Director of Public Prosecutions v Abbott
[2022] VCC 1242
•21 July 2022
| IN THE COUNTY COURT OF VICTORIA AT GEELONG CRIMINAL DIVISION | Revised Not Restricted Suitable for Publication |
Case No. CR-22-00675
| DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROSECUTIONS |
| v |
| ANDREW ABBOTT |
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JUDGE: | HER HONOUR JUDGE HOGAN | |
WHERE HELD: | Geelong | |
DATE OF HEARING: | 28 June 2022 | |
DATE OF SENTENCE: | 21 July 2022 | |
CASE MAY BE CITED AS: | DPP v Abbott | |
MEDIUM NEUTRAL CITATION: | [2022] VCC 1242 | |
REASONS FOR SENTENCE
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Subject:CRIMINAL LAW
Catchwords: One charge of recklessly causing serious injury, one charge of threatening to inflict serious injury and one charge of recklessly causing injury – one summary charge of possessing a controlled weapon without lawful excuse – offender assaulted intimate partner who was his fiancée of 9 years – partner left the home where she lived with the offender and resided with her mother and step-father – offender sent multiple threatening and abusive messages to partner and partner’s step-father – offender subsequently attended at the house where his partner and her mother and step-father resided – step-father attempted to remove offender from the property – offender stabbed the step-father three times causing life-threatening injuries – offender immediately reported offending to police in context of a claim of self-defence – offender made self-serving, false and minimising statements to police during record of interview – serious offending in the context of family violence – early pleas of guilty – no prior criminal history
Cases Cited:R v Verdins (2007) 16 VR 269;
Sentence: Total effective sentence 6 years and 4 months’ imprisonment with a non-parole period of 3 years and 8 months.
S6AAA: 8 years’ imprisonment with a non-parole period of 5 years.
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APPEARANCES: | Counsel | Solicitors |
| For the DPP | Mr A Moore | Solicitor for Public Prosecutions |
| For the Accused | Ms A Patterson | Gallant Law |
HER HONOUR:
1Andrew Abbott, you have pleaded guilty to one charge of recklessly causing serious injury which carries a maximum penalty of 15 years’ imprisonment, one charge of threatening to inflict serious injury which carries a maximum penalty of 5 years’ imprisonment and one charge of recklessly causing injury which carries a maximum penalty of 5 years’ imprisonment. In addition, you have consented to a summary offence, the possession of a controlled weapon, being uplifted to the County Court and have pleaded guilty to that charge, which carries a maximum penalty of 120 penalty units or 12 months’ imprisonment.
2The circumstances of your offending are detailed in the summary of prosecution opening (Exhibit “A”). The background circumstances are that, for about 9 years prior to the offending, you had been in a relationship with the female victim of Charges 2 and 3 on the indictment, Samantha Bell. You had been living together but, after the incident which comprises your offending on Charge 3 in July 2021, she moved in with her mother, Julia Bell, and her stepfather, Carl Williams (who is the victim of your offending on Charge 1 on the indictment).
3Dealing with your offending in chronological order, the first offence in time was Charge 3, recklessly causing injury. On 27 July 2021, whilst you and Ms Bell were still living together, there was a confrontation between the two of you concerning Ms Bell’s suspicions that you were being unfaithful to her. You told Ms Bell to move out of the house, so she collected a number of items and started to head out the back door. You then confronted her and grabbed her around the throat and started squeezing. She panicked and tried to grab your hand and then tried to punch you to force you to let go. She was having trouble breathing and was concerned that she was going to pass out. You then punched her to the right eye causing immediate bleeding. She sought refuge in a nearby milk bar and then attended Geelong Hospital for treatment. Photographs tendered as Exhibit “E” show her to have a wound to her right eyebrow, which required 4 stitches, as well as a generally bruised, swollen and blackened right eye.
4Subsequent to your assault of Ms Bell on 27 July 2021, the two of you were apparently endeavouring to reconcile your differences and she periodically stayed overnight with you at the residence in Breakwater where the two of you had been living. On Friday, 15 October 2021, she stayed overnight with you and then left the next morning to go to work. There was no contact between the two of you until 2:00pm on 17 October 2021, when you began sending text messages to her. These are detailed in the prosecution opening and were appropriately described by the prosecutor, Mr Moore, as being abusive, insulting, threatening and erratic. The messages used vile language and described Ms Bell and her parents in degrading terms. You asked “Why didn’t ya feed the dog?”. You threatened to come down to her workplace and “fuck ur life up cunt” unless she “answered [your] fucking question u filthy cunt.” You also threatened “Don’t come back here Sam because I will stab you, you fucking mutt. I'm at the point where I think you’re better off dead. Stay the fuck away from me.” The latter text message forms the basis of Charge 2, threatening to inflict serious injury.
