Director of Public Prosecutions v Blunt

[2014] VCC 678

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

AT MELBOURNE
CRIMINAL JURISDICTION

CR-14-00286

DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROSECUTIONS

v

SHELTON BLUNT

---

JUDGE:	HIS HONOUR JUDGE SMALLWOOD
WHERE HELD:	Melbourne
DATE OF HEARING:
DATE OF SENTENCE:	8 May 2014
CASE MAY BE CITED AS:	DPP v Blunt
MEDIUM NEUTRAL CITATION:	[2014] VCC 678

REASONS FOR SENTENCE
---

Subject:
Catchwords:
Legislation Cited:
Cases Cited:
Sentence:

---

APPEARANCES:	Counsel	Solicitors
For the Director of Public Prosecutions	Mr P O'Halloran
For the Offender	Ms D Mitchell

HIS HONOUR: 

1Shelton Blunt, you have pleaded guilty to one charge of armed robbery, one charge of obtaining property by deception, and one charge of obtaining a financial advantage by deception.  Those crimes carry maximum penalties of 25 years, ten years and ten years, respectively.  You are now 40 years of age.  You pleaded guilty and must get the benefit of that.  I accept, having heard you in Koori Court that you are expressing appropriate remorse for the conduct that you carried out.  You must, of course, get the utilitarian benefit of that plea of guilty as well.  Insofar as that plea of guilty is concerned, it is fair to say that there was evidence, but not a great deal of it, and there should be an additional benefit for you having relieved the system of the difficulties of a trial.

2You do have a significant number of prior findings of guilt and convictions and have been incarcerated on a number of occasions.  You have in the past been given Community-based Orders and have, from what I can gather, breached most of those.  However, all those periods of incarceration started at a relatively young age and all those community based dispositions were in the state of Queensland.  I have now had you assessed for such a disposition in Victoria and you have been found to be suitable for it.

3Firstly, pursuant to s.464 of the Crimes Act I make an order that you provide a saliva sample for DNA purposes. That order having been made I must advise you that should you refuse to provide such a sample authorities may use reasonable force to take it from you and that order is made and handed down.

4Insofar as your prior history is concerned, it is important to note, I think, that whilst there are numerous prior matters there is very little of this nature.  You have many instances of what I am interpreting to be burglaries and things along those lines, but on my reading of it you have one prior conviction in more recent times for assault and another of assault with intent to steal.  On each of those matters you were given a month so they cannot have been the most serious crimes on earth.

5Accordingly, I do find that this type of offending, that is to threaten a person with a knife in the circumstances in which you did, is somewhat out of character.  I say from the outset that you absconded once on bail and were brought back by way of extradition.  You served a period of 188 days on breach of parole in Queensland and I take that in to account as Renzella time, in terms of the totality of how long you have been incarcerated.  You have now been in custody in Victoria for 236 days, which in effect means that you have been in custody for something approaching 14 months.

6A summary of the offending is that on 30 November 2012 you went in to the social club café in Barkley Street in St Kilda.  I note that approximately a month before that you had spent a fortnight in hospital following a heroin overdose and there would appear to be a strong suggestion, at least, that you had suffered some form of acquired brain injury.  Because of that you had been rendered unconscious.  I do not have sufficient evidence before me to make definitive findings about those matters but the disposition that I intend to impose should allow for them to be investigated.

7You approached the victim in the matter, who was standing behind a service counter, and ordered a coffee from her.  I point out this was approximately 8.15 am I the morning, which seems to be the time when a lot of ice induced robberies take place.  She made a cup of coffee for you and placed it on the counter.  You then produced a black handled knife.  You held the knife at your side pointed at her and said, "Go to the back and shut the door or I'll stab you."  She went out the back door of the café.  You doubt whether you said, "I'll stab you," but as we discussed during the sentencing conversation, people on ice and carrying knives are very dangerous people indeed.  Whether you actually said those words or not she was perfectly entitled to draw the inference that you may well have been about to.

8You then took her iPhone which was sitting on the counter, $20 in coins from a cash drawer, and her handbag containing money and the business' credit card.  You were subsequently identified in a photo board and as I have indicated, there was not a lot of evidence against you at the time of your plea.  Approximately 20 minutes later on that day you entered a 7-Eleven store in Fitzroy Street and used the stolen credit card to pay for items totalling $34.  That is the obtaining property by deception.  In the normal course of events you would not get a custodial sentence for that but because of your priors and for convenience sake I will give you one but it will be concurrent.

