Director of Public Prosecutions v Beacham

[2018] VCC 1596

IN THE COUNTY COURT OF VICTORIA Revised
(Not) Restricted
Suitable for Publication

AT MELBOURNE
CRIMINAL JURISDICTION

DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROSECUTIONS

v

MATTHEW BEACHAM

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JUDGE:	HIS HONOUR JUDGE SMALLWOOD
WHERE HELD:	Melbourne
DATE OF HEARING:	20 September 2018
DATE OF SENTENCE:	26 September 2018
CASE MAY BE CITED AS:	DPP v Beacham
MEDIUM NEUTRAL CITATION:	[2018] VCC 1596

REASONS FOR SENTENCE
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Subject:
Catchwords:
Legislation Cited:
Cases Cited:
Sentence:

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APPEARANCES:	Counsel	Solicitors
For the Director of Public Prosecutions	Ms T. Schultz	Office of Public Prosecutions
For the Accused	Mr N. Hutton	Emma Turnbull Lawyers

1HIS HONOUR:  Matthew Beacham, you have pleaded guilty to one charge of attempted aggravated burglary, one charge of contravention of an order intending to cause harm or fear, and one uplifted summary matter of committing an indictable offence on bail.  Those crimes carry maximum penalties of 20 years, five years, and three months respectively.  On the indictable – sorry, on the uplifted charge you are convicted and sentenced to be imprisoned for a period of seven days to be served concurrently with the other sentences imposed yesterday.

2You are now 41 years of age. You pleaded guilty at a reasonably early opportunity and you now have appropriate remorse.  You must also of course get the utilitarian benefit of that plea of guilty.  Unfortunately, in your situation you do have a significant number of relevant prior convictions.  You have twice before been dealt with for violence against the same complainant or victim in this matter, and you have done an extensive gaol sentence for armed robbery, as well as having a prior conviction before that for armed robbery.

3You have as I say an extensive criminal history.  A summary of the offending is that you and the complainant, who I hereafter refer to as Libby, were married but had been separated for a short period of time.  You together have a daughter who is four years of age.  She also has a son, named Brandon, who is 20 years of age.  At the time of the offending there was a full intervention order in place between you and the victim and the affected family members.  That order had been served on you and had yet to expire and has still yet to expire.

4In any event on 16 January at 9 o'clock in the morning you attended at the house and the complainant spoke with you through the front door and there was an argument.  She then drove to the lake where she was going for a walk and you went with her.  She then went to – you then separated.  She then went to McDonald's in Wendouree and saw you there, and you smelt of alcohol.  That obviously concerned her.  You told her you were going to go Melbourne to go on a "bender".  You told her that you would attend her house afterwards and she told you not to.

5She drove you to the station.  When you got out of the car, you were kicking street signs as you walked down the street.  That is relevant to the contravene family violence intervention order charge.  She was afraid that you would attend her house drunk later that day, so she went to the Ballarat Magistrates' Court to get a further intervention order preventing you from attending the house at all.  That order was granted but at that point not been served on you.  That all occurred in the morning.

6At approximately 5 pm her son was at home and he saw you in the backyard drinking a bottle of wine or something.  I understand it was probably fortified wine.  He called the complainant, who told him to call the police which he did.  You left the house before police arrived.  That is also part of Charge 2.  Libby left her sister's house where she had been and drove home.  She saw you near the KFC in Albert Street.  She telephoned police.  They arrested you in regard to an unrelated matter which I am not aware of, and you were bailed. 

7The police were not aware of the intervention order that had been obtained that day.  At approximately 8 pm that night on 16 January 2018 you attended the house again.  Libby was at home with your daughter, at that stage aged three, and her son aged 20.  His girlfriend who is 16 was also there.  You commenced banging loudly on the front door of the house and yelling.  That banging and yelling escalated.  You climbed the side fence into the backyard and started banging on the back door.

8You returned to the front of the house and you were flicking power on and off using the outside switch.  You then turned it off and kept it off.  She was afraid and hid in the back bedroom with the three-year-old.  She took the door knob off the back bedroom door and pushed against the door with her legs.  At some stage the girlfriend joined her in the room.  The girlfriend of her son was crying and afraid.  They sat with their back against the door.  She telephoned emergency services three times, and was audibly distressed. 

9On those tapes the three-year-old can be heard crying and Libby can be heard trying to comfort her.  Those tapes have been tendered and I am told the contents of them, and I have no doubt that the circumstances of this were terrifying for all concerned.  She heard you scream, "You're fucked when I get in there."  Her son heard you calling out his mother's name and saying let me in, and doing a countdown before you were going to let yourself in.

10He heard you count to three and then heard a loud smash.  You had used a piece of wood from a picture frame to smash two bottom panes of the front window.  During the incident neighbours called emergency services and they have described the incident.  One says that he heard bins being pushed over, also there was a window smashed.  He said that you sounded very angry and very loud.  At one stage he heard you say that you had not long been out of gaol and you were not caring if you went back.  It was also said you were banging on the door and yelling out to whoever was in there to let you in.

