[2016] ACTSC 163

See [73] - [75], [78] - [80], [81] - [84] below.

CRIMINAL LAW - JURISDICTION, PRACTICE AND PROCEDURE - Judgment and Punishment - Sentence - dishonesty offences - burglary - theft - money laundering - breach of employer's trust - significant indirect impact on victims - whether cost of police investigation relevant as injury, loss or damage resulting from offence - pleas of guilty - parity - claim of gambling addiction not supported by evidence - whether gambling addiction a mitigating circumstance - consideration of comparable cases.

Crimes Act 1900 (ACT), ss 114B, 114C

Crimes (Sentence Administration) Act 2005 (ACT)

Crimes (Sentencing) Act 2005 (ACT), ss 19, 33(1)(e)

R v Close [2013] ACTSC, Higgins CJ, 12 August 2013

R v Cousins [2012] ACTSC, Higgins CJ, 26 March 2012

R v Hoang [2015] ACTSC 138

R v Jansen [2005] ACTCA 20

R v Jansen [2004] ACTSC, Connolly J, 17 December 2004

R v Luong, Nguyen and Cao [2005] VSCA 94

R v Reid [2016] ACTSC 24

R v Wheeler [2013] ACTSC, Higgins CJ, 22 February 2013

SCC 163 of 2015; SCC 162 of 2015

1. Salesi Toumo'ua and Siutaisa Helen Schaaf have pleaded guilty to offences as follows.

(a) four burglaries, contrary to s 311 of the Criminal Code 2002 (ACT) and carrying a maximum penalty including imprisonment for 14 years;

(b) one theft, contrary to s 308 of the Criminal Code and carrying a maximum penalty including imprisonment for 10 years; and

(c) one offence of money laundering, contrary to s 114B of the Crimes Act 1900 (ACT) and carrying a maximum penalty including imprisonment for 10 years.

3. Ms Schaaf has pleaded guilty to one offence of money laundering under the same provision and carrying the same maximum penalty including 10 years imprisonment.

4. The events from which these charges arose began in May 2013.

5. Glen Tibbits was the director of a security company operating from premises in Weston in the ACT. That company was a sub-contractor to larger firms which provided security services to banks and financial institutions. Under the sub-contracts, Mr Tibbits' company serviced a number of ATMs in the ACT region.

6. Mr Toumo'ua had worked for the company, G&A, since January 2012. In April 2013 he was promoted to be Mr Tibbits' second in charge.

7. On Monday 13 May 2013 Mr Tibbits, who had already lost one son to suicide, went to Melbourne at short notice to see another son who was said to be suicidal. He left Mr Toumo'ua in charge. That night, Mr Toumo'ua returned to the G&A offices after leaving for the day, and took the keys to the ATMs from the G&A safe. He was caught on CCTV in the G&A premises, but was dressed so as to be unrecognisable from the CCTV footage.

8. Mr Toumo'ua re-armed the security system, and drove off in a vehicle owned by the firm. That was the first burglary.

9. Mr Toumo'ua drove to Charnwood, where he entered the St George ATM bunker at the shops. Using keys and passwords accessible to G&A, Mr Toumo'ua removed from the two ATM safes an amount calculated as totalling just under $212,000.

10. He then drove to Mitchell, where he entered the St George ATM bunker at the Mitchell Retail Centre. From the ATM safe he removed an amount calculated at just over $246,000. Then he drove to Wanniassa, where he removed from a further ATM an amount calculated at just over $73,000.

11. Mr Toumo'ua's entry to the three ATM bunkers constituted the second, third and fourth burglaries. The single theft charge relates to the total amount of $531,330 removed from the four ATMs.

12. Mr Toumo'ua then abandoned the G&A vehicle and returned to his own vehicle. He drove to the home of Ms Schaaf, his then partner.

