STATE OF TASMANIA v BILLY-JAMES EMANUEL WOOLFE-MOORE 14 OCTOBER 2026
COMMENTS ON PASSING SENTENCE SLATTERY AJ
Billy-James Woolfe-Moore, you are charged on indictment dated 28 July 2026, with the crime of robbery, contrary to s 240(1) of the Criminal Code. The particulars of the charge are that at Rokeby in Tasmania, on or about 14 September 2025, you stole a Google 7 Pixel Pro mobile phone, rose gold coloured metal torch, seven LED lithium-ion batteries and a set of keys, the property of Luke Edward David Reynolds, and immediately before, or at the time of stealing that property, used violence to Luke Edward David Reynolds by punching him, kicking him to the head and face, and stomping on his head.
You were also charged on complaint in the Magistrates Court with the crime of common assault, contrary to s 35(1) of the Police Offences Act 1935. The particulars of the charge are that on 14 September 2025 at Rokeby in Tasmania, you unlawfully assaulted Luke Edward David Reynolds by punching him to the face.
You entered guilty pleas to each of these offences before me on 21 August 2026.
Pursuant to s 385A of the Criminal Code, I have heard these charges together.
The plea was entered on 21 August 2026. There is some explanation for the lateness of this plea, having regard to negotiations that took place between prosecution and defence. I understand that there were negotiations concerning the actual charge against you, and there is some indication of a utilitarian purpose in your plea. I am also aware that the prosecution case was overwhelming.
I have been made aware of your lengthy list of antecedents. You were in custody on assault and breach of restraint order charges until two days before this offending. You have been continuously in custody for almost two years now, save for two days when you were out of custody and before committing these offences. I will take those matters into account.
The material facts related to this offending are as follows. The victim, Luke Reynolds, was, at the time of the offending, a caretaker of the Grace Centre in Rokeby. That centre is only two or three houses from the home in which you were living at the time, after you had recently been discharged from custody. You did not know Mr Reynolds at the time of the offending. He also did not know you.
On Sunday, 14 September 2025, at about 1:00am, you entered the grounds of the Grace Centre in Rokeby. You had been walking around the area and decided to enter the grounds, with no particular purpose. Your presence in the grounds was then detected through CCTV footage. The complainant, Mr Reynolds, identified you as being the person in the grounds on the television screen. He went outside and approached you, near to the front entrance of the Grace Centre. Without cause or warning, you punched Mr Reynolds in the face and this caused him to fall to the ground. When he was on the ground, you kicked him and stomped on his head and face. While he was on the ground, you stole the following items from Mr Reynolds:
- A Google 7 Pixel Pro mobile phone;
- A rose gold coloured metal torch;
- Seven LED lithium-ion batteries; and
- A set of keys.
It is agreed that the value of those items was about $1,880.
You then walked away towards the entrance of the centre. By that time, the complainant, Mr Reynolds, had slightly recovered and he also walked towards the southern entrance. As he did, you became aware of his presence. You turned around and approached him. At the time, he was bleeding from a wound to his head. A short conversation followed. You then punched the complainant to the face once and he then stumbled backwards. He walked away. Mr Reynolds then went to his home and spoke to his housemate, his cousin. He had a swollen eye, his face was covered in blood and he was disoriented. His housemate called the police. Police and ambulance then attended his address, he was taken to hospital by ambulance and was treated.
As a result of these incidents, Mr Reynolds sustained a swelling to both eyes, a graze to his forehead, a 1.5 centimetre laceration to his upper lip and concussion.
Police retrieved the CCTV footage from the Grace Centre cameras. On the night in question, you were wearing a black puffer jacket, dark coloured Adidas three stripe pants, and white shoes with dark coloured tongue and laces. Your face was clearly visible on this footage. Police searched the area and found one black torch and a set of Grace Centre keys in the garden, near the boom gate entrance to the centre.
On 16 September 2025, your premises at Rokeby was searched under a search warrant, and various items of clothing were located. These items of clothing match the clothing worn by you in the CCTV footage. The police also found the phone belonging to Mr Reynolds. You were arrested and taken to the Bellerive Police Station and you participated in a police interview. You were largely non-responsive to police questions, but you did inform the police that you had used methylamphetamine and when you use methylamphetamine, you start hearing voices. You had no memory of ever going to the Grace Centre. You told police that you had used a lot of methylamphetamine, that you had heard voices in your head and you did not think that it was you who was carrying out these actions. You did not recall assaulting Mr Reynolds.
On 28 September 2025, the police confirmed with the complainant, Mr Reynolds, that the Google 7 Pixel Pro mobile phone seized from your premises was, in fact, the phone belonging to him that had been taken by you. I have received a set of nine photographs of Mr Reynolds, taken whilst he was in hospital following his admission. These photographs disclose significant injuries to the face, particularly the eyes and the forehead, of Mr Reynolds. There are injuries upon Mr Reynolds’ skull. There are also injuries upon his hands and his left foot. It is accepted that all of these injuries were sustained as a result of your assault upon him on that night.
