Facts
14 On 26 December 2001 the applicant went to a home unit occupied by one David Rosser, an acquaintance of his, and a co-offender by the name of Fittler, who was a long-time friend of the applicant. The applicant asked Rosser if he could leave his bags there. This was agreed to and he then left the premises, intending to return about 8pm. He did so, and shortly thereafter Fittler arrived. The version of events advanced by Rosser and Fittler was that all three were drinking, and the applicant appeared hyperactive - perhaps under the influence of a drug. During the course of the evening, the applicant took a sawn off .22 rifle out of one of his bags and a number of rounds of ammunition from another. Thereafter it is said that without warning he discharged first one bullet into the roof of the home unit and then, a short time later, a second bullet.
15 Between 12.30am and 1am on the morning of 27 December 2001, the applicant and his friend Fittler visited premises at Forster that were occupied by a Mr Hammer. One of the men spoke to Hammer and produced a gun which he pointed at Hammer's face at a range of approximately 15cm (6 inches), asking "what drugs have you got?" Hammer took hold of the gun and pushed it downwards. The gun was discharged, the bullet lodging in a chair on the front veranda. After the gun had been discharged, the assailant turned and ran across the front lawn to the street. As Hammer was in the process of closing the window of the premises, he became aware of the presence of a second man. He emerged from the bushes in the front yard of the house and he too ran away, accompanying the man who was carrying the gun. Both men were seen heading in the general direction of McDonalds at Forster.
16 Subsequently, Hammer was shown a computer photo-board selection and identified Fittler as his assailant - ie, the man who had presented the gun at him and had discharged it.
17 Shortly after 1am on 27 December 2001, a young male employee at the McDonalds store in Forster was loading some boxes into his car in the delivery section of the store. As he was doing so he saw a male some five to eight meters away from him, moving in his direction. The man was carrying a gun. He pointed it at the employee, telling him to get down. The employee crouched down beside his car and the man, pointing the gun at the young employee's head, pushed him to the ground. The armed man then attempted to close the rear door of the car, but was unable to do so because of the boxes that were in it. In order to overcome this problem, he threw the boxes out of the car, closed the rear door, got into the drivers' seat and reversed the car into the drive-thru lane of the store. The armed assailant called out to the young employee: "Stay down, don't fucking move, or someone will shoot you." Needless to say, the young employee did as he was told. Later, he gave a description of his assailant to the police.
18 At about 1.10am, a 16 year old male employee of McDonalds, who was waiting at the front of the store to get a lift home from the employee referred to in paragraph 17 above, saw two men walk towards the McDonalds store. He gave a description of both. One of the men was carrying a gun. The adolescent employee was witness to the events involving the firstmentioned employee. The young employee, who was clearly terrified, went to ground and was not seen by the man with the gun. However he heard a man call out: "Don't get up or I'll shoot you!" and later: "Fuck'n move, you're dead, cunt."
19 On 28 December 2001, the young man saw one of the men he had seen on the night of the robbery. He identified the man as Fittler, and subsequently again identified him from computer photo-boards shown to him by police.
20 The manager of McDonalds, a female, saw the two men at a time when one of them was in the driving seat of the firstmentioned employee's car. He was seen to urge his co-offender to get into the car. When he had done so the car was driven out of the premises and off down the road. The manager then discovered what had happened and called the police. She gave a good description of the man who had been driving the car and when, on 8 January 2002, she was shown a computer photo-board selection, she identified the driver of the car as the applicant.
21 On 27 December 2001 a number of items of property that had been in the firstmentioned employee's car were pawned at Taree in the name of the applicant.
22 On 4 January 2002, the applicant was arrested and participated in a number of recorded interviews. Initially he maintained that he had participated in the attempted robbery of Hammer not knowing, until it was produced, that Fittler had a gun. However in a second interview he admitted to handling the gun, but denied that he had discharged it at Hammer's house. In yet another interview, he gave yet another version of what had occurred at Hammer's house, but he did acknowledge his involvement in the events at McDonalds, stating in the course of doing so that Fittler had also been involved.
23 The various offences on the Form 1 document are detailed in the Judge's Remarks on Sentence. Those involving assaults occasioning actual bodily harm were quite serious. One involved a male; the others involved a female. The driving offences were extremely serious. Speeds of up to 120 km/h in an 80 km zone, and speeds of up to 160 km/h on the Pacific Highway were recorded. There was a good deal of traffic on the roads at the material times, and overtaking at high speed in restricted speed zones were features of the offences. In the end, however, the applicant was delayed by heavy traffic. He sought to avoid this by mounting the footpath and driving along it. However his progress was arrested by a telegraph pole, whereupon a number of police vehicles surrounded him, and he too was arrested and conveyed to the Forster Police Station.
24 The saga did not end on his arrival at the Police Station. There the applicant assaulted the Custody Manager, a Police Sergeant, then struggled violently, broke free, jumped the enquiry counter, and ran out of the Police Station. He was pursued by police through a carpark, over two fences, through a block of units and into a unit that was occupied by Fittler. A number of police came to the unit and the applicant was again arrested.
25 As can be seen from the foregoing, the offences included on the Form 1 document were serious in themselves and involved a significant threat to the lives and safety of innocent road users and pedestrians. When considered against the background of a record of serious traffic offences from February 1998, it is clear that a substantial period of disqualification from holding a driver's licence would be appropriate, in addition to the imposition of the custodial sentences referred to above.