13. On the following Sunday, Ms Schaaf hired a vehicle from Budget Rent A Car at the Canberra Airport. Mr Toumo'ua drove the vehicle to Melbourne, with the stolen cash in it. He went to the home of a cousin in Dandenong, who allowed him to sleep there that night, and the next morning his cousin leased a storage unit in Dandenong South in her name. Mr Toumo'ua paid cash in advance for 12 months storage, insurance, a padlock, and cartons, and retained the paperwork for the unit in his cousin's name.

14. The next day, vouchers issued from a Tabcorp wagering account were used to obtain, at a hotel in Braybrook in Melbourne, a cheque for $6,300 made out to Ms Schaaf. Shortly afterwards, Ms Schaaf deposited this into her personal savings account held in Canberra.

15. Over the next four months, Ms Schaaf received deposits into her bank account totalling over $22,000. Some of that seems to have been spent on behalf of Mr Toumo'ua.

16. In the five months following the burglaries, Mr Toumo'ua, with some help from Ms Schaaf and from his brother, Daniel Toumo'ua, engaged in a large number of gambling transactions, mainly involving Tabcorp but also at several TABs and at Crown Casino.

17. In early September 2013, police searched the homes and the persons of Mr Toumo'ua, his brother, Daniel Toumo'ua, and Ms Schaaf, as well as the storage unit. As well as items linking the storage unit with one of the Charnwood ATMs, police recovered $193,782 in cash, and documents evidencing bets on Hawthorn to win the 2013 Grand Final. After Hawthorn did win, $152,249 was collected from those bets.

18. In November 2014, Mr Toumo'ua and Ms Schaaf were charged with offences arising from this incident. They have been on bail throughout the proceedings and have so far spent no time in custody.

19. The Crown seeks a reparation order in favour of Mr and Mrs Tibbits in the amount of $30,000, based on the evidence of Mr Tibbits that he had to pay back approximately $20,000 to the company from which the business had leased its vehicles, and approximately $15,000 or $16,000 in legal fees with respect to the matter (see [26] below). The defence does not oppose the making of this order.

20. As well as the statement of facts, the following material is in evidence before me:

(a) victim impact statements from Mr Tibbits and from his wife, Alice Tibbits;

(b) the criminal history of Mr Toumo'ua;

(c) a pre-sentence report for each offender each dated May this year; and

(d) an email exchange between the prosecutor and the informant about the resources that had to be devoted to the police investigation of the offences, as to which I shall have more to say later.

21. All those documents were tendered by the prosecution.

(a) six personal references in support of Mr Toumo'ua, and three for Ms Schaaf; and

(b) Daniel Toumo'ua's criminal history.

23. Mr and Mrs Tibbits gave brief oral evidence as well as reading out their victim impact statements in court.

24. Detective Senior Constable Kyle Mifsud gave evidence on a voir dire about the costs of the investigation into these offences. That evidence has not been taken into account for reasons that I shall explain later.

25. In considering the objective seriousness of the offences, I have had regard to the following matters.

26. First, these are serious offences. While the burglaries were of commercial rather than domestic premises, and so do not have the feature of interfering with victims' sense of the privacy and security of their own homes, the indirect effect of these burglaries and the theft on the business owners, Mr and Mrs Tibbits, was far more dramatic than the impact of most domestic burglaries. Apart from the emotional impact on them, which I shall mention later, I note that the security business collapsed and the company was forced into liquidation. The insurance policy held by the company did not cover the losses from the ATMs when it emerged that the offences had been committed by an employee of the company. As well, Mr and Mrs Tibbits found themselves personally liable for debts and expenses totalling roughly $35,000 arising under contracts for vehicles entered into on behalf of the company and legal expenses in connection with the liquidation of the company.

27. It seems unlikely that Mr Toumo'ua's burglaries were committed on the spur of the moment, although it may be that the opportunity to commit them came unexpectedly soon after his promotion to the position of second in charge. The delay of a week before Mr Toumo'ua took the first steps to secure and then to launder the stolen money may have been part of a plan worked out in advance, or perhaps the timing of the burglaries reflected the unexpected opportunity of Mr Tibbits' absence before Mr Toumo'ua had had time to work out how to deal with the proceeds of a raid on the ATMs without arousing suspicion.

