Director of Public Prosecutions v Belleville

[2019] VCC 1583

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

AT MELBOURNE
CRIMINAL JURISDICTION

CR 19-00718

DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROSECUTIONS

v

COREY BELLEVILLE

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JUDGE:	HIS HONOUR JUDGE MULLALY
WHERE HELD:	Melbourne
DATE OF HEARING:	30 September 2019
DATE OF SENTENCE:	1 October 2019
CASE MAY BE CITED AS:	DPP v Belleville
MEDIUM NEUTRAL CITATION:	[2019] VCC 1583

REASONS FOR SENTENCE
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Subject:
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Cases Cited:
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APPEARANCES:	Counsel	Solicitors
For the Director of Public Prosecutions	Ms A. Watson	Office of Public Prosecutions
For the Accused	Ms N. Giorgianni	Giorgianni & Liang Lawyers

HIS HONOUR:

1Corey Belleville, by August 2017, your life had gone seriously off the rails.  Up to that year, you had not been in trouble with the law.  You turned 30 in May 2017.  Thus you had negotiated your teens and 20s, normally the years of higher risk for criminal offending, without yourself troubling the criminal justice system.  The relevance of this is the foundations there are for reform and its likelihood to be solid reform.

2You grew up in Mansfield in a hard-working family.  Your parents separated when you were 11.  You lived thereafter with your father but had contact with your mother and extended family.  You completed school to Year 11 doing a school-based apprenticeship in hospitality.

3You then worked in that industry, in particular the Mansfield Hotel, for about 12 years.  You moved on to hydroponic farming and then other work that took you to Melbourne.  Thus, plainly, you have a very solid work history.  As I will outline shortly, you are now back in the workforce after the problems of 2017 and 2018.

4You have had for many years a difficulty with alcohol.  It seems working in the hospitality industry compounded that.

5You were in a relationship with a woman who also worked in that industry who likewise struggled with abusive alcohol.  Thus, this first lengthy relationship ended when your partner had a serious motor vehicle accident while drunk.

6You first met your current partner when you were both teenagers.  You resumed or restarted that relationship in the last six years or so.  You had two children with her while living in Melbourne.  You went back to Mansfield after the birth of your second son who is now aged three.

7You resumed working in the hospitality industry.  You met up with old teenage acquaintances and took up the use of drugs.  You had tried ecstasy and amphetamines when in your late teens and early 20s but in this latter period around 2016 and 2017, you became a daily user of ice.  Your partner was also introduced to drugs.

8The consequential erratic behaviour displayed by both of you led to your partner's mother taking the enormous debt of reporting your drug-taking to the Department of Health and Human Services.  That Department took action to protect your two children placing them in the care of your in-laws.

9I should add that in 2016 when you were falling back into drug use, your partner was involved in a serious motor vehicle accident which saw her hospitalised in Melbourne for six weeks.

10You were working full time trying to manage the two young children and getting to see your partner and then help her with her rehabilitation.  You lost focus and turned more heavily to using drugs.  You were unable to continue working and commenced to break into homes and cars stealing things to support your habit.

11A series of crimes in August 2017 and just before that were dealt with at the Magistrates' Court on 20 December 2017.  You received a 12-month sentence of imprisonment with six months fixed as a non-parole period.  I was told you were not granted parole until all but eight weeks remained.  You returned back to your family and the community on 12 June 2018.

12On 31 July 2018, after the term of imprisonment and your parole period had been served, you were then arrested in respect of the offences that are before me now.  Those offences like the ones for which you received the term of imprisonment were house burglaries on unoccupied houses and sheds that occurred in August 2017.

13The first of them was a holiday home in Merrijig.  You jemmied your way in and stole expensive electrical equipment and clothing to the value of between $15,000 and $20,000.  Tellingly, as evidence of your alcohol problem, while in the house, you opened and drank a beer leaving your DNA on the bottle.

14The offending was initially included in the array of offences for which the magistrate imposed the gaol term but it was at that time withdrawn.  Later, when DNA results were secured, you were linked to this crime together with another house burglary at Bonnie Doon.

