R v Miles [2015] ACTSC 162

Hili v The Queen [2010] HCA 45; (2010) 242 CLR 520

Miles v The Queen [2014] ACTCA 41

Mill v The Queen [1988] HCA 70; (1998) 166 CLR 59

Mr T Shepherd (Director of Public Prosecutions (Cth))

Mr M Fernandez (Director of Public Prosecutions (ACT))

Solicitor for the Director of Public Prosecutions (Cth)

Solicitor for the Director of Public Prosecutions (ACT)

Legal Aid ACT

SCC 67 of 2015; SCC 395Q of 2011; SCC 395N of 2011; SCC 395O of 2011; SCC 395P of 2011; SCC 395R of 2011

1. The sentencing task that I have to perform today is particularly difficult. You are already serving relatively long sentences for other serious crimes. I must sentence you for nine serious offences, some of which involve offending of a very grave nature, and take four further offences into account.

2. Sentencing requires a judge to balance all of the circumstances and to impose a punishment that has three principal aims. First, the sentence must punish the offender for the crime and to deter him or her from engaging in future criminal offending. Secondly, the sentence must deter others from doing what the offender did. Thirdly, the sentence must constitute a punishment that also gives the offender the opportunity to rehabilitate himself or herself.

3. While I see some hope that you now want to change your ways of a lifetime of serious crime, I cannot ignore the scale of your offending for which the law requires you to be punished. But your sentence must also allow you the opportunity to rehabilitate so that you may change your behaviour and work towards becoming a responsible member of our community when you are eligible for release.

4. I have also taken into account that you are currently in prison because you have been sentenced on two earlier occasions, and resentenced by the Court of Appeal: Miles v The Queen [2014] ACTCA 41. You have been in custody for the last 4½ years including a period on remand before the first of those sentences took effect. Therefore, you have lost your liberty already, the Court has denounced your behaviour and the existing sentences have had some impact in deterring you from committing further crimes. The effective total head sentence and non-parole period that must be imposed on you today should be the same as what you would have received if you had been sentenced for all the crimes together: Mill v The Queen [1988] HCA 70; (1998) 166 CLR 59 at 66-67 per Wilson, Deane, Dawson, Toohey and Gaudron JJ. That is, any additional punishment that you receive today should result in you receiving a total effective head sentence and non-parole period that you would have received if Burns J had sentenced you together for all your criminal convictions that were before the Court of Appeal last year and are before me today.

5. Your criminal behaviour in the 2½ years covering the matters now before me for sentence is itself exceptional. The scale of your offending and its seriousness must be reflected in the individual sentences and the effective combination of them with your current sentences that produces the actual minimum and maximum periods of time you will be in gaol. I have also taken into account the positive signs you are now showing in rehabilitating yourself.

6. There is some indication that you are finally aware that you need to change yourself so that you stop committing crimes, including violent crimes of armed robbery, and work for a living, free of drugs. You know that is a challenge, but you have taken some real steps to achieve this. I can only hope you succeed, but that you can also accept that you must suffer additional punishment to that you currently have to endure. The law cannot ignore all of these further offences for which I have to sentence you.

7. You told the probation officer that you intend to appeal against the jury's guilty verdict on your trial before me. That is your right. I have also taken into account that you have acknowledged your guilt on all other matters that are outstanding against you and have asked to be sentenced in respect of today.

8. You have two children, one of whom is your son who gave evidence before the jury. You are not now in a relationship with a spouse or partner.

9. You now work in the gaol as a textile worker and apparently do this well. You owe $14,000 in fines.

10. You have a long history of illicit substance use and addiction, that has coincided with your offending. You have applied to enter a remedial program but will only be eligible to do so closer to your anticipated release. You completed a cognitive self-change program in late January 2015, which I regard as a positive development.

11. Your criminal history was summarised by Burns J. Relevantly, you first received convictions as a minor for offences of theft and burglary in 1989, when you were 13 years old. You continued committing similar offences through to age 18.

12. On 1 May 1996, you were convicted at the age of 19 on three counts of armed robbery and one attempted armed robbery and Miles J sentenced you to 6 years imprisonment with 3 years non-parole for those offences.

13. Within about two months of your release, on 7 July 1999, you committed two more armed robberies, intimidated a witness, committed an assault and were in possession of stolen property. On 25 March 2004, Connolly J sentenced you for those serious offences to 5 years imprisonment with 3 years non-parole.

14. After you were released on parole, your record also discloses several other minor offences before you began re-offending in 2009.

15. Next, you were remanded in custody on 7 January 2011, after your arrest on the charge for which Burns J sentenced you.

