TRANSCRIPT OF PROCEEDINGS

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SUPREME COURT OF QUEENSLAND

CRIMINAL JURISDICTION

RYAN J

Indictment No 1368 of 2019

THE QUEEN

v.

DANIEL PAUL BAKER and

MICHAEL ANTHONY SKIPPEN

BRISBANE

10.42 AM, WEDNESDAY, 27 MAY 2020

SENTENCE

Any Rulings that may be included in this transcript, may be extracted and subject to revision by the Presiding Judge.

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1
 HER HONOUR: Mr Baker and Mr Skippen, I will ask you to remain seated while I
say some things that apply to both of you and then, I will get you to stand up
individually when I sentence you, okay?

5 You have both pleaded guilty to a variety of drug offences, evidence of which was
revealed when police searched Mr Baker’s house in September 2018.

In each case, I have taken into account in your favour your pleas of guilty. The
prosecutor described them as timely ones - this matter was never listed for trial. The
10 sentences that I will ultimately impose on each of you will be, for reasons that
include your pleas of guilty and for other reasons, more lenient than the sentence I
would have imposed upon you had you required the prosecution to prove your guilt
at trial.

15 The facts of the offences have been reduced to a written schedule which I have read
and taken into account and they have been summarised by the prosecution.

Briefly, during the search at Mr Baker’s house police found scales and clipseal bags
including clipseal bags in your pocket, Mr Skippen; seven grams of chopped
20 cannabis on the coffee table; a used glass pipe on the coffee table; 2.331 grams of
methylamphetamine in 3.369 grams of substance in your joint possession and, in the
case of you, Mr Baker, in your possession for a commercial purpose. They found
another 0.072 grams of methylamphetamine in Mr Skippen’s car and they also found
on your phone, Mr Baker, evidence of your supplying or arranging to supply small
25 quantities of cannabis or methylamphetamine. You were both charged with the
several offences to which you have pleaded today.

Both of you pleaded guilty to possessing things used in connection with the
possession of dangerous drugs. You both pleaded guilty to possessing the cannabis
30 and to possessing more than two grams of methylamphetamine.

Mr Skippen, you pleaded guilty to an additional offence of possessing

methylamphetamine.

35 Mr Baker, you pleaded guilty to the additional offence of possessing a thing used in
connection with the supply of dangerous drugs – so that is your phone – and eight
counts of supplying a dangerous drug over a period of about nine months. You have
also pleaded guilty, Mr Baker, to the summary offence of possessing a glass pipe
used in connection with smoking a dangerous drug.
40
You can stand up now, Mr Baker. You were 34 or 35 when the offences were
committed and you are now 36 years old. You have a criminal history in Queensland
and New South Wales. It begins in 2009 with drug offences and you were placed on
a drug diversion program at that time. Your criminal history is dominated by drug
45 and driving offences but until now, as I read it, you have only appeared in the
Magistrates Court in Queensland and the local court in New South Wales.

2 SENTENCE
 Your traffic history contains an offence of driving whilst a relevant drug is present,
in September 2018. So, not long after the search of your residence and that is of
concern. A letter from your wife who has known you for a long time has been
placed before me. It explains that you had problems with drugs in 2018. Your
5 barrister has explained how that problem came about. I will get to that in a moment.

Despite your history together and your step-daughter’s love for you and what it
would mean for her financially, she put her daughter first and she bravely and
commendably left you so that her daughter was not exposed to your lifestyle. But
10 she did not give up hope on you and you managed to get clean and to find
employment and she is proud of you. I don’t know if you have read her letter?

DEFENDANT BAKER: Yeah.

15 HER HONOUR: Yes. She moved back in with you in July 2019 to give your
marriage another chance and things are going well. She is clearly a remarkable
woman who is both strong and compassionate and you are very lucky to have her.

Your daughter in her letter explains that she is especially glad that you are together
20 as a family again. You have read her letter? She takes after her mother. She talks
about it being the most painful time in her life to see drugs destroy you and how hard
it was to be away from you, but she recognised that while you were using drugs her
home was not a safe place. She talks about how proud she is of you for overcoming
your drug issues in such a short time and she says she is finally happy again. So you
25 have all the motivation in the world to keep on this path.

As to how you manage to turn things around, it seems that you took yourself to Lives
Lived Well for drug counselling in late 2018 but you must have been working at
around that time because your work commitments got in the way of your counselling
30 sessions.