11One witness said that, "I recall him yelling loudly at one point, 'Open the door you cunt.'"  The son went outside to talk to you to calm you down.  You told the son that you had smashed the window "out of love".  Police arrived.  You were seen to scull a bottle of wine.  You were arrested, became aggressive and did a no comment record of interview.  As I have indicated there are prior criminal matters involving you against this particular victim. 

12The circumstances of the offending are obviously serious. You continued on with this terrifying behaviour whilst aware that your three-year-old child was in the house and would have been terrified as well as the other people.  It is a serious example of this sort of offending and it is my view that gaol is the only option that is open, and it must be a gaol sentence that is appropriate to the circumstances of the offending. 

13It is serious and calls for the application of general specific deterrence as well as denunciation and an appropriate punishment.  The victim impact statement that has been provided by your wife describes the ongoing effect of this.  She has had serious consequences in terms of having to go on medication.  It was terrifying, she describes it as, and indeed on the material from her, and also a report from a doctor, it had the effect of interfering with the speech patterns at least of the three-year-old child.

14In her victim impact statement, she says that you have never hurt her or the child or threatened them except when you have been intoxicated.  I accept that that is the situation but it would appear that on other occasions when intoxicated you have been a very frightening person to be the partner of.  Her psychological difficulties are ongoing.  I then look to matters personal to you in terms of determining the appropriate sentence and the length of it. 

15In December of 2016 you were involved in a single vehicle motor vehicle collision where you had a breath reading of .221, as I recall.  As a result of that collision you had an arm severed or amputated.  You are now undergoing a six months' sentence in relation to that charge or in relation to that accident, which expires in a week or so's time.  That was a six month' sentence and I take that into account in a general sense in terms of lost opportunity for concurrency.

16Submissions were made in regard to a community corrections order but I do not think that is appropriate in these particular circumstances.  Submissions were put on your behalf and I do not have to go to those in great detail.  There are a number of matters that I take into account.  Obviously you are 41.  You do have the problem of the prior convictions and I take into account totality as being described in the submissions but really loss of opportunity for concurrency in my view. 

17The time that you spent in gaol is on protection.  Because of the loss of your arm you suffer phantom pain symptoms, and you have been placed on methadone because other medications cannot be given to you.  Other prisoners endeavour to stand over you for your medications and always with the methadone they cannot do that.  You have been treated for hepatitis C.  You are on a generic antidepressant, and you are not travelling all that well in gaol. 

18Insofar as your background is concerned, at 41 it is of little use now I suppose, but at 13 your parents separated, and your father being a violent alcoholic.  The parents did not get on after that and you got to Year 10 in school.  Left school and got an apprenticeship.  Worked as a baker, and that was the occupation that you gave.  You have had earlier relationships and you have two children from one of those relationships, and you have spent time in gaol and as I understand it your parents have looked after them during those periods of time.

19After your lengthy period of imprisonment for the armed robbery some years ago, you described to your counsel as never having fully got back on track and you have lost to a certain extent contact with those children.  You then were in the relationship with the victim of this particular matter and it has ended in the way that I have described.  You are isolated in prison.  You have only had two visits. 

20I also take into account that the loss of your arm in a prison environment means that they will not allow you to have a prosthetic arm, and that obviously would cause difficulties as well if you wish to have surgery which would have an arm which would be attached to your body. That cannot be done in custody and again I take that matter into account.  You have worked in the past and you have been gaoled in the past.  The prospects of your rehabilitation are really up to you.  The risk of your reoffending when one looks at your criminal history has got to be regarded as high.

21Your counsel has pointed out to me, correctly I accept, that your offending really comes into play when you have been drinking.  I am told the incident that I am sentencing you for was your first drinking episode for a period of 12 months.  Whether that be so or not I do not know but there certainly would not appear to be any matter during that time that have been brought to my attention at least.  I note that the earlier periods, or the earlier sentences for the breaches of orders and violence again the complainant occurred prior to the motor vehicle collision in December of 2016.

22Realistically all I can do is apply an appropriate sentence which gives you some prospect of rehabilitation which does not amount to a crushing sentence but takes into account the seriousness of what you did essentially to your family.  Accordingly, on Charge 1 I sentence you to be imprisoned for a period of 27 months.  On Charge 2 I sentence to be imprisoned for a period of six months, and three months of Charge 2 cumulative on Charge 1 gives 30 months.  The period for the summary offence matter obviously will be totally concurrent.

23That leaves the head sentence of 30 months.  I direct that you serve a minimum term of 20 months before becoming eligible for parole.  I direct that 105 days be reckoned as having been served under this sentence, and pursuant to section 6AAA I say that but for your plea of guilty you would have been sentenced to be imprisoned for a period of three and a half years with a minimum term of two and a half years.  I have taken into account obviously in these deliberations, for what it is worth, the comparative case that was handed to me during the course of the plea.

24MR HUTTON:  As Your Honour pleases.

25HIS HONOUR:  I direct that 105 days be reckoned as having been served under this sentence.  There is no other orders we need to make?

26COUNSEL:  No, Your Honour.

27HIS HONOUR:  Yes, thank you for that.

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