16. In the 20 months before this arrest you engaged in repeated serious criminal activity for some of which you have been punished with the current substantial terms of imprisonment.

17. During your current incarceration you have committed 11 disciplinary infractions. More seriously, you also engaged in a pre-mediated series of significant frauds on the Australian Tax Office (ATO), that resulted in over $30,000 being paid for your benefit or as you directed.

18. The offences for which I must sentence you today involve crimes you committed before and after those for which you are already serving sentences. I have had regard to all your offending including those matters which are the subject of the existing sentences to arrive at an overall effective head sentence and earlier time when you will be eligible for release. You committed much of your offending with your then friend, Ivan Ramos. In brief, those offences and their outcomes were as follows:

(a) On 12 March 2009, you attempted arson for gain relating to an ATM machine to which you entered a guilty plea on 23 June 2014.

(b) On 17 October 2013, you were sentenced by Nield AJ for two aggravated armed robberies, the first on 6 July 2009 at the Vikings Club and the second on 23 October 2010 at the same ACTTAB as that involved in the trial before me. You asked Neild AJ to take into account, when sentencing you, an aggravated robbery of a newsagency and taking of a motor vehicle that you committed in company on 16 August 2009. The Court of Appeal upheld his Honour's sentence for those offences (Miles [2014] ACTCA 41 at [29]).

(c) On 8 December 2009, you committed the aggravated armed robbery for which the jury convicted you.

(d) On 19 March 2010, you committed an aggravated robbery in company with Mr Ramos and theft of property. That was an adventitious robbery and theft, as you both were passing premises that had been left open and you and Mr Ramos helped yourselves to the contents. You have asked me to take these two offences into account in sentencing you for the aggravated burglary and theft you committed on 27 June 2010.

(e) On 8 May 2010, you and Mr Ramos committed an aggravated armed robbery of the Burns Club stealing about $51,000. Both of you were armed. On 23 June 2014, you pleaded guilty to that offence before the Chief Justice.

(f) On 27 June 2010, you and Mr Ramos committed an aggravated burglary in company and theft from a home. You stole property worth about $36,000. On 23 June 2014, you pleaded guilty to these offences before the Chief Justice.

(g) On 21 October 2010, you committed a burglary and theft from another home, taking about $11,300 worth of property. You have also asked me to take these two offences into account in sentencing you for the 27 June 2010 offences.

(h) Then, two days later, on 23 October 2010, you committed the aggravated armed robbery of the Wanniassa ACTTAB with Mr Ramos for which Neild AJ sentenced you.

(i) Next, between 4 and 7 January 2011, you and Mr Ramos entered into a conspiracy to commit an aggravated robbery for which you were convicted by a jury and sentenced by Burns J. The Court of Appeal resentenced you on this conviction: Miles [2014] ACTCA 41.

(j) Finally, after being remanded in custody on 7 January 2011, you committed a series of tax frauds by putting in four false tax returns, the first, on 31 May 2011, the second and third on 7 September 2011 and the last, on 21 November 2011. You pleaded guilty to these offences on 1 April 2015.

19. I propose to sentence you on your guilty pleas to Territory offences first, next on the offence found by the jury in the trial before me and then on the Commonwealth tax offences.

20. I will now set out the brief facts of the offences to which you have pleaded guilty or asked me to take into account for which I must sentence you.

21. In the early hours of 12 March 2009, you and Mr Ramos attended an ATM on the southern side of the Civic video shop in the Wanniassa shops at Erindale. Before this, on 9 March 2009, you purchased 10 metres of electrical wire at the Repco store in Fyshwick. And on 10 March 2009, you attended the Autopro Store in Fyshwick and asked the attendant for the smallest 12 volt glow plug available. You then purchased a glow plug.

22. When at the ATM on 12 March 2009, you and Mr Ramos had a pinch bar, sledge hammer, canister of flammable gas, glow plug, some wire, a battery pack and matches. You taped the matches to the glow plug. You made a hole in the front of the ATM with the pinch bar. You then pumped gas into the ATM through that hole and taped the glow plug to the face of the hole. You ran the wire from the glow plug to the battery that you had some distance away. You next connected the wire to the battery in the hope that this would cause an explosion. However, the gas failed to ignite. At this moment, you and Mr Ramos noticed a garbage truck in the vicinity and you both fled, taking only the battery pack with you.

23. You had planned this crime with Mr Ramos. You intended to blow up the ATM so as to allow you to steal the cash that it contained. Earlier, both of you had conducted some experiments using garbage bins. You blew the bins up to work out how much gas to use and how to ignite the gas in order to cause an explosion.

