[1] DYV, you are being sentenced today for the murder of Mrs Vyleen White on 3 February 2024. You are also being sentenced for three offences of stealing committed on that day, and another offence of unlawfully using, that is stealing, Mrs White's car.
[2] You have pleaded guilty to those offences before another judge on 22 July 2025. Pleading guilty shows that you have taken responsibility for what you did, and it has saved the family of Mrs White the trauma of a trial. This matter was committed for trial, but you indicated that you would plead guilty once the DNA results came back, proving that you had been in Mrs White's car. The case against you was a strong circumstantial case. Nevertheless, I accept that your plea is a timely one, which has had real utility in assisting the course of justice. I also accept that you feel ashamed of what you have done.
[3] The Crown submits I should question whether you are remorseful. Remorse is a feeling of deep regret and guilt. I accept, from reading the pre-sentence reports, that you do feel those things now. You have accepted responsibility by pleading guilty. The pre-sentence report reveals a process through which you developed more insight in relation to the impact of your offending. You initially were considered to minimise and externalise responsibility.
[4] The terrible events leading to the murder of Mrs White started on the afternoon of Saturday, 3 February 2024. Around 2 or 3 in the afternoon, you and a group of your friends were hanging around outside the Woolworths at a Redbank Plains shopping centre. You were drinking vodka. About an hour later, you went to a nearby 7-Eleven store and stole some things. That is the first offence of stealing (which is count 1).
[5] At about 4.30 that afternoon, you went into a McDonald's. You covered your face with a surgical mask. You had an injury to your leg which was actively bleeding. That meant that your DNA could be found, inside Mrs White's car, when it was later analysed. You stole a customer's order, which is the second stealing offence, count 2.
[6] Then, just before 5 pm, you went into the Liquorland store with one of your friends and stole some bottles of vodka, which is the third stealing offence, count 3. Again, you covered your face with a mask.
[7] You left the shopping centre, and you and your friends then went to an abandoned house across the road where you continued drinking.
[8] Just before 6 pm, you left the group, alone. You had a knife. You wore a black hooded jumper with the hood up over your head and, again, a surgical mask covering your face. You walked back to the shopping centre and went down into the lower level carpark through a hole in the fence.
[9] At about that time, Mrs White arrived at the shopping centre with her six year old granddaughter, who I will call V. Mrs White parked her car in that lower level carpark next to another car and then walked the short distance towards the travelator, or escalator, which would have taken her to the shops. Six year old V was only just ahead of her.
[10] Mrs White and V were almost to the escalator entrance, separated by only a short distance, when you quickly moved towards Mrs White from the side, brandishing the knife. You were almost running. You demanded her car keys. Mrs White took a few steps back with her hands raised. You went towards her, and stabbed her, once, to the left side of her chest. She collapsed to the ground.
[11] This happened right in front of the little girl, V, whose complete and utter shock could be seen in the CCTV footage.
[12] You knew you had seriously harmed Mrs White; that is apparent from the phone call you made later that night. But you did not stop to check. You took Mrs White's keys and, after trying first a different car, you got into her car and drove away.
[13] It seems that had been your primary intention - to steal a car so that you and your friends could carry out robberies.
[14] Mrs White's granddaughter was very scared but also remarkably brave. She ran first to her grandmother lying on the ground and then ran up the escalator and cried out for help. Members of the public, including a doctor, tried to assist, including by trying to resuscitate Mrs White. The police and ambulance officers arrived soon after and also tried desperately to save Mrs White, but they could not. She died there at the scene.
[15] Your knife had pierced Mrs White's heart. It was a deep wound of 17 centimetres. The injury was not survivable.
[16] You have pleaded guilty and are convicted of murder on the basis that you deliberately stabbed Mrs White, and when you did so you intended to inflict at least grievous bodily harm, that is, harm which would be life-threatening without treatment.
[17] Your actions on that evening taking the life of another human being - have caused immense, indeed catastrophic, pain and suffering to her family. Mrs White was a woman of 70 who had been married to her husband for almost 50 years. She was not just his partner, she was his support person and guide due to his poor eyesight. He is devastated by her death and angry about the circumstances in which his wife has been taken from him. Mrs White's daughters have also told the court about their complete devastation. She was, by all accounts, a kind, caring, loving and devoted mother and grandmother upon whom they all depended for emotional support. The trauma that Mrs White's granddaughter, V, who witnessed her murder, must have, and continue to experience hardly bears thinking about. She has told the court poignantly about how much she misses her nanny and how scared she still feels. She rightly acknowledges how brave she was.