5Not only did Ms Bell stay well and truly away from you but, after receiving your grossly disrespectful and threatening text messages over a couple of hours, she blocked your telephone number. You then messaged her stepfather, Mr Carl Williams, in a threatening manner stating as follows: “Sams [sic] pushing my fucking buttons mate and some cunt is gonna cop it soon im getting verry [sic] fucking in the mood to go on with it get Julia (that is Ms Bell’s mother) to sort that fucking thing out before I loose it with all of use [sic].”
6On the evening of 17 October 2021, Ms Bell was at the home of her mother, Julia Bell, and her stepfather, Carl Williams, and all three of them discussed the messages which you had sent both to Ms Bell and to Mr Williams. Shortly after 7:00pm they heard a vehicle pull up out the front of the home and feared it was you arriving. Ms Bell heard the driveway gate slam loudly and jumped up to lock the front door. Mr Williams got up and pulled Ms Bell away from the door, worried that you would hurt her. Mr Williams opened the front door and saw you on the other side of the screen door in what he described as a fighting stance, with your body turned slightly and your arms slightly cocked at your sides. He reached out and grabbed you by the throat and jaw area to try to push you off balance. He then let you go and you removed a folding knife from your pocket and stabbed Mr Williams twice, once in his left flank and once in his left armpit. This caused Mr Williams to drop to the ground and you then jumped a boundary fence with neighbouring properties. Mr Williams tried to pull himself up using the fence so he could grab you. You then stabbed him a third time, to his left forearm. Mr Williams could feel blood pouring down his back. You then walked casually back to car shouting, “He fucking grabbed me by the throat”, and drove away. Your repeated stabbing of Mr Williams comprises Charge 1, recklessly causing serious injury.
7The stab wound under Mr Williams’ armpit punctured his lung causing a pneumothorax, which required urgent intervention without which it is very possible that Mr Williams may have died. The stab wound to his left flank resulted in bleeding into the soft tissues, but no internal organ damage. The stab wound to his left forearm resulted in nerve and tendon damage which has required two surgical procedures and ongoing regular hand therapy and the wearing of a splint. Although the opinion of a forensic medical officer expressed hope that Mr Williams may recover from this injury in a 12 to 18 month period, it is possible that he will never regain his pre‑injury function and the injury is likely to significantly impact on his employment and recreational pursuits, as well as his quality of daily life.[1]
[1] Report of Dr Janine Rowse, dated 20 March 2022
8In what the prosecutor, Mr Moore, described as a “pre-emptive strike”, following your stabbing of Mr Williams you called triple zero and asked to speak to the police, stating that you had been punched in the mouth and had stabbed Mr Williams in retaliation. You did not call an ambulance for Mr Williams. Police attended your address and arrested you and took you back to the Geelong Police Station. They endeavoured to interview you but the interview was terminated after four minutes because you were affected by drugs. On the following day, Monday, 18 October 2021, you were interviewed and admitted to stabbing Mr Williams an unknown number of times with a black work knife, which was approximately 25 centimetres in length. You claimed that this was in retaliation to Mr Williams having grabbed you round the throat and trying to punch you. You admitted to sending the abusive text messages to Ms Bell on the afternoon of 17 October after getting “worked up” and becoming angry. You denied having assaulted Ms Bell back in July, stating, “No comment … I'm not gunna sit here and try and explain a lie. Didn’t happen.” From the date of your arrest on 17 October 2021, you have been remanded in custody.
9You are presently aged 30 years, having been born in March 1992. You come before the court with no prior criminal history.
