DPP v Lewis [2025] VCC 697

1. I did not receive what is called a victim impact statement from Ms Frieg on the plea. However I had the opportunity of reading Ms Frieg's police statement which she made after you had committed the armed robbery. In that statement, Ms Frieg described you confronting her and pulling out partially from your pocket what she believed to be a handgun. She said that the incident had scared her and made her angry and disappointed that these things happened. She said that she did not want to give you the medication, but she did so because she was fearful for her safety. She was of the belief that you could harm her.
2. So whilst I do not have any information before me by which I can assess whether there has been any ongoing impact, it is clear that your conduct was scary. It is also clear, that at least in the immediate aftermath of your offending, that Ms Frieg was frightened by your conduct and I have taken that impact into account when I am sentencing you.

1. There is no dispute that the offence of armed robbery is, by its very nature, a serious offence. This is reflected in the maximum penalty which Parliament has set. There is also no dispute that your offending on this occasion was serious offending - consisting as it did of you demanding goods, of a lone store attendant, whilst displaying part of a realistic-looking imitation firearm, and wearing a disguise which included dark sunglasses, a black surgical mask and a black beanie.
2. However, your offending did not have the hallmarks of more serious examples of armed robbery. Your offending was unsophisticated, largely spontaneous, did not involve actual force, and was committed by you on your own in broad daylight. Further, the offending in total lasted approximately 1 minute, and the item stolen was of low monetary value.
3. Taking all of those factors into account, I am of the view that your offending in this case was in the low range of objective gravity for this kind of offence.

1. Your plea of guilty in this matter was entered at a very early opportunity - being at the second committal case conference in the Magistrates' Court on 18 December 2024. Your plea has saved the cost and time of a trial being conducted and it has spared the victim of your offending from having to come to court and give evidence and relive the trauma from that day. I am of the view that your plea facilitates the course of justice and is of utilitarian benefit.
2. Additionally, I am of the view that your plea of guilty is reflective of you accepting responsibility, and having genuine remorse, for your conduct. This conclusion is fortified by your total co-operation with the police, your statements in your record of interview, the letter of apology that you have written to the victim, and the remorse you have expressed to your family members as reflected in their references, your comments to the assessing officer at Corrections who assessed you for the community correction order in this matter, and the conversations you had with psychologist Luke Armstrong when you were being assessed by him for the purposes of your plea hearing. Mr Armstrong identified that you recognise the fear and trauma you caused the victim of your offending, as well as the pain and suffering you have brought on your family. He noted that your daily experience of shame is a protective factor against future offending by you.
3. Taking each of those matters into account, I have given you a substantial discount on your sentence by reason of your plea of guilty, your remorse and your acceptance of responsibility for your offending.

