Director of Public Prosecutions v Amir
[2021] VCC 518
•14 April 2021
| IN THE COUNTY COURT OF VICTORIA | Revised Not Restricted Suitable for Publication |
AT MELBOURNE
CRIMINAL JURISDICTION
CR 19-02132
| DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROSECUTIONS |
| v |
| YUSUF AMIR |
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JUDGE: | HIS HONOUR JUDGE SMALLWOOD |
WHERE HELD: | Melbourne |
DATE OF HEARING: | |
DATE OF SENTENCE: | 14 April 2021 |
CASE MAY BE CITED AS: | DPP v Amir |
MEDIUM NEUTRAL CITATION: | [2021] VCC 518 |
REASONS FOR SENTENCE
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APPEARANCES: | Counsel | Solicitors |
| For the Director of Public Prosecutions | Mr J. Saunders with | |
For the Accused | Mr A. Patton |
HIS HONOUR:
1 Yusuf Amir, you have pleaded guilty to one charge of blackmail, four charges of theft and one charge of possession of drug of dependence. Those crimes maximum penalties of 15 years, 10 years and 5 years respectively. You have also pleaded guilty to a number of uplifted summary matters and to simplify things, I will simply sentence you on each of those to a period of seven days imprisonment and direct that those sentences be served concurrently upon each other and upon the sentence imposed upon the indictment.
2 You are now 27 years of age. You pleaded guilty to a settled indictment and must get the benefit of that. Whilst I would think that remorse is pretty problematic, you certainly must get the utilitarian benefit of that plea, particular in the times in which we now exist.
3 You have a very significant criminal history, running into some 32 pages. I am not going to go into detail of all that. But you have got basically got priors for, if I may use the vernacular, everything that moves. You have been in gaol on many occasions, as I understand it, you have done something like seven out of the last nine and a half years in custody. And you are still only 27.
4 The offending I will describe in a moment has to be regarded as serious. I do not think it is at the higher end and nobody is suggesting it is, but at the same time it may have even been dealt with in the Magistrates' Court if possible, but the fact of the matter is, that with your criminal history a custodial sentence is inevitable. Also got to be careful in this situation, I understand the context of it all as put in the Crown opening to be sentencing you only for the matters that you have pleaded guilty to and no other matters or other charges or crimes which would be, on the face of it at least, disclosed by that opening. As I have indicated, the Crown opening is tendered and will be placed on court file for anybody who wishes to peruse it and in those circumstances I would simply need to do a very truncated summary of how the offending came about.
5 You were 25 years of age at the time you were in the company of one Caine Togdezine and one Sarah Woodward. The complainant and Woodward had known each other for approximately 20 years and on this particular day had an argument about their relationship which had apparently founded at some earlier time. On 22 March, you arrived at her house in an Uber. She and Mr Togdezine were there at the time, you, described in the Crown opening as having arrived at that point, and after the argument that they had, the complainant left and went for a walk. Woodward called him up on the phone later and went to pick him up. The three of you went and picked him up, ate a meal at McDonald's and then he was attempting to organise an Uber to get a lift back home.
6 You went back to Woodward's place and you were then invited in. As you were entering the premises with the complainant, you tapped him on the shoulder and said that you wanted to talk to him and told him to sit down and make himself comfortable. You then came up with some story about having wasted your time and making you wait for two hours and that he had to pay you for your wasted time. You then purported to calculate that he somehow or other owed you $9,000 for making you wait for that two hours, and you then told him that he was going to have to pay it, or effectively threatened him. You said that he would not be stupid enough to get the police involved. I accept that he felt petrified at this time and I reiterate what I said before about only sentencing you for what you have pleaded to.
7 But in any event, there was quite a lot of to'ing and fro'ing that went on after that. Text messages were sent. He endeavoured to come up with the money, he had very little in his own account, and in the end the circumstances were that you, in speaking to his father, said that you wanted $9,000. The father said he did not have that sort of money, only four or $500. You then said that he could get the money and you then wanted $500 transferred to the complainant's phone and made other demands for payment. That gives rise to the charge of blackmail.
8 $500 was then transferred to the account at which you were then able to obtain the - you put the complainant's NAB bank card into an ATM and withdrew $520, and that gives rise to the second charge of thefts, the two thefts being each of $500 or so at that point. You then took a chocolate donut, valued at $2.70 and a Smartphone charge card, valued at $24.99 from a service station of some sort without paying for them. That gives rise to Charge 5 of theft.
9 Ultimately, the complainant was able to escape from your company and we do not need to go into that detail. The Crown opening described in some detail how you were apprehended. When you were apprehended various items were found on you, including a meat cleaver which is the controlled weapon and a couple of drugs which gives rise to the possession of a drug of dependence. Again, I think there is no need for me to go into the forensics of it all. They are the crimes you are charged with. Blackmailing the father, telling him effectively that his son was in a lot of trouble unless he came up with $9,000, then receiving two lots of 500 and taking his wallet and various bank cards and then using them.
10 It seems to me that it is the one, bearing in mind the drugs as well, it is the one cause of action, I think an aggregate sentence is the appropriate thing to do here. It is certainly not as I have said at the higher end of the scale, with all these things, but certainly with your record it is only one option. You have now been in custody for well over 500 days as I understand it. I have been careful to try and not just simply use all that up, which is what some judges might do in this situation and I have tried to ascertain what it is really worth. In the end, what we are looking at here is this. I have read the report of Mr McKinnon that has been filed and you had very helpful submission filed by your counsel.
11 You had an unremarkable childhood, and apparently around about your early or mid-teens, you went completely off the rails. You basically spent all your life after that using drugs, offending, daredevil type stuff. You spent periods of time in youth justice, you spent significant periods of time in an adult gaol. I think there is a very strong chance that you are institutionalised or will be very soon. There is not much that can be done about that. You are getting to the age now where some fellows are able to turn their lives around. It is not done easily, but if you do not, and I think you would understand this, you are going to spend the rest of your life in gaol. And if you want to be sitting in gaol at the age of 60 discussing which of the best units to be in with other aged prisoners, that is, I suppose in the end, entirely up to you.
12 But in any event, that is what we are dealing with, the prospects of any rehabilitation are up to you, I regard them as bleak. The risk of you reoffending, if you come out and use drugs, is going to be very high indeed. It is not a situation where I will be imposing a minimum term, pointless where the time has already being done. I make that clear to counsel. And as I say, there is really only one option here.
13 So accordingly, on those three charges - sorry, on those six charges, I sentence you an aggregate period of imprisonment of 400 days. I will direct that 400 days be reckoned as having been served under this sentence. And as a s.6AAA which is sort of a bit meaningless in this situation, I would say 18 months, with a minimum of 12.
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