The case confirms that delay in prosecution of white collar crime is not of itself a mitigating factor and that the weight to be given to delay is a matter for the sentencing judge's discretion, with appellate intervention only justified if the sentence as a whole is manifestly excessive. A sentence of four years imprisonment with parole eligibility at the halfway point was upheld for a principal offender in a $182,000 ATO fraud involving 25 false tax returns over approximately two and a half years, notwithstanding an eight-year delay between detection and charge. Reparation orders for the full amount of loss are appropriate against co-offenders as liability is joint and several.
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