Director of Public Prosecutions v Beyrouti
[2020] VCC 1783
•11 November 2020
| IN THE COUNTY COURT OF VICTORIA | Revised Not Restricted Suitable for Publication |
AT MELBOURNE
CRIMINAL JURISDICTION
CR 20-00624
Indictment No. L10109028
| DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROSECUTIONS |
| v |
| TAREK BEYROUTI |
---
| JUDGE: | HIS HONOUR JUDGE TINNEY |
| WHERE HELD: | Melbourne |
| DATE OF HEARING: | 29 September 2020 |
| DATE OF SENTENCE: | 11 November 2020 |
| CASE MAY BE CITED AS: | DPP v Beyrouti |
| MEDIUM NEUTRAL CITATION: | [2020] VCC 1783 |
REASONS FOR SENTENCE
---Subject: criminal damage to police vehicle, conduct endangering serious injury (2); common assault (2); those endangered and assaulted were uniform police on duty; Prisoner delusional at time. Verdins first-fifth limbs: 50 years old and no relevant criminal history; Early plea.
APPEARANCES: | Counsel | Solicitors |
| For the Director of Public Prosecutions | Mr F. Cameron | Office of Public Prosecutions |
| For the Accused | Mr J. Van Arkadie | Victoria Legal Aid |
HIS HONOUR:
1Tarek Beyrouti, you pleaded guilty on 29 September of this year to one charge of criminal damage, two charges of conduct endangering serious injury, two charges of assault as well as a summary offence of possessing controlled weapons.
2The maximum penalties are correctly set out in the prosecution summary.
3You were born on 21 June 1970 and so are 50 years old now. You have one very old criminal appearance of no relevance at all to my task.
4You have been in custody since your arrest on the day of the offences in January of this year.
5On the day of the plea, the prosecutor Mr Cameron placed before the court a revised written plea opening dated 29 September 2020 which was marked as exhibit A. Your counsel made it clear that it was an agreed summary of the facts and that there was no need for it to be read out aloud. You were familiar with the factual allegations here as there had been a summary jurisdiction application previously made in the Court below. In these COVID-19 times, given the limited duration of the video link and the fact that you were familiar with the contents of the document, I was content to proceed in this way. The fact is the footage of the action is before me as well. There is no dispute as to what you did.
6I will sentence in accordance with those agreed facts and see no need to go into all the detail of your offending in these, my sentencing reasons. Make no mistake, it was serious. What is equally clear is that your serious mental illness was intimately connected with the decision to offend. That had been a deteriorating situation for quite some time as the prosecution summary and other materials including the defence materials makes clear enough.
7You were not really in your right mind when you attended at the Brunswick police station on the afternoon of the 14 January. You had in the months preceding, been showing some worrying signs of delusional behaviour. You had been mentioning to a friend that you had invented the GPS and the mobile phone. There were some very odd discussions. You had mentioned to her that police had bugged your house. You had developed some grandiose beliefs and thought you were the 'president of technology' and with a 'big secret' which you wanted to share with media outlets. You had some hostility towards the police, no doubt as part of this delusion.
8After having that discussion with you in December, that friend was concerned enough to actually attend upon the police and discuss those concerns. She was told not to communicate with you and she then ignored your various efforts to make contact.
9On the day of the crimes then, you had turned up uninvited at her house. On this day, her son told you that the police had told his mother not to speak to you. You were annoyed and agitated, spat, and said 'fuck the police'.
10A short time later you presented at the Brunswick police station, parked your car behind a police four-wheel drive, got out and took to the police four-wheel drive with a hammer. There was nothing stealthy about your approach. It was broad daylight and you were yelling and screaming out. You were a man on a mission. Stunned motorists and pedestrians were in the vicinity. It was, after all, Sydney Road at 5.20pm. The summary describes your conduct. Much of it was captured in the footage which I have viewed and which is marked as part of Exhibit A.
11Worried observers contacted 000 and one member of the public went inside the police station to alert the police. A handful of uniformed police members came out. They did not have much time to size up the event.
