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District Court 10 July 2025

R v Wiltshire

[2025] NSWDC 449

Drugs
CRIME SENTENCE SUPPLY PROHIBITED DRUG

Citation: R v Wiltshire [2025] NSWDC 449
Court: District Court of New South Wales
Date: 10 July 2025
Judge: Bourke SC DCJ

Background

The offender operated a small but organised drug supply business from a motel room in Adamstown, in the Hunter region of NSW. Police identified him during a strike force investigation targeting drug supply in the area, initially through surveillance of a co-offender. When police executed a search warrant on 28 March 2024, they found a purpose-configured workspace equipped with scales, plastic bags, tick lists, and a private CCTV system, along with multiple prohibited drugs concealed in various locations throughout the room.

The offender used a Facebook Messenger profile under the name "Nu Skool Logistics" to advertise his product and negotiate prices with customers. He conducted multiple in-person drug transactions across the greater Newcastle area in the weeks preceding his arrest. A small amount of cash, assessed as suspected proceeds of crime, was also found near the drugs.

The offender pleaded guilty at the earliest opportunity to five supply offences, one proceeds of crime offence, and asked the court to take a further possession offence into account on a Form 1.

  • What was the objective seriousness of each supply offence, taking into account the offender's role and the quantities involved?
  • What weight should be given to the offender's drug addiction as a mitigating factor, given that addiction partly motivated the offending?
  • How should the aggregate sentence be structured across multiple offences of varying gravity?
  • To what extent, if any, should the sentence be backdated to the date of arrest, given that the offender's parole was revoked primarily because of the fresh charges?

Decision

Bourke SC DCJ assessed the offending as involving a genuine commercial enterprise, albeit not a sophisticated one. The offender was the principal in his own operation, setting prices, advertising product, and conducting sales personally. While the Crown conceded the operation lacked complexity, the judge found the profit motive, the degree of autonomy, and the use of social media advertising all elevated the objective seriousness of the supply offences.

The court accepted, however, that a significant part of the offender's motivation was sustaining his own drug dependency, and that the financial rewards were not large. These matters were relevant to, though not determinative of, the assessment of moral culpability. The court applied a 25 per cent discount to all sentences to reflect the utilitarian value of the early guilty pleas.

On the question of backdating, the judge declined to backdate the sentence fully to the date of arrest. Because the offender's parole had been revoked as a consequence of committing the fresh offences, backdating the sentence to the full extent would have ignored that the offender had breached the conditions of his conditional liberty. At the same time, withholding all backdating would amount to double punishment. The court settled on backdating the sentence by approximately half the time spent in custody, commencing on 17 November 2024.

An aggregate sentence of four years was imposed, with a non-parole period of two years and six months, reflecting the totality of the offending and the offender's personal circumstances.

Orders Made

  • Aggregate sentence of four years' imprisonment imposed, commencing 17 November 2024, expiring 16 November 2028
  • Non-parole period of two years and six months, expiring 16 May 2027
  • Indicative sentences:
  • Sequence 2 (supply MDMA, 5.88g): 12 months
  • Sequence 4 (supply methylamphetamine, 69.31g, including Form 1 diazepam matter): 2 years
  • Sequence 6 (supply GHB, 144.1g): 15 months
  • Sequence 9 (supply cannabis leaf, 66.3g): 9 months
  • Sequence 24 (supply GBL, 500mL): 16 months
  • Sequence 10 (dealing with suspected proceeds of crime, $1,995): 7 months

Key Takeaways

  • Operating a drug supply enterprise for profit, even one of modest scale and limited sophistication, attracted significant weight given to general deterrence in sentencing under the Drug Misuse and Trafficking Act 1985.
  • A drug dependency that partly motivates offending may reduce moral culpability, but the District Court found this did not substantially diminish the objective gravity of operating as an autonomous, profit-oriented supplier.
  • Where a sentence is imposed as an aggregate under the Crimes (Sentencing Procedure) Act 1999, indicative sentences for each individual offence must still be stated, though they do not represent the ultimate penalty.
  • The court applied a discretionary approach to backdating where parole revocation and fresh offending are intertwined: full backdating would have underweighted the parole breach, while no backdating would have amounted to double punishment for the same conduct.
  • A 25 per cent sentencing discount for utilitarian value of guilty pleas was applied consistently across all offences where the offender entered early pleas.

Legislation and Cases Referenced

Legislation:
- Drug Misuse and Trafficking Act 1985 (NSW), s 25(1)
- Crimes Act 1900 (NSW), s 193C(2)
- Crimes (Sentencing Procedure) Act 1999 (NSW)

Cases:
- DPP (Cth) v De La Rosa [2010] NSWCCA 194