I turn then to your personal circumstances. You are a comparatively youthful offender, who has spent a considerable amount of time in custody. Your counsel urged upon me that, as you are a youthful offender, rehabilitation ought be my primary sentencing aim. I will deal with that submission later in these comments.
You had profoundly deprived circumstances as you grew up. You grew up mostly in Queensland as a result of neglect by your parents, and their inability to provide a stable home for you. You have been subject to an 18 year care and protection order, with a guardianship. You were in various foster placements throughout most of your childhood, but these were not successful or not enjoyable for you. These experiences have had an ongoing impact upon your mental health. You have been the subject of a number of diagnoses of mental health conditions, including Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, depression and anxiety, as well as ADHD. When you were about 15, you voluntarily returned to live with your father, which was comparatively more stable and supportive accommodation. A Guardianship Order remained until you were 18 years of age.
At the time when you were 15 years of age, and according to these facts, when you were living with your father, you were first introduced to cannabis. This use escalated to heavy use of methylamphetamines. You used cannabis and then methylamphetamine as a form of self-medication to deal with the trauma you experienced as a young person.
You are now able to recognise the detrimental impact drug use has had upon your mental health, particularly in more recent years and the direct link that methylamphetamine use has had upon you. I have some difficulty with that submission. You were in custody for a period of about eight months in connection with an assault charge and breach of restraint order charges. You were only out of custody for a period of two days and then you immediately went back onto the use of methylamphetamine, and your use of methylamphetamine has led directly to these charges. The principal difficulty I have with that submission, is that you had both inclination and the wherewithal to find, and then use, methylamphetamine immediately upon your release from custody. It is difficult to comprehend how different periods of custody will have different effects upon you unless some change occurs in your psychological and psychiatric makeup.
Your counsel informed me of the difficulties that you had in custody. You were in your cell, alone, for a majority of your sentence and you had very little time outside of your cell. You had a period of eight months in custody, but within two days you were offending again in the manner in which I described.
I am told that you have some capacity for work and that you had been employed in the past as a boat builder, doing fiberglassing, in timber and timber truss house construction work. You would like to return to work upon your release because you see that as being beneficial.
Your counsel accepted that you have used buprenorphine in custody, and after release from custody, there was an immediate return to methylamphetamine use. You have suffered psychotic symptoms as a result of your methylamphetamine use and there is a direct link between that use and the development of those psychotic symptoms.
I have had the benefit of a very detailed psychiatric report, prepared by Dr Michael Jordan, dated 6 January 2026. The report was prepared for two particular purposes, namely provision of opinions about the operation of s 16 of the Criminal Code, and the application of the Verdins principles.
Notwithstanding, the report is very informative and has been of great assistance to me. Dr Jordan reports that you have had problems with your mental health status for many years, but have had no significant contact with local mental health services. There have been several psychiatric admissions, including one to the Royal Hobart Hospital in 2021. You have been subject to the care of various medical health practitioners whilst on remand.
You told Dr Jordan that you were affected by various psychotic symptoms at the time of this offending. You were using methylamphetamine earlier during the day and part of these psychotic symptoms included a command to carry out aspects of the reported offending. You told Dr Jordan that you are still affected by some of the symptoms that were occurring for you, whilst you were in the community and you have now been started on an anti-psychotic medication, Olanzapine.
On his assessment of you, Dr Jordan said that there was some restriction to your affect but your mood was euthymic. Dr Jordan thought that you had some insight into your mental heath presentation. You knew that further use of methylamphetamine would be deleterious for your mental health presentation.
Dr Jordan then gave a history of your early childhood, the tragedy of your mother being absent due to intoxication with substances, the time you spent on the Gold Coast in Queensland, living with your father, the fact that you did well at school academically until you fell in with the wrong crowd in Year 9 and commenced drug use. Your problems with methylamphetamine use have led you to become unemployed and when back in the community, you will live with your mother, who you believe to have significant mental health problems from her own past. Your older brother will live there as well.
Dr Jordan found that you had a prejudicial and dysfunctional childhood, and your circumstances only improved when you lived with your father on the Gold Coast, but you then started heavy use of methylamphetamine whilst at school. You had three admissions to emergency departments at the Caboolture Hospital and the Gold Coast Hospital in 2023 in relation to acts of self-harm.
You thought that the anti-psychotic medication was of assistance in relation to your auditory hallucinations, however, a treating psychiatrist thought that these were best explained by a combination of recent methylamphetamine use and the effect of early trauma upon your personality structure. However, your psychotic symptoms have improved with the use of the anti-psychotic Olanzapine. Unfortunately, that was removed whilst you were in custody.
