Relevant Legislation re Form 1
33 Outstanding charges may be taken into account
(1) When dealing with the offender for the principal offence, the court is to ask the offender whether the offender wants the court to take any further offences into account in dealing with the offender for the principal offence.
(2) The court may take a further offence into account in dealing with the offender for the principal offence--
(a) if the offender--
(i) admits guilt to the further offence, and
(ii) indicates that the offender wants the court to take the further offence into account in dealing with the offender for the principal offence, and
(b) if, in all of the circumstances, the court considers it appropriate to do so.
(3) If the court takes a further offence into account, the penalty imposed on the offender for the principal offence must not exceed the maximum penalty that the court could have imposed for the principal offence had the further offence not been taken into account.
(4) A court may not take a further offence into account--
(a) if the offence is of a kind for which the court has no jurisdiction to impose a penalty, or
(b) if the offence is an indictable offence that is punishable with imprisonment for life.
(5) For the purposes of subsection (4) (a), a court is taken to have jurisdiction to impose a penalty for an offence even if that jurisdiction may only be exercised with the consent of the offender.
(6) Despite subsection (4) (a), the Supreme Court, the Court of Criminal Appeal and the District Court may take a summary offence into account. (Emphasis added.).
- I complied with the formal parts of section 33(2)(a) Crimes (Sentencing Procedure) Act 1999 (NSW) by asking the offender whether he wanted me to take into account the 4 offences listed on the Form 1 that he had signed when dealing the sequence 1, Possess Prohibited Pistol: see Dale v R [2021] NSWCCA 320 at [38] - [40]. The offender confirmed that he wanted that to occur, and I then read out each of the relevant court attendance notices to the offender, and to each count he acknowledged his guilt.
- I then indicated that I had to make a determination in accordance with section 33(2)(b) of the Act as to whether I considered it appropriate to deal with the Form 1 as requested by the offender.
- I provided the prosecutor and Mr Vijay with various case law citations, and read relevant parts of those decisions to the parties.
- I told them that if I formed the view that the appropriate sentence for sequence 1, Possess Unauthorised Firearm reached or exceeded the jurisdictional limit, then I was unlikely to find it appropriate to deal with the Form 1 as proposed, referring to the case law. One reason is that in such circumstances the Form 1 was incapable of increasing the sentence for the substantive offence. There are further reasons. I will expand upon that case law and my findings in due course.
- Sergeant Lolis referred me to decisions of Cummins v R [2019] NSWCCA 163 at [44] and RL v R [2018] NSWCCA 274. No particular paragraph in the latter case was referred to, however it appears that paragraphs [33] to [40] deal with the Form 1 considerations. Reference was made to the principles relating to Form 1 offences stated in Attorney General's Application under s.37 of the Crimes (Sentencing Procedure) Act 1999, No.1 of 2002 (2002) 56 NSWLR 146; [2002] NSWCCA 518 at [18], [34] and [39].
- The decision of Cummins at [44] confirms that an offence on a Form 1 is not relevant to the assessment of the seriousness of a principal offence. Such principle is not disputed. The decision of RL v R adds nothing beyond the case law that I first informed the parties of.
- Mr Vijay suggested that the sentence likely to be imposed for sequence 1 might not exceed the jurisdictional limit.
- I expressed a view that perhaps the fairest way to determine that issue or suggestion, as a preliminary point to determining the appropriateness of the Form 1, was to hear Mr Vijay's submissions on behalf of the offender. Both Mr Vijay and Sergeant Lolis agreed with that suggestion.
- If I found that the appropriate range of sentence for sequence 1 was less than the jurisdictional limit, there may be some work for the Form 1 to do. If the range of appropriate sentence, without determining a precise sentence, was at or above the jurisdictional limit, then the Form 1 matters could have no impact on that sentence and would appear to be inappropriate to be taken into account in dealing with the substantive offence.