1. You are now 32 years of age and you come before the court with no prior criminal history. You were born in Melbourne, as the second youngest of four sons to your parents, Tim and Alison Lewis. You have lived for most of your life with your parents in their home in North Ringwood.
2. You undertook your schooling initially at Ringwood North Primary School, where you repeated Grade 1 due to significant difficulties with mathematics and general learning. You moved to Yarra Valley Grammar for your secondary education. You managed to complete Year 10, and half of Year 11 before leaving school and commencing a computer studies course for 12 months at Box Hill Tafe. At the same time you were also working at Coles in Ringwood on a casual basis - having started there when you were 14 years and nine months old.
3. Part way through your IT course, you met your now ex-long-term partner Gabby through mutual friends. You decided to leave your course, and your parents insisted that you transition to full time employment. As a result from 18 years of age onwards you have worked at Coles as a full-time employee. For much of your time at Coles you have worked in the fresh produce section, however more recently you have started working in the cashier area.
4. In 2018, when you were 26 years of age, you and Gabby were overseas visiting her family in Indonesia when you became ill. On your return to Australia you observed blood in your stools and started to experience strong pain in your abdomen area. You were subsequently diagnosed with Crohn's disease which is an incurable chronic inflammatory bowel disease. As a result of this disease you suffered, and continue to suffer from significant pain which flares at various points in time.
5. You were prescribed opioids (Tramadol) for the pain, but they did little to relieve your symptoms. The amount of Tramadol which you were prescribed steadily increased from initially 200 milligrams to 300-400 milligrams daily in 2020-2021. You built tolerance over time and your pain started to break through the lower, authorised prescription amounts of Tramadol. By the beginning of 2024, you found yourself using in excess of 1,000 milligrams of Tramadol per day, consuming a prescription meant to last three to four weeks in five to seven days. You started to supplement your prescriptions by attending at Accident and Emergency departments of various hospitals, and/or attending several different doctors where you would concoct false explanations to secure additional prescriptions. Those explanations included that you had lost your prescription, or you were travelling for a month, or you had thrown out your medication after spring cleaning. At times, when you were refused additional prescriptions due to the dispenser identifying through SafeScript that you had visited other doctors, you would also try and access Tramadol on the black market. You explored whether interventionist surgical options, such as surgery to remove your bowel, would be available but you were advised that this would not reduce the pain you were experiencing. Accordingly, you continued to use the opioids in ever-increasing amounts leading into the period of the offending.
6. In the 24-48 hours prior to the day of your offending, your mother was away in Japan on a holiday and you ran out of Tramadol. You advise that you were suffering crippling pain from your Crohn's disease, as well as a feeling of desperation, interrupted sleep and fever/sweating as a result of your withdrawal from the opioids. You instruct that you contemplated attending at Accident & Emergency, however you knew that hospital staff were becoming increasingly reluctant to prescribe you Tramadol. Further your GP was away, and your usual black-market source of the drug also had no supply to give you. It was in this context of a desperate need for pain relief, and with no prescription available to you, that you committed the armed robbery - using an imitation firearm you had sourced a few days earlier for the purposes of an upcoming fancy dress party.
7. In the days immediately after the offence, you attended at the Maroondah Hospital and were admitted into the short stay psychiatric unit for one night. You were offered a prescription for an anti-depressant, but you declined as you were worried about the potential side effects. Your mother also cut her holiday short and returned from Japan to support you.
8. Since the offending, your relationship with Gabby has broken down. The two of you had bought a house together 12 months before the offending, had moved in, were engaged, and had planned a wedding for last year. However, Gabby left the relationship in November 2024, a few days before the wedding - as you understand it largely because of your offending. Whilst you understand that your behaviour has been the cause of the breakdown of the relationship, you have found the loss very difficult to deal with. I understand that since the breakdown of your relationship you have since returned to living with your parents and one of your brothers in the family home in Ringwood North.
9. You have also, with your parent's support, been accepted into a pain management treatment program with Dr Emily Rickman at Eastern Health Specialistic Clinic. After being on a waiting list for some time, you were commenced on a treatment program in November 2024. This program involves you being weaned off the opioids over time, and having those opioids replaced with alternative,

non-addictive pain management drugs and as I understand it, you are currently attending on a monthly basis and you have been compliant with the medication regime. 10. I received references from your mother and your brother on your plea - both of whom were also present in court. Whilst recognising the seriousness of your offending, each of them spoke about your character in glowing terms. It is apparent from those references that you are a hard worker, a loving son and brother, and a person who possesses a naturally kind and generous nature, but whose life has been significantly impacted by the debilitating symptoms of your Crohn's disease. It is clear from each of the references that not only was this offending completely out of character for you, but that you will have, despite the offending, the full support of your immediate family into the future.

1. A psychological report authored by Mr Luke Armstrong and dated 10 April 2025 was also tendered on the plea. Mr Armstrong had assessed you for the purposes of the plea. As part of that assessment, you underwent cognitive testing and an interview with Mr Armstrong. Mr Armstrong also spoke to your mother and had access to a number of school records and medical records.
2. Mr Armstrong reported that the results of your cognitive testing revealed that your cognitive ability is within the extremely low range of intellectual functioning (full scale IQ equalling 65), with your overall thinking and reasoning abilities exceeding those of only 1 per cent of individuals your age. Your verbal reasoning abilities are in the borderline range and above only 4 per cent of your peers, whereas your

non-verbal reasoning abilities and your processing speed are also in the extremely low range and above those of only 1 per cent of your peers. Your reading abilities place you at a Grade 6 primary school level and your mathematics abilities sit at primary school Grade 3 level. Your spelling, however, is a relative strength, being at a Year 11 school level. The results accord with academic records which were provided to Mr Armstrong by your family, and also with your mother's assessment of your cognitive abilities. 3. Mr Armstrong noted that you have had considerable and ongoing reliance on your parents, and until recently Gabby, throughout your adult life. Whilst you are in one sense financially independent - in that you earn your own money and pay for your various obligations by way of transferring money to others - you have never independently organised any of your own contractual obligations. It has always been your father who has organised the documentation for things like your mobile phone plan and your purchases of vehicles, whilst it was Gabby who completed the paperwork when the two of you purchased your home together, and who sorted out paying for all of the related bills and other requirements. Now that you are no longer living with Gabby, your mother has now taken on the role of organising your accounts and assisting you with other day to day matters. 4. Having regard to the results of your testing and the surrounding material,

