raising of awareness by reason of Mr Oakes' journalistic activities as being a matter reducing the seriousness of Mr McBride's conduct.
Objective seriousness
193․ The following points can be made about the objective seriousness of count 1, the count of theft.
- (a) The removal of documents occurred over a substantial period, between May 2014 and December 2015 (one year and seven months) and their retention continued over years.
- (b) The taking of the documents involved multiple occasions on which the offender surreptitiously removed documents from ADF facilities.
- (c) The course of conduct that Mr McBride engaged in involved a gross breach of the trust reposed in him as a senior legal advisor in a sensitive position within the ADF.
- (d) It involved a breach of obligations in relation to which Mr McBride had received specific training on multiple occasions.
- (e) The course of conduct also involved grave breaches of his duty as a lawyer.
- (f) Having regard to the evidence that Mr McBride was working on his IGADF Submission during work hours and at the expense of his other duties, his culpability is not reduced by any need that might have existed to refer to the documents for the purposes of preparing a submission.
- (g) Although the motivation for the thefts may have varied somewhat over time, the motivation for the thefts was to give the offender the potential to use and disclose the documents other than for the purpose of his official duties.
- (h) It is a rolled up charge involving a large number of documents, a significant proportion of which held the SECRET classification. Of the 235 documents removed, 207 were classified SECRET.
- (i) There have been specific consequences that flowed from the theft, arising from the need to make disclosures to Australia's foreign partners, the concern arising from the disclosure of identities of Special Operations Command and Special Forces personnel and operational consequences disclosed in the confidential annexure to the Agreed Statement of Facts.
- (j) Although it was an agreed fact that, at the time he commenced the misappropriation of the documents, he considered certain practices in the ADF
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