Morgan managed to catch up with the car before it left the carpark and the pair drove off with about $300 of food.
Morgan later lied to police, saying, “there was a blue car outside that said I could go get some food”.
Counsel Leighvi Maynard said Morgan was in a desperate situation at the time — on home detention with medical and addiction issues, and with young children in her care.
Her partner came and went, offering no help and leaving the family struggling to survive.
Morgan’s desperation was reflected in her offending — an effort to get food for her children.
Mr Maynard sought a sentence starting point of eight to 10 months imprisonment, saying the burglary was akin to a commercial one with a low risk of confrontation with unsuspecting victims.
“The reality is that had she arrived when the foodbank was open, it was likely she would have been given the food she went to get but ended up stealing,” Mr Maynard said.
Judge Kevin Phillips disagreed.
In his view the church was more like a home where trust and belief in people doing the right thing was paramount.
The same duty of care was expected there as it would be in a home and Morgan had breached it, he said.
She stole from the one place where she was able to get support.
Her explanation that she went there expecting to see a staff member and to uplift bags of food she thought that person put aside for her didn’t accord with the reality of her opening the locked door and loading any food she could into the car, the judge said.
He accepted Morgan was under stress from a number of factors not of her making and that she alone was facing the charge (despite her co-offender being named by police in the summary of facts).
He wondered — probably as Morgan had — why her co-offender wasn’t also charged.
“That to me is wrong,” Judge Phillips said.
He noted Morgan’s several previous convictions for vehicle and alcohol-related offences, violence, and for ignoring court-imposed conditions.
However, this was her first dishonesty type offence and that weighed heavily in her favour, the judge said.
So did her sole responsibility for six children aged from four to 18.
He accepted “without hesitation” that Morgan hadn’t tried to take the food for financial gain, albeit he didn’t know what her accomplice’s motivation might have been.
Setting a starting point of 18 months imprisonment, the judge reluctantly converted it it to six months community detention (curfew 9pm to 6am) and six months supervision.
He wouldn’t normally convert a sentence with such a high starting point to community detention, which he regarded as “no sentence at all”.
It was merely a requirement for people to be at home at times when they should be anyway.
However, it was an option in the Sentencing Act, had been recommended for Morgan and befitted her circumstances.
“I know things are starting to turn around for you and you have been able to relocate to a property large enough for your family and that’s really important.”
Morgan also claimed to have scaled back her use of cannabis and alcohol and stopped using methamphetamine.
Supervision would be useful for her as it would provide her with ongoing support, the judge said.
She was banned from consuming any illicit drugs while on the sentence.
Given there had been a positive Restorative Justice meeting with church members, reparation was not ordered.