Mr Armstrong is of the opinion that you fulfil part (a) significant sub-average general intellectual functioning, and incompletely part (b) significant deficits in adaptive behaviour, for the purposes of the definition of intellectual disability. He is of the view that you clinically present with Borderline Intellectual Functioning which means that you have some overlaps with an intellectually disabled individual. In particular, Mr Armstrong explained that the areas in which you overlap with the capacity of an intellectually disabled individual are:

(a) your capacity to abstractly problem-solve yourself out of novel situations - and that interlinks with your offending behaviour. So in Mr Armstrong's view your ability to communicate your drug addiction to others was significantly limited, and you were unable to problem solve your circumstances as an individual with higher intelligence would; and

(b) your deficits in the practical domain of adaptive functioning - which result in you requiring support in daily living tasks in comparison to your peers - specifically management of your own personal finances; responsibilities; and health care decisions.

1. So basically what all that means is that Mr Armstrong is of the view that while you are not intellectually disabled, you do have some parts of the way you do things, that are equivalent to somebody who is intellectually disabled. So your thinking is a little slower and you have trouble expressing yourself in the way that other people do, and you also need help with stuff from day to day.
2. Additionally, Mr Armstrong is of the view that you had a co-occurring Opioid Use Disorder which was entwined with your chronic health problems. Mr Armstrong noted that the hallmark features of your condition were tolerance (that is you needed increasing amounts of opioids to satisfy your experience of pain), and withdrawal (that is you were driven by the compulsion to use the drugs to avoid going into withdrawal).
3. Mr Armstrong's professional view is that you were heavily opioid addicted in the months before you offended, however in the 24-48 hours before you made your decision to offend you were most likely experiencing opioid withdrawal.