10In a plea on your behalf, Ms Patterson relied upon a psychological assessment of you on 10 March 2022, the results of which were embodied in a report by Ms Sandra Cokorilo, psychologist, dated 30 May 2022 (Exhibit “1”). Ms Cokorilo took a history that you were the youngest of three brothers and had a positive relationship with them, although they had bullied you in childhood, as had others, concerning your weight and teeth. You also reported a positive relationship with your parents. Until you were aged nine, your family lived in a Department of Housing home and you claimed that, although you had never experienced violence or harsh discipline in your family, you had witnessed violence in the Housing Commission estate. On one occasion, when you were eight years old, a drug addict had attempted to strangle you and threatened to kill you, which led to nightmares and symptoms of anxiety. These symptoms were allegedly made worse by bullying and assaults from others at school, which on one occasion caused a broken nose.
11You told Ms Cokorilo that you had some numeracy and learning issues in primary school and, ultimately, left school after Year 10 and completed a three year course in bricklaying. Thereafter, you had stable and consistent employment until 2021 when your then employer’s job site was closed due to an extended strike.
12Ms Cokorilo recorded a history from you that, four or five years ago, you had been diagnosed with depression and anxiety by a general practitioner when you presented with disturbed sleep, nightmares, low mood and social anxiety in the context of suffering relationship difficulties at that time. Since then, you have been prescribed antidepressants and continue to take them in custody. Although you had been referred by your general practitioner for psychological counselling you had never engaged in any. You described some episodes of suicidal ideation when you were quite young, aged 10, but not in recent years, although you described some incidents of self-harming in the context of the relationship breakdown with Ms Bell and a feeling of self-loathing. You told Ms Cokorilo that you had begun smoking cannabis from age 21 and had an ongoing daily use of approximately 1.5 grams. Also, you had experimented with some other drugs between the ages of 18 and 21 and, then, in September 2021 began to use methylamphetamine “as a form of self-medication after [your] partner moved out”. (I here interpolate that the undisputed facts in the prosecution opening are that you had told Ms Bell that she was to leave and, when she went to do so, you assaulted her, causing injury to her right eye.)
13On the basis of your self-report, Ms Cokorilo diagnosed you as having Post-traumatic Stress Disorder, depression and anxiety, which she opined could (my emphasis) produce panic and irrational behaviour and impair impulse control and decision making. She stated that the reduction in serotonin caused by depression could (my emphasis) also be responsible for emotional dysregulation and increase the risk of violent or aggressive behaviour. However, she acknowledged that it was possible that your methylamphetamine use also contributed to your offending conduct. Nevertheless, she considered that you were at low risk of recidivism and had shown a strong propensity for rehabilitation. She stated that you appeared to be genuine in your expression of remorse for stabbing Mr Williams, had abstained from using illicit drugs in custody, and had completed some alcohol and drug and mental health programs and were intent upon engaging in psychological counselling upon your release.
14I must say that I found Ms Cokorilo’s report to be unimpressive in many respects, not the least of which was that it made no reference whatsoever to the fact that you had assaulted your partner, Ms Bell, in July 2021 and also threatened to stab her on 17 October 2021, prior to you turning up uninvited to her parents’ home. I do not accept that you are truly remorseful. Your history to Ms Cokorilo is riddled with self-pity and blame of everyone but yourself for your behaviour. You describe Ms Bell as “unfaithful and manipulative” to the point that you “feel traumatised by her behaviour”. You justified your stabbing of Mr Williams in a sanitised account whereby you claimed that you initially did nothing and were waiting for him to release the grip on your throat, but were “scared for your life” as you had alleged that Mr Williams was a violent alcoholic who had threated you before. You stated that you reached into your pocket to stab him in self-defence. You claimed that you suffered nightmares and flashbacks because of the noise the knife made when it entered the victim’s arm, even though you maintain that you are not able to recall stabbing him more than once.
15Your lack of remorse was also evident in your behaviour in contacting the police soon after you stabbed Mr Williams in order to get a version of events to them that you were not the aggressor, but acting in self-defence. This took place in circumstances where only a short time before attending Mr Williams’ home you had texted him in an angry and abusive manner that “some cunt is gonna cop it soon” because of your mood and this followed soon after your text message to Ms Bell threatening to stab her, expressing the view that she was better off dead. You went to Mr Williams’ home looking for trouble and armed with the knife which you claimed was your work knife, even though you had not worked since the previous Wednesday. Your record of interview is full of self-justifying lies about what occurred, evading any responsibility for your actions and describing Ms Bell, Mr Williams and even Mrs Bell as human beings with undesirable traits, who somehow had been responsible for causing your offending behaviour.
