STATE OF TASMANIA v HARLEY JAMES WILMOT 20 FEBRUARY 2025
COMMENTS ON PASSING SENTENCE PEARCE J
Harley Wilmot, you were found guilty by a jury of aggravated assault and committing an unlawful act intended to do bodily harm committed on 22 April 2021 and possession of a firearm in contravention of a firearm prohibition order on 23 August 2022. In addition I am to sentence you on your plea of guilty to two further counts of possessing a firearm in contravention of a firearm prohibition order, respectively on 21 September 2023 and 1 October 2024, related summary driving, bail and drug offences also committed on 21 September 2023 and firearm, bail and drug offences committed on 1 October 2024. My duty is to sentence you for all of these offences with the aim of imposing a just and appropriate total aggregate sentence.
I will deal first with the jury verdicts. It is for me to determine the factual basis of sentence, but the findings must be consistent with the verdicts. Facts adverse to you must be proved beyond reasonable doubt. On 22 April 2021 Mathew Binns was staying overnight with his long term partner Eileen Beeton at Ms Beeton’s home in Invermay. Their son Joel Beeton-Binns also lived there. Mr Binns’ car was parked in the front driveway. At about 1.30am Joel Beeton-Binns was in his bedroom. He heard a noise and looked out the window to see two males, one thin and one more heavily set, apparently attempting to steal the car. The more heavily set of the men was leaning into the driver’s seat. Mr Beeton-Binns woke Mr Binns. They went outside together and interrupted the offenders. Mr Binns yelled at them whereupon they moved away onto the road. The man who had been in the driver’s side of the car produced a firearm from under his jacket. Other evidence established that the firearm was a sawn-off 12 gauge shot gun and was loaded with a cartridge containing size 2 steel shot. The man first fired it in the air, over the house across the road. When Mr Binns continued to shout the man turned and fired the gun towards him. The shot struck Mr Binns and caused serious injury. I am satisfied from the largely undisputed evidence of Sgt Gerard Dutton, a ballistics expert, based on the shot pattern he observed, that the shotgun was aimed directly towards Mr Binns as he stood next to the rear passenger side door of his car in the driveway. The two men then ran off up the street.
It follows from the verdict on the count of aggravated assault, and in any event I so find, that the jury was satisfied that the first shot was fired with an intention to threaten Mr Binns and Mr Beeton-Binns and did in fact threaten them. It follows from the verdict on the count of committing an unlawful act intended to do bodily harm that a majority of the jury was satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that the second shot was fired with intention to cause grievous bodily harm to Mr Binns. At trial, the principal issue was the identity of the person who fired the gun. It follows from the verdicts that the jury was satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that the person was you.
Joel Beeton-Binns was very frightened by what happened and still is psychologically affected. Mr Binns suffered life changing physical injuries and psychological trauma, both independently of the personal and financial impact of your crime. His chest, stomach and limbs were peppered with shot. His lung was punctured and internal organs struck. Fortunately none were permanently damaged. He was in hospital for a week. However about 60 pellets remain in his body. Some affect him physically and will require further surgical removal, but they are a constant reminder of what he was subjected to. At the time he was undergoing treatment for metastatic melanoma and the presence of the pellets limits the ongoing treatment options. Courts in this State have frequently stated that the crime of committing an unlawful act intended to cause bodily harm, subject to circumstances particular to the offence or the offender, justifies a sentence of imprisonment of between three and seven years. That is so because it involves the intentional infliction of serious injury. This crime was committed in the course of a dishonest act, in the front yard of a private residence against a person you did not know, who posed no threat to you and who just wished to protect his own property from theft. Having regard to the nature of the attack, the use of a shotgun and the nature and seriousness of the injuries caused to Mr Binns I regard this crime as at the top of the range I have referred to. From where you were standing in the middle of the road, only about eight metres from Mr Binns, you aimed the shotgun directly at him and fired. There was no need at all to fire the shot which, I find, amounted to gratuitous violence.