24. You were charged with this offence on 30 June 2011. You pleaded not guilty on 1 December 2011. However, on 23 June 2014, you entered a guilty plea to this count before the Chief Justice.

25. Early on 19 March 2010, you and Mr Ramos rode your bicycles past the Kambah Indoor Sports Centre and you noticed that a side fire door was open. You both entered the Centre with the intention of stealing items inside it. An alarm activated when you entered.

26. Mr Ramos suggested that you both return to your home to get some paper and tape to cover the sensors. You did so and then returned to the Centre where you covered each sensor with paper and tape and disabled the alarm. Once that occurred, you both began taking items and made a number of trips from the Centre and carried them to your home.

27. You stole two black Dell Vostro 410 computers, an Acer laptop, a Panasonic cordless drill, a 22 inch Dell ZPSM 1330 monitor, a cordless hammer drill and associated battery packs and a surge protection board.

28. As this was going on, the Centre's security company telephoned the owner of the Centre, Mr Sammy Bustamante, to let him know that an alarm had activated. He drove there and saw the front doors were locked. He walked round the perimeter of the building then unlocked the front doors to enter before locking them behind him and disarming the alarm. As he walked toward his office he saw two men whom he did not know, being Mr Ramos and you. He was very frightened. You said: "We are coming out" and he told you both to get out. You both did so through the fire door and ran back to your home.

29. You have asked me to take the offences you committed on this occasion into account when sentencing you for the aggravated burglary, in company, and theft committed on 27 June 2010.

30. At about 1.20 am on 8 May 2010 you and Mr Ramos entered the Burns Club in Kambah as it was closing, through the beer garden gate. Sometime before that, you went to the club, cut the lock from the external beer garden gate and replaced it with a lock for which you had the key. The Club manager, Rohan Richards, had begun locking up and counting the cash from the day's takings. At that time a barman, Jason Smith, a receptionist, Rachael Warren, and a security guard, Shane Knox, were all in the Club going about their work.

31. You were carrying a rifle and Mr Ramos was carrying a knife. You both had covered your faces with material. You walked up behind Ms Warren, who was talking to Mr Smith. You both yelled at Ms Warren, Mr Smith and Mr Knox to get on the ground. They complied. You then walked into the safe room where Mr Richards was counting the cash, while Mr Ramos stayed with the other three.

32. You told Mr Richards to give you all the money except coins and gave him a bag to put it in. He loaded all the money into the bag. You picked up two of the note acceptor cartridges from the poker machines and put them into the bag. When Mr Richards finished loading the money in the bag, you told him to zip it closed and not to follow you, or there would be trouble. You returned to where Mr Ramos was, in the bar area. Then another security guard, Rodney Flynn, entered that area and saw Ms Warren, Mr Smith and Mr Knox lying on the floor. You told Mr Flynn to give you the radio transmitter that he was carrying and, after he did so, you told him to get on the ground. You and Mr Ramos then left, taking $51,027.50 of the Club's money with you.

33. On 30 June 2011, you were charged with this offence and on 1 December 2011 you pleaded not guilty. On 23 June 2014, you changed that plea to guilty before the Chief Justice.

Aggravated (in company, unarmed) robbery and theft

34. Ozbestos, a company that removed asbestos from buildings, employed you between 11 June 2010 and 16 December 2010. On 23 June 2010, you worked for Ozbestos at the home of Darren Dimoff in Deakin. On Sunday 27 June 2010, Mr Dimoff went out, leaving his premises locked. Later that day at some time after he left, you and Mr Ramos went to Mr Dimoff's home and stole a large number of articles, including a computer, camera, a valuable racing bike, golf clubs, sound system equipment, tools and alcohol. The value of the stolen items was about $36,295.00.

35. You were charged with these offences on 30 June 2011 and pleaded not guilty on 1 December 2011. However, you pleaded guilty to these offences before the Chief Justice on 23 June 2014. I will take into account, when sentencing on the charge of aggravated burglary, the four other offences committed by you on 19 March 2010 and 21 October 2010.

36. On 11 and 19 October 2010, you were working at the premises of Andrew Cockburn in Deakin while employed by Ozbestos. At 8.00 am on 21 October 2010, Mr Cockburn left his home locked up and went to work. Later that morning, you forced entry into Mr Cockburn's home and stole a number of items, worth about $11,312.75, including an iPad, computer, television and cameras.

37. You have asked that I take these offences into account when sentencing you for the offence of aggravated burglary committed on 27 June 2010.

The offences of dishonestly causing loss to the Commonwealth

38. On 1 April 2015, you pleaded guilty before the Magistrates Court to four counts of dishonesty causing loss to the Commonwealth. That was your second appearance on these four charges. Each is an indictable offence of doing something, namely lodging a tax return, with the intention of dishonestly causing loss to a Commonwealth entity. You committed each of these four offences in 2011 while you were on remand in custody.