9At 11 am on that day you, in company with two others, took a taxi from the Elwood area to Richmond.  On arrival at Richmond a taxi fare was paid using a stolen credit card.  That came to something like $11 and the same principles apply.

10You were photographed that day by police which is, as I understand, how they had your photograph for it to be identified off a photo board.  You denied the offending.  You were then held in custody for a period of time and released on bail and, ultimately, as I have indicated, absconded to Queensland.

11The offending has to be regarded as serious, as all armed robberies must be.  The victim impact statement was read out to you during the course of the sentencing conversation and indicates clearly the ongoing difficulties that offending of this nature causes.  It causes people not only stress at the time but they become very cautious of strangers and indeed in some situations people are simply unable to return to work for very long periods of time.  She has indicated that she is quite paranoid and is certainly worried when strangers or strange looking people come in to the café.  That is why matters such as this are serious and why people obviously go to gaol for it.

12It calls for the application of general and specific deterrence in the normal course of events as well as denunciation and an appropriate punishment.  A report from psychologist Carla Lechner was tendered, which goes through your history and her diagnosis.  Before I go in to your history and I will be doing that in very short compass, because of the very sensible way in which these matters have been conducted, I will just say something about you having participated in Koori Court.  You are from Queensland.  Your mob is not from this area.  However, you told the elders in the course of the sentencing conversation that this was a start for you, this was a starting point whereby you were going to endeavour to get your life back together again.  I thought that you spoke to the elders with appropriate respect and showed appropriate appreciation of where you were. 

13Koori Court of itself does not of course give anybody a lesser sentence.  What it does often do, though, is allow a judge to form a much better, much more accurate impression of the nature of the person before the court, their determination to rehabilitate, and their overall circumstances.  As I have indicated I thought that you conducted yourself well and I am prepared to accept that your remorse for this offending is genuine and that your determination to rehabilitate yourself is also genuine.  As was talked about during the conversation itself, it is all very well, having been clean in gaol for an extended period of time, to say I am going to do this, it is the day that you get out that matters and that is what this disposition is endeavouring to deal with.

14You are from Queensland.  I do not propose to go in to the intricate details of your history but you have a negative relationship with a stepfather.  Your parents were separated when you were very young.  Your father has passed.  Your stepfather would flog you.  You have younger siblings and have no contact with them.  You have never married.  You have been in a long term relationship with a lady and you have three children together, aged now I think 15, 14 and ten.  They reside in Queensland with their mother and up until recently you had no contact with them.

15I am told by your counsel and accept that she has been in touch with the mother of those children in recent times and the eldest child, at least, wishes to have contact with you.  You clearly do not wish that to occur in a custodial situation but it at least is a light at the end of the tunnel insofar as you are concerned.  You had come to Melbourne to start afresh and is unfortunately so often the case with people in your situation who have come down from Queensland or over from Western Australia, it just does not work.

16You went to about ten primary schools, you were not much good at school but you excelled at sport.  You were 13 when your father passed and that had a dramatic effect upon you.  Importantly in your situation everyone else in the family is white and you were treated, obviously, as the only black.  Others were favoured over you.  You went to school until around about Year 9.  You ran away from home, lived on the streets for a couple of years, and were in and out of gaol.  You have worked from time to time as a tree lopper in parks and gardens and had your own business, in fact, for about a year.  You had periods where you have been able to avoid the use of drugs and that gives me some confidence in your capacity to ultimately rehabilitate.  As indicated when you came to Melbourne to start afresh you started using drugs and I have referred already to the overdose that took place.

17You appear to be, according to Ms Lechner, socially isolated and with transient social connections.  She has assessed you as being mildly intellectually disabled, whether that has always been the case or that came about because of the drug overdose not long before this offending took place I am unable to say.  However, it puts you in the mildly intellectually disabled category and I take that in to account in accordance with the principles expressed in the decision of Blackrock.  The circumstances for people with that sort of disability are that moral culpability can be reduced to an extent and obviously general and specific deterrence reduced to an extent.  It is not a dramatic deduction in your particular situation, you have got a long history and you know what you are allowed to do and what you cannot do.

18You have been using ice and it was very strongly pointed out to you that if you are released from gaol and continue to use ice you will either die, or the odds are pretty high, as we are alluding to, our great concern at the present time, that you will stab somebody.  Either way it would pretty much be the end of the road for you I think.