You were acquitted of a further charge of aggravated assault alleged to have occurred on 23 August 2022. However on that day you were found in possession of a replica revolver and a Rossi sawn-off .410 calibre sawn-off shotgun with the serial number ground off. At trial you ultimately did not dispute that charge. At the time you were subject to a firearm prohibition order. Although you were in possession of both firearms by operation of the provisions of the Firearms Act because you were in the same residential unit in Mayfield in which the firearms were found, I am satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that they were both yours. The imitation revolver was in a backpack with other items linked to you. The shotgun was hidden under a bed but analysis of DNA recovered from it disclosed a very strong match to both you and your partner.
About a year later on 21 September 2023 the police went to a house in Mayfield looking for someone else. You were there wearing a camouflage face covering. You mounted a Suzuki motor cycle and, despite their directions for you to stop you tried to ride away. You swerved past one police car but collided with the door of a second police car parked in the street. You then dropped the bike and fled on foot, jumping fences into neighbouring houses. With the police in pursuit you discarded an imitation pistol, almost identical in appearance to a .44 magnum calibre IMI self-loading pistol but capable of firing only gel projectiles. You were eventually apprehended attempting to hide in a shed on a nearby property. You had a strip of buprenorphine in your pocket. The motor cycle you were riding had been stolen two days earlier on 19 September. At the time you were disqualified from driving and subject to bail orders made in both the Supreme Court and the Court of Petty Sessions that you not be in possession of a firearm. The State does not dispute the contention that someone else had the motor cycle, and that you rode it only briefly to attempt to evade the police. You did not get far and there was little danger to the public. You are not to be punished twice for the disqualified driving, which is the aggravating factor for the evade police.
Another year later, just after midday on 1 October 2024 you were in a car in a supermarket car park in Kings Meadows with your then partner. The police approached for the purpose of arresting you for breaching bail. You ran off but were quickly apprehended. In the car the police found a bag containing a loaded .22 rim fire homemade single shot open bolt pistol, 14 .22 rounds, two snaplock bags respectively containing 0.49 and 0.6 grams of methylamphetamine, a snaplock bag containing 0.7 grams of cannabis, a syringe containing 1,4-butanediol, (liquid-G) and a knife in a sheath. In another bag was another syringe of liquid-G and a .22 round. Your partner’s house was then searched. In the garage was an imitation Mauser bolt action rifle, twenty nine 9 mm rounds, a snap lock bag containing 5.98 grams of methylamphetamine, 1.48 grams of cannabis mix and a glass smoking device. In the house was one further 9 mm round, an imitation Glock select fire pistol, a small quantity of liquid-G and another Ice pipe. When interviewed by the police you admitted that all of the items found in the car, the garage and the house were yours. At the time it was a condition of your Supreme Court bail that you not be in possession of a firearm. I infer that the drugs found on both occasions were for your personal use.
Firearms prohibition orders are made if the Commissioner of Police forms the opinion that a person is unfit, in the public interest, to possess or use a firearm. In your case the order was made on 26 May 2022, I infer because of your record of convictions to which I will refer shortly and as a result what the Commissioner believed had occurred in 2021. The order prohibited you from possessing or using a firearm. As a result your possession of a firearm of any nature while the order was in force was a crime. One of the firearms you had on 23 August 2022 was a real gun, a shortened shot gun with the serial number removed. There could be no innocent reason for possession of such a weapon. The homemade pistol you had on 1 October 2024 was not in working order but with a modification could have inflicted a lethal wound and was loaded with suitable ammunition. The imitation firearm you had on 23 August 2022 was a cap gun and the imitation firearms you had on 21 September 2023 and 1 October 2024 were plastic gel blasters. However they looked identical to real guns. I accept your counsel’s submission that there is some status involved with possession of such firearms but possession of them, contrary to the prohibition order, is still serious because they were also capable of being used for criminal purposes to threaten or frighten others.
