3 The circumstances of the offending sufficiently appear, for present purposes, from the sentencing remarks. As the judge explained, there were two incidents, one in the early hours of 7th March and the other in the early hours of 29th March 2001. On the first occasion the applicant broke into a store and stole about $58,000-worth of electrical goods. On the second occasion he broke into another store and stole about $4,500-worth of electrical items. The purpose of the offences was to finance his heroin addiction.
4 The applicant was not arrested until January 2004, when he was interviewed and made a "no comment" or denial record of interview. The delay between January 2004 and the date of sentence, 3rd November 2005, was caused by committal proceedings and negotiations about the quantum of the items stolen. The judge accepted that, from an early time, the applicant indicated that he would not contest the substance of the allegations. His Honour also accepted that the plea of guilty evinced remorse and shame, but it had been conceded by counsel that there was no significant evidence of rehabilitation. The gap between the head sentence and the non-parole period was therefore generous. His Honour explained the reason for the gap. It was to give the applicant an opportunity to break his addiction and to benefit from a period of supervision and in recognition of the fact that, although he had received immediate custodial sentences in the past, they had been for shorter terms.
5 Mr McLoughlin argued ground 3 first. Delay was also a matter much pressed on the plea. As I have already explained, the offences were committed in March 2001, the applicant was not charged until January 2004 and he was not sentenced until November 2005. It is enough to say that I agree with the way in which his Honour dealt with this matter.
6 Under cover of ground 2, counsel referred to the different amounts involved in the two incidents. He rightly conceded that the value of property stolen is not the only consideration, but he contended that the difference here was so great that it had to be reflected in the sentences imposed on counts 3 and 4 as compared with those imposed on counts 1 and 2. Reliance was placed on R. v. Krieg[1] and R. v. Nikodjevic[2].
7 There are a number of answers to that contention. One is that a sentence often reflects the plea. Counsel below had referred to the lesser quantum on count 4, but only in aid of a submission that there should be a measure of concurrency between the two episodes of offending.[3] Another answer is that overworked trial judges cannot be expected to fine tune every sentence. Care is one thing but pedantry is another. The latter is a waste of judicial resources. R. v. Krieg was a different kind of case, as the remarks of Cummins, A.J.A. show[4]. In R. v. Nikodjevic Ormiston, J.A. expressly said that the inconsistencies he identified did not amount to specific error[5]. In the present case, the substance of the matter is that the applicant broke into the two stores and stole what he could find.
8 There were two components of Mr McLoughlin's submissions in support of ground 1. First, he submitted that the individual sentences were out of kilter with other sentences imposed in recent years for burglary and theft. He gave a number of examples and referred to the discussion by Nettle, J.A. in Director of Public Prosecutions v. Lehmann[6]. The other component of the submission was to the effect that the judge gave insufficient weight to mitigatory factors, including the applicant's unfortunate background, the fact that he was on a methadone programme, that he had complied with bail conditions for eleven months prior to sentencing and that his early plea of guilty had particular value, given that he had made no admissions and that the DNA evidence putting him at the scene of the burglaries was the only material on which the Crown could rely. Reference was again made to the topic of delay. The judge was well aware of the applicant's efforts to rid himself of his heroin addiction and referred to the methadone programme, but the fact remained that the applicant was still addicted. All the submissions made as part of the second component of counsel's argument under ground 1 have to be evaluated against the concession made on the plea that there was no evidence of significant rehabilitation.[7]
9 In the course of the argument it emerged that his Honour had made a mistake of fact in the course of the sentencing remarks. At paragraph [16] he said: