R v Meid [2006] QCA 124

Director of Public Prosecutions (Queensland) for the respondent

[1] McMURDO P: The applicant has not given a satisfactory explanation to explain her delay in seeking to apply for leave to appeal against a sentence imposed on 5 November 2004. For the reasons given by Jerrard JA, with which I agree, she has in any case not demonstrated that she has any prospects of success were time extended to allow her to apply for leave to appeal against sentence. I agree with Jerrard JA that the application for an extension of time to apply for leave to appeal against sentence should be refused.

[2] JERRARD JA: This application is for an extension of time within which to apply for leave to appeal against a sentence imposed on 5 November 2004 in the Supreme Court at Rockhampton. On that date the applicant Ms Meid was convicted on her pleas of guilty of one count of possessing cannabis in a quantity exceeding 500 grams, three counts of supplying cannabis to another, and one count of possession of a pipe used in connection with the consumption of cannabis. She was fined a total of $1,100 and allowed six months to pay. By an application filed 23 January 2006 she has sought an extension of time within which to appeal those sentences.

[3] Ms Meid was aged 40 when she was sentenced. The circumstances of the offence were that she had grown cannabis for her own use in Victoria and had brought it with her in an esky on a road trip through central western Queensland. When apprehended by the police she was found to possess 586 grams, and she admitted having shared some of the cannabis she had brought into Queensland with some other people. That sharing was the basis of the charges of supplying. The learned sentencing judge accepted that Ms Meid grew the cannabis for her own use, was normally resident in Victoria, and the judge saw little point in making a probation order. The judge accordingly fined Ms Meid $400 on the count of possession, $200 on each of the counts of supply, and $100 on the count of possession of the pipe.

[4] On 29 August 2005 Ms Meid made an application, the nature of which is not clear, to the Rockhampton Supreme Court. It was most probably an application that the order for payment of the fine be waived or revoked. Ms Meid advised the learned judge that she would like to plead diminished responsibility in respect of her offences; the learned judge explained that that would not give her a defence to the cannabis charges, and suggested that Ms Meid might consider making the application she now makes, which she filed some five months after the suggestion she do it.

[5] Ms Meid's statements to the court in August 2005 included a description of herself as chronically ill and too chronically harassed to be able to cope with anything like performing community service pursuant to a fine option order, although she also informed the judge that she was in Victoria for roughly six months of the year and "up here" for approximately six months of the year; she had joined the urban fire brigade at Emerald. She described having experienced very stressful harassment, apparently prior to the time of committing her offences, and which she said she had experienced for the prior six and a half years. Her written material in support of her current applications also complains of being continually sent incorrect fines and information by the State Penalties Enforcement Registry (SPER), and of the asserted impossibility of performing community service in Victoria in respect of a fine imposed in Queensland. Her application to this Court for an extension of time was accompanied by a short note from a Dr Brown; the doctor was willing to discuss Ms Meid's condition over the telephone, and requested that consideration be given to her application for an extension of time. No information at all about Ms Meid appears in the note from the doctor. Ms Meid also told this Court that she comes to Queensland for six months of each year (the colder months in Victoria) to go sapphire mining, and does not consider she should have to perform unpaid community service in Queensland. Further, she is too stressed to do it.

[6] On 29 August 2005 Ms Meid put some written material before the learned judge. The judge remarked that had it been provided originally, he may have been persuaded to impose a lesser sentence or perhaps a bond of some variety, but that the extra material did not result in the judge having any capacity in August 2005 to re-open the sentence imposed in November 2004. Whatever that written material was is not revealed in the very limited material before this Court, which is simply the transcript of the proceedings in the Supreme Court in November 2004 and August 2005, Dr Brown's offer to discuss her condition over the telephone, the forms completed by Ms Meid when applying for her extension of time, and what she said on this application when appearing by phone.

[7] Section 48 of the Penalties and Sentences Act 1992 (Qld) requires that a court which has decided to fine an offender should set the amount of the fine, and the way in which it is to be paid, by as far as practicable taking into account the financial circumstances of the offender, and the nature of the burden that that payment of the fine will be on the offender. The transcript of the sentencing proceedings on 5 November 2004 records only the sentencing remarks by the learned judge, and not the submissions made to the learned judge or other information put forward. The sentencing remarks do record that the learned judge advised Ms Meid that if she could not pay the fine within six months she could make an application for an extension of time, and that if in Queensland she could apply to convert all or part of the fine to a "community service type order", that Ms Meid had no prior convictions, and that the judge would not be recording convictions for her cannabis related offences. It seems clear that Ms Meid has received notices from the SPER and has not performed any unpaid community service, or paid any part of the fine.

[8] Division 2 of Part 4 of the Penalties and Sentences Act 1992, dealing with fine option orders, under which an offender may perform community service at the rate of a maximum of five hours for each penalty unit of $75 imposed as a fine under the original order, provides that an application for such an order may be made at any time before the end of the time fixed within which to pay the fine. That means that Ms Meid, had she applied to the court for a fine option order, was required to do that before the six months elapsed. She did not make any such application within those six months, and what she said to the court in August 2005 was that she could not cope with performing community service. She has not responded to the opportunity to perform community service through an administrative arrangement with the SPER, which she could have done well after the six months had ended. It is difficult to believe that she could be well enough to go sapphire mining but not to do any community service.

[9] The judge did not fix any period of default imprisonment, and ordered (apparently pursuant to s 34(2) of the State Penalties Enforcement Act 1999 (Qld)) ("SPER Act") that in default of payment the matter be referred to SPER for collection. The SPER Act provides that the registrar of a court ordering a fine which is unpaid may give the SPER particulars of the unpaid amount; and by s 35(2) of the SPER Act, the SPER becomes responsible for collecting it. By s 34(4) the SPER Registrar may issue an enforcement warrant for the unpaid amount.

[10] Before doing so, the SPER Registrar must give an enforcement order requiring payment of the amount stated and stating the period of default imprisonment for non-payment. A recipient can then apply to the SPER to arrange to convert the unpaid amount into performance of unpaid community service. A considerable power is given to the SPER Registrar in the event of non-payment, including power to issue a warrant for arrest and imprisonment (s 52(2)); by s 119(1) that is a procedure of last resort, to happen when the SPER Registrar is satisfied the unpaid amount cannot be satisfied in any other way authorised under the SPER Act. That Act provides for a number of (often co-operative) ways in which civil enforcement of an enforcement order can be achieved, in preference to imprisonment.

[11] That variety of options open to the SPER Registrar in the event of Ms Meid's non-payment of the fine show that the Registrar's powers are extensive when dealing with Ms Meid for non payment. In those circumstances it has not been established that the fines imposed were manifestly excessive, or were imposed in breach of the requirement in s 48 that her financial circumstances be taken into account. She agreed on the appeal that, when the fines were imposed, she had said to the learned judge that she could pay them within six months. Ms Meid has therefore failed to show that she has any prospects of success on an application to overturn the orders imposing those fines; she has simply chosen to do nothing to discharge the obligation created by the sentence. I would dismiss the application for an extension of time.