12It is easy to be wise after the event and where, fortunately, no one has ultimately been hurt. But the reality is that a serving member of the police force called out to this sort of event has not the slightest idea what lies ahead. No idea who they are dealing with or what the motivation or intent is or what may actually happen. No idea of the extent to which they may be placed at risk. You were ranting and raving. You were told to put down the hammer. You declined to do so. You were holding it in an agitated state. Capsicum spray was deployed, but that did not deter you. Again, a demand was made that you drop the hammer. Again, you declined. Instead, without any warning, you charged at Constable Field and Sergeant Koch with the hammer raised. You ran towards Sergeant Koch, swinging the hammer down at his head and near Field as well. It was a narrow miss only averted by deflecting off Koch's arm. It was fortunately a glancing strike to him and is covered by the conduct endangering charge. Constable Field took evasive action, who would not, and he ran north in Sydney Road. You chased Constable Field along Sydney Road and he took cover behind a vehicle, running around that car onto the road in making his getaway from you. You had also brandished the hammer at Leading Senior Constable Clemmens. More capsicum spray was deployed.
13You were subdued a short time later, complaining of pain in your eyes from the spray. You were arrested and handcuffed.
14Police had no idea what they were dealing with. Was it a terrorist attack? Was it some disaffected local or something quite different? Of course, it proved to be the latter. You were searched and a number of knives were found on your person. They were secreted, placed within homemade sheaths or scabbards made of advertising catalogues or a piece of material. One knife on your lower right leg, one at the left ankle and one wrapped in cloth material tucked in at the left hip. There were other knives that were found in your car.
15You had ‘tooled up’ for want of a better phrase. This confrontation, though undoubtedly the work of a disturbed soul, had been thought through to some extent. You were there for a confrontation and were armed to the teeth.
16At your unit, a black pair of trousers was found, trousers which had been cut to furnish the cloth that was wrapping one of the knives on your person.
17Unsurprisingly, you were not fit to be interviewed.
18You have been in custody ever since.
19Enough then of my summary of the summary. I have only summarised the facts and I will sentence in accordance with that more comprehensive agreed factual statement and the footage.
20Having viewed the footage, let me just say this lest I forget to mention it later in these reasons. From memory, I think I may have said something along these lines at the time of the plea. The police members who had the misfortune to come into contact with you out in Sydney Road are all to be congratulated.
21You are extremely fortunate that the police were so restrained and prepared to expose themselves to sizeable risk rather than move directly to engage with you in a way that might have exposed you to risk of serious injury or even death. You could so easily have become a statistic and, to avoid that, the members placed themselves at risk of real harm.
22There is nothing mild or comical about a man wielding a hammer rushing to deliver a blow with it. A hammer, if landing on the head, is a potentially lethal weapon. It was being used as a weapon on this day by a man acting irrationally, one unable to be reasoned with. One driven by powerful delusions. Two of the members were placed in danger of serious injury. The police had a most difficult situation to contend with. It was fast moving and highly dangerous to them. They were not playing some video game where they could watch the result of the first game and change some inputs or actions for a more satisfactory outcome on the second attempt. They only had one go at it, in real time. They had no opportunities for second chances and had the hammer landed we would be dealing with an altogether more serious crime or crimes. As I say, the police are to be congratulated for dealing with the matter in the way that they did and at some significant personal risk. They would of course have been well justified in unholstering their weapons at the very least and had they done so where would you be now, I wonder.
23This really could have ended awfully for you and for any of them. It just demonstrates how dangerous their job is. One moment doing uniform duties perhaps behind a counter at a local police station. The next, confronting a fast moving and dangerous event.
24The plea was conducted on 29 September and I called for various reports on that day. I have received the Forensicare report as well as the community corrections order assessment report and some further submissions have been made this morning. Also, an update as to the supports available upon your release from custody with some emails from a senior social worker Sharon Rouse as well as one from Sukhdeep Singh. They update the offers made previously and the support now available from Muslim Connect which I had previously been told about.
