Applicant's evidence
10At the hearing the applicant did not tender a witness statement as such, but relied on the statement of grounds attached to his application for review (exhibit R1, tab 9). That statement is a mixture of submissions and factual allegations, but in so far as it relates to matters of fact it states that the applicant alleges that there was an ongoing campaign to discredit him at his previous place of employment, Australian Native Landscapes Pty Ltd (ANL). He said that he had stopped at his place of employment briefly after purchasing a .22 rifle from the Bankstown Gun Shop on 27 November 2012 (see receipt exhibit A1) in order to collect some tools, as ANL was on the way from the gun shop to his place of residence, where he placed the rifle in proper storage.
11The applicant said that the firearm in question never left the gun pouch in which it was carried, and had the bolt removed at all material times. It did not leave his care as it was in a locked car that was never more than 10 m away from the applicant and always within view. Claims raised about improper storage on 25 June 2013 were purely conjecture. The applicant denied making a silencer for the rifle or telling anyone that he had done so. He believes that his former co-workers are not experts in these matters and would not know what a silencer was, as opposed to a flash suppressor for example.
12At the hearing the applicant adopted that statement and said that before applying for a firearms licence he had gone to Mona Vale police station and had asked the officer on duty if he had any criminal history within the last 10 years. He did not recall the exact date of his visit to the police station, or the name of the officer he spoke to. He had in fact been charged on 8 June 2001 with supplying a prohibited drug and possessing a prohibited drug (exhibit R1, tab 2). After a one-week jury trial in the District Court he had been acquitted of the supplying charge but decided to plead guilty to possessing a small quantity of amphetamine in order to spare his family the strain of a further trial. For that offence he was placed on a two-year bond on 1 May 2003.
13At the time of visiting Mona Vale police station he could not clearly recollect the dates of those events and therefore wished to clarify the matter from police records. He explained to the officer on duty that he proposed to apply for a firearms licence and needed to know if he had any convictions in the last 10 years. After checking computer records, the officer said to him, "No, you're good to go". In fact the date of conviction, 1 May 2003, was still within the 10 year period. He believed the officer must have looked at the charge date instead of the conviction date.
14 He had obtained his firearms licence in November 2012 and had purchased the rifle, a new CZ .22 bolt-action repeater on 27 November. An employee named Con had packed it for him. He had locked the bolt and ammunition in the glovebox of his utility truck and had placed the rifle in its carry bag on the passenger seat, as it would not fit behind the seat of the single-cab utility. The vehicle had tinted windows and it was not possible to see into it from the sides.
15As ANL was on his way home from the gun shop, he stopped at work in order to collect some tools that he needed in order to instal the approved gun safe that he already had at home. He showed the rifle to a couple of fellow-workers because he considered it an achievement to obtain his licence. The rifle was in its carry bag, which was unzipped, but it never left his locked vehicle and he was never more than 10 m away from it when collecting the tools. He stayed at work for no more than 10 minutes, then continued home, bolted the safe to the wall and placed the rifle in it. The police had inspected the safe and approved it.
16He had never made a silencer but did make a flash suppressor. The rifle had come from the factory with an outside thread already on the muzzle and he wanted a flash suppressor partly for cosmetic reasons. He made the attachment from a plain hollow aluminium tube with a plug in one end for the thread. He had, however, used the wrong thread and the tube could not be attached. He therefore discarded it into the metal recycling bin. He had never told his workmates that he was making a silencer.
17The applicant said he had been brought up with guns as his father was a keen shooter, and he assisted his father but did not himself shoot. He had, however, shot clay pigeons at the Duffy's Forest shotgun range, where no licence was needed.
