CRIMINAL LAW — Work health and safety — Offences — Category 2 — Sentencing — Crane fitted on truck operated by unlicenced worker — Contact with live overhead powerlines — Offender a small business — Whether payment of prosecutor’s costs is relevant to penalty
SENTENCING — Relevant factors on sentence — Co-offenders — Parity — Whether principal contractor at construction site and supplier of cement products engaged in common criminal enterprise — Where culpability of offenders was comparable — Different sentences imposed to reflect principal contractor’s substantially reduced capacity to pay fine
Quick Take
1Where two duty holders are charged with the same WHS offence arising from the same incident but had distinct roles and separate spheres of responsibility, it is doubtful they were engaged in a 'common criminal enterprise' sufficient to strictly attract the parity principle, though broader principles of consistency in sentencing remain relevant.
2An agreed payment of the prosecutor's costs is compensatory, not punitive, and should not be factored into the assessment of a proportionate penalty unless the offender's capacity to pay is genuinely in issue.
3The parity principle permits substantially different fines for comparably culpable offenders where their financial circumstances differ markedly, and does not justify the imposition of an inadequate sentence merely to align with an earlier sentence imposed on a co-offender with reduced capacity to pay.
Case Details
Citation[2026] NSWIC 44
CourtNSWIC
JurisdictionNew South Wales
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