15At that house you first gathered electrical equipment and then the alcohol in the house and had that ready to take away.  However, it seems you then found a gun safe and broke into that stealing two shotguns and an air rifle.  You left the electrical equipment and alcohol in the house.  Why you did that remains unexplained.

16You left your blood, and thus your DNA, on the gun safe and this connected you to that crime when the DNA results were received by the prosecuting authorities.

17Thus during the crime spree in August 2017, two burglaries, one involving the more serious crime of theft of firearms, were not prosecuted until you had done the entire sentence imposed on you by the Magistrates' Court, a good deal of that it seems was done on remand.

18And during the time that you were in gaol, you came to grips with just how low you had fallen.  You felt the separation from your children very intensely.  You had vowed not to put yourself and your family in the same position again.  You had woken up to yourself and resumed your lawful hard-working ways that were the norm until 2016 and 2017.

19You have moved back to Melbourne and have settled in accommodation near to your mother and father-in-law.  They are important supports to you and your partner.  You partner's sisters and extended family have rallied.  You and your partner have set up a small cleaning and maintenance business and it seems that it is viable.  You gave evidence in relation to the significant efforts and hard work that has been involved in that undertaking.

20Your partner of course is well-occupied by not just the two young boys but now a daughter born a month or so ago.  Your mother-in-law gave impressive evidence of great change in you since your release from gaol.

21She is content that you and her daughter can safely and lovingly raise the two boys and she and her partner who looked after the children for 18 months or so are also delighted with the way the new child, your new daughter, has added to the family and focused you both on staying stable and together.

22The Department of Health and Human Services no longer has protective concerns.

23You have voluntary sought out drug and alcohol counselling.  That is to your credit.  Your drug tests reveal that you have been involved in long-term abstinence from drugs.

24In short, Mr Belleville, about all these matters, you simply should not let your family down again.  You chose first to write a letter to the court but later decided to give evidence.  You are obviously intelligent and capable of understanding that the victims would have been upset that their house has been invaded and disrupted.

25You spoke of your remorse and wished to apologise.  I listened to your evidence and I am well-satisfied that your remorse is genuine.  I did not get the flavour of that from your letter.  I did when you spoke to me.

26I also am well-persuaded of your commitment to stay away from drugs.  You are dedicated to your family.  You have made progress on many fronts.  I am persuaded that your role with the stolen firearms was brief and that others, not you, ultimately benefited from that particular crime.  It was difficult for me to come to that conclusion but I was able to be persuaded on the balance given that you gave evidence.

27The key sentencing considerations in this case are the tight balance that there is between the seriousness of the theft of the firearms offence in particular and the great steps you have taken to leave drugs and offending behind you.

28Theft of firearms and the consequential unregulated movement of firearms into the community is serious criminal offending.  The increased maximum penalty evidences Parliament's concern for this crime.  However, as is often repeated, each case has to be assessed on the particular circumstances.  Here I am of the view that you came upon the firearms opportunistically and decided to take them.

29Thus, unlike other examples of this offence, this was not a planned or targeted theft of firearms.  What was stolen were two shotguns and an air rifle.  One gun has, it seems, been recovered although it is so heavily modified this cannot be said with absolute certainty but you did volunteer information that aided the police to secure that firearm and also who you say was involved in that crime, though nothing has come of that in terms of recovery of other firearms or prosecutions.  As I have said, your role was not the central one.

30Denunciation and especially general deterrence loom large as the sentencing considerations for the firearms offence and for the other offences as well.  Ordinarily terms of imprisonment would be well on the cards if not firmly indicated in particular for the firearms offence.

31However, in this case, the offending was lower down the scale justifying me having greater consideration of the sentence promoting your rehabilitation.  I do not embark upon this in a two-stage way but rather in the overall synthesis, considerable weight can be given to the promotion of your rehabilitation.

32Those circumstances coincide with the significant catalogue of matters that indicate your reform has started and is likely to be sustained.  Your evidence was critical in this regard.