28. On the other hand, the burglaries and thefts were committed over a period apparently no longer than a couple of hours so did not involve the sustained and repeated acts of dishonesty involved in many cases in which employees have stolen large sums of money through their employment.

29. Mr Toumo'ua was, however, clearly in a position of trust, and he abused that trust in a dramatic way despite his knowledge of the personal challenges that his employer was facing at the time.

30. The pre-sentence report author reported Mr Toumo'ua's attitude to the offences as follows:

Mr Toumo'ua agreed with the Statement of Facts and was able to demonstrate insight into his offending behaviour, identifying the impact his actions had on the victims and his family. Whilst he acknowledged the offences were wrong, he justified his behaviour stating that at the time of the offences he was suffering from financial strain brought on by a gambling addiction.

31. The prosecutor sought to call evidence from the investigating officer to the effect that the investigation into these offences had taken an extended period and involved a large and costly amount of police resources over that period. This evidence was to be given in support of a submission that the costs to the community of the police investigation should be taken into account as part of the loss or damage caused by the offences.

32. The prosecutor disclaimed any submission that the costs of police investigations are routinely an aspect of the loss or damage resulting from an offence as mentioned in the Crimes (Sentencing) Act 2005 (ACT), s 33(1)(e), but suggested that where investigations were particularly time-consuming or otherwise resource-intensive, those costs should be considered in determining the objective seriousness of the offence (and presumably, by implication, the ultimate sentence). He was not however able to point to any authority for this proposition, and nor have my limited investigations brought to light any support for it.

33. Accordingly, I reject the prosecutor's submission that excessive investigation costs, because of the nature of the offence or the particular difficulties of investigating it, should be taken into account in sentencing as a loss or damage caused by the offence and suffered by the community.

34. As a matter of principle, it seems to me that while co-operation with the authorities in the investigation of an offence may provide a basis for some sentencing discount, the fact that an investigation is difficult (whether because of the behaviour of the offender, the nature of the offence or otherwise) does not seem to be an appropriate basis for a heavier sentence.

35. This is consistent with what I understand to be the accepted principle that a plea of guilty may justify a sentencing discount, but an offender cannot be punished for exercising his or her right to go to trial.

36. Of course, there may be cases in which costs of the kind identified by the prosecutor would indirectly feed into the sentencing process, for instance, if the complexities of the investigation arose from the extent of the offender's pre-planning of the offence, but this would be because it arose out of the nature of the offender's conduct in relation to the offence. That does not seem to be suggested here.

37. I note next that a total of $775,340 was removed from ATMs accessed by Mr Toumo'ua. This includes a sum of about $244,000 removed from a St George ATM in Queanbeyan and accordingly not charged in this jurisdiction (although I understand it may be the subject of proceedings in New South Wales). Of that total, nearly $200,000 was recovered from the storage unit and just over $150,000 from the winning AFL Grand Final bets. The remaining amount that has not been recovered was $429,311.

38. Mr Tibbits, Mr Toumo'ua's employer, read a moving victim impact statement at the sentencing hearing. He described leaving the business where he had worked for five years to set up his own business, his pride in how well his company was operating, and especially his satisfaction in obtaining a significant contract for servicing ATMs.

39. Mr Tibbits had employed Mr Toumo'ua in 2012. He explained that, having been himself a single father, he had taken on Mr Toumo'ua, among other things, because Mr Toumo'ua was also a single father hoping that someone would give him a chance.

40. Mr Tibbits said that it was Mr Toumo'ua who notified him the morning after the burglary that a set of keys and a company car had gone missing from the premises, and who then at Mr Tibbits' request notified the police. Mr Tibbits described his misery in the next few months about the destruction of his business, his guilt about the people who had previously relied on him for employment, and his inability to continue to provide for his wife and family. He described himself as embarrassed, ashamed, lonely, scared and, at times, suicidal. In September 2013 his business went into liquidation, leaving him feeling like a failure. Since then, he has suffered depression and a constant sense of loss. This has put pressure on his marriage and on his relationship with his children.