16Although you may have had symptoms of anxiety and depression which warranted a general practitioner prescribing an antidepressant for you some years earlier, neither you nor or your counsel were able to enlighten the court as to the identity of that general practitioner, when it was that you had seen him or her, whether you had been prescribed antidepressants consistently or whether you had complied with such prescription during the years preceding your offending behaviour. I have considerable reservations about Ms Cokorilo’s diagnosis of you suffering Post-traumatic Stress Disorder referrable to being bullied as a child and your extraordinary self-pitying statement that you had been traumatised by your own offending (my emphasis) against Mr Williams and suffered nightmares and flashbacks as a consequence. It would be bizarre if an offender could claim the memory of his own brutal offending as a factor which could mitigate his sentence. In any event, it is clear that you were in a hyped up and angry state when you stabbed Mr Williams and that your ingestion of illicit drugs was a substantial and immediate contributing factor to your aggressive mood and outrageous behaviour both preceding and at the time of the stabbing.
17On your behalf, Ms Patterson had filed written submissions[2] requesting a sentence by way of a combination of a term of imprisonment (less than 12 months) with a Community Correction Order. I made it plain from the outset that I considered such a sentence to be inadequate for this grave offending.
[2]Marked for Identification-1
18Ms Patterson, in her written submissions, argued that the Court should find that you had reduced moral culpability for your offending because of diagnosed Post-traumatic Stress Disorder, depression and anxiety (as assessed by Ms Cokorilo), in accordance with the principles of The Queen v Verdins.[3] I have already indicated that, whilst you may have suffered some anxiety and depression, I am not satisfied on the balance of probabilities that you were suffering from Post-traumatic Stress Disorder. Ms Cokorilo is less than clear about what it is that has given rise to such a diagnosis. Her report contains several possible causes, including a childhood incident at the Housing Commission estate, general bullying and assaults by others because of your crooked teeth and general appearance, what you described as your “unfaithful and manipulative” partner causing you relationship difficulties for which you sought the help of a general practitioner some four or five years ago, alleged violent threats from your victim Mr Williams in the past, and traumatisation by your own offending which you claim causes you to “suffer nightmares every night and have flashbacks of the noise the knife made when it entered the victim’s arm”.[4]
[3](2007) 16 VR 269
[4]Exhibit “1”, paragraph 53, page 4
19Ultimately, in oral submissions, Ms Patterson seemed to concede that the fact that you had taken methylamphetamine prior to the offending, and were affected by it, meant that her submission concerning the mitigatory effect of any mental health condition you may have had must be curtailed, albeit that it was still a relevant background factor. I do not find there is adequate evidence to establish a mental impairment of significate magnitude or to establish a sufficient causal nexus between any such impairment and your offending in order to reduce your moral culpability for any of the offending according to the principles in Verdins’ case.[5] It is plain that you had been a long-term drug user, particularly of cannabis, and your counsel conceded that, in the lead-up to the offending, you had used methylamphetamine and were affected by it. This appears to have made you particularly hyped up and aggressive as reflected in the text messages sent by you in the hours preceding your stabbing of Mr Williams. Moreover, you had been violent to Ms Bell some four months earlier when you committed the offending which is the subject of Charge 3.
[5] (2007) 16 VR 269
20You are to be given credit for pleading guilty at an early stage, however, I do not accept that you have accepted full moral (as distinct from legal) responsibility for your offending. Your record of interview and your recent history given to Ms Cokorilo are riddled with self-justification and minimisation of your behaviour and the blaming of your victims.
21Mr Abbott, you have behaved in a most appalling way towards Ms Bell and then towards her stepfather. After you stabbed Mr Williams, rather than calling triple zero and seeking assistance for him by way of an ambulance, you, instead, called police so that you could get a false version of events to them. This involved you claiming to have acted in self-defence to Mr Williams’ aggression, which you claimed to be part of his personality, and something which had exhibited itself in an attack on you some years previously, when, in fact, you had arrived at his home uninvited soon after making violent threats towards his step-daughter, him and his wife. You concocted some version of events whereby Mr Williams had been violent to his own wife such that she and Ms Bell had sought refuge at your place the night before your offending on 17 October 2021. Mr Moore for the prosecution stated that there was no evidentiary basis for such allegation.
