Annual Report page 34

them. The residents, who were mostly migrants, were living in overcrowded, unsafe and dirty conditions. Whole families shared a single room, rooms were divided with partitions and people were living in caravans and sheds. The bathroom and kitchen facilities were inadequate for the numbers of people living the houses. In some of the houses the common facilities were in an appalling state. Residents were paying between $80 a week for shared rooms up to $200 for a family.

Notices were served requiring vacation of the premises and emergency housing was required for 80 people including children. The defendant Quiang Hua Fan owned four of the houses, and his wife, Li Wei owned the fifth, which was managed by Mr Fan. After initially pleading not guilty, Mr Fan pleaded guilty to five charges of operating a boarding house without a licence and one charge of allowing insanitary conditions to exist. A further four charges of allowing insanitary conditions to exist were taken into account on sentence.

The maximum penalty for carrying on an unlicensed boarding house is 6 months imprisonment or a fine of $5,500, and the maximum penalty for insanitary conditions is a fine of $5,500 without any imprisonment. Mr Fan was convicted and ordered to perform 450 hours of community service work in relation to the boarding house offences, and fined $3,300 on the other charge. This was considerably less than the available maximum penalties on all offences. The prosecution submitted that the amount of profit made by the landlord was a relevant consideration in determining the appropriate penalty. However the court rejected this submission, while noting that the fact that it was a commercial enterprise was relevant.

Such operations, while still not common in the ACT, are becoming increasingly prevalent in Australia. In the light of the profits to be made from such conduct, it may be questioned whether the current level of penalties is adequate.

__________________________________________________________________________________________________

ANNUAL REPORT  2011-12  DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROSECUTIONS                                                                                    34

← Previous Page

Next Page →