Impact
25There is a single impact statement from Constable Field marked as Exhibit B. As I understand it, he is viewing the Webex of this hearing. It was read aloud. Your attack has taken a serious toll on him. He has had nightmares and has ruminated on the other ways this could have played out. Bad endings for him or his colleagues or even for you. He will not forget this event in a hurry. He has become hypervigilant. Your crime has had a sizeable impact upon him. There is reference to the impact in one of the other police statements, that of Senior Constable Clemmens. Again, it is clear this was a frightening event. He feared for his own safety and that of his colleagues.
I take into account then the impact of your crimes.
In mitigation
26Your counsel Mr Van Arkadie had prepared very detailed and sensible written submissions. He conducted an excellent plea on your behalf. He took me to your background. He relied upon a report from Dr McInerney as well as a letter from Mr Mirza of the Islamic Council of Victoria offering support to you. The plea focused very much on your serious mental illness and the need to treat that illness. He made submissions as to your prospects of rehabilitation as well as the relative seriousness of the offences.
27He relied in mitigation mainly upon:
·The early guilty plea;
·Your mental health predicament and the application of the first 5 limbs from the case of Verdinsv The Queen[1];
·An increased burden courtesy of the prison authorities' response to the COVID-19 virus.
[1] [2007] VSCA 102; 16 VR 269; 169 A Crim R 581 (“Verdins”)
28At the time of the plea in September, he argued that a combination sentence was open here being a term of imprisonment with release, either immediately or in the not too distant future, onto a community corrections order. He recognised on the day of the plea the limited supports existing for you as of that day. He has obtained the additional materials which provide more detail now. He has mentioned the arrangements which now exist and the things which might be done in terms of your ongoing mental health management in the community if released immediately. As to that treatment of course, none of those things is set in stone and will depend on various assessments yet to be made. He argues though today for that immediate release either with a straight sentence or, for that matter, by way of a combination-type sentence of a prison term combined with a community corrections order. Regrettably the two reports that I have received since the plea are not at all helpful. He has not though withdrawn the submission as to the availability of a combination-type order and suggests that I could place you on such an order despite the assessment report that was recently marked as an exhibit.
Prosecution
29The Director of Public Prosecutions called for a term of imprisonment but conceded at the time of the plea that a combination-type order was open here. Mr Cameron had prepared some written sentencing submissions. They were uncontroversial. There was an acceptance that the case of Verdins had application here. The prosecution made submissions about the need to protect the police and the seriousness of the offending. They expressed some concern as to the prospect of your immediate release at the time of the plea into such an unstructured setting. Those concerns of course are heightened by the recently received reports and the submission as to the availability of a community corrections order has been withdrawn for pretty obvious reasons.
Background
30I turn to your background. Your background is set out in great detail in the written materials placed before me including the expert reports, the chronology, the Forensicare report and the plea submissions. I accept that background and I see no utility in restating it all, or even much of it.
31As briefly as I might, you are 50 years of age, born in June 1970 in Tripoli. You are one of eight. Your father died many years ago when you were in your late teens. Your mother is still living in Lebanon. You had a reasonable childhood. You were educated to the end of the equivalent of Year 9 and then commenced employment in a sweet shop. You came to Australia in 1995. You are an Australian Citizen.
32In Australia you have worked in butchers and abattoirs and at one point even ran a restaurant or butchery business. You had a back injury and sold the business. You have been unable to work for close to 14 years and had at one point been in receipt of the disability support pension. It was cut off midway through last year. You have been married twice, once as a 25-year-old and the second time only briefly in 2015 or 2016.
33You have very little by way of family support or actual structure in the community. Your mental health has been problematic for quite some period as the chronology, the written submissions and the expert reports make plain. Dr McInerney also had access to other source documents or historical details. Plainly the serious mental illness, paranoid schizophrenia or schizophrenia attracts the various principles from the case of Verdins. At the same time, it also increases your risk. The Forensicare report comments on this. Plainly you have quite limited insight into that illness and a worrying enough history of non-compliance. I will discuss this further when I turn to the Verdins submissions. Very shortly after being received in prison earlier this year, you met the criteria for involuntary admission and you were moved to Thomas Embling Hospital. There you were kept for over a month. You are in the St Paul's Unit at Port Phillip Prison. You receive no visits as that privilege has been suspended since March owing to the COVID-19 virus. You speak to your mother regularly.