22Far from owning your brutal, violent behaviour, you told a number of lies to police, and blamed your own angry behaviour on Ms Bell and her family. You denied having assaulted Ms Bell back in July 2021, and, when police showed photographs of the injury to her eye, brazenly suggested that she may have done it to herself.[6]
[6]Question 519 and answer in the record of interview, page 64
23Also, in your Record of Interview, you initially sanitised the content of the text messages that you had sent prior to stabbing Mr Williams. You claimed that the texts which you had sent Ms Bell might have just been “Hey, babe, I miss you”, or “Hey, sweets, are you gunna come see me at the shop today”,[7] and, prior to being shown the actual text messages, when pressed by police, you stated that you had sent Mr Williams a text saying something like “Can you please tell Julia to sort Sam out because I’m starting to get in a real mood”, rather than the nasty threatening messages which you, in fact, had sent.
[7]Question 212 and 213 and answers in the record of interview, page 26
24You also contradicted yourself in the course of the record of interview, in that you claimed that the knife with which you stabbed Mr Williams had just happened to still be in your pocket for some reason, but in another part of the interview seemed to suggest that you had put it in your pocket because you were afraid of Mr Williams. At no point, either in your record of interview or in your history to Ms Cokorilo have you exhibited one iota of concern for the serious injuries inflicted by you upon Mr Williams or for the welfare of Ms Bell and her parents generally.
25The victim impact statements from the victims should leave you in no doubt, Mr Abbott, about the serious impact that your offending has had upon Ms Samantha Bell, Mr Williams and Ms Julia Bell. Ms Samantha Bell had still hoped, notwithstanding your horrible behaviour towards her in July 2021, that you might be able to salvage your relationship after all the years that you had spent together. However, she states that she has been left terribly confused and shocked by what you did by coming to her parents’ place, stabbing her stepfather, and taking off, leaving her scared that she was going to lose her stepfather. She has been left with feelings of guilt about what you have done, leaving her parents’ lives turned upside-down and her stepfather unable to work.
26Mr Williams and Julia Bell, in a joint victim impact statement,[8] speak of the terrible pain and ongoing treatment suffered by Mr Williams, the ongoing weakness in his left arm which makes him unable to work as a forklift operator, and his Post Traumatic Stress Disorder in the wake of your dreadful offending, which causes him to be socially reclusive, tired, and anxious. Mrs Julia Bell describes how she was terrified that her husband would die in front of her, and the grief she suffered through not being able to visit him in hospital because of the COVID‑19 restrictions, and the adverse effect on her mental health long-term as well as upon the relationship with their daughter.
[8]Exhibit “C”
27It is plain that there have been ongoing physical, psychological and financial consequences of some magnitude to your offending. Ironically, Mr Williams and Mrs Julia Bell conclude their victim impact statement with the following words:
“The worst thing is, the offender was family, we loved him like a son, we are so angry that he did this, but so sad, because he was family, and we have lost that now. We have known him since he was 16 years old. If he was a stranger, it would have been easier. Our lives will never be the same.”
28What must not be lost sight of while sentencing for the serious triple stabbing of Mr Williams is that this is a crime which has been committed in the context of family violence involving his stepdaughter, your former partner. Your offending on Charge 3 occurred whilst you were living in a relationship with Ms Samantha Bell. Your offending on Charge 2 contained threats of violence against Ms Samantha Bell and general abusive and denigrating remarks about her family and was directly related to your anger and grievance concerning her having returned to live at the home of her parents and ultimately blocking the receipt of any more of your abusive and threatening texts. You have betrayed the trust of all three victims and your offending cannot be regarded as opportunistic in the light of your threatening text messages and the fact that you came to the family home armed with a folding knife in your pocket.
29The law recognises the potentially fatal effects of domestic violence and the fact that, so often, there is a dysfunctional relationship founded on fear, which prevents women from leaving partners who are emotionally abusive and physically violent towards them. Bullying men, who think that they own their partners and have a right to manipulate them and subject them to physical and emotional abuse and cause them to live in fear, need the courts to give them the message that this will not be tolerated. When it results in actual physical injury and is followed up by threats and results in a serious assault on a family member, the courts in sentencing people like you must make it clear to others who might contemplate indulging in such conduct that they will be sentenced to an appropriate period of imprisonment so that they are no longer in a position to inflict psychological and physical harm as you have done. Hence, in sentencing you there is a need for this court to denounce your conduct and place emphasis upon general deterrence and just punishment.
