Man jailed after continuing to breach his suspended sentence

JUDGE: “For a young man you have spent a very long time in prison, and life has much more to offer than the inside of a cell.”

A man who was convicted of two carnal knowledge offences in 2017 has had the remainder of his suspended sentence activated after he failed to comply with his reporting conditions.

The man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, faced the Bundaberg District Court on Monday in breach of his suspended sentence.

He was also in breach of a probation order.

The court heard the man originally received a 15 month jail term after he had supplied a 15-year-old girl with drugs before having sex with her twice when he was 20.

The sentence was then suspended after the man served 272 days with an operational period of two years.

He was on parole and a suspended sentence at the time of the original offence.

The man was recently sentenced in the Bundaberg Magistrates Court for failing to comply with his reporting conditions, as well as breaching a domestic violence order and wearing a prohibited item in the form of a shirt which had an outlaw bikie gang logo on it.

The man failed to report a number of things including social media accounts and a new tattoo as part of his reporting conditions.

The matters breached the original sentence and the man was committed to the District Court.

Crown prosecutor Alexandra Baker told the court the man had also breached the sentence in 2019, where the operational period of the suspended sentence was extended for a further 12 months.

Ms Baker submitted to the court it was open for the remaining six months of the sentence to be activated and served cumulatively on the jail term he was currently serving.

The man’s barrister Nick Larter told the court his client intended to move away from Bundaberg to Biloela when released from jail to take up a job opportunity waiting for him.

Mr Larter conceded his client’s compliance with his reporting was “pretty well dreadful”.

He also conceded that if the remainder of his client’s sentence were to be served concurrent on his current jail term it would only push the full-time release date out by a few weeks.

Judge Vicki Loury told the man he had spent a long time behind bars for someone his age.

“For a young man you have spent a very long time in prison, and life has much more to offer than the inside of a cell,” she said.

“You should do what you can in custody to put yourself in the best position to be released on parole and do what you can to comply with the conditions of parole.

“You have previously not done well on parole because you continue to use drugs.

“Unless you get yourself away from Bundaberg and go back to your family and get yourself a job and stop using drugs, this is what the rest of your life looks like. A revolving door in and out of prison, longer in prison and less time in the community.

“The choice is now yours.”

The remainder of the man’s suspended sentence was activated to be served cumulative on his current term.

He will be eligible for parole in June.

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Originally published as Man jailed after continuing to breach his suspended sentence