39. On 31 May 2011, you lodged a false paper income tax return with the ATO in your name, for the financial year ended 30 June 2010. The return gave your residential address as that of your father, and gave bank account details for an account of Sheree Doherty. At that time she was your girlfriend. The return asserted that during the 2010 financial year you had earned $49,658 from Ozbestos, and that it had withheld $16,527 in tax for the ATO. In fact, you had only been employed by Ozbestos between 11 and 30 June 2010 and been paid $2,438. Ozbestos withheld and paid $535 as tax in respect of your earnings. Accordingly, the above details of earnings and that tax withheld that you had included in your return were false to your knowledge.

40. Acting on the basis of your false statements in the 2010 return, the ATO determined that you were entitled to a refund of $7,598.41, but that was subject to your child support liability of $295.45, that the ATO paid to the Child Support Agency. On 29 June 2011, the ATO transferred $7,302.96 into Ms Doherty's bank account, that you had nominated in the return. On 1 July 2011, Ms Doherty withdrew $7,230 from that account.

41. On 7 September 2011, you lodged two false tax returns for the financial year ended 30 June 2011, one in your name and the other in Ms Doherty's name.

42. In your own 2011 paper return, you gave your residential address as that of your father and gave bank account details for an account of your brother, Nathan Miles. The return asserted that you had earned $49,658 from Ozbestos and that it had withheld $16,527 in tax in the 2010-2011 financial year. There is no evidence as to how much you in fact earned while working for Ozbestos during this period or how much it withheld, but you have accepted, and I find, that the true amounts of your earnings and tax withheld were not those that you included in your return. Indeed, you have been in custody since 7 January 2011.

43. You were also employed by the Australian Electoral Commission during the 2010-2011 financial year, for which work the Commission paid you a total of $257 and withheld nothing. Accordingly, your 2011 return was false to your knowledge.

44. Acting on the basis of your false statements in your 2011 return, the ATO determined that you were entitled to a tax refund of $8,048.41 plus interest of $19.30. On 10 October 2011, the ATO paid credit offsets of $319.35 to the Child Support Agency and $3,650.20 to Centrelink, and on 24 October 2011, the ATO transferred $4,098.16 to your brother Nathan's bank account. On 9 November 2011, Nathan withdrew $4,080 from his account.

45. In the paper 2011 return you filed in Ms Doherty's name, you gave her address and bank account details. The return asserted that Ms Doherty had earned $49,658 from Uniting Care, whose ABN was included in the return, and that $16,527 had been withheld and paid to the ATO on her behalf. The earning and withheld figures were, of course, identical to those you used in your own 2010 and 2011 false tax returns.

46. In fact, Ms Doherty had been employed by Uniting Care during the 2011 tax year, but had earned a total of $8,537 and had had a total of $576 withheld. She had also been employed during that period by Drake Australia Pty Ltd and paid $4,773 with $291 being withheld and paid to the ATO as tax. Accordingly, Ms Doherty's return that you filed was false to your knowledge.

47. On 3 October 2011, the ATO paid $7,178.87 into her bank account. On 4 October 2011, Ms Doherty withdrew $7,000 from that account.

48. On 28 October 2011, you lodged a second 2011 return in Ms Doherty's name that claimed that she had earned, as a disability support officer, an additional sum of $29,658 from Drake and had had $10,527 withheld and paid to the ATO as tax. In fact, she had been employed by Drake during the 2010-2011 financial year and earned a total of $4,773, from which $291 had been withheld as tax, being the sums to which I have already referred.

49. Acting on the basis of Ms Doherty's second 2011 return, the ATO treated it as an amendment of the first and determined that she was entitled to a further refund of $484.25 which it deposited to her bank account. However, the ATO later determined, as a result of the amended return, that the Medicare levy surcharge applied to Ms Doherty for the 2010-2011 financial year, and that this reduced her entitlement to a refund from $8,519.46 to $7,726.30. As the ATO had paid the whole of the former amount to her, it created a debt including an interest shortfall of $857.50 on her ATO account. She then contacted the ATO seeking an explanation and disputing the amounts you had included in her 2011 return. She then provided the ATO with her payment summaries. She told an ATO officer that her exboyfriend had lodged both 2011 returns and she was not aware of their contents, but had received the refunds.