Mr Armstrong is of the view that your experience of withdrawal which included intolerance in mood, interrupted sleep, and fever/sweating and nausea, combined with your experience of chronic and severe pain, caused you to lose complete perspective and removed your capacity to exercise appropriate judgment. When this was combined with your already limited cognitive resources, and the situational pressures of your regular doctor being away and you being unable to source your medication through other sources, you did not have the cognitive resources to respond appropriately to your deteriorating situation. Mr Armstrong is of the view that had you not been in opioid withdrawal you would not have offended. 4. So basically what he is saying is that there was a whole range of things that were operating against you at the time. You could not think things through clearly, you were withdrawing from the Tramadol, which gave you all sorts of bad symptoms, you also got the pain from your Crohn's disease, and so basically you could not think through what you should be doing and so you made some bad decisions. 5. Insofar as your risk of re-offending is concerned, Mr Armstrong is of the view that you are a low risk of re-offending. He identified that you are now supervised and engaged with a Pain Management Clinic; you have, despite your intellectual limitations, recognised the link between excessive use of Tramadol and your offending; you are aware that your offending has caused the collapse of the relationship with Gabby; and you also recognise the pain and suffering you have brought on your family. Each of these factors are protective factors against you further offending in the future. 6. Finally, Mr Armstrong noted that if you were to be sentenced to a term of imprisonment, your borderline intellectual functioning, combined with the impact of enforced opioid withdrawal upon you, would make any time you spend in custody more arduous than for someone without those same cognitive limitations. 7. So as you know, I am not going to send you to gaol but what the psychologist was saying was, if I did send you to gaol, you would find gaol harder than other people. 8. Now having regard to all of those findings, Ms Marcou, on your behalf, submitted that your borderline intellectual functioning and opioid use disorder have relevance in sentencing you. In particular, she submitted that your intellectual functioning, in combination with the impact of your opioid use disorder, reduced your capacity to reason properly, and as such your moral culpability for your offending is reduced. Additionally, Ms Marcou submitted that by reason of the impact of these conditions upon you, both at the time of the offending and also now, you are a less appropriate vehicle for general and specific deterrence. 9. Ms Marcou also contended that your cognitive functioning and opioid use disorder are relevant to the kind of sentence to be imposed and the conditions attaching to any such sentence; and that if you were to be sentenced to a term of imprisonment, that any time you spend in custody would be made more burdensome by reason of your cognitive deficits. 10. Ms George, on behalf of the prosecution, agreed that the material establishes that you had a reduced capacity to reason at the time of the offending, and accordingly that there should be some moderation of the weight to be given to general deterrence and specific deterrence in sentencing you. 11. Having regard to the material before the court, I accept and I agree with the submissions made by each of the lawyers. Mr Armstrong, in his carefully considered report, explains in some detail the interplay between your cognitive issues, your opioid disorder, and the resultant offending. I accept his opinion that at the time of the offending, your capacity to exercise appropriate judgment was reduced and that you did not have the cognitive resources to respond appropriately to your deteriorating situation. In other words, I am satisfied that you had trouble reasoning through what you should do. In the circumstances, I am satisfied that your moral culpability for your offending is reduced. 12. Further I also accept that the impact upon you of your cognitive issues both at the time of the offending and now, makes you a less appropriate vehicle for deterring others in the community from engaging in this kind of behaviour. Having said that, the sentencing purpose of general deterrence - so deterring other people from doing this - is not eliminated as a result of your issues. Rather the weight that I am going to give it - which would otherwise be an extremely weighty consideration given the nature of the offending and the seriousness of your offending - falls to be sensibly moderated. Similarly, I am also of the view that specific deterrence - that is deterring you from doing this again - should be sensibly moderated as a result of your mental health and cognitive issues. 13. Insofar as your cognitive issues and opioid dependency impact on the kind of sentencing - I accept that if I was to sentence you to a term of imprisonment, which I am not going to do, any time you would serve in custody would be more onerous for you than it would be for someone who is not suffering from your same condition. Perhaps more relevantly, however, your conditions are relevant to the type of sentence to be imposed and the conditions to be imposed on such a sentence given that your long term rehabilitation is dependent on you continuing to undertake treatment for your medical issues and for your opioid dependency.

1. Ms Marcou, on your behalf, also submitted that you have suffered extra-curial punishment - that means additional punishment aside from what I am going to impose on you - through the loss of your life partner Gabby- which should be taken into account as a mitigating factor in this case. Ms George did not take issue with the proposition that there has been a level of extra-curial punishment suffered by you.
2. Where an offender suffers an injury or loss in the course of, or as a direct consequence of their offending, this is a matter that a sentencing court will generally take into account. As I have already noted, your relationship ended as a result of this offending which - as explained by your mother in her reference - not only meant that your fiancé left you and the wedding was cancelled, but you also lost shared friends and pets, you have moved out of the home that you purchased together and you have got to sort that out, and you have moved back in with your parents. You have also lost the person who assisted you on a daily basis to function as an adult. As identified by Mr Armstrong in his report, you recognise that you caused the collapse of the relationship through your offending, and you are reminded of that on a daily basis. You have found, and continue to find, the loss of the relationship to be particularly difficult. I accept that this is a relevant loss to take into account as extra-curial punishment, and accordingly I do accord this factor some weight in mitigation or reduction of sentence.

1. Turning now to your prospects of rehabilitation. You have no prior criminal history, and you have not committed any further offences in the past 12 months. You have a strong history of employment, you have a very supportive family, and you have commenced on a path of rehabilitation by engaging, under your own volition, with a pain management specialist to address your opioid dependency. You have also been assessed by Mr Armstrong as being a low risk of re-offending. In all of the circumstances I am satisfied that you do have very good prospects for rehabilitation - so long as you continue to address, and overcome, your opioid use dependency. I am also of the view that in your case, given the steps you have already taken towards rehabilitation, and the complete shame and remorse you have exhibited in respect of your offending, that very little weight needs to be placed on the sentencing purposes of specific deterrence - that is deterring you - and community protection.

