Director of Public Prosecutions v Crawford, Matthew

[2013] VCC 43

IN THE COUNTY COURT OF VICTORIA Revised

AT MELBOURNE

CRIMINAL DIVISION

Case No. CR-12-01981

DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROSECUTIONS

v

MATTHEW CRAWFORD

---

JUDGE:	HER HONOUR JUDGE GAYNOR
WHERE HELD:	Melbourne
DATE OF HEARING:
DATE OF SENTENCE:	24 January 2013
CASE MAY BE CITED AS:	DPP v Crawford, Matthew
MEDIUM NEUTRAL CITATION:	[2013] VCC 43

REASONS FOR SENTENCE
---

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

---

APPEARANCES:	Counsel	Solicitors
For the DPP	Ms A. Ellis	OPP
For the Accused	Ms N. Karapanagiotidis

HER HONOUR:

1       Matthew Crawford, you have pleaded guilty before me to one charge of armed robbery. 

2       The facts underlying your offending were outlined in detail in the prosecution opening which as Exhibit A is attached to these sentencing remarks.

3       In brief compass, at about 3 o'clock on Wednesday 18 July you went to the Spotlight store in Braybrook, selected some adhesive tape and went to the front counter as if you were purchasing it and it was scanned there by one of the victims, Christina D'Ambesca, who was working at the counter.  As she opened the till you brought out a knife and pointed it at her, leaned across the counter and put your hand on the till and held the knife towards her.  Ms D'Ambesca screamed and ran to the back of the store and you took the till which contained about $1,600 in cash and ran out.  You were followed by a female employee who saw you take the cash from the register as you were running along and then throwing the register to the ground.  You were seen running along Ballarat Road into another street between some flats and a rear yard where you took off your cap and your jumper, which you put into a pot plant, and put your knife under the same pot plant and tried to hide before running from behind the flats. 

4       You were arrested nearby at about 3.45 p.m. and taken to the Footscray Police Station where in a record of interview you made full admissions, showed investigators where you had hidden the knife and clothing and the moneys were located in your right front trouser pocket.

5       You told police that you committed the armed robbery because of outstanding moneys for bills which you couldn't pay and that you had planned the offending for 2 days, choosing the Spotlight store because you had been there before and seen there were only women working there which you thought would make it easier for you to get away.

6       The maximum penalty for the offence of armed robbery is 25 years imprisonment.

7       You entered a plea of guilty at a very early stage at a committal mention on 31 October 2012 and have remained in custody since your arrest on 18 July 2012.

8       I now turn to your personal circumstances.  You are 36 years of age and your counsel outlined to me a very difficult personal history.  You are the youngest of four children.  You have got three older sisters and grew up in Nagambie where your parents ran the local pub.  When you were about 6 or 7 your mother abruptly left the home and you were thereafter brought up by your father.

9       You told psychologist Robert Cock, whose report dated 20 January 20 2013 was tendered on the plea, that as a little boy you believed you were the reason that your mother had left home because you had the difficulty of soiling your pants.  It was in fact the view of the psychologist that both you and your sisters were brought up in a very neglectful atmosphere, your parents were very busy in the pub when your mother was there and that you probably never received toilet training. 

10      In any event, your mother effectively disappeared from your life.  She came back to visit you and your sisters about three times a year but by the time you were approaching your teens she had effectively dropped out of your life.  You had some contact with her again, attempted to set up a relationship in your late teens but then she remarried and you, it would appear, unfortunately lost interest and you have not had contact with her for many years. 

11      In any event, you were then brought up by your father and told Mr Cock that in your childhood you were essentially allowed to run wild, got into trouble and by the age of 9 your father had decided you were too difficult and you were made a Ward of State.  In those days Wards of State were placed in the Baltara Children's Home which was a receptacle not only for children who were in need of care but children who were in there for offending reasons.  Thereafter followed a number of years of instability.  Understandably you felt abandoned, rejected and began self‑harming.  You were placed in about four or five foster homes.  And then in your last placement your foster father was drunken and violent towards you and you simply ran away.

12      You then lived from about the ages of 13 to 15 on the streets.  Ultimately you were picked up by police, found to be in need of care, placed back at Turana and attempts were then made to send you home to your father, but of course this simply didn't work, and again you spent the next few years going backwards and forwards between Turana and your father.