33The legislative regime of community corrections order was analysed at length by the Court of Appeal in Boulton v The Queen.  Prominent in the reasoning was the value of community corrections orders in that they can punish and rehabilitate simultaneously; but also important both in the Second Reading Speech introducing the new regime of community corrections orders and referred to by the Court of Appeal in Boulton was that community corrections orders have the significant benefit of punishing while keeping families together and intact.  That is particularly prominent in your case.

34Your counsel urged that I impose an onerous community corrections order alone.  The prosecution submitted some gaol was required but in accordance with the recent decision in Mehetmet, they went no further than saying that some gaol was required.

35To return you to prison at this point would be a grave step given where you have got to at the moment.  I could only do so if I concluded that only gaol could adequately meet the sentencing purposes of denunciation and deterrence and the facilitation of your rehabilitation.

36You were assessed as suitable for a community corrections order notwithstanding you have been on and breached a community corrections order in the past.  In my view, a further lengthy onerous community corrections order can properly and justly meet the sentencing purposes that I have articulated.

37By taking into account as I have, your plea of guilty, the timing of it, the loss of some opportunity for concurrency of penalty and the weight of delay upon your shoulders together with your remorse and your signs of reform, taking all these matters into account as well as all matters for and against you that have been mentioned, I am of the view that a community corrections order alone can do justice in the case.

38I intend to impose an aggregate term though plainly the theft of the firearms is the most serious offending.  The aggregate term for each of the counts on the indictment are that you are convicted and placed on a community corrections order for 22 months.

39The condition will be must do unpaid community work 250 hours, you must undergo treatment for drug abuse, for alcohol problems.  Any hours spent on those rehabilitative programs can be counted as unpaid work in this case.  You must be under supervision.

40The details of the community corrections order will be produced shortly and I will read them out to you.

41Had you pleaded not guilty to these offences and had been found guilty of them, I would have imposed a sentence of two years with a minimum term of 16 months.

42Is any other order required?

43MS WATSON:  No, Your Honour.

44HIS HONOUR:  Thank you.  Just bear with us for a moment, Mr Belleville.

45The community corrections order, Mr Belleville, starts today.  It goes for 22 months.  It ends on 31 July 2021.

46The mandatory terms that apply to every community corrections order that you must not commit another offence for which you can be imprisoned during the time the order is in force.  You breach this order, there will be no ifs or buts, Mr Belleville.  You go to prison.  Different ballgame I think from where you have been given a chance in the Magistrates' Court and come back and resentenced for other minor offences.

47So committing another offence for which you can be imprisoned will breach this order and that will see you in prison.

48You must comply with any obligations or requirements under the Sentencing Regulations.  You must report to and receive visits from the Office of Corrections.  You must report to the Community Corrections Centre there in Box Hill, the address is here, within two clear working days.  You must let them know if you change your job or your address.  You cannot leave Victoria without getting permission and you must obey all lawful instructions and directions.

49Do you follow all that?  You have been through these things before.

50So the conditions that apply to you other than those mandatory ones are these; you must perform 250 hours of unpaid community work; you must undergo assessment and treatment for drug abuse; you must undergo assessment and treatment for alcohol abuse.

51All hours for treatment and rehabilitation that are satisfactorily undertaken can be counted as unpaid community work hours.  And you must be under the supervision of a community corrections officer for 22 months.

52All right?  None of this is voluntary.  You do each and every hour that you are required.  Do you follow?

53OFFENDER:  Yes, Your Honour.

54HIS HONOUR:  Thank you.  If you consent to that, come out of the dock and ‑ ‑ ‑

55OFFENDER:  Thank you, Your Honour.

56HIS HONOUR:  ‑ ‑ ‑ come behind your lawyer and sign this.

57Is there anything else required?

58MS WATSON:  Nothing further, Your Honour.

59MS GIORGIANNI:  Nothing further.

60HIS HONOUR:  Thank you.  You will get a copy of this.  Thank you.  I will stand down.

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