34You have only one past court appearance, it is old and of no real relevance to my sentencing task given the unrelated subject matter.
35I turn now then to the other matters in mitigation.
Guilty plea
36You have pleaded guilty at the earliest opportunity.
37You have admitted your guilt. You have taken early responsibility for your crimes. You have facilitated the course of justice. The community has been saved the time, cost and effort associated with a committal in the lower court or a trial up in this court. All the witnesses have been spared the experience of giving evidence. I take your guilty plea into account in the way urged upon me by your counsel including the added value of a plea in the setting of the disrupted operations of the court owing to the COVID-19 virus.
Remorse
38Your counsel made no submission as to remorse and, when I asked him about that, he referred to the views expressed by Dr McInerney as to the limitations in that regard. These are limitations flowing from your illness. It is not an aggravating feature that there is little by way of remorse. As I say, it is a by-product of your mental illness. You were and still are, to a degree, insightless. I am prepared to treat your early plea as indicative of some very modest remorse which may in fact be too favourable.
COVID-19
39I turn then to the aspect of the COVID-19 virus. I accept that the COVID-19 virus and the response to it by those running the prisons has increased and will continue to increase your prison burden. Prison is currently a more stressful environment. Social distancing is not easy. No doubt there is worry about catching the virus in such a setting where there is no level of autonomy.
40I cannot know precisely how the virus or the response to it by those running the prisons will impact upon you in the future. There are some lockdowns, but they do not exist across all prisons. I cannot conclude that they would necessarily apply to you in the future. Visits have already been suspended and so have some courses and programs. I cannot know how long those things will persist, but they are things you have had to deal with already.
41We are coming out of a long lockdown and we have well and truly flattened the curve. Some further relaxations were announced on the weekend just gone with others coming into force in about a fortnight. It still does not suggest to me that there will be any prospects in the short term of the prison conditions being returned to the pre-COVID-19 setting. So prison life is tougher. I would expect there will be less time out of cells, less access to the full range of programs and courses and no access to in-person visits for quite some time. I accept then that there is an increased custodial burden in your case for the various reasons set out in your counsel's submissions on p.7. I take this into account in your favour.
Verdins
42I have already dealt with the COVID-19 increase in prison burden. There is also the increase in your burden brought about by the presence of your serious mental illness. Indeed the first five limbs of that case plainly have application here. I am not just talking about a suggestion of there being some realistic connection. There is the obvious connection between your mental illness and the offences. There is a sizeable reduction then in your culpability. That you might happen to have reduced culpability in no way decreases the stress and the impact of this event at least upon the victims.
43Had you been a person in your right mind taking a calculated decision to go to the police station to confront and assault, I can tell you, your counsel would not have been talking about a combination-type sentence being within range. That level of calculated criminality would be met with a stern sentence. Your offending is quite different. Though planned to a degree, the offending was motivated by your delusional beliefs. You were not in your right mind and the connection is very clear in this case. You were hardly exercising good judgement or control. It was quite the opposite. You were very significantly impaired. The second limb is also enlivened and so too the third and fourth. There can be some moderation of general and specific deterrence for the reasons advanced by your counsel. Neither of those purposes is eliminated. Finally, as I say, the fifth limb has application. Prison is more onerous owing to your mental illness. I have not descended to a full audit of the report of Dr McInerney or the other materials in support of the Verdins submissions. Or the Forensicare report for that matter. There is just no need. This is one case where the application of the Verdins principles is very clear. In most cases, that is not so. The crimes speak for themselves in a way. Totally senseless, other than to you, the person under the grip of the illness who was committing them and for which the crimes made perfect sense.