You secured stable employment in 2019 and you have been able to place before me
evidence that shows you have not used drugs at least between June and November
2019, and I assume compliance with random drug testing and coming up clean is still
35 a condition of your employment at the moment. Is that right?

DEFENDANT BAKER: Yep.

HER HONOUR: Yes. You will appreciate from what you have been through that
40 drugs ruin relationships, they break up families and the children living with drug
users are unsafe.

DEFENDANT BAKER: Yeah.

45 HER HONOUR: Although you were supplying drugs in small amounts, you have
no idea where the people you were supplying drugs to would end up and you have no
idea how they might go on to cause damage to others.

3 SENTENCE
 We see the damage done by drug use in these courts every day and I am talking
about damage to the mental and physical health of the people who use drugs and the
damage they go on to cause - - -

5 DEFENDANT BAKER: Yep.

HER HONOUR: - - - other people including innocent children. So, your offending
particularly by way of commercial possession of methylamphetamine and supplying
that drug in particular, is serious. I am required, though, to sentence you in a way
10 that is just in all the circumstances and that means, among other things, that I can
take into account the progress that you have made as well as the need to ensure that I
appropriately punish you for what you have done. But, I understand that if I were to
send you to prison today which is something open to me to do, that would interfere
with your family’s reconnection with you, your employment, and all of the progress
15 that you have made.

I have taken into account that while you were supplying drugs, you were supplying
in small quantities to friends and sometimes, I think, for free.

20 Your offending was directly related to your drug addiction at the time. Your
barrister has explained that you are a hardworking person. You have been successful
in employment and by hard work I mean hard, physical work. You decided to
become an owner-driver of, I assume, an interstate truck driving business. That was
going to put financial pressure on you. You wanted to work extra hours to make
25 money. You made a stupid decision - - -

DEFENDANT BAKER: Yep.

HER HONOUR: - - - to think that you could get through that by using
30 methylamphetamine and, as you have experienced, it ruined you. But you have
made remarkable progress. I have some concern about the rigors of parole
interfering with your employment.

DEFENDANT BAKER: Yep.

35
HER HONOUR: And I certainly do not want that to happen. There has been no
submission made that in your case it is appropriate to wholly suspend your sentence.
But what I will do is, when I get to the end of formally imposing sentence upon you,
I will direct that the letter from your employer go to the parole authorities. Okay?
40
DEFENDANT BAKER: Yep.

HER HONOUR: So they will know that you have got a good job that requires
interstate work.
45

4 SENTENCE
 I will formally sentence you now: On count 1, which is possessing scales and
clipseal bags, I sentence you to nine months’ imprisonment. On count 2, possessing
cannabis, I sentence you to three months’ imprisonment. On count 3, the
commercial possession of methylamphetamine, I sentence you to two and a-half
5 years’ imprisonment. On count 6, possessing a phone used in connection with the
supply of dangerous drugs, I sentence you to nine months’ imprisonment. On counts
7 to 14, on each of them, I sentence you 12 months’ imprisonment.

For the summary offence of possessing a pipe I convict you but I do not impose a
10 separate penalty.

I order that all of those terms of imprisonment be served concurrently. So all up it is

a two and a-half year term. I consider that that adequately represents the seriousness
of your offences, but I fix today as the date upon which you will be released on
15 parole. You have to report by the end of today to the parole authorities.

MR PEARCE: Yep. At Ipswich, your Honour.

HER HONOUR: At Ipswich. And I direct, as I said, that that letter from your
20 employer – my Associate will formalise this order – be sent to them.

DEFENDANT BAKER: Yep.

HER HONOUR: I respectfully request the parole authorities to take into account
25 that you are gainfully employed and have made progress in determining the
requirements of your parole.

I should add that I have also taken into account that your offending occurred when
you were at a very low ebb and that things looked bleak. While there is no formal
30 diagnosis of depression, it is not unlikely that you would have been suffering from
the symptoms of that illness at the time. Okay? So you can sit down now.

I also need to tell you that you need to get to Ipswich before 5 o’clock today
otherwise you will be unlawfully at large - - -
35
DEFENDANT BAKER: Yep.

HER HONOUR: - - - and you can be arrested. Okay? You can get there by that
time?
40
DEFENDANT BAKER: Yes.

HER HONOUR: Yes. Alright. You can sit down.

45 Mr Skippen, if you would stand up.

You were 47 when you offended and you are 49 years old now.