[18] Two other granddaughters have also spoken of the kindness and thoughtfulness of Mrs White, who would always show up and make it known that she cared for her family. She was a person who mattered greatly, to her family and to the community. All people matter. Their lives are valuable and precious and are not something to be wasted by senseless and selfish acts of violence. Your actions in that moment on the evening of 3 February 2024 have destroyed not just one life, but many people's lives.
[19] The extent of the harm caused by your offending is an important factor for me to take into account,[1] but it is important to emphasise that sentencing is not an emotional exercise. It involves the dispassionate application of legal rules and principles. Sentences are supposed to reflect the community's values, which is one reason why denunciation is a factor in sentencing.[2] Being sensitive to the community's attitude about a particular kind of offence is part of the exercise of the sentencing discretion. It is part of imposing a penalty that is just in all the circumstances.[3] It has been said that "for the sake of criminal justice generally, judges attempt to impose sentences that accord with legitimate community expectations".[4] But a judge can only do so according to the legal rules and principles that apply.[5] That is an element of the rule of law which defines our society.
[20] The rules and principles that apply when sentencing a person who is regarded as a child are different from those which apply when sentencing an adult. A person under the age of 18 is regarded as a child.
[21] You were just over 16 years of age when you murdered Mrs White. You are 17 now but you will turn 18 in about two weeks' time.
[22] The rules for sentencing a child are set out in the Youth Justice Act 1992. Subject to that Act, the rules include the general principles which apply to the sentencing of all persons.[6] Indeed, it has been said that when a juvenile kills another human being, the conduct is so grave that the ordinary principles of sentencing largely outweigh the Youth Justice principles, which are more appropriate to less serious crimes.[7]
[23] One of the special considerations that applies is that a child's age is a mitigating factor in determining the nature of the penalty imposed.[8]
[24] The substantive law changes that were made to the Youth Justice Act, in December 2024[9] - known as the "Adult Crime, Adult Time" laws, do not apply in your case.[10] However, a change that was made to the procedural rules in August 2024 does apply.[11]
[25] That was a change which removed the requirement that a detention order be imposed only as a last resort and for the shortest appropriate period and replaced it with a requirement that a detention order should be imposed having regard to principle 18 of the Youth Justice principles,[12] which was also amended to provide that a child should be detained in custody where necessary, including to ensure community safety and for no longer than necessary to meet the purpose of detention. I have applied that rule and principle in this case.
[26] The effect of that change has been described in a recent Court of Appeal decision,[13] as having elevated the significance of community protection as a sentencing factor in relation to the sentencing of children. That is not to say that community protection was not already an important consideration; it has always been.[14] But it is fair to say that the prevalence of criminal offending involving knives, particularly by young offenders, who are impulsive and so all the more dangerous, which jeopardises the lives and safety of innocent members of the community has increased and is a serious social problem in our community. In that context, community protection, denunciation and deterrence are all important factors which support imposing stringent penalties in cases such as these.
[27] Courts have for a long time recognised the importance of deterrence, both personal and general, in the sentencing of young men for serious acts of public violence upon innocent members of the community.[15] To borrow from the words of another judge, "while a sentencing court must bear in mind the youthfulness of an offender as an important consideration in mitigation of sentence, the strong need for deterrence in cases of this kind is not lessened by the circumstance that the offender is young."[16] Deterrence in this context refers to the need to send a message to young people who are inclined to go out into our community armed with a knife, and use it to stab others, that they will face substantial punishment in the courts.[17]
[28] Each of those factors are important in this case, but I do not overlook that because of your age at the time, rehabilitation also remains a relevant factor.
[29] The only appropriate order to impose is a sentence of detention. There is no argument about that. For completeness I record that although the Act says the court must consider referring the offence for a restorative justice process,[18] no party submits that would be appropriate in this case. Quite frankly, it would be an affront to Mrs White's family.
[30] The purposes of detention in your case are a combination of punishment, deterrence, community protection, denunciation and rehabilitation.
[31] In determining what period of detention to impose, I must have regard to, relevantly:
[3]
(a) the nature and seriousness of the offence;
(b) your previous criminal history;
(c) any aggravating or mitigating factor;
(d) whether you committed the offence whilst on bail - which you did;
(e) information about you set out in the pre-sentence report;
(f) the impact of the offence, and the harm caused to the family members of Mrs White; and
(g) the need for proportionality between the sentence and the offence.