30As previously stated, you are to be given credit for your early pleas of guilty which spared your victims having to give evidence either at committal or trial and saved the time and expense of a trial. Although I am not satisfied that you are remorseful for your conduct, your pleas of guilty have utilitarian value. This is somewhat enhanced by the unpredictable COVID‑19 pandemic conditions, although by the time you entered your plea on 22 April 2022, trials were then back being run in the State of Victoria albeit that there have been some interruptions through participants contracting COVID during the trials. I also take into account that, since 17 October 2021 when you were remanded in custody, there have been more onerous conditions of imprisonment by reason of the suspension of contact visits from family, some lockdowns in prisons resulting in reduced out of cell hours each day and, also, a diminution in the number of programs available in which prisoners may participate whilst in custody. These factors should mitigate to an extent the sentence which would otherwise have been imposed.
31I am conscious that you come before the court with no prior criminal history. I note from Exhibit “2” that each of your parents and your two older brothers remain supportive of you and are prepared to have you live at their home upon your release. Further, you have a good work history as a bricklayer since shortly after you left school at 16 years of age, and this is a prosocial factor. It seems that in the months leading up to the offending there had been a disruption to a work site where you were employed and this brought an end to your employment which caused you stress both emotionally and financially as it was the first time that you had been out of work for many years. A reference from Mr Dayne Walter, who states that you commenced to work for him in early 2021 (Exhibit “3”) is very praiseworthy of you being a trustworthy and hard worker whom he would not hesitate to use again as a subcontractor. These factors bode well for your rehabilitation, however, you appear to have an angry, self-entitled streak and, even though your general practitioner apparently suggested some 4 or 5 years ago that you should engage in psychological counselling, you did not do anything about it. It appears that you had little insight into your own psychological makeup and this lack of insight was not assisted by your abuse of illicit substances.
32It can only be hoped that your time in custody since being remanded has brought about some insight into the connection between your psychological makeup and drug abuse and your offending. Certainly, you have used your time in custody to work as a billet and to do what courses were available to you. The latter included a Cannabis and Me program, a Building Better Relationships program, a release-related Harm Reduction program and Ice and Me program, a Healthy Body and Mind program and a Healthy Coping program. It is commendable that you have taken the opportunity to engage in such programs although, ultimately, your rehabilitation will depend upon you abstaining from the use of illicit drugs and ensuring that you have adequate treatment and support if you are suffering ongoing anxiety and depression. I note that you have apparently required prescription medication for your psychological problems whilst in custody. I acknowledge that spending time in prison, particularly for the first time, while suffering anxiety and depression is an extra burden layered upon an experience which is already burdensome and I take these factors into account in sentencing you.
33In sentencing you, I am also mindful of the principal of totality, particularly as Charges 1 and 2 happened in relatively close proximity to each other whilst you were in a heightened and angry frame of mind, the effects of which had been exacerbated by taking ice. Also, obviously, the fact that you had possession of a knife (the summary charge) enabled you to inflict the serious injury on Charge 1.
34On Charge 1, recklessly causing serious injury, you are convicted and sentenced to be imprisoned for a period of 5 years.
35On Charge 2, threatening to inflict serious injury, you are convicted and sentenced to be imprisoned for a period of 12 months.
36On Charge 3, recklessly causing injury, you are convicted and sentenced to be imprisoned for a period of 12 months.
37On the summary charge of possessing a controlled weapon, you are convicted and sentenced to be imprisoned for a period of 3 months.
38The sentence imposed on Charge 1 is the base sentence. I order that 3 months of the sentence imposed on Charge 2, the entirety of the sentence imposed on Charge 3 and 1 month of the sentence imposed on the summary charge be served cumulatively upon the sentence imposed on Charge 1 and upon each other. The total effective sentence is thus 6 years and 4 months’ imprisonment. I direct that you serve a period of 3 years and 8 months’ imprisonment before becoming eligible for parole. I declare a period of 277 days of pre‑sentence detention to be time reckoned as already served under the sentence imposed this day.
39Pursuant to s6AAA of the Sentencing Act, I state that, had it not been for your pleas of guilty, the total effective sentence imposed this day would have been 8 years’ imprisonment with a non‑parole period of 5 years.
40In relation to the summary charge, Charge 4, possession of a controlled weapon, pursuant to s9 of the Controlled Weapons Act 1990, the knife is subject to automatic forfeiture.
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