13      You were sent whilst you were at Turana, where again you were held as a Ward of State, to the Kensington Community School where you formed your first relationship with a young woman who was also a student there.  You were then introduced to her family.  You moved in with them and lived there for about 12 months and then you and your partner, who were then only 16, took up private rental accommodation.

14      By this stage your contact with your family was extremely sporadic.  Your counsel informed me that your sisters have all gone their separate ways and you have not had anything to do with them for a long time.

15      In any event, whilst you were living with your de facto partner you and she had a party at your flat.  It was attended by a number of people, one of whom was very drunk, was ejected from the premises, came back and tried to assault your girlfriend.  You picked up a baseball bat and hit him but hit him too many times and he died.  Ultimately you were dealt with for the crime of manslaughter when you were 16, sentenced to 5 years' imprisonment with a 3 year minimum.  You served 18 months of that at Turana and the remainder of the term in Pentridge Prison.

16      In the meantime your partner and her family moved to Western Australia.  You were released in 1995 and you were placed to live in the Housing Commission flats in Kensington.  They of course around that time were fairly notorious.  There was a great deal of criminal activity there and of course drug use was rife.  You had undertaken some chroming in your early teens, in fact when you were about 11 or 12, but had otherwise and quite remarkably managed to stay drug free, but while you were living in the Kensington flats on your own you were introduced to heroin by other inmates and began using and developed a massive habit, it would seem from what you told Mr Cock, in a very short period of time.

17      Ultimately a friend who knew your partner intervened and took you across to Western Australia in order to break your addiction to heroin.  This was in 1997.  You spent the next 3 years in Western Australia during which time your son Shade was born in 1999.  Unfortunately when you went to Western Australia, whilst this was probably useful to you in terms of your heroin use and breaking that habit, you also breached parole, but at some stage during those years returned to Victoria and served a further 3 months before returning to Western Australia and residing with your partner. 

18      Whilst you had conquered your heroin habit and were in fact working during that time, both in warehousing and as a welder, you had a fairly substantial, it would seem, marijuana habit, which was a source of some conflict between you and your partner.  You undertook residential detoxification, came out marijuana free, but the relationship between you and your partner then disintegrated and you returned to Melbourne.

19      When you came back to Victoria you went to reside with your father who was then living in Nagambie and working as an electrician and stayed there for about a year, worked with him and then moved to Laverton to live with a friend in Melbourne.  It was then that you met your current partner with whom you have been in a relationship for about 12 years.

20      You had worked in Nagambie with your father, assisting him in his work as an electrician and it would seem that you also worked in Laverton and in that time you worked for 2 years in a Coles warehouse.  Unfortunately, however, your partner was a heroin user, and whilst your counsel said you in no way blame her for what was then the resumption of the heroin habit that in my view underlay this offending, you did begin using again and have been an habitual user of heroin ever since on a daily basis.

21      Eventually this led to you ceasing work and you were placed on a disability support pension in 2002.  This is largely because you have suffered epilepsy since your early teens.  You have been prescribed the normal medication for it, that is, Epilim, for a number of years, but it appears to have no effect on the number of seizures which you have continued over the years to suffer on a regular basis up to three times a week.

22      In any event, notwithstanding that you were a regular heroin user you appear not to have got into a great deal of criminal trouble and I will at this stage turn to your prior criminal history whilst you have been in that relationship.

23      That criminal history begins as I have already mentioned in 1993 with your conviction for manslaughter and you were then also dealt with in 1993 for theft of a motor vehicle and escape from a Youth Training Centre, which I assume arose whilst you were being held in custody in the youth centre and that the theft of a motor vehicle was part of the escape attempt.  In any event after your release in 1995 you were placed on a community‑based order for criminal damage and then an Intensive Corrections Order in 1997 for an attempted burglary and going equipped to steal and whilst you were unable to give your counsel any instructions about that offending, it does seem to me, given that it occurred after you were released from prison and in the years you were living in the Kensington flats and using heroin, to have been offending committed in that context.

24      Your prior history then goes across to Western Australia where in 1997 you were placed on what is the Western Australian equivalent of a good behaviour bond for assault occasioning bodily harm which your counsel informs me arose in the context of a pub fight.  You were also dealt with in 2000 on driving offences and for a charge of fraud and receiving stolen goods, instructions about which you are unable to provide your counsel.

25      Then in 2002 you were dealt with for a breach of the Intensive Corrections Order that you had received in 1997, no doubt because you failed to complete it when you went across to Western Australia.