18Before joining ANL, he had worked for a company called Letchford Engineering at Terrey Hills, but had been "poached" by ANL. The other ANL workers did not like it when he had joined the company because he was placed above others, some of whom had been there for 10 years. He had some "ups and downs" with David Ferguson, who had tried to have him dismissed. The manager, Pat Soars, had asked the applicant about David Ferguson's son, who had been making mistakes at work and had broken every machine he worked on. As a result of the applicant's report, he had been demoted and David Ferguson had "had it in for" him. He had also criticized Harley Soars, the manager's son, who was his apprentice. As a result of workplace tensions he was excluded from social functions for years, but became accustomed to it.
19In June 2012 the police came to his house without notice to perform an inspection, at a time when the applicant's fiancée was there. She did not know that the applicant owned any guns and he did not want to tell her about them at that time because her father and grandfather had been shot dead in the Bosnia-Serbia war. He therefore asked the police to return the next day. When they returned he removed the rifles from the safe, whereupon they told him they were confiscating them on public interest grounds. He was upset about the matter and telephoned the police for information but could get no reply until 12 months later.
20He had lost his job at ANL because of the bullying and arguing that was taking place, as the employer did not want such ongoing disputes. After he had left, he received some text messages of an offensive nature which did not identify the sender. As a result of information obtained on summons, the sender had been identified as Craig Buddle, a manager at ANL (exhibit A3). Subsequently the applicant had married his fiancée and had returned to work at Letchford, in stable employment similar to that of a fitter and turner.
21In cross-examination the applicant said that he did not actually remember the dates of his trial and conviction, having tried to forget the whole thing. He had asked the police for advice about the date. The date of the charge was in fact over 10 years. Asked whether he had asked the officer for the date of conviction, he replied that he told the officer why he wanted to know and that it needed to be over 10 years ago. He believed he did ask for the conviction date. He denied ever going under the alias Graham Hart as was alleged in his criminal history (exhibit R1, tab 2). That was the name of a friend he had known when he was 20 and he had never used that name.
22His attention was then drawn to a 1998 fact sheet (exhibit R1, tab 4j) concerning unlawful possession of a fake number plate. He said he did not recall the court appearance on 16 September 1998 but the charge was dismissed as no evidence was offered. Asked about the negligent driving matter in which he had driven a Ford Cortina station wagon that had been stopped by police by reason of apparent irregularities concerning its number plates, followed by flight, a police pursuit and a collision with another vehicle, he replied that he could not recall the incident or a Cortina station wagon, or whether he had displayed a disregard for public safety. He found such matters embarrassing.
23He did, however, recall the drug charges outlined in exhibit R1, tab 4n. There were supplies of amphetamines and ecstasy on the premises when the police executed a search warrant, but they belonged to Stephen Grant, who had been living there at the same time and who also owned the notebook containing lists of names. The drugs were not in his bedroom, but in a spare room and had nothing to do with him. A bag found in his room that police said was "believed to be" amphetamines actually turned out to be sugar. He had chosen to plead guilty to possession of 1 g of amphetamine that was found in the kitchen. Although it did not belong to him he could not put his family through the strain of another trial. At no time had he been selling drugs.
24He did not recall the fracas on 21 January 1998 described in exhibit R1 ,tab 4a. At that time he had owned a Toyota Celica, but it had not been registered. He was in fact assaulted by the man named Jason as stated in about 1998, indeed on several occasions, but did not recall the rest of the incident. He had pleaded guilty on that occasion and had been convicted.
25He had purchased his first rifle in November 2012. He had been using his personal company vehicle and had only been working a half-day on that date. Asked why he did not take his gun safe to the shop, he explained that it is designed for a house and could not be secured in the car. Anyone could have had access to it. It would be illogical anyway to carry the safe because it was lawful to take the rifle home in his car. When buying the CZ he had not asked for a rifle with a threaded muzzle, but had asked for the best available. The CZ was a popular model and hundreds of them were sold every month. The thread ran about 1 cm from the muzzle and there was no foresight, as the rifle was designed to be used with telescopic sights. He had also purchased in February or March 2013 a Tikka .243 rifle, which did not have a threaded muzzle. He had used both rifles to shoot on the family property, both at targets and at rabbits. He used a powerful torch attachment to hunt at night, when the rabbits came out to eat.