50. On 21 November 2011, you lodged a false paper tax return in your name for the financial year ended 30 June 2008. The return again gave your father's address as your's and your brother's bank account details. It again stated that you had been employed by Ozbestos as an asbestos removalist and had been paid $49,658 with $16,527 being withheld as tax and paid to the ATO. In fact, you had been employed by the Australian Electoral Commission between 8 November 2007 and 20 December 2007 and paid $2,895. The Commission had not withheld any tax. The return was false to your knowledge because you had not been employed by Ozbestos or earned the sums you inserted in the return as your income.

51. Acting on the basis of the false statements in your 2008 return, the ATO determined that you were entitled to a refund of $6,284.47 plus interest of $24.29. The ATO paid an offset credit of $6,291.43 to the Child Support Agency on 28 December 2011 for payment to Sarah Brook, the mother of your two children. On 19 January 2012, the ATO transferred $17.59 to Nathan's bank account.

52. Sometime in January 2012, you wrote to Ms Brook, using Ms Doherty as your conduit, saying:

"I have been onto child support & they will be putting 6,291.43 into your account shortly "if they haven't already." I can get this amount put into your account every 4 months, if you give my dad 2,200 & you keep 4. I can keep doing it maybe 10 times & it just keeps going onto my child support account.

So the way Im looking at it S & B 4,000 every 4 months for yous would probly help heaps & 2,200 would help me heaps at the moment. So ill leave it in your hands "Just know that it took me a long time to set this up & I hate for it to end befor we got some good money." I tried it once & it worked."

53. Nathan Miles told the ATO that you had told him that you would be putting your last two years' tax return refunds into Nathan's account. Nathan gave you his bank account details. Nathan kept the refunds deposited into his account by the ATO for your use.

54. The total loss incurred by the ATO as a result of your lodgement of the four false tax returns was $30,507.80. Of that, $19,081.83 was paid to either Sheree Doherty or Nathan Miles, and the remaining $11,425.97 was paid by way of offsets to cover your debts with other agencies.

55. On 26 March 2015, the jury found you guilty of committing an aggravated robbery while armed with an offensive weapon at the ACTTAB Wanniassa, on 8 December 2009. I am satisfied that the jury accepted as proved beyond reasonable doubt the following facts.

56. You entered the TAB at around 9.30 pm dressed in dark clothing with your face masked, carrying a sawn off rifle. Unknown to those inside the TAB, the rifle did not have a bolt and was incapable of firing. Mr Morris, the young supervisor, was counting the cash behind the counter. When you were about 2 metres away from him, you pointed the weapon at him and threw a black bag over the counter screen. You told him to fill the bag up while pointing the rifle at him.

57. Mr Morris emptied the safe under the counter. Then, while you were still pointing the rifle at him, you asked him if there was another safe and more money. He told you there was and pointed to the area behind the staff door. You told him to empty that safe and to let you into the secure door. He opened the door. You kept the rifle pointed at him and only told him to stop when he had emptied all the notes from the second safe into the bag and had begun to put the coins into it. You then escaped with $32,209.35.

58. Earlier, you had sawn off the rifle at your father's house in his work shed in the hearing of your 9 year old son. He saw you with the sawn off rifle. You knew exactly what you were doing using the rifle on 8 December 2009.

59. You used the rifle to convey, what you knew would be understood by the person behind the counter, as the threat of deadly force to make him fill your bag with the takings of the TAB. You were an experienced armed robber. You later confessed this crime to your then friend, Mr Ramos.

60. Although you pleaded not guilty to this crime, as was your right, the jury believed Mr Ramos' evidence of your confession of it to him, as do I, beyond reasonable doubt. They did so after I gave them clear warnings about his potential unreliability because of the immunity from prosecution that he received on 2 June 2011 in respect of 11 other offences. While Mr Ramos stood to gain from implicating you in crimes, he gave evidence, corroborated by your son, that you told him of sawing down the rifle at your father's place. Mr Ramos also gave evidence that you confessed to him that you had committed the robbery on 8 December 2009. You were the only person who could have told Mr Ramos either of these facts.

61. On 19 March 2013, Burns J sentenced you to 6 years 9 months for conspiracy to commit an aggravated robbery, in company with Mr Ramos, on 4-7 January 2011. The Court of Appeal reduced that sentence to 4 years' imprisonment, having regard to its finding, made in your appeal against conviction, that no use of a weapon was involved in that conspiracy: Miles [2014] ACTCA 41.

62. On 23 October 2010, both you and Mr Ramos committed an aggravated armed robbery of the same ACTTAB at Wanniassa that the jury found you robbed on 8 December 2009. On your plea of guilty to that robbery, Nield AJ sentenced you on 17 October 2013 to 8 years 1 month, together with 6 years and 3 months for another aggravated robbery on the Vikings Club on 6 July 2009, after also taking into account an armed robbery of the Wanniassa newsagency on 16 August 2009 and theft of a motor vehicle. Nield AJ made those sentences partially concurrent so that the effective head sentence was 11 years 1 month. The Court of Appeal upheld that sentence: Miles [2014] ACTCA.

