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District Court 8 August 2025

R v BL

[2025] NSWDC 315

Sexual offences

Citation: R v BL [2025] NSWDC 315
Court: District Court of New South Wales
Date: 8 August 2025
Judge: Fitzsimmons SC DCJ

Background

Following a trial, the offender (born 1997) was found guilty on four counts of child sexual offences against his nephew (born 2009). The offences occurred between 2016 and 2018, when the victim was aged between approximately six and nine years old. The offending took place during visits to the grandmother's home, where both the offender and victim were present.

The four offences spanned two separate incidents. The first, in 2016, involved the offender touching the victim's penis while the victim lay on a couch watching television. The second, in late 2018, involved a more serious sequence of conduct: intentional sexual touching, penile-oral intercourse, and an attempted further act of penile-oral intercourse that the victim was able to resist and escape. The offender was acquitted on a fifth count.

The offender had no prior criminal history. Subjective material before the court included psychological assessment reports addressing the offender's significant anxiety, difficult childhood (including reported sexual abuse by his grandmother), social isolation, and ongoing mental health treatment.

  • What aggregate sentence was appropriate for four child sexual offences against the same child victim, spanning two incidents over approximately two years?
  • How should standard non-parole periods under the Crime (Sentencing Procedure) Act 1999 (CSPA) inform the sentence?
  • What weight, if any, should be given to the offender's mental health conditions as a subjective mitigating factor?
  • Whether, and to what extent, the period spent on highly restrictive bail conditions following the guilty verdict should be reflected in the sentence commencement date.

Decision

Fitzsimmons SC DCJ sentenced the offender to an aggregate term of six years' imprisonment with a non-parole period of three years and eight months. The court set out indicative sentences for each count and applied the aggregate sentencing provisions under the CSPA. The standard non-parole periods were treated as reference points, reflecting the legislative requirement that they represent the midpoint of objective seriousness based solely on objective factors.

The court accepted that the offender's mental health conditions, including significant anxiety with a lengthy and documented treatment history, constituted a relevant subjective consideration. The psychological reports supported findings about the offender's difficult upbringing, including reported abuse, social difficulties, and impaired capacity for employment. These matters were weighed in mitigation alongside the objective seriousness of the offending.

On the question of bail conditions, the offender had been subject to strict conditions since the return of guilty verdicts on 18 February 2025, effectively amounting to house arrest for 171 days. The court acknowledged that conditional bail does not ordinarily constitute custody for sentencing purposes, citing LA v R [2021] NSWCCA 136. However, drawing on R v Quinlin [2021] NSWCCA 284, the court accepted that the combination of the offender's mental health conditions and the highly restrictive, socially isolating nature of the bail regime increased its burden beyond what would ordinarily be experienced. A modest additional backdating of 60 days was applied on this basis.

The sentence was backdated to account for seven days already spent in custody and the 60-day allowance for restrictive bail conditions, producing a commencement date of 2 June 2025.

Orders Made

  • The offender was convicted of the four offences.
  • An aggregate term of imprisonment of six years was imposed, commencing 2 June 2025 and expiring 1 June 2031.
  • A non-parole period of three years and eight months was imposed, expiring 1 February 2029.
  • The earliest date of eligibility for release is 1 February 2029.

Key Takeaways

  • Standard non-parole periods under the CSPA function as reference points representing the midpoint of objective seriousness, assessed solely by reference to objective factors, and do not limit the court's broader sentencing discretion.
  • Conditional bail does not ordinarily constitute custody for sentencing purposes, but restrictive bail conditions may warrant modest sentence backdating where a documented mental health condition demonstrably increases the burden of those conditions on the offender.
  • The District Court applied R v Quinlin [2021] NSWCCA 284 to justify a 60-day backdating adjustment beyond the actual days in custody, reflecting the combined effect of severe bail restrictions and the offender's mental health circumstances.
  • Where offending comprises multiple counts against a single victim across distinct incidents, an aggregate sentence provides the mechanism for arriving at an appropriate total term that reflects the overall criminality without double-counting.
  • The absence of prior criminal history, together with documented mental health conditions and a difficult personal history, were treated as relevant subjective mitigating considerations, though their weight operates within the framework of serious child sexual offending carrying high maximum and standard non-parole periods.

Legislation and Cases Referenced

Legislation:
- Crimes Act 1900 (NSW), ss 61M(2), 66A(1), 66B, 66DA(a)
- Crime (Sentencing Procedure) Act 1999 (NSW), ss 21A, 54A, 54B

Cases:
- R v Olbrich (1999) 199 CLR 270
- R v Storey [1998] 1 VR 359
- LA v R [2021] NSWCCA 136
- R v Quinlin [2021] NSWCCA 284