44The deterioration had been ongoing for quite some period. Dr McInerney speaks of the lost opportunities for treatment or intervention and no doubt she is right, but you had a lack of insight and a lack of preparedness to engage with treatment or to comply with medication requirements. It is still not the case that you are blessed with any great insight. I was told that there had been some improvement in custody, the first of the reports of McInerney says as much, but you are still something of a worry with a lack of insight, some quite strange mindsets and an oddness to your presentation. That is plain from the Forensicare report and is equally clear from the other materials placed before me. You claimed to Dr McInerney, for instance, that you had never had any psychiatric diagnosis or treatment. Of course, that was not the case. See paragraphs 3.1 and 2 and 3. Your engagement and compliance was poor at one point, you declined out-patient treatment and the concern was you would not comply with treatment. At a later point you appeared not to have taken your medication. See paragraph 3.5. Though there has been some improvement in custody, you still harbour some worrying views. McInerney says that even after the improvements in your mental state, your insight into your mental illness and treatment needs remain poor. You still made reference to 'secret things'. You did not want to discuss a number of matters. As I say, the more recent Forensicare report is a bit disturbing.
45It is beyond dispute that you have a serious mental illness and did at the time of the offences. Compliance with your medication is the key factor here and you have a long enough history of non-compliance or at least lack of insight. As Dr McInerney says, you are compliant with treatment in custody but display limited insight into your mental health condition. A community treatment order, she says, would be of value in terms of compliance with treatment in the community. The mental illness that gives rise to the Verdins mitigatory considerations also unquestionably connects up to an increased risk of reoffence and danger. There is that countervailing aspect. Protection of the community must be given more weight here owing to the increased risk posed. That arises from your mental illness. That risk is highlighted in the recent Forensicare report.
Rehabilitation
46This leads conveniently then into my conclusions as to your rehabilitative prospects. It is hard not to be quite guarded here. Medication will be critical. Compliance with that medication and with treatment generally will be critical to avoid reoffence. Yet it is the very thing which you struggle with. Even with medication, there are evidently some sizeable enough issues. You do not have a lengthy criminal history at all and that is a good sign in that your illness is the issue, but of course it is a real worry that you can act criminally in a setting such as this with a firm and unshakeable belief that others have done you wrong, when of course they are totally innocent. Of course, it increases your risk of reoffence. Not taking medication will increase your risk. Not engaging in proper treatment will do likewise and you have neglected these things in the past. I cannot force you onto a community treatment order. I certainly will not write you off. If you can remain medication-compliant and under treatment, you have quite reasonable prospects of rehabilitation.
47If not so inclined, if not compliant with treatment and medication, you represent something of a real danger. It is accepted that you have difficulties in being deterred. You do not feel remorse for these totally innocent police members, for you probably do not view them as being innocent. They were not so in your delusions. At least there are some plans in term of accommodation and income and mental health and other support. Otherwise though, you have little by way of your own structure and supports. I am prepared then to find that you have quite realistic prospects of rehabilitation subject to complying with medication and treatment. If not, your prospects are very much problematic. A community treatment order would be of real importance as both experts suggest, but, as I say, I have no control over that.
The offences
48I need say little more about the offending. Your counsel points to the lack of any disguise, the relatively unsophisticated nature of the offending and the low enough value for the criminal damage. He argues you did not disguise yourself. You did not need to. Your delusions were driving your conduct. Being caught was the least of your concerns. You had delusions as to technology and a sense of paranoia toward the police, if not animosity. It seems likely that you took unkindly also to learning on the day from your friend's son that your friend had been told by the police not to communicate with you. At least there was no physical injury, but it was dangerous offending and those targeted were serving members of the police force in uniform. Their job is difficult enough at the best of times. They must be protected. As delusional as you were, those delusions led to a planned attendance with the carriage and use of the hammer together with the variety of secreted knives. You were plainly not in optimum state, but you presented a real danger here. The lack of physical injury to police members was more a matter of good fortune than anything else. The conduct endangering Sergeant Koch involved a hammer blow very narrowly missing his head. There has been significant impact felt by one of your victims. Your counsel concedes this was serious offending. He is right to make that concession.
Purposes
49I have to consider a number of purposes of sentencing. I must pay regard to your prospects of rehabilitation, but that is only one of the purposes I must consider. I can only be relatively guarded as the prospects will depend on the extent of your future compliance with medication and treatment, and the signs are not great.