26      Thereafter there is a break of about 5 years to 2007 when you are dealt with for possessing heroin and cannabis, dealing with property suspected of being the proceeds of crime, theft from a motor vehicle, possessing a prescription drug and possessing a controlled weapon without excuse.  I am satisfied that that offending arose in the context of the heroin use you had then redeveloped once you picked up the relationship with your current partner and make the comment that that is precisely the sort of offending that the court expects to see, not with any joy or in any welcoming fashion, but it is usual to see this sort of offending arising in the context of habitual drug use.

27      That means that at the time you committed this offence, the offence that has brought you before the County Court, you had not offended for a period of 5 years.

28      You were first held after you were arrested in the Melbourne Assessment Prison where you underwent severe withdrawal from your heroin addiction.  That withdrawal, your counsel informed me, was extremely painful both physically and emotionally and I notice that Mr Cock in his report notes that you experienced during that withdrawal an increase in the seizures arising from your epileptic condition.  In any event, as a result of your incarceration you are now free from heroin use for the first time in 12 years and it has left you with a determination never to go through that experience again and a determination to remain drug free.

29      After completing withdrawal you were transferred to the Melbourne Remand Centre where you have undertaken a problem solving course and are on a list for a number of other courses at the MRC but courses there are limited and whilst you are on the waiting list you have, even though you have been held in custody since July last year, not been taken on to any programs for drug and alcohol counselling.

30      I make the point, as I have made in many other similar cases, that it seems to me a great shame both for persons such as you personally but more for the community that prisoners on remand are not more readily taken up and inducted into the sorts of programs that would go to their rehabilitation on their eventual release and, I would have thought, particularly people who have offended because they are drug addicted would have been prime candidates for that sort of attention.  It is, in my view, the most sensible way and the greatest safeguard insofar as community interests are concerned and insofar as ensuring that our crime rate drops that these sorts of problems are attended to whilst people are captured like a fly in amber in a custodial sentence and it's a great regret that someone like you has had to deal with the after effects of drug addiction on your own, essentially.  In any event, you have done it and whilst you have been in gaol, which is to your credit, you have taken up a job working in the laundry. 

31      Your time in custody has been fairly isolated.  You have received no visitors.  You have some telephone contact with your father.  You have only telephone contact with your partner who because of her own drug habit is not a person who is able to visit you in gaol but the welcome news is that she has herself done something about her habit and has been on a methadone program for about the last 5 months.  You have always maintained a good relationship with your son Shade and made an effort to visit him several times a year where he lives in Western Australia.  But that contact with him has been whilst you have been in custody reduced to telephone contact.  And that is pretty much the only contact that you have got.

32      The offending you engaged in was extremely serious.  Whilst your counsel urged upon me the amateurish nature of what you did, the fact that you walked into that store in the middle of the afternoon, that it was a clearly unsophisticated crime, that you were captured within 45 minutes and so forth, even though those factors are there, it is quite clear the effect you had upon your victims has been incredibly serious and again, sadly, that is all too common the experience of the courts in these matters. 

33      In particular, I found the victim impact statement of the store assistant at whom the knife was pointed Ms Christine D'Ambesca, particularly moving.  In her victim impact statement Ms D'Ambesca describes herself as being before this crime a bubbly, outgoing girl who enjoyed life, who worked full‑time as a manager at Spotlight.  She now suffers from anxiety, very strong symptoms of depression and on a number of occasions has felt like killing herself.  She is no longer social.  She only feels like staying at home and sleeping, staying in her room, which is the place where she feels safest now.  She has trouble sleeping at night.  She has nightmares about the attack.  She has hypervigilant and panic attacks.  She is seeing a psychologist.  She has needed antidepressant tablets and sleeping pills.  She says:

34      "At this moment I feel that life for me has changed for I feel like I have fell in a black hole.  I am finding it hard to deal with my every day jobs like working and going shopping as I was reminded of this event when I see a scarey looking man and sometimes I am not able to control my anxiety."

35      She has suffered a great deal financially because she's no longer able to work full‑time.  She stated:

36      "I did not ask for this awful thing to happen to me and not only now do I have to worry about trying to get my life back on track but also worrying about my finances as I have a lot of bills and finances that need paying which make it hard when my pay has been cut."

