The sentence imposed by the Judge was reduced from one of three and a-half years' imprisonment to be suspended after 16 months had been served to one of three years' imprisonment to be suspended after 10 months have been served. The Court of Appeal made no comments about the disqualification.

Nothing is presented to the Court contrary to Mr Tabakovic's assertions in his affidavit that he is remorseful for the event, which culminated in the Court of Appeal judgment available at [2005] QCA 90, that he was a model prisoner for the 12 months period, that he has not driven since the disqualification was pronounced, that apart from the ordinary inconvenience to a family man of having been excluded from the privilege of driving, he is inconvenienced in his income earning activities as a self-employed painter. (He has been able to manage, doubtless with difficulty, with the assistance of his mate, but that cannot always be available.)

Although the applicant had a bad traffic history, which appears to have come to an end with his conviction, he has no other criminal history. There is no reason to doubt that he meets the character and other requirements referred to in section 131(2). There is less than six months to run of this disqualification.

In my respectful opinion, the section is there serving the useful purpose of providing an inducement to offenders to perform well, in which event there is a reasonable likelihood that they will be given the opportunity to become licensed to drive again - after suffering a sufficiently lengthy deprivation of the ability to drive to satisfy the community's demand for punishment.

I will refer to, without any further detail, the reasons I gave in a similar matter of the applicant Mark Kennedy in Maroochydore last week in which I collected, for my own convenience, reasons given in a number of similar applications which had come before me where, as here, an offender has been sentenced to imprisonment. One of the factors is that the disqualification has no actual effect until the offender is back in the community. See Maroochydore No 135 of 2009, 19 June 2009; [2009] QDC 181.

Relief, as it was in Mr Kennedy's first application under section 131 [2007] QDC 353, may be refused or deferred. Deferral of the removal occurred in a number of the cases collected by me.

As it happens, the decision of the Court of Appeal which contains nothing pertinent in relation to the disqualification, has had the effect of returning Mr Tabakovic to the community on the basis of being disentitled from driving six months earlier than the District Court judge in imposing sentence envisaged.

I think in this case the intentions of the sentencing Judge to penalise by the disqualification can be seen as having been achieved if I remove immediately the disqualification imposed on the 10th of December 2004. The Court expresses its appreciation of Ms Gilmore's helpful submissions which may be read as adopting a sympathetic stance from the applicant's point of view.

HIS HONOUR: There will be an order as per initialled draft.