50I am required to punish you for your crimes justly and proportionately.
51I must also denounce your conduct.
52I must pay appropriate weight to specific deterrence. By that I mean the need to deter and dissuade you from offending in the future. That can be moderated here given the application of the fourth limb of the case of Verdins, but it is not eliminated as a purpose. I must at least try to deter you.
53General deterrence can also be moderated. It is not eliminated. The message must still be sent to other like-minded offenders that conduct such as this will be treated seriously if bought before the courts. We must seek to deter like-minded future potential offenders.
54Community protection has an added weight here owing to the increased risk posed by your mental illness. So whilst your illness results in these mitigatory impacts of which I have spoken, it represents the greatest risk of your reoffending and that is no minor or illusory risk. As you demonstrated in this case, you can take an unreasoning dislike to people or groups of people with an unshakeable belief that they must be dealt with. That is a real danger when you are prepared in such setting to carry a variety of weapons and to use the hammer in the way that you did. You still harbour some negative feelings towards the police and for no good reason that I can determine. I must strive to protect the community from you. It is no minor consideration.
55I must have regard to the maximum penalties as well as the impact.
56I must also pay regard to current sentencing practices. That is not a single controlling factor. I have looked at the relevant online SACStat data for the offences of conduct endangering serious injury and common assault. There are no sentencing snapshots for either of these offences. I note that the common assaults I am dealing with have twice the maximum penalty than is usually the position as a result of the status of the victim being, and known to be a serving police member on duty and assaulted with an offensive weapon. I have also looked at the Judicial College of Victoria new sentencing manual collection of past sentences imposed for such crimes. That is the Judicial College of Victoria at 5.5.1.1 for conduct endangering (focussing only on endangerment of serious injury and not death) and 4.9.1.1 (common assault).
57At the end of the day though, I am exercising a sentencing discretion in your case, not some other case. I am sentencing you for your crimes and that is not some mathematical task. No amount of looking at other cases or statistics will provide the answer to me. Other cases do not drive my task.
58Statistics have inherent limitations. I am not here to pass sentence based on what has been the most common sentence imposed in the past.
Totality
59I have taken a last look at the orders that I intend to make to guard against a crushing outcome and to ensure that the total effect of my sentences is commensurate with your criminality here. Now, this was a tightly grouped set of offences all motivated by the same delusional belief and with the violence occurring within seconds. There is a strong connection between the offending. Of course I have differing victims and differing elements, but I must been astute to avoid double punishment. The assault upon Leading Senior Constable Clemmens is the least serious of the acts of violence, in my judgment. I judge the conduct endangering Sergeant Koch to be the most serious.
Prison and CCO or head sentence and non-parole period
60Your counsel argued that it was open to either release you immediately on a straight sentence or to place you onto a combination-type order. That is a term of imprisonment followed by a community corrections order. He submitted that you had served sufficient time in custody and that you should be released immediately. The Director of Public Prosecutions did not challenge the availability of a combination-type order at the time the plea was conducted and recognised the importance of treatment. That submission has changed. At the end of the day, arguments as to sentence are not binding on me. I pay regard to them, but ultimately I am the person who has to impose an appropriate sentence. A lot has changed since the plea including some of the submissions.
61Since the plea was conducted on 29 September, I have received a Forensicare report which goes into much detail as to your treatment whilst in custody. It is a very informative report and just slightly disturbing. You are still insightless as to having any mental health issues and any need for medication. You have a history of poor engagement and medication non-compliance. You seem not to think that you will continue with any medication upon your release and wish to go to Lebanon.
62You have, to an extent, minimised your offending when discussing the matter with Dr Soh (see paragraphs [51] and [53]). You still demonstrate some persecutory ideation about the police. You may well also be downplaying your beliefs and still could be symptomatic. Dr Soh tells me that you are a significant risk of disengaging from voluntary treatment as you have done several times over the years and that deterioration in your condition may pose a risk to the police or even your ex-girlfriend or her son. He says there is a risk of escalation.
