A Tasmanian man who failed to safely store firearms, ammunition and a large stockpile of reloading powder across two homes has lost his appeal against a $25,000 fine.
Tony Purton pleaded guilty to 13 charges and was convicted before appealing to the Supreme Court, arguing the fine was manifestly excessive.
Justice Stephen Estcourt dismissed the appeal on Tuesday, finding the penalty was within the magistrate’s discretion.
The court heard police first came across four of Purton’s firearms in March 2024 while auditing the premises of a firearms dealer who had died.
When officers tried to return them, they could not find Purton.
He had bought a house in Launceston in January 2024 and moved there, but his firearms remained registered to his New Norfolk address.
Police searched both properties on July 2, 2024.
At the Launceston home, officers found a .270 rifle left out of storage and more than 1,000 rounds of ammunition that were not securely stored.
That included 425 rounds in the garage and locked ammunition boxes with the keys hanging nearby.
At the unoccupied New Norfolk property, police found 11 firearms in safes inside a locked shipping container that did not have an alarm.
They also found two silencers, at least 620 loose rounds and about 50.3 kilograms of reloading powder being kept without a permit.
The court heard that was roughly 10 times the amount allowed.
Purton’s lawyer argued the offending was at the lower end of the scale of seriousness and pointed to sentencing statistics showing little precedent for fines above $10,000.
Justice Estcourt disagreed, saying “statistics provide only guideposts” and that sentencing “is a process of intuitive synthesis involving many considerations, including criminal culpability, proportionality and totality”.
“In my view, the nature and extent of the offending in the present case called for a sentence that not only adequately deterred the applicant personally, but also acted as a general deterrent to other firearm owners who show little respect for the strict requirements to which they are now subject,” he said.
“A fine of $25,000 served those sentencing outcomes and denounced the applicant’s breach of his enormous obligation of trust to the community.”
Justice Estcourt said Purton had shown a “contemptuous disregard” for laws designed to protect the community.
“The fact that the applicant was a licensed firearm owner and had enjoyed the privileges of that licensed ownership for many years makes each of those single instances – and their sum – all the more egregious,” he said.