19On this occasion you have done your best in gaol and I accept that your motivation is genuine.  You indicated that you wish to connect with your culture, and connect with your country, and connect with your community.  As Uncle Russell pointed out to you, and I would agree with him, bearing in mind he has obviously far greater knowledge in these matters, that is pretty crucial.  If you try and live away from country, and away from family, and away from your kids, the risk of you relapsing is just too great.  On a Community Corrections Order they will have this material before them and they will endeavour to assist you.  The Community Corrections Order, if you agree to undertake it, will have supervision and will have assessment for drug abuse and dependency and assessment for alcohol abuse and dependency as well as a mental health assessment as treatment.

20As I have indicated you will be remaining in prison for a period of time before that Community Corrections Order starts.  During that period of time it is crucial, as was pointed out to you by the elders, that you do what you can to put in place a positive and stable environment to come out in to.  I would hope that ultimately the Corrections people are able to re-establish you in Queensland but of course that has nothing to do with me and I have no idea what time frames might be involved in that, but it is important that you come out of gaol with somewhere to go, knowing what you are going to be doing.  You will have to report to Corrections within two days of release but because of the nature of the sentence that I am imposing you will not be on parole.  So you are just going to have to do something about it and be in touch with the Koori liaison officers in gaol to have something in place, it is just crucial, Mr Blunt.

21Rehabilitation is entirely up to you.  Re-offending is entirely dependent upon that rehabilitation, there is no other way of putting it.  In the end, on the charge of armed robbery, 300 days.  On Charge 2 of financial advantage, 30 days.  On Charge 3, property by deception, 30 days.  That makes an effective head sentence of 300 days, bearing in mind that you have served 188 days already in respect of other matters in Queensland.  I direct that 236 days be reckoned as having been served under this sentence.  That means that you have got 64 days to go.  At the expiration of 64 days, if you agree, you will be placed on a Community Corrections Order, with conviction, for a period of two years with the conditions that I have outlined.  Bearing in mind the time you have been in custody I see no point at all in imposing work hours.  So that Community Corrections Order, do I direct a date for that to start, do I have to?

22MS MITCHELL:  That 64 days makes it 11 July, Your Honour.

23HIS HONOUR:  All right.  It will commence on 11 July.

24MR O'HALLORAN:  I just thought that, Your Honour, that - no, the only requirement is you must have a start date, that is all.

25HIS HONOUR:  No and that is what's concerning me, I am happy to have it that day, 11 July, I will make it that, all right.  These things bother me because if the gaol has a lock down or something he will get credit.  A lock down gives him four days per day for credit.  I will talk to him directly about that, but I will make it 11 July, he has got to report within two days, but I will make it 11 July, he has got to report within two days.  The Act actually says a CCO cannot start after three months.

26MR O'HALLORAN:  Yes Your Honour.  The only thing Your Honour has to do is you have to start a start date, the start date does not have to be today.

27HIS HONOUR:  Well I am making it 11 July, which can then be complied with and we will go from there.  Mr Blunt that is what I have done.  So you have got a couple of months to go, get things in place for when you get out.  You have got a lot of contacts that you can make to do that.  Whatever you do, do not just walk out the door, all right?

28OFFENDER:  Yes.

29HIS HONOUR:  If you walk out the door it is 48 hours before you can have any sort of contact with Community Corrections and I do not want you, you know, sleeping in a St Vinney de Paul bin or anything stupid like that, all right?  There will be no parole so they will just open the door and out you go, all right?  With the Community Corrections Order, do what you can with them.  You have got the opportunities available to you.  You have now got a bit of an idea as to what is available in Melbourne through Koori services and make sure when you get out that you have got places that you can ring to if you are struggling, where you can get some support.  So if you are prepared to enter in to that CCO, which will be for two years, on the conditions that I have described, then I will get Ms Mitchell to take it down and get you to sign it.  There is no other orders I have to make, I have declared the PSD.

30MR O'HALLORAN:  Your Honour, because you have provided a sentence of imprisonment is Your Honour minded to give a s.6AAA?

31HIS HONOUR:  No, not with a CCO tacked on to it.  That order is made, it goes from there.  Look, it's up to you, all right?  As the elders said to you, particularly Uncle Russell, you have got a chance to get the family back together and your best chance of doing that is in your country.  I know you grew up in a white family and I can understand to a certain extent the effect that has, but you want to be a black fellow, do it in your own country and you will go real well I reckon.

32OFFENDER:  Yes sir.

33HIS HONOUR:  So good luck with it.

34OFFENDER:  Thank you.

35HIS HONOUR:  Thank you. 

‑ ‑ ‑