Alexander Anh Nguyen Tran resentenced, released from home detention, for smuggling child exploitation material into Australia
The state’s highest court has cancelled a child abuse pervert’s home detention — being served just 250m from a kindergarten — and replaced it with an even softer sentence.
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- Child exploiting pervert to serve sentence 250m from a kindy
- Pervert’s home detention ‘not authorised by law’, say prosecutors
The state’s highest court has cancelled a child abuse pervert’s home detention — being served just 250m from a kindergarten — and replaced it with a wholly suspended prison term.
On Thursday, illicit image smuggler and former teacher Alexander Anh Nguyen Tran was released on a three-year good behaviour bond, including a total ban on using social media.
The ruling ends a beleaguered case marred by the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions’ repeatedly shifting attitude to penalty.
At first it opposed home detention, then supported it, and after Tran’s sentencing filed an appeal claiming he had been punished in error and had to go to jail.
On Thursday, the Court of Criminal Appeal upheld the CDPP’s challenge — but only in part.
It ruled an 11-month prison term was the appropriate penalty, but ordered it be suspended without any time in custody.
“The purpose of this sentence is, essentially, for your rehabilitation,” Justice Malcolm Blue told Tran.
“You will have the opportunity to avoid serving the sentence provided you are of good behaviour and are prepared to undertake (rehabilitation) programs.
“If you comply, you will never serve the sentence … on the other hand, if you do not, you will be liable to do so.”
Tran, 32, was caught smuggling six hard drives filled with child exploitation material into Australia, from Japan, in May last year.
He asked the District Court to let him serve his sentence at home, just 200m from Wilderness School — which was unaware of his presence until informed by The Advertiser.
He offered alternatives near a different school and a kindergarten — prosecutors did not oppose the latter address saying GPS tracking would safeguard nearby children.
In May, Tran was sentenced to 22 months’ jail and ordered to serve the first 10 months of that time on home detention.
Four months later, the CDPP lodged an appeal insisting home detention sentences could not, as a matter of law, be attached to Federal penalties.
It said Tran’s penalty had to be entirely custodial or wholly suspended — and argued he should be imprisoned immediately.
On Thursday, Chief Justice Chris Kourakis, Justice Blue and Justice David Lovell unanimously agreed Tran should be resentenced.
They imposed a new 11-month term and three-year bond — both beginning on Thursday.
“The conditions of the bond are more or less the same as those imposed by (the District Court),” Justice Blue told Tran.
Timeline
May 2017: Tran is caught smuggling 2000 child exploitation material files through Adelaide Airport. He is bailed to live just 200m from Wilderness School, which is not notified.
February 21, 2018: Tran asks to serve his sentence on home detention. The Advertiser contacts Wilderness, which issues an immediate warning to students and families.
March 1, 2018: Federal prosecutors admit they did not know Tran lived near a school. His counsel offers a new home detention address — 800m from a school in Broadview.
March 9, 2018: Tran offers a third address, 250m from a kindergarten. Federal prosecutors do not object, saying GPS tracking will protect children and families.
May 1, 2018: Tran is sentenced to 22 months’ jail, with the first 10 months to be served on home detention and the rest under supervision in the community.
September 20, 2018: Federal prosecutors change their position and file an appeal, claiming partial home detention sentences are not “authorised under law” and Tran must be jailed.
January 17, 2019: The Court of Criminal Appeal cancels Tran’s home detention and resentences him to an 11-month term, wholly suspended.
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