[4]
[32] The offence of murder is the most serious offence under our criminal law. You committed the offence by doing a deliberate act, with the intention to at least cause Mrs White grievous bodily harm. She was an innocent, older woman, going about her own business at the shops with her young granddaughter in the early evening. She ought to have been able to feel, and be, safe. You attacked her with a knife that you carried with you when you returned to the shopping centre, by yourself, with the intention of stealing a car from whoever might cross your path, to be used in later robberies. The description of Mrs White stepping back, with her hands raised, reveals a defenceless woman, who posed no threat whatsoever to you, a towering young man, more than two metres tall, acting with determination. Your actions were callous and cowardly. They are made even worse by the fact that you attacked a defenceless woman right in front of her six year old granddaughter. Whilst I accept that your actions, of stabbing Mrs White, were not premeditated, I do not accept that this was a "moment of madness". You had adopted a form of disguise of your face, armed yourself with a knife and planned to steal a car to commit other offences, I infer, by whatever means necessary, including serious violence.
[33] You did not have a substantial criminal history before this, but you had already committed serious offences.
[34] In March this year, you were convicted of offences of unlawful use of a car as well as three charges of armed robbery, in company, with violence, all committed in June 2023. Those armed robberies involved you and others targeting people offering mobile phones for sale. When you met with the people to affect the proposed sale, your co-offender would produce a knife and take the phone without paying for it. You aided them either by standing by, taking the phone or calling out encouragement. On one occasion, the young female complainant was injured by the knife. You were 15 then.
[35] You were in fact on bail for those offences, at the time of the murder. This is an aggravating factor.[19]
[36] By the time you were sentenced for those earlier offences, you had already been held on remand for murder for over a year. That time on remand was taken into account by the sentencing judge, in deciding to only impose a good behaviour bond on you. I accept you may not have been sentenced to detention for those offences alone; but the reality is that you were given the benefit, to some extent, of the time you have been held in detention at the time you were sentenced.
[37] To assist in deciding what penalty to impose, I have been provided with a pre-sentence report prepared by a caseworker from the Department of Youth Justice as well as a report from a psychologist.
[38] Those reports tell me that you come from a loving and supportive family; they continue to support you despite what you have done. You are the oldest of seven siblings to your parents, who came to Australia from South Sudan in 2007, just before you were born. Your childhood and early adolescence was positive and happy. In 2022, when you were 14, your parents moved the family from Canberra to Ipswich, essentially for a better life. You struggled to adjust to this new environment. You felt socially excluded and isolated. You gradually became disconnected and withdrew from your family and did not open up to them about how you were feeling. Your need to feel as though you belonged saw you connect with a person who was affiliated with a criminal gang in the Ipswich area. You were introduced to people who were using drugs and alcohol, involved in criminal activity and who carried knives as weapons as a misguided form of protection. You started to smoke marijuana, consume alcohol and misuse a particular anxiety medication. You gradually normalised antisocial and pro-violent attitudes. You began committing offences to fit in with this group. It made you feel valued and accepted by them, but you also reported that offending gave you a thrill.
[39] The psychologist says that, in essence, your offending arose from an adolescent onset pattern, where environmental upheaval and peer influences propelled minor crimes toward extreme violence, fostering attitudes that normalised aggression.
[40] Although you have a limited criminal history in terms of convictions, you told the psychologist that you had committed many other offences, including fraud, property theft, driving under the influence, threatening people with a weapon, robbery, physical assault and break-and-enters.
[41] You also told the psychologist that you were intoxicated on the day you murdered Mrs White. That is no excuse, legally or morally, for what you did.
[42] You reported to the case worker and the psychologist that you have no memory of stabbing Mrs White; that you essentially "blacked out". The Crown invites the court to reject that. Having watched the CCTV footage, I can see no basis to accept that you "blacked out". Your conduct was determined and deliberate and conscious. The psychologist's explanation, that what you now describe might be as a result of profound shame and the psychological trauma of confronting and processing the fact that you murdered another human being, is however plausible.
[43] You have been in custody on remand since 3 February 2024, which is a period of 647 days; one year and just over nine months. That will be counted as part of the period of detention I impose on you today.[20] While you have been in custody, you have completed year 12 and undertaken a number of other courses. You did initially refuse to undertake some other programs.
[44] Your conduct in custody has been mixed. There have been incidents of physical aggression by you towards your peers in custody, described by the psychologist as being consistent with challenges in frustration tolerance and impulsivity. The prosecutor has informed the court that you have been charged in relation to one of the assaults while in detention.