41. Mr Tibbits' staff, some 15 people, suffered from the fact that they were all under suspicion for several months until police were finally able to identify Mr Toumo'ua as the perpetrator of the offences.

42. Mr Tibbits described the impact of the offences on one of his staff members, a younger man who had survived childhood leukaemia and had been studying with a view to obtaining his security licence. Since the business went into liquidation, this young man had lost his sense of pride in his achievements and also suffers from depression. Other staff members have suffered relationship breakdowns and find it hard to trust other people.

43. Mr Tibbits reported that some time after the offences, Mr Toumo'ua came to his home to talk to him and said that "the bastards that did this deserve 20 years behind bars". Obviously, I shall ignore Mr Toumo'ua's sentencing recommendation (which is not a proper subject for a victim impact statement, even if it comes from the offender), but I do note Mr Tibbits' clear and unsurprising sense of having been completely betrayed by a man whom he had trusted and tried to help.

44. Mr Tibbits' wife also provided a victim impact statement in which she said that the impact of the offences is large and ongoing. She explained that she and Mr Tibbits had nearly lost their home, and had little or no income except such as she could earn. She pointed out that in the months after the burglaries, income from the business went into providing wages to the employees including Mr Toumo'ua.

45. Until Mr Tibbits found another job, Alice Tibbits had supported the family, and in the process had amassed significant debts that will take her a long time to pay off. She explained the difficulties that the offences have caused in her relationship with her husband, because of his despair and her fear that he might be suicidal. She noted also that the breach of the trust that she and her husband had placed in Mr Toumo'ua, and the fear and sense of insecurity that has been caused by the discovery that he lied to them over and over in the months after the offences, have caused the family significant distress.

46. Mr Toumo'ua's burglaries are, in my view, around mid-range seriousness, while the theft is slightly above mid-range seriousness.

47. I have also had regard in this sentencing to the subjective circumstances of the offenders.

48. Mr Toumo'ua is 30. His criminal history consists of two drink-driving offences committed in 2008 and 2012.

49. Mr Toumo'ua was born in Tonga and came to Australia as a child. He is one of 11 children of parents who now live in Victoria, and his upbringing and continuing family relationships seem to have been positive. He is currently single, but has regular contact with his two children from previous relationships and has been living with his sister.

50. Mr Toumo'ua completed Year 12 and has been employed as a labourer for the last couple of years. He claims to have suffered a gambling addiction, presumably around the time of the offences, but there is no evidence before me of any gambling other than that apparently undertaken in an attempt to "launder" the proceeds of this offending. Mr Toumo'ua admits to having drunk to excess as a teenager and until a year or so ago but says he now has his drinking under control.

51. The pre-sentence report author assessed Mr Toumo'ua as at low risk of general re-offending, while noting that what is described as his ongoing social gambling remains a risk factor.

52. Six character references were tendered on behalf of Mr Toumo'ua. Two were from siblings, an older brother and a younger sister. His brother pointed out that they come from "a religious and traditional family which places high importance on family, community, integrity, honesty and above all regard for the law". He describes the shock, sadness and embarrassment caused to Mr Toumo'ua's family by the discovery of his offending, and the family's regret that they were not aware of Mr Toumo'ua's gambling problems until too late. He affirms that the family will not give up on Mr Toumo'ua, that they believe he is genuinely remorseful, and that they hope he will come out of this experience a stronger person who has learnt from his mistakes. Mr Toumo'ua's younger sister expressed similar feelings and, while recognising the suffering of the victims, explained that her family were also feeling a great loss.

53. Three references were provided by high office holders in the Free Church of Tonga in Melbourne, where Mr Toumo'ua and his extended family are members of the congregation. They described Mr Toumo'ua's contributions to the life of the church, and also his role in the care of his extended family. They described Mr Toumo'ua's confession of his wrongdoing at a church service, in which he expressed regret and remorse for hurting his family, letting down the church, and dishonouring his previous boss, the victim of these offences. The church leaders are confident that Mr Toumo'ua's actions were out of character and that he will not offend again.

