Director of Public Prosecutions v Catchlove
[2024] VCC 1422
•9 September 2024
| IN THE COUNTY COURT OF VICTORIA | Revised Not Restricted Suitable for Publication |
AT MELBOURNE
CRIMINAL JURISDICTION
CR 24-00929
| DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROSECUTIONS |
| v |
| TRENT CATCHLOVE |
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JUDGE: | HIS HONOUR JUDGE CARMODY |
WHERE HELD: | Melbourne |
DATE OF HEARING: | 9 September 2024 |
DATE OF SENTENCE: | 9 September 2024 |
CASE MAY BE CITED AS: | DPP v Catchlove |
MEDIUM NEUTRAL CITATION: | [2024] VCC 1422 |
REASONS FOR SENTENCE
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Subject: CRIMINAL LAW – Sentence
Catchwords: Recklessly cause injury – unprovoked attack
Cases Cited:R v Verdins [2007] VSCA 102; 16 VR 240
Sentence:Convicted and sentenced to two years’ imprisonment with a non-parole period of 12 months’ imprisonment.
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APPEARANCES: | Counsel | Solicitors |
| For the Director of Public Prosecutions | Mr L. Faust | Office of Public Prosecutions |
For the Accused | Mr D. Thompson | Richard Revill Lawyers |
HIS HONOUR:
1Trent Catchlove, on 9 September 2024, that is today, at the County Court of Victoria sitting at Melbourne you pleaded guilty to one charge on Indictment No.P12557431, that is recklessly cause injury to Emma Hughes. The maximum penalty for this charge is five years' imprisonment.
2You also admitted your criminal history. You have six prior court appearances between June 2020 and 15 November 2023. You have four prior convictions for assault, one of them for recklessly causing injury. At the time of this offence you were serving two separate Community Corrections Orders (“CCO”) which were imposed on 6 October 2023 and 15 November 2023 respectively. You have served 280 days' pre-sentence detention.
Circumstances of your offending
3At the time of your offending you were 30 years of age. You are now 31. The prosecutor tendered and read into the record of the court a Summary of Prosecution Opening upon Plea dated 13 August 2024. It was Exhibit “A”. I will read in part from it.
4On 26 November 2023 at approximately 8.30 am, Emma Hughes was standing on the corner of Barkly and Carlisle Streets in St Kilda. She was walking in a southbound direction. She was waiting at the traffic lights there. While
Ms Hughes waited, you crossed Barkly Street, walking towards her, acting in an erratic manner by yelling and throwing your fists towards a traffic pole, so much so as is shown on the CCTV which was Exhibit “D”. Ms Hughes was feeling uncomfortable by your actions, moved away slightly and created a small amount of distance. Again, you can see that on the CCTV.5You have then turned around and, without communication or provocation or any indication whatsoever, you have struck her with a closed right fist with significant force to the right side of her face. The strike caused Ms Hughes to immediately stumble to the ground and you just continued on up Carlisle Street. Witnesses Rand and Knight observed the attack and immediately rendered assistance to Ms Hughes and dialled triple zero. An ambulance turned up. By the time they got there, Ms Hughes' eye had begun to swell, and she was in pain, and she was conveyed to the Alfred Hospital for scans and observation. Police then attended.
6Vin Tran, who was a staff member of Sandwich Society which is at 164 Barkly Street, St Kilda, provided CCTV to the policeman in charge at that time, a
Mr Bartholomeusz, which depicted the assault in its entirety and as I said that is Exhibit “D”.7At approximately 12.30 pm, a member of the public, Ms Wilson, located a backpack in Kelly Lane in St Kilda. She handed it in to the police station at St Kilda. Police then had a look inside the bag and noted medication in your name. The police have then reviewed the police database and had you on record. You were similar in appearance to the male offender in the assault. They have then confirmed your image later on through their records.
8Ms Hughes was discharged from hospital later that day. Preliminary assessments on her revealed she had sustained two fractures to her cheekbone and her eye socket. She has since undergone surgery to repair the fractures to her zygomatic suture, part of her eye socket, and suffered a fracture to the anterior and lateral maxillary sinus wall which is her cheekbone.
9You were arrested on 4 September 2023 in Richmond. You were then taken to St Kilda police station; a DVD record of interview was conducted. You denied any involvement in the incident and that you could not recall the incident. When you were arrested, you were wearing the shoes and had in your possession black tracksuit pants with a white motif depicted in the CCTV from 26 November 2023. You have been on remand since that date, which is 280 days.
10There were two victim impact statements tendered in this case. One was Exhibit “B” and the other was Exhibit “C”. The earlier in time, Exhibit “B”, was made in January 2024. It is a very extensive victim impact statement and I do not propose to go through it in detail. I summarise them as follows; Ms Hughes' victim impact statement she sets out the physical impact of your assault upon her. She still suffers from debilitating migraines. These headaches impact upon her work and her day-to-day activities. She has nerve damage that results in loss of feeling to the right side of her face. She is unable to engage in martial arts which was previously her sporting activity, but has been given a recent medical clearance to resume that sport. The attack has left her with interrupted sleep patterns. She plans to sell her apartment to get away from the area where she had just moved to when you attacked her in the street. The mental and emotional impact on her continues. She is nervous in her own home. She relives your assault, and the long physical recovery has been emotionally exhausting for her.
Your personal circumstances
11You are now 31 years of age. Your parents separated when you were six years old. You grew up in Karratha in Western Australia. During the course of your primary school years, you lived with your mother. When you then went to high school, between the ages of 12 and 17, you lived with your father. You still have contact with your father who now lives in Cambodia. Your mother lives in Geraldton. Your education was completed at year 10 level. You then trained as a diesel mechanic but have limited work history due to what turns out to be your ongoing drug use.
