Case note
Home detention for importing methamphetamine
Importing 508 grams of methamphetamine, with a firearm. A lesser role and real rehabilitation meant a sentence served at home.
- Court
- District Court
- Counsel
- G Duff and F Choi
- Charges
- Importing methamphetaminePossession of methamphetamine for supplyUnlawful possession of a firearm (representative)
- Outcome
- Eleven months' home detention, with six months' post-detention conditions
What happened
The defendant used his work laptop to redirect an international parcel to his workplace. Customs found 508 grams of methamphetamine soaked into towels and sheets. A search of his home found 14 grams of methamphetamine, $10,000 in cash, and a shotgun with its serial number removed. He accepted the offending in his police interview, accepted a sentence indication, and pleaded guilty. He had never before appeared in any court.
The point worth pausing on
The quantity sat on the boundary between bands 3 and 4 of Zhang v R, where starting points usually begin at six and eight years. The Court looked past the weight to the role. It treated the abuse of his employer's trust as aggravating, but still assessed his role as lesser, and set a starting point of five and a half years, with a further year for the other charges.
Personal factors then did the work. The Court gave discounts for the plea, remorse, rehabilitation, good character, and his background under s 27, including the intergenerational poverty it found had contributed to the offending. Together they came to 60 per cent, bringing the sentence to 31 months. Credit for more than 15 months on EM bail took it to 24 months, and home detention followed, with judicial monitoring.
In an importation, role matters as much as weight, and the work done before sentencing can bring home detention within reach.