STATE OF TASMANIA v DANIEL JOHN WIGGINS
COMMENTS ON CANCELLATION OF DRUG TREATMENT ORDER
29 JUNE 2026
SHANAHAN CJ
Mr Wiggins, you were sentenced to a drug treatment order by Acting Justice Porter on 29 January 2024, with a custodial element of 18 months’ imprisonment. You were convicted for dangerous driving and summary charges of driving while suspended, evading police in aggravating circumstances and driving with a prescribed illicit drug in your system. At the time that you were convicted your driving licence was suspended. The circumstances are comprehensively described in Acting Justice Porter’s comments on passing sentence dated 29 January 2024 and need no repetition here.
The State has applied to have your Drug Treatment Order cancelled pursuant to s 27Q of the Sentencing Act 1997 (Tas). The basis for the application is put in the alternative that I can be satisfied on the balance of probabilities that either, (i) you are no longer willing to comply with one or more conditions of the order (refer to s 27Q(1)(c)), or (ii) the continuation of the order is unlikely to achieve one or more of the purposes for which it was made (refer to s 27Q(1)(d)).
The bases relied upon by the State for making the cancellation order have both been established to the relevant standard. I am satisfied that your Drug Treatment Order must be cancelled, and the making of that order was unopposed.
You were inducted onto your Drug Treatment Order on 31 January 2024. It became apparent early in that process that you were struggling to comply with the conditions of that order as evidenced by multiple failures to attend case management appointment and urinalysis appointments. As a result, you accrued sanction days and were required to serve these in custody from 5 March to 19 March 2024, a total of 15 days. You attributed your non-compliance to poor mental health and you committed to a mental health care plan and engagement with the Salvation Army Bridge Day Program. Your counsel encouraged the Court to have regard to the positive aspects of your engagement in your rehabilitation. Of course, accepting that proposition, those elements have to be balanced against your non-compliance.
Following your period in custody you continued to have difficulties complying with the Drug Treatment Order. These included being late for appointments and unable to provide samples as required. The Executive Director of Community Corrections approved an oral testing regime to assist you to overcome these issues. The first oral test was 12 June 2024. On 25 June 2024, you attended Court in circumstances where you had accrued 17 sanction days. You were required to serve 15 days in custody between 25 June and 9 July 2024.
On 13 August 2024, less than eight months after the making of the Drug Treatment Order, you returned to Court for a third time and were again required to serve a further 15 days in custody by way of sanction. You were in custody from 27 August to 10 September 2024. At that time, the Court requested a reassessment report from the Court Mandated Diversion Program (“CMD”) to provide you with a further opportunity to engage with the conditions of your Drug Treatment Order.
At that time you demonstrated a willingness to engage but it was clearly outlined to you that if you failed to meet the terms of your Drug Treatment Order, the CMD would apply to cancel your Drug Treatment Order. It appears that some effort, both on your part and those responsible for your supervision, resulted in weekly Court reviews, your sporadic attendance at the Salvation Army Bridge Day Program and some engagement with a psychologist.
By 27 November 2024, the same established pattern repeated and you had accrued a further 17 sanction days due to failing to attend drug testing, being too late to be drug tested or a failure to admit drug use even when returning a positive result. It was recommended that a cancellation report be written whilst you served a further 15 days in custody. However, when you attended Court on that date, and during Court proceedings, you excused yourself to get some water and failed to return to Court. As a result, you did not serve any of the sanction days and a warrant was issued for your arrest.
Your counsel submitted that when you absconded, you did so because you panicked in circumstances where you realised that cancellation meant you would return to custody. I understand that your engagement with, or addiction to, methylamphetamine began when you were in custody. I am told that the prospect of returning to custody in those circumstances proved too much for you. Of course, at that time you were had continued to use methylamphetamine after the Drug Treatment Order was made. By absconding, you abandoned the regime required by your Drug Treatment Order and further aggravated the circumstances under-pinning an application for cancellation. What ever positive aspects of your engagement in the course of the Drug Treatment Order were rendered nugatory by your decision to leave.
It was submitted from the bar table that anecdotal accounts of your situation since absconding suggest that you have been sober. There is no evidence to establish that. Had you been able to demonstrate sobriety within the limits of the Drug Treatment Order regime, you would not have been subject to sanctions and, one imagines, less likely to have absconded. I cannot give you credit for unproven sobriety.
Having absconded, you made no attempt to re-engage with authorities and are only before the Court because you were arrested on the outstanding warrant last month, on 5 May 2026. Your aggravating conduct in this regard has to be factored in to the process of re-sentencing.
The Court papers record the Court Diversion Officer’s account that you have consistently demonstrated poor compliance with drug testing. I will not repeat all the statistics but your attendance at appointments was poor, you tested positive to methylamphetamine on 17 of 48 appointments (being those you did attend out of a possible 62). A pattern of non-admitted usage raised questions about your honesty whilst on the program. You have disengaged from the program entirely since absconding on 27 November 2024.
You have been made well aware throughout of the process of the risks of failing to comply with the Drug Treatment Order. You have been afforded many opportunities in that process to re-engage and remedy your non-compliance, unfortunately you have failed to do so. If you have been sober during your period of disengagement, then the task you have in front of you is to remain so whilst in custody.
Many of the matters canvassed by Acting Justice Porter continue to apply but your stated preparedness to engage in the regimen required by a Drug Treatment Order has proven illusory. In those circumstances, I am to re-sentence you.
I have taken the positive elements of your engagement with the Drug Treatment Order process, such as they are, into account and balanced them with the aggravating factors that your conduct demonstrates, in particular your decision to abscond. I am told you have served 48 days in custody since your arrest. I propose to take those days into account by backdating your sentence to your arrest on 5 May 2026.
I am prepared to discount the 18 month sentence imposed by Acting Justice Porter by the 45 days served as sanction days rounded up to two months. I therefore sentence you to 16 months’ imprisonment back dated to 5 May 2026 to be served immediately. I make you eligible for parole once you have served half of that period.