37      So, you had a terrible effect upon this young woman. 

38      The second victim impact statement is the store manager and Ms D'Ambesca's supervisor.  She, Ms Bartlett, in her victim impact statement says that from the day of this incident she has become over protective of her staff.  She feels as if she failed Ms D'Ambesca.  She said:

39      "As I am the store manager I have the responsibility of keeping my team safe which clearly that wasn't the case on that day.  I feel as if somebody has come in and attacked one of my children."

40      She has had to pick up the extra hours that Ms D'Ambesca is no longer able to work.  She has had to leave home earlier, come home later.  She is a mother and she says:

41      "I don't think I am doing such a great job as my children commenting,'You spend more time at work than at home'."

42      She says she is exhausted.  She just wants things to go back to normal.

43      So, you have really got to take with you, Mr Crawford, the knowledge, which I am sure you have, that you have very severely harmed the lives of two perfectly innocent women who were working in that store.  Now, that's probably something you didn't think about before you went in.  When I said to you I am satisfied that drugs underlay your offending it's because of this.  If you and your partner are not working and are living on limited budgets by way of pensions I do not see how you could possibly attend to your bills if you are having to purchase heroin.  OK?  It seems to me you had a substantial habit.  Your counsel informed me that on the day that you committed this crime you were drug affected and that in fact you were drug affected every day.  I really can't imagine that it would be anything other than the norm for persons who have got regular fairly large heroin habits to manage their finances in any sensible way whilst they are living on a pension and paying rent.

44      So, it seems to me that you must have got into those financial difficulties because of your heroin habit.  OK?

45      And the result of that has been that two perfectly innocent women, like I have said, are now dealing with the awful aftermath of being attacked in the violent way that you did.  Again, people like you ‑ I mean, you haven't offended for 5 years, I am sure you had no idea and no intention of causing that trauma, but all your mind was on, was on a quick getaway and a quick solution to your financial problems, but all these months down the track and there are two women suffering as badly as they are.  I have made the suggestion that you write a letter of apology to each of those victims.  One of the hardest things for these two women is that the world is now a much less safe place and sometimes being given a personal apology from an attacker can perhaps restore some of their confidence in the world outside and that is why I am suggesting that that be done.  Of course it is a matter for them whether they wish to receive that letter or not.

46      The report of Mr Cock was helpful.  Ultimately he talks about the problems in your childhood, saying that critically in your developmental years you didn't get adequate limit setting and controls and there was no discipline and that this delayed a number of things in use, that is, socialization: 

47      "Notably social maturity and the internalisation of self‑control, impulsivity and to consider the consequences of his actions."

48      This has got to have absolute application to what you did on that day.  As I see you now, as I address these sentencing remarks to you, I can see quite clearly that you are distressed and concerned about the effect that you had on these women, on your victims.  This is an obvious consequence, it would seem to me, that most people would be able to consider and it does seem to me that your early childhood and the difficulties of all those years and the neglect and the failure of your parents to properly care for you and to intervene in your life have had the sort of long‑term effects that Mr Cock is talking about.

49      He also stated:

50      "The absence of secure parental attachment and then perceived abandonment by his mother and later his father when placed in care" (in other words what he is saying is that you perceived that your mother had left you when you were 6 and that your father abandoned you when you were 9 and put you in care) "has contributed to emotional insecurity and inadequate emotional development." 

51      Mr Cock then refers to this being intensified by physical and emotional abuse in the foster home when you were 12 which: 

52      "... has further resulted in inadequate personality development.  Such adverse development is generally acknowledged to contribute to emotional disturbance and inability to cope with stress."

53      Again, you were in a stressful situation here where you had bills to pay and you didn't cope with that and you came up with this appalling plan to resolve your financial difficulties in this way. 

54      He talked about you suffering from depression, he talked about you trying to slash your wrists when you were 16 and in that stressed state resorting to chroming which is unfortunately considered to have contributed to the onset of your epilepsy in your early teens.

55      He notes that you have urgently requested referral to a neurologist to review your epileptic condition which appears to be treatment resistant and hopefully there are going to be some appointments lined up for you.

56      Importantly what Mr Cock concludes is this:

57      "The contributing factors in inadequate personality development and problems in socialization, internalisation of self‑control, impulsivity, an inability to consider the consequences of his actions etc. have been identified.  The most significant reduction in the accused's offending record suggests that there has been development in social maturity delayed by his early adverse circumstances."