You are now aged 26. Even before the series of crimes I have described, extending over about three and a half years, your record of offending was bad. It commenced when you were a youth. You were subject to periods of suspended and actual detention. You first went to prison when you were 18 and have spent much of your life in custody since then. Your counsel submits that you have become institutionalised and resort to drug use and crime when in the community. This is reflected in your record which includes serious dishonesty and driving offences and, to a lesser extent, violence. On 11 May 2018 you were sentenced to imprisonment for two years and three months for aggravated armed robbery, which involved serious threats with a firearm. You continued to commit serious dishonesty and driving offences and served further terms in 2019. You were 22 when the crimes against Mr Binns and his son were committed. You are not entitled to the mitigation that a plea of guilty would have attracted. On 11 October 2021 you were sentenced to imprisonment for seven months for offences committed around the same time as that crime including driving and bail offences and resisting police. It is now almost four years since the crime against Mr Binns but no mitigation of any weight arises from the delay because there has been absolutely no sign of reform or remorse for that crime or any others. On 4 October 2022 you were sentenced to a term of a total term of 10 months for offences including evading police driving while disqualified, trespass and possessing a firearm and ammunition all committed during 2022. On 2 February 2024 another three months was imposed for breach of bail, escape, trespass and motor vehicle stealing. Whenever you are not in prison you commit crimes. The crimes and offences for which you are to be sentenced display an utter contempt for the law, all committed despite past sentences of imprisonment and court and police orders put in place to attempt to address the risk you pose when in the community. Until today you have spent 446 days in custody which have not been taken into account in any other sentence. The sentence I impose will be backdated to take that period into account such that the term should commence on 2 December 2023.
On indictment 15/2024, you are convicted on counts 1, 2 and 4. On indictment 66/2025 you are convicted on both counts. On complaint 34485/23 you are convicted on counts 1, 2, 3, 6, 10 and 11. On complaint 35352/24 you are convicted on counts 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 13 and 15. I order that the firearms listed on Tasmania Police receipts 24769, 27114 and 27116 be forfeited to the State. I order that the smoking devices listed as items 2 and 5 on drug exhibit sheet 276049 be forfeited to the State.
On indictment 15/2024, count 2, committing an unlawful act intended to cause bodily harm, you are sentenced to imprisonment for seven years from 2 December 2023. I order that you not be eligible for parole until you have served half of that term. On count 1 on that indictment you are sentenced to imprisonment for six months to be served concurrently with the term just imposed.
The firearm or firearm related offences are on indictment 15/2024, count 4, indictment 66/2025 counts 1 and 2, complaint 34485/23 counts 2 and 3 and complaint 35352/24, counts 2, 4 and 15. On those counts I impose one sentence, a term of imprisonment of two years. I order that one year of that term be concurrent to the term imposed on count 2 of indictment 15/2024 and the balance is to be served cumulatively. I order that you not be eligible for parole until you have served 18 months of that term.
On complaint 34485/23, count 11, evade police, you are sentenced to imprisonment for four months. I order that term to be served concurrently with the term imposed on count 2 on indictment 15/2024. I order that in respect to that term you not be eligible for parole. You are disqualified from driving for two years from your release. On count 1 on that complaint, driving while disqualified, you are sentenced to imprisonment for three months to be served concurrently with the term imposed on count 11 with no eligibility for parole. On that count you are disqualified from driving for 12 months also from your release from custody, that is, concurrently with the disqualification on count 11.
In light of the sentences just imposed, on the remaining counts, complaint 34485/23, count 10, complaint 35353/24 counts 5, 6, 7 and 13, possessing controlled drugs, possessing the smoking devices and possessing the knife, I make no further order.
The result is a total term of imprisonment of eight years from 2 December 2023 with eligibility for parole after having served four years of that term.