12At 19 years old, you became a regular user of methylamphetamine. By 2023, due to your drug use and your diagnosis of schizophrenia, you were placed on a disability support pension, and you have been in that state since. You have had forensic mental health involvement since June of 2020. You have been diagnosed with schizophrenia in April of 2023. At present, you are in St Paul's at Port Phillip Prison. You are medicated with amisulpride, 1000 milligram per day. You have previously been treated by depot injections on a monthly basis.
13At the time of your offending, you were serving two concurrent community correction orders. The first was imposed on 6 October 2023. The second one was imposed just nine days before your offending. I was told you had two unauthorised absences on the first community correction order before your offending on this occasion. There was no information before this court about whether you attended Corrections for your second community correction order. I note that the community correction orders did not control your behaviour on this occasion. You maintain you have no memory of being involved in this offending.
Sentencing considerations
14The basic purposes for which a court may impose a sentence are just punishment, deterrence, both specific and general, rehabilitation, denunciation of your actions and the protection of the community. In sentencing you, I must have regard to a range of factors such as the seriousness of your offending, your culpability for it and your personal circumstances. I am also required to balance the interests of the community in denouncing your criminal conduct with the interests of the community in seeking to ensure, as far as possible, that you as an offender are rehabilitation and reintegrated into society.
15I am also required to take into account current sentencing practices in fixing your sentence. That enquiry is directed particularly, but not exhaustively, to the kinds of sentences imposed in comparable cases and the statistics for those sentences at the time. I have considered the statistics and current sentencing practices, mindful that each case must be considered in the light of its own particular circumstances, and many of the cases would be distinguishable from your case as indeed they are from one another. Current sentencing practices is only one of the factors I have to take into account in sentencing you.
16You have pleaded guilty to this charge. Your plea was indicated at a relatively early stage. Your plea does have the utilitarian value of allowing for the orderly and effective administration of justice, there is a certainty of outcome and the resolution of the substantive issues raised by your offending. Your plea also allows for the preservation of court and police resources to deal with other matters and your plea vindicates public confidence set up in the legal process to protect the community. Your plea is also a clear acknowledgement by you that you accept responsibility for your criminal behaviour on this occasion.
17Your plea also recognises you are willing to facilitate the course of justice in the community. I accept that your plea of guilty to this charge, indicates and demonstrates some remorse on your part. I also note that you maintain you have no memory of the offending itself. Your counsel and the prosecution submitted that the combination of imprisonment and a community correction order was applicable to this sentencing process. I note that you were on two community correction orders at the time of the offence. I find that upon your release from prison, you require more restrictive supervision managed by the Adult Parole Board. Of course, this assumes you earn the right to parole, which is a matter outside my jurisdiction and a matter for the Adult Parole Board to determine.
18Your counsel submitted that Verdins[1] principles apply to your sentencing considerations. I do not accept that the evidence on your plea, enlivens limb 1 of Verdins' case considerations which impact upon your moral culpability. Whilst you maintain a lack of memory of this offending, it does not of itself establish a link between your diagnosis of schizophrenia and your offending. You were not arrested until some seven days after the offence.
[1] [2007] VSCA 102; 16 VR 240
19I do accept that your psychiatric diagnosis will make the burden of imprisonment more burdensome than on a prisoner of normal mental health. I also note that you have been treated in St Paul's at Port Phillip Prison and that the additional burden of your mental health has been addressed in prison. Further, the Adult Parole Board will be in a position to obtain objective information from Forensicare when assessing your application for parole.
20Your offending is objectively serious. The maximum term of five years' imprisonment set down by Parliament is a clear demonstration of the seriousness with which the community views offences of personal violence. The indicators of the level of seriousness are:
1)It was a random attack on a young woman in a public street setting;
2)The effect of your attack on the life of your victim is fully set out in the two victim impact statements which I will note repeat in full here;
3)You left your victim stunned and injured in the street after your cowardly king hit;
4)The attack was unprovoked, the victim was caught completely unaware; and
5)The severe and ongoing nature of the injuries to your victim.
18You have previous convictions for assault. One of the convictions was for a recklessly cause injury, the same charge you face before this court. You were imprisoned for that offending. The nature of the attack in this case raises both sentencing considerations of general and specific deterrence. The randomness of your offending raises a consideration of community protection.
19I assess your prospects of rehabilitation as fair. This assessment is fluid, as it depends on your ability to abstain from methylamphetamine use and compliance with your medication for your mental health difficulties. You need stable accommodation upon release from prison and a positive pathway back to paid employment as a diesel mechanic, not a life on social security.
20Finally, the principles of general and specific deterrence, denunciation of your actions, just punishment and rehabilitation and the protection of the community, dictate that the only appropriate sentence in this case is a total effective sentence with a non-parole period.
21Would you stand up, please.
22On Charge 1, you are convicted and sentenced to a period of two years' imprisonment. I fix a non-parole period of 12 months' imprisonment.
23But for your plea of guilty, I would have sentenced you to three years' imprisonment with a minimum period of two years' imprisonment and I declare that you have served 280 days' pre-sentence detention in respect of this sentence.
24Is there anything else that I need to attend to, Mr Faust?
25MR FAUST: I don't believe so, Your Honour.
26MR THOMPSON: No, Your Honour.
27HIS HONOUR: Thank you. Mr Catchlove, it is up to you to organise your application for parole, number one. Number two, when you get out, leave methylamphetamine alone, it is no good for you.
28OFFENDER: Yes, Your Honour.
29MR THOMPSON: As Your Honour pleases.
30HIS HONOUR: Thanks. You can remove the prisoner, thanks. Counsel, thanks for your assistance.
31MR FAUST: Thank you, Your Honour.
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