63I have also had you assessed for your suitability for a community corrections order. I told you to take no comfort from my calling for that report. I was exploring all options. That report is even less encouraging. I am not going to descend to the detail of it, but they could not even assess you. Your strange conduct in the assessment could give no optimism that you would or even could comply with a community corrections order. At this stage in fact the authors doubt if you could even give informed consent.
64Now, I have placed people on such orders even when they have been judged to be unsuitable.
65At the end of the day, a judge must not confine any person unless the purposes for which sentence is imposed cannot be achieved by a lesser disposition, one not involving confinement. That is the law. See s.5(4C) of the Sentencing Act 1991. What that means is prison is always a disposition of last resort.
66It is conceded by your counsel that your crimes warrant a prison term. There is just no doubt about that in my mind either. I plainly must impose a prison term.
67The argument is that you have already served a decent enough period in custody and that release now with or without a community corrections order is open. That such an outcome can achieve the various purposes of sentencing.
68I have considered whether it is actually open to combine a prison term with a community corrections order or whether I must fix a head sentence and then a non-parole period. The judgement as to your present unsuitability does not bind me, but I must say, I am not at all surprised by the turn of events here. There were aspects of the previously filed materials which worried me in that respect. I cannot sensibly place you on such an order. It would set you up to fail. At the same time, I cannot just use prison as a warehousing facility. Ultimately, given the unavailability of a community corrections order, there is only one disposition remaining and it is prison. It must though be proportionate to the gravity of your offending.
69So I am not satisfied it is even open to me to release you immediately, though, for what it is worth, I commend the effort taken by those who have tried to establish something resembling a structure for your release. I do not ignore those efforts or that structure, but that structure will need to wait for another time.
70The assessment report is of course a real problem. As I have said, I can have absolutely no confidence that you would comply with a community corrections order or for that matter with your medication regime. Such an order would in no way pay adequate weight to community protection. Indeed, it seems apparent that you probably cannot even give informed consent and, though I suppose I could go out on a limb and just place you on such an order, it would be a real risk. It would set you up to fail. But ultimately I do not believe it would give adequate weight to community protection and that provides the answer here.
71I believe it is open though for me to pass an aggregate sentence here given the tight time frame and the unity as between much of the offending. It was all motivated by your dislike of the police and delusions in that regard. So it was you set out for the police station with the knives and the hammer. Damage to a car with the hammer followed by the chase with the hammer which constitutes the two conduct endangering serious injury charges as well as the two common assaults. I believe those four matters are amenable to an aggregate sentence. No doubt I could pass a number of separate sentences, make the sentence imposed for the conduct endangering Sergeant Koch the base, make orders for a level of cumulation and reach a head sentence in that way. The same end total is achieved by use of an aggregate term for Charges 2 to 5 on the indictment. One cannot lose sight of the fact that this was a single episode albeit with a number of separate offences. Nor can I ignore the very close relationship between the two conduct endangering charges. Two people endangered by very much the same physical conduct.
Compensation order
72Application is made for a compensation order. There is no opposition to the making of that order, though your counsel pointed to the lack of likelihood that you would ever be able to pay. In the circumstances I am satisfied that the loss referred to in the document has been sustained as a result of the crime of intentionally damaging property. You are convicted of that offence and I will make the order in favour of Victoria Police that you pay to Victoria Police compensation in the sum of $3,644.98 cents.
73I have signed that order.
Disposal orders - weapons
74Secondly, there is an application for forfeiture of the various items referred to in the schedule. These are the knives and the hammer, for that matter. There is no opposition to the making of that order, I have signed that order. I order pursuant to the provisions of the Confiscations Act that that property referred to in the schedule be forfeited to the Minister.
75I have signed that order as well.
Sentence
76On Charge 1, which is the charge of criminal damage, I convict and sentence you to two months' imprisonment.
77On Charges 2, 3, 4 and 5 on the indictment you are convicted and sentenced to an aggregate term of 21 months' imprisonment. That is the base sentence.
78On the summary matter I convict and sentence you to seven days' imprisonment.