[45] The psychologist makes the provisional diagnosis of conduct disorder, adolescent-onset type, various substance-use disorders and adjustment disorder with depressed mood developed since you have been in custody. The psychologist describes you as having low to moderate levels of psychopathic traits consistent with adolescent-onset conduct issues, driven by peer influence, substance use and situational factors, rather than an entrenched psychopathic personality. Your overall estimated risk of reoffending with interpersonal violence is said to be moderate. Although the risk that you will inflict lethal violence is said to be low to moderate, the harm that would be caused if that risk eventuates is serious injury or death. These features mean that community protection remains an important factor in deciding what penalty to impose.
[46] The material in the pre-sentence report is mixed. You are not a young person who has had a prejudicial, deprived upbringing, as so many of the young people who commit crimes have had. You were loved and cared for by your parents. Many young people, particularly around the ages of 14 to 15, experience a challenging time, feeling isolated, lonely, disconnected, or even bullied. They do not respond by becoming serious violent criminals. If they did, given the extent of challenges faced by teenagers at that age, our society would crumble. Your malleability made you weak and susceptible to the terrible influence of others, but you also chose to act as you did and you acted alone on the evening that you murdered Mrs White.
[47] On the other hand, the psychologist also says that malleability means you ought to be able to respond well to rehabilitation, which is an important part of this sentencing process as well.
[48] The maximum penalty for the offence of murder, if committed by an adult, is life imprisonment. That penalty is mandatory, meaning the court must impose a sentence of life imprisonment on an adult convicted of murder.
[49] In the case of a child, the maximum penalty is either 10 years or a period up to and including the maximum of life, if the offence involves the commission of violence against a person and the court considers the offence to be a particularly heinous offence having regard to all the circumstances.[21]
[50] There is no dispute that the offence of murder that you committed is properly to be regarded as a particularly heinous offence. I am satisfied of that, having regard to all the circumstances of this case.[22]
[51] The objective circumstances of this offence are horrendous. An innocent woman taking her young granddaughter to the shops at 6 pm on a Saturday evening was senselessly and violently stabbed in a public carpark with such force as to cause a 17 centimetre wound and pierce her heart. The violent attack on her, and her death, was directly witnessed by her young granddaughter. The harm caused to her and many other members of Mrs White's family has been immense and profound. This was an intentional killing; the relevant intent being to cause grievous bodily harm.
[52] The subjective circumstances are that you were young, but 16 years of age. You had a good upbringing, from parents who love you. You are said to have become disconnected from your family after they moved from Canberra to Ipswich, and your loneliness and isolation led you to make connections with people who were a bad influence. You became desensitised to crime and violence. You had already committed or been involved in other violent crimes, and you were on bail at the time that you murdered Mrs White.
[53] All of those factors taken together make this a particularly heinous offence.
[54] The maximum penalty is, therefore, life imprisonment, but the court has a discretion as to the penalty to impose.
[55] Another of the general sentencing principles that applies is consistency.[23] This is why reference is made in sentencing decisions to what has been done in other cases. But no two cases are the same, and it is important to have regard to the distinguishing features.
[56] I have been referred to a number of previous decisions. By reference to those decisions, and all the circumstances of this case, the Crown has submitted that a penalty of 17 to 18 years' detention ought to be imposed for the offence of murder. Your barrister has submitted a penalty of 12 to 13 years' detention would be appropriate. There is no dispute about the lesser concurrent[24] terms to be imposed on the other offences.
[57] In R v Carroll[1995] QCA 399, a 17 year old convicted after a trial of murder was sentenced to 14 years' imprisonment. That was the maximum penalty at that time, even for a particularly heinous offence. The murder was gruesome, a cold and brutal attack involving the offender savagely beating the deceased man to death before stealing money from him. He had some prior convictions, which were regarded as of only marginal relevance.
[58] In R v Gwilliams[1997] QCA 389, a 16 year old was convicted, after a trial, of the murder of an elderly man, in the driveway outside his house, by stabbing him in his chest. The offender was sentenced to 14 years, which was, again, the maximum penalty at that time. She had come from a deprived and disadvantaged background, marked by domestic violence and parental alcoholism, and she had some prior convictions.
[59] Both of these cases are of limited assistance, being decided 30 years ago, in the context of a different legal regime, including as to the maximum penalty. If anything, in my view, they support the conclusion that the penalty to be imposed for your offending should be higher, having regard to the maximum of life imprisonment that applies in your case and the development of the legal principles, including as to deterrence and community protection, which I have referred to.
