Ground 1 of the appeal is correctly conceded; the Court must resentence
- It is necessary to deal briefly with the appropriateness of the Crown's concession on Ground 1, lest it be thought that her Honour proceeded to sentence on the basis of the agreed quantity of 3.996.595 grams, given the reference to a calculation reaching something similar to that quantity in the third paragraph of the Remarks on Sentence. There her Honour referred to the quantity of pseudoephedrine found in the packages and the false walls of the cardboard box as "nearly 3 times" the quantity that corresponds to the commercial quantity of 1.2 kg.
- However, later in her Remarks, when referring to the activities of the ABF Officers, her Honour stated "The total chemical precursor drug imported into Australia is approximately 7.8 kg". [14] This conclusion is made after stating that the estimated weight of the concealed chemical precursor drug in the false bottoms and sides of the box was believed to be 6 kg and that additionally, there were 4 packets containing approximately 450 g each of concealed precursor drugs.
- As submitted on behalf of the applicant, the erroneous figure may well have been taken from an ABF Statement of Facts tendered on a voir dire. This document was not before the Court on sentence, and erroneously referred to a total amount of 7.8 kg, contrary to the amount in the Agreed Facts. The written submissions of the Crown and the applicant on sentence made reference to the correct amount.
- As submitted by the applicant, there are other indicators that the amount of 7.8 kg was a deliberate expression of the sentencing judge's finding. When her Honour discussed a comparable case of R v Le [2018] NSWDC 86, (incorrectly transcribed as Li), [15] her Honour referred to the applicant having imported 7.8 kg which was "two and a half kilograms more than that involved in the Li matter". (The amount involved in Le was 5.379 kg).
- Her Honour also observed that the amount involved was "double that involved in any of the other comparable cases" to which she had been referred. As explained in the written submissions of counsel for the applicant, four of the five other cases provided to her Honour involved the importation of amounts that were less than half of 7.8 kg.
- This makes it clear that the sentencing judge found as a fact in sentencing the applicant, that she had imported 7.8 kg of pseudoephedrine. This is a finding which was plainly wrong and not open to her on the evidence.
- This erroneous finding, being nearly twice the amount imported, must have had an impact, not only on her Honour's assessment of the objective seriousness of the offence but also upon the manner in which she drew guidance from comparable cases.
- Ground 1 is made out. The Crown's concession was properly made. It follows that this Court must resentence the applicant. In those circumstances Grounds 2 and 3 of the appeal do not need to be dealt with.