Cumulation
79I direct that one month of the sentence imposed on the criminal damage charge is to be served cumulatively upon the base sentence. I direct that the seven-day sentence imposed on the weapons offence will be served concurrently upon the aggregate sentence and the part-cumulative sentence.
Total effective sentence
80So this results then in a total effective sentence of one year and 10 months or 22 months' imprisonment.
Non-parole period
81Given the dimensions of that sentence, I am empowered to fix a non-parole period. Whether you get parole or not will be in the hands of the Adult Parole Board. It has nothing to me and in fact I must not even consider that possibility. What I am about to say should not be taken as my making any judgements as to whether you will be released on parole. It is not that at all. However it is blindingly obvious that structure will be very important in your life whenever you are released. You need treatment and I have two experts strongly recommending a community treatment order. An unstructured release such as would happen at the lapse date of the sentence would in my view be very much counterproductive. You need support. You need structure. You need treatment assembled around you to take the decisions out of your hands. You have demonstrated that you cannot exercise appropriate decisions in terms of the need for treatment and the need for medication and that is because you have very little insight into your illness. Addressing those issues will be the best way to deal with your future risk of relapse and hence, of reoffence. I have no ability to provide for any of this given my view that it is not open to me today to admit you to a community corrections order. However, I will provide the various reports and letters and the emails which I am sure will inform the Adult Parole Board of the desirability of structure as well as informing them of the sorts of things that may very well be available by way of support from Muslim Connect and from others.
82I fix a period of 13 months during which you will not be eligible for release on parole. I make the pre-sentence detention 302 days, Mr Cameron and Mr Van Arkadie. Do you both agree with that?
83COUNSEL: Yes, Your Honour.
84HIS HONOUR: Yes. So, Mr Beyrouti, understand this: you have already served 302 days of that sentence, all right? I have fixed a non-parole period of 13 months.
Section 6AAA
85I have taken into account your guilty plea. If you had pleaded not guilty and been found guilty of these offences, I would have convicted and sentenced you to a term three years and four months' imprisonment. I would have fixed a non-parole period of two years and that statement is to be entered into the records of the court.
Section 18 pre-sentence detention
86Finally then, as I said a moment ago, you have served the period of 302 days by way of PSD. That has already been served pursuant to this sentence.
87All right, let me just see if there are any other matters I need to deal with. Any other matters from your perspective, Mr Cameron?
88MR CAMERON: No, Your Honour, that satisfies all the matters from our end.
89HIS HONOUR: Any other matters from you, Mr Van Arkadie?
90MR VAN ARKADIE: Nothing arising, Your Honour.
91HIS HONOUR: All right. We've got the link and we've got the interpreter. No doubt you'll need to have a conference with your client at some point and I'm not suggesting you can use this for a lengthy conference now. That's not what I'm suggesting and any conference you have now would not be private, my staff will be here of course. I won't be, but given that we've got the interpreter and given we've got the link and I know there are difficulties in accessing prisoners at the moment, are you wanting the ability to use the link to have a brief chat to him or not?
92MR VAN ARKADIE: Your Honour, I'm very grateful for the opportunity; however, my instructing solicitor and myself will convene a conference with Mr Beyrouti sometime this week or early next week.
93HIS HONOUR: All right. Well, as long as it's going to happen, that's fine. As I say, it's always a bit unsatisfactory to have this sort of conference where there's someone listening in. It wouldn't be me, but it would be someone. All right. Well, I was offering it to you; you don't need or want it, so I'll simply tell Mr Beyrouti.
94Mr Beyrouti, your counsel and his solicitor will be in touch with you and they'll no doubt be having a conference with you in the not-too-distant future, all right? But otherwise that completes the matter, so I'll sign the formal orders and then I will disconnect the link.
95I've signed that formal order then, so that completes the matter. As I say, Mr Beyrouti, your legal team will be in contact with you to discuss today's outcome. That completes the matter. So thank you, Madam Interpreter, and thanks, each of you, Mr Van Arkadie and also you Mr Cameron, for the way the matter was conducted.
96COUNSEL: Thank you, Your Honour.
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