Dr Jordan then dealt with your recall of the offending. You had been released from prison for two days. You lived with your mother. You quickly returned to methylamphetamine use. You cannot say where the various psychotic symptoms came from, but you were aware that these psychotic symptoms increased in intensity with methylamphetamine use. The symptoms were that you felt uneasy when walking away from your house, you believed that you were being followed, you heard voices, that people were making comments about your actions, telling you what to do and not what to do.
On the evening of the offence, you walked around your neighbourhood but this was after midnight and around 1:00am. The voices were telling you that you had to go away and therefore you made a decision to return to your home. As you neared the Grace Centre, about ten metres from your own home, and somewhere where you had never been, one of the voices commanded you to approach the Centre and enter it. You entered the ground, you were approached by Mr Reynolds and you identified Mr Reynolds as the person who has been after you. That caused you to strike Mr Reynolds, which was a spur of the moment assault. However, you then grabbed his phone, his keys and other belongings. You went home. You did not leave your home for the next 36 hours, but were then arrested on 16 September 2025.
You told Dr Jordan that you continued to experience hearing voices whilst in custody. You denied being involved in any particular assaultive interactions since entering custody and remain reasonably solitary. You expressed the opinion to Dr Jordan that others might still be out there to get you, but distract yourself by doing other things.
Dr Kylie Lloyd reviewed you in custody and found that there had been an improvement in your mental state with amelioration of your normal perceptual experiences and paranoid ideations. Dr Lloyd opined that you may still be accessing illicit substances, but at a much reduced rate compared with the community. She had previously assessed you during a period of remand, and had diagnosed you as suffering more complex third person auditory hallucinations and over-valued bizarre ideas, and these verged on the delusional. Her diagnosis was a drug induced psychosis and she reported to Dr Jordan accordingly.
In his report, Dr Jordan then addressed a number of questions that are not relevant to my considerations, however, in answer to the specific Verdins domains, he expressed the view that you did have some insight into the effects of your ongoing methylamphetamine use and its propensity to worsen your psychotic symptoms. He opined that your mental health condition does not reduce the moral culpability of your offending. In relation to general deterrence, he expressed the view that it is not considered that you are a good exemplar for moderation or elimination of general deterrence. In relation to specific deterrence, he opines that you need to become wholly abstinent from the use of illicit substances, particularly methylamphetamine. He found that it was striking that the nature and detail of your psychotic symptoms that you were experiencing, aligned with your actions that you took in the assault and that you had no logical reason to go to the Grace Centre, and had no previous relationship with Mr Reynolds. That is, your behaviour was inflamed by contemporaneous methylamphetamine use and that may give grounds to some moderation of specific deterrence, however, his view that there was no essential ground for moderating the requirements for specific deterrence.
I turn to sentence. I am of the firm opinion that any sentence that I fix, must reflect condign punishment for the brutal and unprovoked attack on Mr Reynolds, who was merely attempting to preserve the security of the Grace Centre, and doing his job very late at night. The sentence must also reflect the need for both specific and general deterrence. The opinion of Dr Jordan discloses that you have had some insight into your offending, which is directly connected to your methylamphetamine use, which in turn led to the exacerbation of your psychotic condition, and so your offending. This event occurred at 1:00am, you had recently left gaol (two days earlier), you had deliberately found, purchased and consumed methylamphetamine. You did this whilst having some insight into your offending.
There is also a need for your sentence to reflect general deterrence. The connection between your consumption of methylamphetamine and the development of your psychotic condition, is objectively apparent and so also, therefore, is the necessity to be aware of the risk of your behaviours to the general public. Members of the public must not be exposed to the threat of your behaviours dependant upon the whim of your decision to obtain and then consume methylamphetamine.
I have taken into account and consideration of your apology which you have read to the Court today. I acknowledge that you have given your apology in an open court. I also acknowledge your contrition and the fact that you take responsibility for your actions.
I have decided that the sentence I fix will reflect the concurrency of the charges you face.
In relation to the indictable charge, I would have fixed a sentence of 24 months’ imprisonment, but taking into account the utilitarian value of your plea and allowing an appropriate discount, I fix a sentence of 22 months’ imprisonment, backdated to 16 September 2025, the date you were taken into custody. In relation to the charge on Complaint 8707/2026, I fix a sentence of two months’ imprisonment to be served wholly concurrently with your sentence on the indictable charge.
I order that the balance of your sentence of 22 months be suspended from today upon you entering into a bond to be of good behaviour for a period of two years, to observe and follow all directions given to you by the Director of Correctional Services, including undertaking any urine, blood or other tests as directed by your case officer.
In that respect I order you to report within one day to a probation officer at the Hobart Community Corrections at 75 Liverpool Street, Hobart in Tasmania.