63. Currently, as a result of the Court of Appeal's decision you are serving a sentence of 4 years dating from 5 January 2011, with a 2 year 8 month non-parole period in respect of the count before Burns J and a further sentence of 11 years 1 month in respect of your guilty pleas and the Court taking into account two further offences that were before Nield AJ. The second sentence began on 5 January 2012, with a non-parole period that now ends on 4 August 2018.

64. You failed in your attempt on 12 March 2009 to blow up and rob the ATM with Mr Ramos, for which you were convicted on your plea of guilty on 23 June 2014 of attempted arson. You committed also the armed robberies in company with Mr Ramos at the Vikings Club on 6 July 2009, the Burns Club on 8 May 2010 and the ACTTAB on 23 October 2010, and the armed robbery on 8 December 2009 for which the jury recently found you guilty.

65. That is, you committed four armed robberies, three in company with Mr Ramos, over this period of 17 months.

66. Your failed attempt to blow up the bank ATM machine showed your determination to engage in conduct to obtain money, heedless of the reality that what you did could cause significant damage not to only property, but also to the lives and safety of any one in the vicinity. An explosion could have started a fire. Who knows whether someone may have been injured or killed had there been an explosion or fire, including emergency service personnel who would need to attend the aftermath. Once more, all you thought about was getting money without earning it through honest, hard work like your fellow citizens must do. Fortunately, your attempt was disturbed and failed.

67. Mr Morris, the young man you threatened with the sawn off rifle when you robbed the ACTTAB on 8 December 2009, gave evidence at your trial. You may have seen how traumatic reliving that night was for him. Towards the end of his evidence he was obviously becoming very distraught. His victim impact statement explained the devastating effect that minute long armed robbery had on him. I understand you still dispute your role in that robbery. Even so, his evidence should bring home to you that your history of armed robberies has left several men and women suffering traumas that may haunt them for the rest of their lives. You must have realised that threatening a person with a weapon, even if you knew it could not fire, was a major thing to do. To you, it was a quick means to get money from innocent people. But, you did something to the men and women you threatened that had a terrible consequence - you terrified them. You scared each of them mentally, perhaps for all of their lives.

68. In addition, you robbed the two homes of people where you were working removing asbestos. Mr Ramos was with you on the first of those occasions. You used your employment to assess targets to rob and then stole property worth, respectively $36,295 and $11,312.15, that is, nearly $50,000 worth of the home owner's possessions. However, these two crimes are less significant in the scale of your offending, because no threat of violence or confrontation with the homeowners occurred. And you and Mr Ramos acted, perhaps impulsively, when robbing the Kambah Indoor Sports Centre after seeing an open door and helping yourselves to the contents. That was opportunistic, but unlike your other crimes, it was unplanned.

69. Your burglaries and the thefts from people's homes and businesses, when no-one else was there except you or your accomplice, violated the sense of safety and security for their own properties that the community is entitled to feel. Again, to you it was all about stealing the valuables and items to convert them to cash or drugs. But, the home or business owner felt that their sense of security had been breached. No doubt you took some items that had sentimental value to those whose homes you robbed. However, these are still serious offences. So, you must understand that the community, through the law, demands that these further serious crimes be punished.

70. Next, while you were on remand in jail in 2011 you decided to defraud the ATO of more money. These four offences together formed a course of conduct spanning six months. The victim was the community, in the form of the Commonwealth government. You defrauded the ATO of over $30,500 in this way. I take into account that you pleaded guilty to these four offences relatively promptly. However, the evidence of your guilt was simple and overwhelming. You knew that you and Sheree Doherty had not earned any of the income or had any of the tax deducted that you recorded falsely in the four tax returns. This was a calculated, pre-meditated series of crimes against not just the ATO, but the whole community. You even pretended that you had worked for money and paid tax on your earnings when you stole from the Commonwealth government.

71. I have had regard to the planned and deliberate nature of each of your four tax offences. You involved your brother Nathan, your then girlfriend, Sheree Doherty, and attempted to involve the mother of your children, Sarah Brook, in this series of frauds. You did this while on remand for numerous serious Territory criminal offences. Your conduct showed a complete disregard for honesty and responsibility.