54. Finally, there is a reference from a friend of Mr Toumo'ua's, a lawyer in private practice in the ACT, who also expresses the view that these offences are out of character and that Mr Toumo'ua is deeply ashamed, embarrassed and apologetic, and understands that he must face the consequences of his conduct.

55. Ms Schaaf is now 29. She has no criminal history.

56. She was born in Canberra and currently lives with her mother and her six-year-old daughter. Ms Schaaf's mother confirms that the family is very close. Mr Toumo'ua is the father of the six-year-old. Ms Schaaf says that the relationship ended because of his gambling, and that Mr Toumo'ua currently pays child support depending on his success at gambling. Ms Schaaf is engaged to be married later this year.

57. Ms Schaaf does not use alcohol or illicit substances and has no mental health concerns. She is employed in a customer service position, and provided a reference from her employer. He referred to her five and a half years employment with his organisation, describing her as one of his most productive employees who is always happy to do extra work and usually works 40 hours a week. Her responsibilities include training and supervising more junior staff. Her employer said that Ms Schaaf was always professional and vigilant in dealing with sensitive information about clients, and that there has never been any question about her integrity at work. He described her as "downhearted and ashamed" when she had to ask for the reference.

58. The pre-sentence report author described Ms Schaaf's attitude to the offences:

Ms Schaaf appeared to take full responsibility for her actions, and described her neglect to report her ex partner's behaviour as shameful. Ms Schaaf recognised the impact her behaviour had on the broader community and on her ex partner's employer and employees. She acknowledged her greed and passivity in relation to the offences and understood that this was unacceptable.

59. Ms Schaaf has been assessed as at low risk of general re-offending and, in the view of the pre-sentence report author, requires only a low level of intervention by ACT Corrective Services. She is assessed as suitable for community service work.

60. Mr Toumo'ua has attributed his offending to financial strain caused by a gambling addiction. Although Mr Toumo'ua visited Ms Schaaf's home later in the evening of the burglaries, there is no evidence that Ms Schaaf had any particular involvement in the incident until nearly a week later, when she hired the car which Mr Toumo'ua then drove to Melbourne. A relatively small portion of the stolen money seems to have been channelled through her bank accounts, and some of that seems to have been spent on cars and plane tickets for Mr Toumo'ua. As I have already noted, she has attributed her participation in this offending to greed and passivity and accepts that her behaviour was unacceptable.

61. There is no basis on which I could find that Ms Schaaf was other than a bit player in the criminal operation conducted by Mr Toumo'ua.

62. As noted, both offenders are assessed as at low risk of re-offending, and the pre-sentence report authors do not see any significant role for Corrections supervision in their rehabilitation. On the other hand, if Mr Toumo'ua was really suffering from a gambling addiction, as distinct from simply a fondness for gambling, then he probably needs some psychological help to avoid him relapsing into gambling, and the risks inherent in it, next time he is under some kind of stress.

63. As noted, these were not spur of the moment offences but, at least in the case of Mr Toumo'ua, a carefully planned course of offending for financial gain (even if one were to accept that the financial gain was sought in order to overcome financial difficulties resulting from unsuccessful gambling, and even if one were to accept the relevance of the claimed gambling addiction). General deterrence is accordingly important in this sentencing; personal deterrence may not play such a major role, especially as regards Ms Schaaf, but I do not exclude it in relation to Mr Toumo'ua.

64. The third person involved in this matter, Daniel Toumo'ua, was dealt with in the Magistrates Court in July last year on a plea of guilty to one charge of possessing property suspected of being the proceeds of crime (a summary offence under s 114C of the Crimes Act and carrying a maximum penalty including imprisonment for two years). As well, it seems that Daniel Toumo'ua also provided some assistance to authorities. He was convicted, and a 12-month good behaviour order was made, which included a requirement for him to engage in restorative justice. Counsel for Ms Schaaf concedes that the offence for which she is to be sentenced was more serious than Mr Toumo'ua's offence.