5 SENTENCE
 The serious aspect of your offending is that it was committed whilst you were on bail
for the offence of trafficking in methylamphetamine and possessing a large quantity
of that drug and some other offences.

5 As you know, you were sentenced on 25 September 2018 for the trafficking offence
and related offences by her Honour Justice Bowskill. Her Honour sentenced you to
imprisonment for three years with parole release after six months. Your criminal
history is otherwise pretty limited. Your barrister has proved me with a report from a
psychologist called Rachel. You would remember going to see her?
10
DEFENDANT SKIPPEN: Yes.

HER HONOUR: I have read all of that. Now, that report discusses your life
history. You have been through some sad things. That is all set out there: the death
15 of your father while you were still young and the two serious accidents you were
involved in while you were driving trucks. It explains how you were caught up in
amphetamine use as an interstate truck driver. As I understand it, the demands of
your job meant that you needed to be awake and you tried to stay awake by using
amphetamines. You suffered brain injury in the first accident definitely and, as I
20 read the material, probably in the second - - -

DEFENDANT SKIPPEN: Yeah.

HER HONOUR: And then after that second accident you struggled to find
25 employment. Your relationship ended.

As the years of unemployment rolled on, you were anxious and in despair and your
drug use increased and you got yourself to the point where you were using $1000
worth of amphetamines a day. That is huge.
30
Since your release from custody on parole, you have been able to reduce your drug
use to a relatively small amount and that is encouraging and the parole authorities
have done a great job but as the material tells me, you have put in.

35 DEFENDANT SKIPPEN: Yes.

HER HONOUR: You have responded well to all the support that they have
provided to you and you deserve praise to that but you have got a little way to go.

40 Because you have reduced your drug use, you have been able to properly grieve for
your father. You are living with your mother now. So that is some stable
accommodation. You care for her, she really needs you.

DEFENDANT SKIPPEN: Yes.

45

6 SENTENCE
 HER HONOUR: You have been keeping busy by doing odd-jobs for family and
friends. The other material presented to me talks about your commitment to your
rehabilitation, and the parole authorities say they have no problem continuing to
supervise you on parole.
5
In fixing a sentence which is just in all the circumstances – which is what I have to
do – I have taken into account the fact that as a person who has suffered some brain
injury, you are not going to be able to reason as carefully as a person who does not
have that sort of injury. I have also taken into account the progress you have made.
10
I have taken into account that these offences are old offences, in the scheme of
things, and they were committed by you before you had time to have that break in
custody and to have the benefit of all of the supervision you have had on parole.

15 So, the sentence that I am about to impose, on one view of things, is at the higher end
of the appropriate sentencing range but it will push out the parole supervision that
you are doing so well on for another couple of months.

DEFENDANT SKIPPEN: Yep.

20
HER HONOUR: I formally sentence you now: On count 1, for possessing scales
and clipseal bags, I sentence you to nine months’ imprisonment; on count 2, for
possessing a small amount of cannabis, I sentence you to three months’
imprisonment; for possessing a drug in excess of two grams, count 3, I sentence you
25 to 18 months’ imprisonment; and for possessing a smaller amount of
methylamphetamine I sentence you to six months’ imprisonment.

I order that all of those sentences be served concurrently – so all up, 18 months – and
I fix today, 27 May 2020 as the date upon which you are released on parole.
30
You need to go back to the parole authorities at Ipswich today by 5 o’clock. Can you
do that?

DEFENDANT SKIPPEN: Yes.

35
HER HONOUR: Yes. All right.

I also direct, as your barrister suggested, that the report of Dr Rachel Kingsbury be
sent to the people supervising you at Ipswich.
40
DEFENDANT SKIPPEN: Okay.

HER HONOUR: At page 16 of that report it sets out some recommendations and I
respectfully draw the supervisor’s attention to those recommendations because you
45 have had the benefit of that psychologist’s experience. All right.

I am also obliged to tell you that if you do not report to Probation and Parole by 5
o’clock today, you will be unlawfully at large - - -

7 SENTENCE
 DEFENDANT SKIPPEN: Yep.

HER HONOUR: And you could be arrested.

5 DEFENDANT SKIPPEN: Yes, your Honour.

HER HONOUR: All right. Okay. Is there anything further?

MS ROBINSON: Not from me, your Honour.

10
MR PEARCE: No, thank you, your Honour.

HER HONOUR: No? All right. Thank you all very much. Thanks, Madam
Bailiff.
15

______________________

8 SENTENCE