Sentencing Submissions, Comparable Cases and Current Sentencing Practice

1. Insofar as sentencing disposition is concerned, Ms George, on behalf of the prosecution, submitted that the principles of general deterrence, denunciation and protection of the community all assume considerable significance when sentencing for the offence of armed robbery. However, given your lack of prior criminal history, good prospects for rehabilitation, and low risk of re-offending, a community correction order, with conviction, would be an available disposition in your case.
2. Ms Marcou similarly submitted that a community correction order would be a suitable disposition given the lower level of gravity of your offending, your unblemished character both before and after the offending, your genuine remorse and plea of guilty, and your excellent prospects of rehabilitation. However,

Ms Marcou submitted that it would be open for the court to not record a conviction in your case given your lack of prior criminal history, the lack of aggravating features of your offending, your excellent prospects of rehabilitation, and the perceived impact which a conviction could have on your continuing and future employment. 3. In support of her submission that a community correction order would be an appropriate disposition, Ms Marcou referred me to the case of DPP v Pickett [2023] VCC 1993 which was a case which was dealt with in this court, as a case which had some similarities to your case on the facts of the offending. Current sentencing practice, that is what other judges are doing with similar types of offending is, of course, one of the matters which I must have regard to when sentencing you. I have read the case of Pickett, and I have also read other cases where the offender was sentenced for either an armed robbery or multiple armed robberies, and the victims were what we call soft commercial targets, so like stores like you went in to - and a plea of guilty had been entered. The sentences imposed substantially vary in range - reflecting the very different circumstances in which armed robberies can be committed, and the very different personal circumstances relevant to each offender. 4. Each of the cases I looked at turned (as they must) on their own facts, which are different from the facts in your case, and the sentencing Judges' intuitive synthesis of those facts in light of the applicable sentencing principles. As such, the previous cases are of assistance as examples of the application of the relevant sentencing principles applicable in the area, but otherwise can be no more than yardsticks that may be able to illustrate (although not define) the possible range of sentences available. 5. So I have had regard to the previous sentences that are imposed and the issue of comparative sentencing and current sentencing practices more broadly, but I have sentenced you in this case on the basis of the application of the principles to the specific facts of you and your case.

Parsimony, Community Correction Order, and Conviction

1. Following the plea in this matter, I had you assessed for a community correction order. I subsequently received a Community Correction Order Assessment Outcome Report which was authored by Mr Ty Broderson and dated 26 May 2025, together with a Mental Health Community Corrections Screening Program Report which was authored by Ms Lauren Hall.
2. Ms Hall, in her report, identified in addition to the diagnoses provided by Mr Armstrong, that you have suffered from suicidal ideation, and one incident of actual self-harm, in the aftermath of the breakdown of your relationship with Gabby. Whilst you do have protective factors in that regard - which include your cat, Maple, who was given to you by your brothers when your relationship ended - that ideation is still of concern. Ms Hall identified that the combination of your borderline intellectual functioning and opioid use disorder puts you at an increased vulnerability of mental illness and she recommended, in the circumstances, that you receive mental health intervention to prevent deterioration in your mental health and to address the impact of the breakdown of your long-term relationship.
3. Mr Broderson, in his report, assessed you as being suitable to undertake a community correction order. He described you as being polite, engaged and responsive to all questions put to you. He noted that when you were asked about the offending you admitted culpability and you expressed appropriate shame and remorse for your behaviour, as well as sympathy and regret for the victim and the impact your offending would have had upon her. Mr Broderson recommended that if an order was put in place, that I attach three conditions to your order and those conditions involve requirements to undertake unpaid community work, to engage in mental health treatment, and to engage with medical treatment supports. So that is counselling for any mental health issues that you have, so particularly to deal with your break-up with Gabby and to work through that; keep engaging with the medical treatment that you are currently undergoing, so reducing your Tramadol and increasing the other pain management; and also medical supervision of your Crohn's disease as well; and then also doing some unpaid community work. So they are the three things that he has recommended. Mr Broderson identified that in your case, a supervision condition would not be recommended given that you have no criminal history, are working full time and have been assessed as being a low risk of re-offending.