65. Mr Toumo'ua and Ms Schaaf were charged in the Magistrates Court in November 2014 with a total of 16 offences arising out of the activities that I have already described. They both pleaded not guilty, and in June 2015 the matters were committed to this Court for trial. There was some delay in the preparation of an indictment, but in August 2015 the Crown filed an indictment containing 11 counts against Mr Toumo'ua and three against Ms Schaaf. Negotiations then began between the parties, and by December 2015 pleas of guilty had been indicated. In February this year, a fresh indictment was filed containing six counts against Mr Toumo'ua and one against Ms Schaaf, and pleas of guilty were entered after arraignment on 11 February this year.

66. I understand that the Crown accepts these pleas as having been entered as soon as possible after negotiations had been completed. I also note that they did come before any trial date had been set, and avoided what would undoubtedly have been a long and difficult trial. The original witness list identified 35 witnesses to be called in the Crown case, with another 150-odd whose evidence would be tendered through the informant unless the defence required them to appear, and the original estimated duration for the trial was up to four weeks.

67. Sentencing discounts will be provided in recognition of the utilitarian value of the pleas. I also accept the pleas as some indication of remorse.

68. Counsel drew my attention to several cases said to have some relevance in this sentencing, being the matters of:

(a) R v Jansen [2004] ACTSC, Connolly J, 17 December 2004, and R v Jansen [2005] ACTCA 20, an appeal from that sentence;

(b) R v Cousins [2012] ACTSC, Higgins CJ, 26 March 2012;

(c) R v Close [2013] ACTSC, Higgins CJ, 12 August, 2013;

(d) R v Wheeler [2013] ACTSC, Higgins CJ, 22 February 2013;

(e) R v Reid [2016] ACTSC 24 and other cases mentioned in Reid as possibly comparable sentences;

(f) R v Hoang [2015] ACTSC 138; and

(g) R v Luong, Nguyen and Cao [2005] VSCA 94, a Victorian Court of Appeal case, for the proposition that even an established gambling addiction is unlikely to mitigate an offence, as distinct from providing an explanation of it.

69. I see no need to canvas the details of any of the possibly comparable cases, but I note the following matters:

(a) that Mr Toumo'au's offences, although technically amounting to burglaries and thefts and properly so charged, are in substance more like the deception offences dealt with in Reid and apparently dealt with in some of those other matters just mentioned (the sentencing remarks in Cousins, Close and Wheeler do not actually specify the offences charged, although there are general references to "fraud" in some of them);

(b) next, that the amounts taken in those other matters ranged from $272,000 to $1.4 million (although I accept that the $640,000 involved in the 2004 case is not readily comparable to the amounts specified in cases that date from 2012 to 2015);

(c) that the sentences ranged from three years and two months for the $272,000 offences up to six and a half years for the $1.19 million offences (the $1.4 million offences produced a sentence of five years, but the offender in that case appears to have engaged the sympathy of the court, possibly due to material in psychological reports that were before the court although not explained in the sentencing remarks);

(d) that only one offender, the man who had taken the $1.19 million, served more than 12 months in full-time custody; specifically, he served two years in full-time custody;

(e) finally, that the offenders serving the three longer sentences also served a further period as periodic detention, which of course was not available as an addition to full-time custody when Mr Reid was sentenced and is not available at all now.

70. In Reid, I also had evidence before me from the ACT Sentencing Database indicating that nearly 90% of offenders convicted of the offences dealt with in that matter, being obtain property by deception offences, received prison terms involving some period in custody.

71. No such statistics have been put before me in this case, but it is fair to say that the statistics for routine burglaries and thefts are unlikely to be particularly relevant in this case, if only because few of them involve any specific breach of trust and the value of the thefts tends to be far lower than those involved in this case.

73. First, Mr Toumo'ua. I record convictions on four counts of burglary, one count of theft and one count of money laundering.

74. Next, I make the following reparation order. Under s 19 of the Crimes (Sentencing) Act, I order that you pay Glen Tibbits and Alice Tibbits jointly the amount of $30,000.

