Kidnapper's New Hope

Illawarra Mercury

Friday November 23, 2007

By COURTNEY TRENWITH

A FORMER drug addict involved in kidnapping a woman and tying her up with a chain and padlock could escape a jail sentence after a Wollongong judge enacted a rarely used piece of legislation.

Paul David Carberry, 41, was due to be sentenced in Wollongong District Court yesterday.

However, Judge Paul Conlon postponed his sentencing decision for 10 months so Carberry could prove his rehabilitation efforts were sincere.

Carberry and co-accused Fiona Sheree Clarke were found guilty on June 14 of detaining a woman who was staying with Clarke at her Lake Heights unit on New Year's Day 2006.

A large chain was wrapped around the victim's neck and padlocked and she was threatened with physical violence.

The victim escaped by throwing a safe through a window.

Judge Conlon said such an offence would normally require a custodial sentence.

However, after observing Carberry during several court appearances and hearing evidence from a psychologist and the chief executive officer of Oolong House, a rehabilitation centre at Nowra, he was convinced that Carberry was on his way to being fully rehabilitated.

Judge Conlon did not want to risk jeopardising Carberry's re-habilitation by locking him up.

"This may well be one of those exceptional cases where, at 41 years of age, having come from a disadvantaged background and his life having been controlled for a substantial period of time by drugs, that this offender may finally have appreciated the need to alter totally the direction of his life," Judge Conlon said.

The court heard Carberry had stopped taking drugs since entering Oolong House in April.

He had voluntarily stayed at the house longer than the 12 weeks required and had completed narcotics and habitual traffic of-fenders programs.

He was now considered a men-tor within the centre and had been offered a rare 12-month place.

Judge Conlon warned Carberry that yesterday's decision did not mean he had escaped jail but that he was being given an opportunity to prove he deserved to be dealt with otherwise.

Carberry will return to court on September 10, 2008. Clarke is due to be sentenced on January 30.

© 2007 Illawarra Mercury

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