58      And he finally states:

59      "That maturity in conjunction with the absence of mental health issues in the assessment (his finding was that you don't suffer from any mental health impairment),  commitment to maintaining abstinence and to undertake drug and alcohol counselling provides a basis to consider Mr Crawford's prospects for rehabilitation and not to re‑offend positive."

60      Now, that is important and there is no reason why I would disagree with that assessment.  Notwithstanding your very difficult early history you don't have the pages and pages and pages of continuing offending that so many persons who have made Wards of State the way you were have.  You had been out of trouble for 5 years before that.  You have never been in trouble for offending such as this and I do regard it as being impulsive, inexpert, unsophisticated offending, although I stress you still have had this appalling effect upon your victims.

61      I accept what your counsel has had to say about the extreme difficulties you encountered during withdrawal and in that sense find that gaol has been positive for you because you are off drugs and I accept that you are determined not to go back to drugs and I accept that you have got a partner waiting for you who is herself doing something about her drug problem and given that the two of you managed to live in a fairly peaceful pro‑social way for a period of about 5 years prior to this event I am prepared in a guarded fashion to find that you have got positive prospects of rehabilitation.

62      In sentencing you, however, I do have to take into account the fact that far too often vulnerable persons such as the employees at Spotlight are subjected to the sort of violent attack that you perpetrated upon them.  I am talking about persons who work in petrol stations, taxi drivers, vulnerable people who work in service areas to the public, often in fairly low paid employment, who are then the subject of hold‑ups such as yours.  The prevalence, that is, the widespread nature of that, means that the issue of general deterrence has a big part to play in any court sentencing for this sort of offending.  By general deterrence I mean handing down a sentence of imprisonment that sends out a message to the community that this sort of offending won't be tolerated, that people such as Ms D'Ambesca and Ms Bartlett will be protected by these courts.

63      In the circumstances it is appropriate that the only way I deal with you is by imposing a term of imprisonment.  However, in sentencing you I do take into account the fact that you pleaded guilty at the earliest opportunity so that no witnesses have had to be cross‑examined and the community have been saved the expense and time arising from a criminal trial.  I accept that your plea of guilty was accompanied by significant co‑operation with police and I accept that you are remorseful for that offending.

64      I accept that you have reasonable prospects of rehabilitation and that overall, given the very terrible emotional ordeals you were subjected to through your childhood and teens, your offending history, although in no way admirable, is a lot less than the court often sees with people placed in your situation and I accept that there had been a great reduction in the severity and frequency of your offending over the last decade.

65      Given those circumstances, I therefore sentence you as follows. 

66      On the charge of armed robbery I sentence you to 4 and a half years imprisonment and I order that you serve 2 years of that sentence before becoming eligible for parole. 

67      Have a seat, sir, I just want to work out what your pre‑sentence detention is.  All right?  Have a seat, Mr Crawford.

68      MS ELLIS:  Your Honour, it's 190 days pre‑sentence detention.

69      HER HONOUR:  Does that include today? 

70      MS ELLIS:  Not inclusive of today.

71      HER HONOUR:  I direct that 191 days of that sentence have already been served by way of pre‑sentence detention.  That means you will have two and a half years on parole when you get out.  All right? 

72      Pursuant to s.6AAA I declare that had you not pleaded guilty to this charge I would have sentenced you to 5 and a half years imprisonment and order that you serve 3 and a half years before becoming eligible for parole.

73      I have some orders to sign.  I order that you undergo a forensic procedure for the taking of a DNA sample which I will order be a scraping from the mouth and I need to tell you, Mr Crawford, that would just be the police taking a swab from your mouth.  If you resist in the police taking this sample they are entitled to use reasonable force in order to obtain that.

74      I am also signing the disposal order. 

75      I want the psych report and my sentencing remarks to go to the Parole Board. 

76      Yes, thank you, and if you can attend to the question of the letter and following, Ms Karapanagiotidis.

77      MS KARAPANAGIOTIDIS:  I will, Your Honour.

78      HER HONOUR:  And perhaps get in contact with the ‑ sorry to load you with that extra duty.

79      MS KARAPANAGIOTIDIS:  No, not at all, Your Honour, I will do that.

80      HER HONOUR:  Contact with the informant.  Is there anything else I need to attend to, Ms Ellis? 

81      MS ELLIS:  No, Your Honour.

‑‑‑