72. This type of fraud is not easy to detect. It can only occur because of the trust that the community places in taxpayers, to self-assess their liability to taxation. There is a strong need for deterrence and punishment for this kind of offence: Hili v The Queen [2010] HCA 45; (2010) 242 CLR 520 at 540 [63] per French CJ, Gummow, Hayne, Crennan, Kiefel and Bell JJ. There is an even stronger need to deter you from the easy life of stealing from anyone and everyone you see as an opportunity to exploit.

73. This is just another example of the predatory, greedy conduct that you have inflicted on your fellow citizens for years. At 33 years of age when you committed these offences, you had a shocking criminal history of over 30 convictions for offences of dishonesty. You have been sentenced since for more. There is no redeeming feature for the present offences.

74. Your counsel has argued that any further term of imprisonment that was not concurrent with your existing sentences would have a crushing effect on you and would extinguish any reasonable expectation of you having a useful life after your release.

75. I have taken that argument into account but I cannot accept it. You had been offered many opportunities before 2009 to reflect, in jail, on your serious criminal conduct. You had committed and been convicted of five previous armed robberies by Miles and Connolly JJ and sentenced for long terms of imprisonment. After that, over the 20 months from 12 March 2009, you committed multiple serious offences.

76. You have spent a good deal of your life in jail and serving sentences for your many crimes. I think you now see, based on your conduct in jail since being sentenced in 2013 and your letter to me, that you have to change. You have to stop stealing.

77. Your prospects of rehabilitation, given your consistent life of crime to date, are not, at first sight, a source for confidence. However, you have shown some significant effort during your current imprisonment in seeking to address your behaviours that had led to your past, repeated serious offending.

78. The parole officers said that the prison authorities have consistently noted your performance as a textile worker has been good since you began that employment in 2012. Your recent behaviour in prison has had only two minor lapses, namely, having an unauthorised USB stick in your possession and having an outburst on the day after your conviction by the jury on 26 March 2015. I can understand that, on the latter occasion, you may have reacted because you were upset by the verdict. I infer that your father provided the USB stick to you on 4 February 2015 and that this resulted in him being banned from visiting you. These are minor matters and do not affect my view that, on the evidence before me, you are now making genuine efforts to rehabilitate yourself.

79. I accept that you are trying to turn your life around and that you are doing so because you do not want to spend more time in prison after you are released. Your letter to me shows some insight into your offending and remorse. You are going to be in prison on your existing sentences until your children will be of an age where they are no longer likely to be dependents. In any event, your financial support of them in recent years, if any, seems to have come from the proceeds of your criminal activity of which the recent tax offences are a good illustration.

80. You expressed what the parole officers said was "appropriate victim empathy". They said that you told them that you now are able to understand the effects of your offences, having heard what one victim said in a victim impact statement, although until then you said you were not able to do so. However, I infer this event is the same as the one to which Ross J referred in the Court of Appeal: Miles [2014] ACTCA 41 at [41]- [43]. Like his Honour, I find it inconceivable that you were unaware of what the likely traumatising effect of pointing what appeared to be a real gun at someone like Mr Morris, the young manager of ACTTAB, would be. The reason you took that weapon with you and pointed it at Mr Morris was so that your human victim would be intimidated and put in fear of his life. Your long criminal history to that point, including several armed robberies, showed pre-meditation. I find that you were aware that using a weapon that appeared to be a gun would create maximum fear and achieve your criminal intention, namely, securing the coercion of victims in handing over the cash.

81. Your guilty pleas and requests for me to take four other offences into account have spared some victims from having to give evidence and have relieved the community from having to pay the costs of expensive trials. Those pleas and requests are a sign of your acknowledgment of responsibility for a significant amount of your criminality.

82. The parole officers' assessment is that you pose a medium risk of re-offending. They said that risk is influenced by your drug use and that it may reduce further if you can commit to addressing that issue. I have had regard to your refusals, earlier during your current imprisonment, to submit to two drug tests, your committing the tax offences while in custody, and the extensive repetition of armed and other robbery and theft offences in the period for which I must sentence you after your extensive earlier criminal history. I accept the parole officers' assessment that your likelihood of rehabilitating is medium.

83. Because of your history of substance abuse, I have some doubt that your behaviour in the future will change whatever sentence your receive. But that doubt should not extinguish all hope you may have of reforming. Your conduct throughout your teenage and adult life has been to steal and to resort to armed robbery to obtain money. That conduct is unacceptable. However, I consider that there is a real possibility that you wish to change your life and thus you should be given some credit for that.

84. Nothing else but a significant period of imprisonment is appropriate first, to punish you for your deliberate, persistent and harmful choice of antisocial conduct. Moreover, the purpose of general deterrence can only be achieved by such a custodial sentence. You failed to rehabilitate yourself during, or after, your many earlier periods of imprisonment. You chose crime as your primary and usual means of making money. The community is entitled to be protected from you by an appropriately severe punishment that reflects your extraordinarily serious and continuing criminality, the armed robberies and deliberate theft that you chose to engage in over 17 months and the six month course of conduct involving tax fraud.

