Reddy v R (No 2)

THE COURT: The Court’s attention has been drawn to a patent error in the arithmetic underpinning his Honour Justice Campbell’s reasoning at [42] to [47] of the original judgment. His Honour clearly intended, with the agreement of the other members of the Court, to backdate the commencement of the sentence to give “credit” for one half the time spent in pre-trial residential rehabilitation. On the facts as found this was a period of 5 months and not 4 months as Campbell J erroneously calculated. The commencement of the sentence should have been backdated to 8 October 2016, not 8 November of that year. This means that the applicant first became eligible for parole on 7 October 2018 and not on 7 November 2018, next month.

Neither party has moved the Court for the correction of the orders pronounced on 3 October 2018, however the Court has power under the slip rule and rule 50C of the Criminal Appeal Rules 1970 (NSW) to correct the order of its own motion: r 36.17 of the Uniform Civil Procedure Rules 2005 (NSW); Achurch v The Queen (2014) 253 CLR 141; [2014] HCA 10 at [18]; Burrell v The Queen (2008) 238 CLR 218; [2008] HCA 34 at [21]. It should do so in the interest of justice in the circumstances of this case. There can be no injustice to the Crown involved in the correction of this obvious error without hearing from the parties further.

As the applicant’s sentence is one of 3 years and 5 months duration, that is to say it exceeds 3 years in length his release to parole will depend upon the making of a parole order by the Parole Authority under the provisions of sections 127 and 135 of the Crimes (Administration of Sentences) Act 1999 (NSW).

For these reasons the Court orders that Order 3 pronounced on 3 October 2018 is amended by: substituting the month of October for the month of November wherever the latter appears; and substituting the month of March for the month of April in Order 3(a).