R v Wilkie [2025] NSWDC 299

• Offender sole carer for young son who had been neglected under mother’s care – referred to reports highlighting impact of incarceration of parent on child.

[46] There are risks to children because disruption to the family unit at critical times can cause lasting trauma and impact on a child’s future emotional and cognitive processes. So much is revealed by the reports now before the Court individually and by considered academic writing and reports of enquiries and Royal Commissions: Commonwealth of Australia, Australian Human Rights Commission, Bringing them home: Report of the National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from Their Families (1997); Parliament of Victoria, Legislative Council: Legal and Social Issues Committee, Inquiry into Children Affected by Parental Incarceration (August 2022); V Edwidge and P Gray, “Significance of Culture to Wellbeing, Healing and Rehabilitation” (2021) The Bugmy Bar Book Project 50; Commonwealth of Australia, Australian Law Reform Commission, Report 103 Same Crime, Same Time: Sentencing of Federal Offenders, (April 2006) at 6.124; A Symonds, “Children of prisoners” (2009) 21(3) Judicial Officers Bulletin 24.

• Law flexible enough permit Sentencing Judge to take into account as a matter of mitigation impact of imprisonment of offender on his child: at [49]