85. You must realise too that if, after being released, you again commit such offences, the Court will almost certainly have to impose even more lengthy terms of imprisonment on you. Aggravated robbery, whether you are armed or in company with someone else, carries a maximum term of 25 years imprisonment for each and every offence.

86. I have taken all of the matters to which I have referred in these reasons into account in assessing what penalties are appropriate for the Territory offences, under s 33 of the Crimes (Sentencing) Act 2005 (ACT). These include the nature and circumstances of each of those offences, the four offences you have asked me to take into account, on the 27 June 2010 aggravated burglary, the course of your conduct over the total of about 2½ years of your offending, the personal circumstances, to the extent of the evidence before me, of each of your many victims, the significant value of the money and property you stole, the harm to the individuals you confronted when committing your crimes, particularly when you or both you and Mr Ramos were armed, the actual impact on Mr Morris, your guilty pleas for all but the 8 December 2009 robbery, that indicate some later acceptance by you of responsibility for what you did, the probable effect of the sentences on your two young children, your drug addiction at the time of the offending and your letter to me expressing your remorse and understanding of your current circumstances.

87. In sentencing you for the Commonwealth offences I have had regard also to the above matters and to all relevant matters under s 16A of the Crimes Act 1914 (Cth). The latter include the nature and circumstances of the four tax offences, the fact that they constituted a course of conduct committed over six months while you were in prison, the fact that you defrauded the ATO, a Commonwealth entity, and the losses you caused it, your expression of contrition, your relatively prompt pleas of guilty, the need to deter both you and others from committing similar crimes, the need to punish you adequately for the offences, your character, antecedents, age, means, mental and physical condition, your prospects of rehabilitation and the probable effect on your two young sons. I have also had regard to the strong Crown case against you in respect of the tax offences. I have taken into account the totality of the sentences you are serving and will serve as a result of my sentences today for your Territory offending: Hili 242 CLR at 528 [25].

88. I enter convictions for, and impose the following sentences in respect of, the Territory offences of:

(a) attempted arson for gain on 12 March 2009 at the Wanniassa ATM - 5 years commencing on 4 August 2016 with a nonparole period of 2 years 6 months(i.e. you will serve another six months after your current non-parole period expires, on 4 August 2018, before being eligible for parole);

(b) aggravated burglary and theft on 27 June 2010, and having taken into account the further offences of aggravated burglary and theft on 19 March 2010 and burglary and theft on 21 October 2010 - 5 years commencing on 4 May 2016 with a 3 years non-parole period (i.e. you will serve another 3 months);

(c) aggravated robbery armed in company at the Burns Club on 8 May 2010 - 12 years commencing on 4 February 2014 with a 6 years non-parole period (i.e. you will serve another 9 months);

(d) aggravated robbery at the ACTTAB on 8 December 2009 - 10 years commencing on 4 May 2015, with a 5 years non-parole period (i.e. you will serve another 3 months).

89. Overall, your head sentences for all the Territory offences will expire on 4 February 2026 so that they total 15 years 1 month and you will serve another 1 year 9 months before being eligible for parole on the Territory offences. I set a non-parole period ending on 4 May 2020. That is a total period of imprisonment before you will be eligible for parole of 9 years and 4 months.

90. I enter convictions for, and impose the following sentences in respect of, the Commonwealth offences with a term to commence on 5 May 2020:

(a) lodging on 31 May 2011 a false tax return in your name for 2010, 1 year;

(b) lodging on 7 September 2011 a false tax return in your name for 2011, 1 year;

(c) lodging on 7 September 2011 a false tax return in name of Sheree Doherty for 2011, 1 year;

(d) lodging on 21 November 2011 a false tax return in your name for 2009, 1 year.

91. Having regard to the existing Territory sentences and the overall effect I order that the sentences for each Commonwealth offence be served concurrently from 5 May 2020. I make a recognisance release order on each conviction that you be released on 4 August 2020 upon the condition that you be of good behaviour for the period of five years thereafter.

92. Thus your overall head sentences for both the Territory and Commonwealth offences will expire on 4 February 2027 so that they total 16 years 1 month, and you will be eligible for release no earlier than 4 August 2020.

93. I also order that you pay reparation to the Commonwealth in the sum of $30,507.80.

I certify that the preceding ninety-three [93] numbered paragraphs are a true copy of the Reasons for Sentence of his Honour Justice Rares.