[60] The next two cases were decided after the law changed and the maximum was life imprisonment. That was the penalty imposed in R v D[1999] QCA 231 on a boy aged 16 and a-half who murdered a 22 year old tourist in Cairns; again, in a vicious and brutal attack, which caused severe damage to her skull. His conduct after the killing, disposing of her body, was described as macabre. He showed no remorse, and was assessed by a psychiatrist to be "highly dangerous". His offending was described as within the worst category of murders.
[61] Life imprisonment was also imposed in R v Rowlingson[2008] QCA 395, for the murder by an almost-17 year old of his 19 year old brother, by shooting him twice to the back of his head. The murder was described as "cold-blooded in the extreme", involving significant pre-planning, and the offender was found to have no remorse at all. He was considered to pose a real and continuing danger to the community.
[62] Appropriately, in my view, the Crown prosecutor does not submit that the murder in this case warrants the maximum penalty of life imprisonment. Both D and Rowlingson are distinguishable for the circumstances in which the killing occurred, and the assessment of ongoing high risk posed by the offenders.
[63] The circumstances of your offending, and your prospects of rehabilitation both support the imposition of a lower penalty.
[64] Moving forward to 2011, the next case is R v SBU[2011] QCA 203. This case involved a 14 year old offender who, with another man, senselessly and violently murdered a 52 year old man in a park by assaulting him, causing his skull to shatter and his brain to rupture. Following an appeal, his sentence was reduced from life to 12 years' detention. He was younger than you, and had greater mitigating factors, including because he was assessed as having extremely low intelligence and a deprived childhood. I do not regard this decision as supporting the imposition of a penalty as low as 12 years in your case.
[65] More recent cases include R v HCZ[2025] QCA 147, which concerns the sentence of the young man, aged 17, who murdered a woman at her home on Boxing Day, after breaking into the home with another person while armed with a knife. As he went to leave, he became involved in a physical struggle with the woman's husband and the woman, ultimately striking the woman in the chest with the knife and killing her. He pleaded guilty to what is known as "felony murder" - which does not involve intention as an element, but rather involves an unlawful killing caused by an act done in the prosecution of an unlawful purpose - relevantly, burglary. He was sentenced to 14 years' detention. He was described as having had a deprived upbringing, and had an extensive criminal history of 84 offences (but none of which involved violence). He had been given probation orders before. On appeal, the sentence of 14 years was found not to be manifestly excessive; but the Court of Appeal did conclude by majority that the period to serve should have been reduced to 60 per cent, to take into account the early guilty plea, the offender's deprived upbring and the positive signs of his ability to rehabilitate.
[66] There are distinguishing features between HCZ and your case which pull in different directions. On the one hand, felony murder is regarded as objectively less serious, than an intentional murder. I appreciate that for members of the community it may be difficult to understand how any murder could be distinguished in this way, but that is a feature making your case more serious. Another factor which I accept makes your case more serious is that the murder in HCZ happened after the offender had tried to leave the house. Your conduct was deliberate and determined. You went straight up to Mrs White in a public carpark, brandishing a knife, and did not wait a second to see if she was going to give you her keys, or if you could have taken them in some other way. You stabbed her with such force as to cause a 17 centimetre wound.
[67] The offender in HCZ was slightly older and had a longer criminal history, although no entries for armed robbery. But he was not on bail. His background circumstances were worse than yours. Another distinguishing feature is that, at the time of his sentence, the change had not been made to Youth Justice principle 18, which elevated the significance of community protection.
[68] On balance, in my view the distinguishing features support a higher penalty in your case.
[69] The final case to refer to is R v LZY[2024] QSC 237, which is a single judge decision. LZY was 17 when he, with his 20 year old co-offender, murdered an Uber driver. A plan was formed to steal the Uber driver's car. The offenders armed themselves with a knife and a meat cleaver. LZY disguised himself with a balaclava. The driver was threatened with the weapons and told to get into the luggage area of the car. The offenders then drove to a boat ramp in an isolated area. The driver was vulnerable, terrified and posed no threat to the offenders. When they stopped the offenders smashed the driver's phones, so that he could not call the police. When the back door of the car was opened, LZY stabbed the driver. The driver managed to get out of the car, and ran, but fell to the ground. LZY walked up to him, and stabbed him again, causing his death. On the autopsy, seven knife wounds were found.