Sentences Purposes and the Principle of Parsimony

1. In sentencing you, I have to apply the principle of parsimony. So what that principle requires is that I impose a sentence that is no more severe than is necessary to achieve the sentencing purposes. In the particular circumstances of this case, the principle of parsimony requires me to consider two things. First whether a community correction order can meet all of the sentencing purposes in this case given the seriousness of your offending, and second whether a non-conviction disposition would be available, or whether all of the sentencing purposes in this case can only be achieved through the imposition of a conviction.
2. The only purposes for which sentences can be imposed are just punishment, so that is an appropriate punishment taking everything into account; deterrence - deterring other people in the community and deterring you from committing this kind of offence in the future; rehabilitation; denunciation, saying this kind of behaviour should not happen and it is bad behaviour; and protection of the community.
3. I have considered the submissions of each party, the report from Corrections, and all of the relevant sentencing principles in this case. As I have already identified, the sentence which I impose today must be of a nature which denounces your conduct, administers just punishment and deters others from committing similar offences. Your offending was serious for all of the reasons I identified earlier. However, in your case, there are also a number of significant mitigatory factors including the context in which your offending took place; the impact of your cognitive issues upon you; your early plea of guilty; your remorse; your lack of prior criminal history; your low risk of re-offending and good prospects of rehabilitation; the consequent reduction of the need to specifically deter, or protect the community from, you; the extra-curial punishment which you have already suffered; and the increased burden which a term of imprisonment - if it was imposed - would have upon you. I have also considered the impact that recording a conviction would have upon your economic and social well-being and your future employment prospects. Ultimately, I am in agreement with both counsel that an appropriately lengthy community correction order which carries with it both punitive and rehabilitative conditions - so that is punishment in the terms of community work, and treatment, rehabilitation treatment conditions, can meet all of the relevant sentencing purposes in this case. However, in my view, given the serious nature of the offending, and despite the significant mitigatory matters, it is necessary for that community correction order to be imposed with conviction to ensure that sufficient weight is given to general deterrence and denunciation in the sentencing synthesis.
4. So basically what that means is, I am giving you a community corrections order but it is going to have a conviction because the offending was still really serious offending and that outweighs all of the other things when I have to look at why I am sentencing you, all right. Does that make sense to you?
5. OFFENDER: Yes.
6. HER HONOUR: Yes, all right.

1. So having taken all of those things into consideration, I am now going to sentence you. So I am going to get you to stand up please.
2. On the charge of armed robbery, you are convicted and you are placed on a community correction order. That order is going to commence today, it is going to start today and it is going to go for a period of two years. In addition to the mandatory conditions of the order, there are going to be some special conditions. They are:

(i) you must report to Ringwood Community Correctional Service within two clear working days of the commencement of this order. So what that means is, you need to report by 4 pm on Monday.

(ii) you have to perform 200 hours of unpaid community work within the period of the order;

(iii) you have to undergo any medical assessment and treatment that you are directed to. So that can include treatment for your Crohn's disease and treatment for your opioid dependency, so getting you off the Tramadol. So any treatment that is to do with your Crohn's disease or getting you off the Tramadol, you need to follow their directions, all right.

(iv) you also have to undergo any mental health assessment and treatment as directed. So if they say to you, you need to go to your doctor and get a mental health care plan, you will need to do that. If they say to you, you need to go and do some counselling, you will need to go and do that counselling. And they will help you with organising all of that, all right.

1. I am going to order that up to 50 hours of satisfactorily completed treatment and rehabilitation can be credited as unpaid community work. What that means is that for each hour you do of treatment or rehabilitation - so if you do one hour of counselling that is one less hour of community work that you need to do. So if you do 50 hours of treatment, then you only have to do 150 hours of community work. Does that make sense, for up to 50 hours, the most community work you have to do is 200 hours, the least you have to do is 150, and it depends how many hours of treatment you do as to what number between those two you end up doing. So for each one hour of treatment you do it is one less hour of community work. If that does not make sense, I will get Mr Koutsantoni to explain it to you again in a moment.
2. OFFENDER: Okay.
3. HER HONOUR: It is a bit complicated, but I think you will be able to explain it to him, all right.
4. So do you understand that you need to go and perhaps I will ask you this. What do you understand you need to do under the order? What do you think the conditions are under the order?
5. OFFENDER: No, I mean no, I understand all of the conditions I just - - -
6. HER HONOUR: All right. Do you understand you have got to do community work? Yes?
7. OFFENDER: Yeah, yep (indistinct) - - -
8. HER HONOUR: And do you sort of understand how many hours you need to do?
9. OFFENDER: Yeah, 200 hours - - -
10. HER HONOUR: Yes, okay.
11. OFFENDER: - - - hours and (indistinct) 50 (indistinct words) rehabilitation - - -
12. HER HONOUR: That's absolutely right. And what are your two bits of treatment you have to do?
13. OFFENDER: Mental health and medical.
14. HER HONOUR: Yes, perfect. All right, and the last thing is you have to go to Ringwood Community Correctional Service by 4 pm on Monday to check in with them, as well.
15. OFFENDER: Yep.
16. HER HONOUR: Yes, okay, all right. So I am happy that you understand what you need to do. What you need to understand is if you do not do what you are asked to do under the order, so if you say 'I'm not going to take that medication for my Crohn's disease' or 'I'm not going to go and do the counselling', or you do not do your community work, okay, then what happens is you are in what we call breach of the order.
17. Same thing if you go and commit another offence - which I am sure you will not - but if you go and commit another offence that is punishable by imprisonment during the period of the order, so that could be for example a drink driving, a shop theft, another armed robbery, anything that is punishable by imprisonment, then you have also breached your order, all right. And what can happen is that I can Corrections can bring you back to court before me and I have to deal with that, and one of the things that can happen is that I can vary the order, put more conditions on it, I can make it longer, I can also sentence you differently, so if you completely mucked it up and got yourself into lots of trouble, for example you might end up in a position where I have to re-sentence you to gaol rather than the order. Does that make sense?
18. OFFENDER: Yes, Your Honour.
19. HER HONOUR: Yes, okay. What I want you to understand though is if you miss something don't think 'oh that's it, I'm going to gaol', okay. What it just means is you need to make sure you keep going to everything else. So long as you keep trying throughout the order and you do your absolute best, then that is going to be good with me. But if you muck up really badly and then decide 'I'm not going to do this anymore', that's when you are going to have big problems. Does that make sense?
20. OFFENDER: Yes.
21. HER HONOUR: Yes, good, all right.
22. So given what I have just explained to you, do you agree to do the order?
23. OFFENDER: Absolutely.
24. HER HONOUR: All right, great, all right you can have a seat.
25. OFFENDER: Yes. I was just going to ask I don't have a brief second to make a statement before the court (indistinct)?
26. HER HONOUR: Not at the moment. What I will do is in a moment once - I've got a few more things to go through, then I'm going to get Mr Koutsantoni to come and have a chat to you and then he can talk to you about whether you should say what you want to say or not, okay. So just have a seat for the moment.

1. The next thing I need to tell you is that pursuant to s6AAA of the Sentencing Act 1991, if you had pleaded not guilty, so if you said 'I didn't do this' and you had gone to a trial with a jury to work out whether you did it or not and you had been found guilty by that jury, what I would have done is given you a term of imprisonment of one year and nine months with a non-parole period of one year and two months. So the fact that you pleaded guilty has converted your sentence from being a term of imprisonment to a community correction order, so it has had a big impact.

1. Pursuant to s151 of the Firearms Act 1996 (Vic), I am making a forfeiture order in respect of Exhibit 12 which is the black Taurus imitation firearm. So you do not get that back.
2. Pursuant to s78(1) of the Confiscation Act 1997 (Vic), I am making a disposal order in relation to the packet of Tramadol. So again, you do not get that back.

1. Counsel, can I just check, are there any matters that either of you wish to raise about the sentence or the reasons for sentence?
2. PROSECUTION COUNSEL: No, Your Honour.
3. HER HONOUR: Covered all of the ancillary orders?
4. PROSECUTION COUNSEL: Yes, Your Honour.
5. HER HONOUR: All right. So this is the order, the corrections order that I have just been through with you. I am going to get the lawyers to have a look at it first and then Mr Koutsantoni is going to come and talk you through it, and get you to sign it once he is sure you understand it, okay.
6. OFFENDER: Yes.
7. HER HONOUR: Mr Koutsantoni, if you want to just check with your client at the same time what it is that he wanted to say.
8. MR KOUTSANTONI: Yes, I was going to do that.
9. HER HONOUR: Yes.
10. MR KOUTSANTONI: Your Honour, the only thing that really through me he wishes to say that he is really remorseful - - -
11. HER HONOUR: Yes.
12. MR KOUTSANTONI: - - - and he wants to thank the court about the leniency that's bestowed on him.
13. HER HONOUR: Yes. Thank you. Thank you, Mr Lewis.
14. OFFENDER: Thank you, Your Honour.