26A couple of weeks or a month afterwards, he had made an attachment for the CZ. He had made it at work, from aluminium, as he had permission to use ANL's equipment for private purposes. It was about 6 inches long with an internal thread about 1 cm in length, silver in colour and smooth inside. Because of the error with the thread, it did not work and he had destroyed it immediately afterwards and not made any others. It had been a mistake to make it.
27 The other workers there knew that he had made a flash suppressor, as he had told them that was what it was. It did not work as a silencer. Asked why he needed a flash suppressor, he said that when shooting at night it would reduce the risk of disturbing the game. Although there would still be the sound of the report, eliminating the flash would remove one element that might cause animals to scatter. He denied that a muzzle flash would only be visible if shots were fired in quick succession.
28He had ended his employment at ANL in August 2013 and returned to Letchford. He had been dismissed from ANL because of the tensions that had been going on for years. There had been hostility towards him from the start, especially from David Ferguson. His work at the ANL workshop at 305 Mona Vale Road consisted of repairing machinery and vehicles, working on the manager's house and on other projects. There was CCTV inside the workshop. At no other time than November 2012 had he taken the rifles to work. He had shown the CZ to workmates on the day he collected it because he regarded it as an achievement to obtain his licence and did not know the others were hostile at that time. He had opened the passenger side door to Chris Eliasson and Harley Soars, and later to David Ferguson. When they came out of the workshop he saw them at the door and called them over saying "I've got it, have a look". The carrying case was unzipped but the rifle never left the car and the bolt was removed. Relations with the other workers had seemed satisfactory at first. After he showed them the rifle, "they were still fine although there were rocky points".
29The text messages (exhibit A3) had arrived a week after he left. In his replies he had been "fishing" in order to find out who the sender was. He considered it a cowardly act and had believed the sender was Harley, but it transpired that it was Buddle, a manager with whom his relations had been mixed. The messages showed the kind of attack to which he was subjected.
30The applicant tendered two references, one from Jon Gade of JG Tiling and Building dated 25 June 2014. Mr Gade stated that he had known the applicant for well over 10 years and watched him develop into adulthood. His past been troubled, but it had remained in the past. He had been involved with the applicant on hunting trips over the years, in which the applicant mainly held the spotlight and assisted with driving, until he obtained his own firearms licence. He had always been safety conscious for himself and others in the vicinity of, and the handling of, firearms. There have been numerous conversations between them concerning his licence revocation but Mr Gade thought he presented no concerns for the safety of his public or himself. He proved that he is a changed person over the 10 years Mr Gade has known him.
31The other reference was from Christopher Gomarra, senior sales consultant with Raine and Horne, dated 26 July 2016. He is a married man with a family and holds a firearms licence. He stated that he provided the reference in full knowledge of the allegations made against the applicant in relation to retention of his licence. He had known the applicant for nine years, initially as a flatmate for 12 months and now as a close friend. When they met the applicant was older than Mr Gomarra and quickly adopted the role of guiding and mentoring him through many of his life's problems and responsibilities. He often referred to his own mistakes and lessons as guides to help Mr Gomarra to grow and learn.
32He believes the applicant is a mature man of integrity and honesty, so much so that that his honesty has at times caused friction with others. He was never one to allow unethical or immoral practices around him or
within his environment. He particularly remembered the applicant telling him to avoid his then negative group of friends, saying "Chris, your life will never change for the better unless your crowd of influence does." He finds the charges against the applicant uncharacteristic and hard to comprehend. Aaran had worked very hard for the successful life he shares with his wife and family and is never irresponsible in any of his actions. Mr Gomarra holds a registration certificate in the real estate industry and understands what is needed to be a fit and proper person. He believes the applicant is a fit and proper person to hold a firearms licence. "He acts with responsibility and future thought at all times. He is also someone I trust with my own family and children".