Director of Public Prosecutions v Chircop

[2017] VCC 1144

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

AT LATROBE VALLEY
CRIMINAL JURISDICTION

CR 17-01120

DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROSECUTIONS

v

NICHOLAS TIMOTHY CHIRCOP

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JUDGE:	HIS HONOUR JUDGE SMALLWOOD
WHERE HELD:	Latrobe Valley
DATE OF HEARING:
DATE OF SENTENCE:	16 August 2017
CASE MAY BE CITED AS:	DPP v Chircop
MEDIUM NEUTRAL CITATION:	[2017] VCC 1144

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

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APPEARANCES:	Counsel	Solicitors
For the Director of Public Prosecutions	Mr N. Hutton
For the Accused	Mr S. Dewberry

HIS HONOUR:

1Nicholas Chircop, you have pleaded guilty to one charge of intentionally causing serious injury, one charge of a prohibited person using a firearm and three summary matters, two of bail contraventions and one of offending on bail.  Those crimes carry maximum penalties of 20 years, ten years and three months respectively.

2You are still only 23 years of age which is, putting it bluntly, about the only thing you have got going for you.

3You pleaded guilty at the earliest reasonable opportunity.  Remorse will be totally problematic but you must of course get the utilitarian benefit of that plea of guilty.

4You do have a concerning criminal history though most of it is in the Children's Court.  The most concerning matter is one for which I sentenced you in 2014 and I will refer to that again in a moment.

5Because of your criminal history, you are to be sentenced as a serious violent offender on Charge 1.  I am aware that community protection becomes the principle sentencing purpose, that cumulation is mandatory unless I order otherwise and in this situation the Crown do not seek a disproportionate sentence.

6Obviously you must be sentenced as a young or youthful at least offender.  I am also advised from the Bar table that you have other serious matters pending which at this point you are pleading not guilty but there is nothing really that I can do about that.

7The summary of the offending is that at the time you were 23 years of age and the victim was a Marc Treadgold.  You are both known to me.  I have sentenced you previously and I have sentenced Mr Treadgold on a number of occasions.  So as I indicated to your counsel, I am well aware of the milieu in which all this occurred.  Marc Treadgold is 25 years of age and was residing in Moe.

8Between Tuesday 21 February and 25 February 2017, Mr Treadgold attended at 29 Heidel Street, Traralgon to confront the resident, a Mr Vella, over the alleged theft of a pair of runners.  He arrived at the address in the passenger seat of a Holden commodore sedan being driven by an unidentified male.  That male remained in the driver's seat while Mr Treadgold approached the unit.

9Upon entering the front yard of the address, he was confronted by Mr Vella and a verbal argument regarding the shoes took place between the two.

10Whilst the argument was taking place between Mr Treadgold and Mr Vella, you were inside the unit.  You then opened the sliding door and emerged from the unit armed with a sawn-off 12 gage shotgun.  You were approximately 5 metres away from Mr Treadgold.  You then said to him words to the effect of, "Why did you throw something at my mum's car?"  He said, "I didn't".

11You then pointed the firearm at him and discharged it, striking him to the upper left leg.  This gives rise to intentionally cause serious injury.

12He then ran back to the vehicle in which he had arrived.  He did not immediately receive medical attention, instead attended at the addresses of various associates over a period of several days where he was provided with basic first aid.  He attended Latrobe Regional Hospital on 8 March 2017 where he was found by a doctor to have an untreated traumatic wound to the left thigh.  He underwent surgery and remnant shotgun pellets were also removed from his leg.

13On the evening of the shooting you apparently travelled back to Chadstone.  You were a prohibited person having undergone a prison sentence within five years of this occurring.

14I do not think I need to go into the arrest and the subsequent investigation.  There was a fairly clear consciousness of guilt in some of the conversations that you had.

15I have taken into account in this situation, as I said, the milieu in which it took place.  The fact that the victim, Mr Treadgold, did not report it to police and I am almost certain would not have if he had not had to go to the hospital.  I accept that in a bizarre way, the injury itself is probably at the lower end of the spectrum of the new definition that is in place.  It seems to me that the moral culpability in a situation of firing a shotgun at a person from a few yards away has got to be regarded as high.

16It is a situation where knowing of your prior convictions and the like, you are experienced with firearms and there has to be a significant sentence for what you did.  You were sentenced by me to something of the order of two years and eight months a few years ago for using a firearm involving reckless endangerment at which point you were a prohibited person.

17So you are well aware of the consequences of this sort of conduct and you are well aware of having firearms; a sawn-off shotgun really only has one purpose and that is to shoot people.

18The offending has to be regarded as serious and you have pretty much got very close to doing it before.  It calls for the application of general and specific deterrence as well as denunciation and appropriate punishment.

19I have read the victim impact statement of Mr Treadgold's mother and I take that into account.

20What I am going to do is annex the sentencing remarks from the previous time that I sentenced you to these, my sentencing remarks, as they go through essentially your history and they go through matters pertinent to you. 

21A very significant sentence of imprisonment is the only option in this circumstance, but I just simply say, I take into account the matters that were contained in the report of Dr Ball which was given to me then and from what I can gather, very little has changed other than that you have done a gaol sentence in the meantime.

22I just simply say that in your particular situation you come from what was quoted then as a dysfunctional and disengaged family of origin.  You clearly have an anti-social personality disorder and to a very limited extent, Verdins has a part in this.

23You left home at 15 when you were sent to a Youth Justice Centre and you did not get past Grade 6 at school.  I accept that that is not a great start in life, Mr Chircop, but you just cannot go around shooting people.

24It simply falls then to me, having taken into account all the matters I took into account last time, to impose an appropriate sentence.  It is really only your youth that saves you.  I do not know what is going to happen over the next 12 months or so with other matters and what I am doing here may well turn out to be somewhat academic.  But the prospects of your rehabilitation have to be limited.  The risk of your re-offending on what I have seen has to be regarded as high; you just do not seem to have any desire not to.

25In any event taking all those matters into account, on Charge 1, you are sentenced to imprisonment for four years and six months;

26On Charge 2, two years and three months;

27On the summary matters, one month on each, those one months' each to be concurrent.

28I direct that one year of the sentence imposed on Charge 2 be served cumulatively upon the sentence imposed on Charge 1.  I am aware that it is for use, I am treating it as a carry and in the normal circumstances I would not have given that much of cumulation, but the fact of the matter is, Mr Chircop, you have done it before and you knew full well.

29That leaves an effective head sentence of five years and six months.  Because of your youth, I direct that you serve a minimum term of three years and three months before becoming eligible for parole.  But whether you ever get that, that is problematic and obviously I cannot take that into account.

30I direct that 160 days be reckoned as having been served under this sentence.

31In this particular situation, bearing in mind all of the circumstances of it pursuant to s.6AAA of the Sentencing Act, I say that but for your plea of guilty, so you understand the benefit of pleading, it would have been eight years with five months.

32Any other orders I have to make gentlemen?

33MR DEBWERRY:  No, Your Honour.

34MR HUTTON:  No, Your Honour.

35HIS HONOUR:  No, all right.  You can take him now, thank you.

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