(ix) Escaping police pursuit".
16 While guideline judgments are not to be treated as absolute directions for sentencing Judges, the rationale for their delivery lies in the objective of ensuring consistency in sentencing, and in the opportunity which they provide for a considered analysis by the Court of Criminal Appeal of sentencing principle, in respect of offences where some uncertainty or unevennesses in sentencing practice has emerged. They are, accordingly, to be regarded as persuasive, and as a considered expression by this Court as to the proper range of sentences, from which there should be no departure save in accordance with a reasoned and justifiable exercise of discretion - Griggs [2000] NSWCCA 33 at paragraphs 29-30, per Simpson J, Henry (1999) NSW CCA 111 at paragraph 29.
17 In the present case his Honour found, not inappropriately, that a two and a half year sentence was a proper starting point, given the aggravated circumstances referable to the respondent's abandonment of responsibility in taking the wheel of his motor vehicle while in a significantly intoxicated state.
18 The case was not one of excessive speed or of prolonged erratic driving. It did, however, involve more than momentary inattention and simple misjudgment. Mr Hulme responsibly brought our attention to the fact that the solicitor appearing on sentence pressed only the aspect of intoxication as an aggravating circumstance. It is not clear to me, however, why the number of persons at risk was not also an aggravating circumstance. In my view, that it is a matter which also should have been taken into account.
19 The case was one which, was appropriate for a sentence which marked a significant element of general deterrence for the reasons explained in Davies NSW CCA 27 March 1998 and Musumeci NSW CCA 30 October 1997; see also the two recent decisions of this Court in Khan 2000 NSW CCA 454 and Turner 2000 NSW CCA 455. Although those two last mentioned appeals were concerned with the more serious offence of aggravated dangerous driving occasioning grievous bodily harm, they are relevant so far as they re-affirm the importance of general deterrence in relation to section 52A offences.
20 This Court has clearly underlined the concern which the community has in relation to offences involving the injury to persons by those who choose to drive while drunk. It is proper that sentencing Judges respect what this Court has said. They do no favour to accused persons appearing before them when they give lenient sentences that ignore the guidelines in Jurisic.
21 By his silence in relation to the important element of sentencing concerning general deterrence, it appears to me that his Honour did fall into an error of law. It also appears to me, in the way in which the subjective circumstances were taken into account, that there was further error of law.
22 It is evident that it was, because of those circumstances, that his Honour concluded that the sentence of imprisonment which he considered appropriate should be served by way of periodic detention, notwithstanding the clear direction in Jurisic that a non-custodial sentence for a section 52A offence, should be exceptional and almost invariably confined to cases involving momentary inattention and/or misjudgment. This was not a case of that kind.
23 Periodic detention has been recognised as having a strong degree of leniency built into it, and as being less severe in its denunciation of the offence, and in the message it conveys as to general deterrence - see Caradonna 2000 NSW CCA 398 at page 24. In Musumeci, Hunt CJ at CL, made the position perfectly clear when observing: In relation to dangerous driving offences (specifically in relation to those causing death, but also of relevance to cases such as the present):
"1. The legislature has always placed a premium upon human life, and the taking of a human life by driving a motor vehicle dangerously is to be regarded as a crime of some seriousness.