require you to perform 100 hours of community service work. I note that I have previously made orders requiring you to pay the cost of analysis in the sum of $4620 and confiscating the $2200 seized from you by police.