[70] LZY pleaded guilty and was convicted of murder on the same basis as you, that he intended to cause at least grievous bodily harm. The offending had a devastating effect on his family and friends. LZY's background was worse, involving traumatic exposure to violence and drug use by his parents. His cognitive abilities were found to be within the borderline range, which affected the ability to make an assessment of remorse and insight; although the sentencing judge accepted that he did have those things, to the extent he was capable. He had no criminal history. He had taken steps towards rehabilitation whilst in custody. The change to youth justice principle 18 did not apply at that time. He was sentenced to 15 years' detention, with release after 60 per cent.[25]
[71] The circumstances of the killing in LZY were objectively worse. He was a bit older than you, but had no criminal history and had more mitigatory factors in terms of his background. He was not on bail, did not commit the murder in front of a six year old girl, and the sentence was passed before the August 2024 change to the legislation.
[72] On balance, in my view, a higher penalty is called for. There is no one right answer to the sentence to be imposed. It involves the exercise of a discretion, in accordance with legal rules and principles. In your case, the purposes of punishment, ensuring community protection, deterrence and denunciation are particularly important, as well as rehabilitation. The Crown's submitted penalty is, in my view, too high, and not supported by the cases to which I have referred, but the submission of your barrister is too low.
[73] The penalty which I find is just in all the circumstances is detention for 16 years.
[74] The default position under the Youth Justice Act[26] is that a child sentenced to detention must be released after serving 70 per cent of the period of detention; however, section 227(2) confers a discretion on the court to order that a child be released after serving between 50 per cent and 70 per cent of the period of detention, if the court considers there are special circumstances.[27]
[75] I have taken your pleas of guilty into account in arriving at the sentence of detention to impose on you. The more recent comparable cases I have referred to all involved pleas of guilty. I have decided to impose a higher penalty as a head sentence of 16 years, but to balance that with an order that you be released from detention after serving 60 per cent. Your youth, pleas of guilty, and prospects of rehabilitation support that order, leaving a substantial period of supervision in the community after release, which will be important.
[76] In combination, the order I propose to make for detention for 16 years with release after serving 60 per cent, meets the requirement in Youth Justice principle 18, of detention for no longer than necessary to meet the purposes of detention - punishment, community protection, deterrence, denunciation and rehabilitation.
[77] I must also consider whether to record a conviction. The court has a discretion in this regard.[28] Having regard to all the circumstances of this case, in particular the nature of the murder offence, it is appropriate that the conviction of count 4, murder, be recorded. The convictions of the other offences will not be recorded.
[78] Lastly, I address the question whether to order that identifying information about you may be published. The court has a discretion in relation to that, which depends on a number of things, including the need to protect the community and the impact on your rehabilitation.[29] The Crown makes no submission in relation to such an order. I do not consider it is necessary to make an order which permits identifying information about you to be published. I have factored community protection into account in the substantial period of detention which I will impose. To allow identifying information to be published will negatively impact your rehabilitation. This means that no identifying information can be published about you.
[5]
[79] DYV, I will ask you stand now, please. For those reasons, DYV, I sentence you as follows:
On count 4, the murder of Mrs White, you are sentenced to detention for 16 years.
On each of counts 1, 2 and 3, the stealing offences, you are sentenced to detention for one month.
On count 5, the unlawful use of the motor vehicle, you are sentenced to detention for 12 months.
Under section 183(3) of the Youth Justice Act, I order that the conviction of count 4, murder, be recorded, but the convictions of counts 1, 2, 3 and 5 not be recorded.
Under section 227(2) of the Youth Justice Act, I order that you be released after serving 60 per cent of the period of detention imposed on count 4.
[9] By the Making Queensland Safer Act 2024 (Act No. 54 of 2024).
[15]
[10] See s 433 of the Youth Justice Act 1992 (Qld) in its current form. References in these sentencing remarks to the Youth Justice Act are therefore to the reprint current from 30 August 2024 to 18 September 2024.
[16]
[11] By the Queensland Community Safety Act 2024 (Act No. 45 of 2024).
[14]R v W; Ex parte Attorney-General[2000] 1 Qd R 460 at 463 [11]; R v AS; Ex parte Attorney-General(Qld)[2004] QCA 259 at [19] per de Jersey CJ and [27] per Williams JA, Mullins J agreeing at [32]. See also youth justice principle 1 ("the community should be protected from offences").
[25] I was also referred to the sentence of R v O'Meara [2021] QSCSR 87 (17 March 2021, Martin J), but there are too many distinguishing features to make this decision useful in the present case.