A sentence of 9 months' imprisonment combined with a Community Correction Order is manifestly inadequate for a rolled-up charge of theft of over $460,000 from an employer over three years involving breach of trust, concealment, and significant harm to the victim, even where there is an early plea, cooperation, remorse, no prior criminal history, and personal difficulties including gambling addiction. The minimum appropriate sentence in such circumstances was 2 years and 6 months' imprisonment with a non-parole period of 18 months. The failure to cite well-known sentencing authorities at first instance provides only a slender basis for exercising the residual discretion to dismiss a Crown appeal.
The full text is available to signed-in members, including the 25 later cases that cite this judgment.
1 of the 25 citing cases carry a classified treatment. How each court treated it is available to signed-in members.