Page:R v McBride (No 4).pdf/41

 to be "corrupt", no attempt was made for the purposes of sentencing to establish the correctness of that belief or, indeed, its reasonableness.

194․ It is necessary to address some of the specific submissions made on behalf of Mr McBride in relation to the objective seriousness of this offence:


 * (a) Counsel for Mr McBride submitted that it was relevant that the theft of the documents did not deprive the Commonwealth of the original documents. That the Commonwealth was not deprived of the original documents is not of great significance in the present case because the value of the documents arose from their confidential nature.


 * (b) Counsel for Mr McBride submitted that, although the taking of the documents was dishonest, it did not involve "actually telling lies or actively misleading any person". That the taking of the documents did not involve actually telling lies or misleading any person is only a feature of the present case because of the very trusted position which Mr McBride held and which was abused in order to complete the theft.


 * (c) Counsel for Mr McBride submitted that the property was not obtained in order to obtain a financial advantage. This is not of great significance because financial advantage is not the sole nor necessarily the most culpable motivation for an offence of theft.


 * (d) Counsel for Mr McBride submitted that the dishonestly appropriated property was initially taken in order to prepare the IGADF Submission. If that was the case, his conduct was unnecessary as the evidence indicates that Mr McBride was able to prepare his submission during work hours and, as a result, his performance of his usual duties was affected (see [157] above).


 * (e) I have earlier rejected the submission that Mr McBride believed that he was not committing any offence (see [183] above)

195․ Although the offending in the present case is not a traditional example of theft because the financial value of that which was stolen is not a significant factor in assessing its objective seriousness, the above features of the offending put it above the mid-range of objective seriousness for this offence.

196․ Count 2, the charge of disclosing information to Mr Masters and Mr Clark, is a rolled up charge because it involves disclosures to two separate journalists on two distinct occasions and each such disclosure involved multiple documents. It involved disclosures of substantial volumes of documents, many of which bore the SECRET classification. The disclosures occurred at a time when legitimate processes for addressing