75. I now sentence you, Mr Toumo'ua, to imprisonment as follows:

(a) for the first burglary, to imprisonment for 18 months reduced from two years for your plea of guilty, and for the other three burglaries, to imprisonment for two years three months each, reduced from three years for your pleas of guilty; the sentence for the first burglary is to start today, the second is to start on 21 August 2016, the third is to start on 21 October 2016 and the fourth sentence is to start on 21 December 2016. That gives a total sentence of two years and nine months for the burglaries;

(b) for the theft, I sentence you to three years imprisonment, reduced from four years for the plea of guilty. That will start on 21 June 2017 and so that will add one year and three months to the sentences for the burglaries, giving a cumulative total of four years; and

(c) for the money laundering offence, to imprisonment for two years and three months, reduced from three years for the plea of guilty, and starting from 21 March 2019, thus adding one year to the total sentence, giving a head sentence of five years.

(a) I note first what seems to be at least a practice if not actually a principle in this jurisdiction, that for offences such as these where an offender is not apparently a direct danger to the community, a relatively low period of full-time custody may be adequate.

(b) Secondly, I note the non-availability of either periodic detention or of an intensive correction order for a sentence involving more than four years imprisonment.

77. In those circumstances, I am confined to recognising the practice in relation to custodial time by setting a relatively low proportion of the head sentence as the period before which you may be released from custody.

78. Mr Toumo'ua, I have no idea how you are likely to cope, and to behave, in custody, although I would hope that your expressed readiness to face the consequences of your offending, and to emerge from prison a better person, will see you put your head down and work through your custodial time with a minimum of fuss and, especially, Mr Toumo'ua, a determination to avoid anything while you are in prison that might lead you to further criminal activity after you are released. Because of that lack of information, however, I propose to set a non-parole period rather than to provide for the suspension of the sentence, but in order to give you an incentive to behave sensibly and to make the most of your time in custody, I propose to set a relatively short non-parole period, specifically 20 months.

79. As already noted, the sentence will start to run today, since you have not yet spent any time in custody, and so it will run until 20 June 2021.

80. The non-parole period will expire in 20 months, being 20 February 2018. Assuming you are released that day, you will then have three years and four months of parole supervision before you are clear of these sentences. While you are subject to parole supervision, you will be at risk of serving some or all of the remaining term of the sentence if you breach any conditions of your parole, and especially if you commit any further offences.

81. Ms Schaaf, I record a conviction on one count of money laundering.

82. I now sentence you to imprisonment for 9 months, reduced from 12 months for your plea of guilty.

83. The sentence will run from today, but it will be suspended with immediate effect, and I now order you to sign an undertaking to comply with your good behaviour obligations under the Crimes (Sentence Administration) Act 2005 (ACT) for 18 months.

84. The good behaviour order is subject to conditions:

(a) that you give security in the amount of $1,000 for your compliance with this good behaviour order;

(b) that for such period not exceeding 18 months as Corrective Services considers necessary, you accept the supervision of ACT Corrective Services and obey all reasonable directions of the Director-General or her delegate, including any referrals to other appropriate agencies; and

(c) that on or before the close of business tomorrow, 22 June, you attend Corrective Services at Eclipse House to arrange your supervision.

85. You will be given a written copy of the good behaviour order, and it will be read to you by the court officials. But in short it means that, for the next 18 months, you need to keep out of trouble, keep in contact with Corrective Services to the extent they require, and do what your Corrective Services supervisor says. If you commit another offence during that time, or if you otherwise breach your undertaking, you may find yourself back before this Court to be re-sentenced for this offence as well as possibly losing your security amount, the $1,000, and, depending on exactly how you have breached the undertaking, you could find yourself serving some or all of that prison term in full-time custody.

86. If either of you have any particular questions about the orders I have just made, please ask the court officials or your lawyer.

I certify that the preceding eighty-seven [87] numbered paragraphs are a true copy of the Reasons for Sentence of her Honour Justice Penfold.