Director of Public Prosecutions v Curtis
[2025] VCC 259
•12 March 2025
| IN THE COUNTY COURT OF VICTORIA AT MELBOURNE CRIMINAL JURISDICTION | Revised Not Restricted Suitable for Publication |
CR 23-01580
CR 24-02217
| DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROSECUTIONS |
| v |
| JARRED SHAUN CURTIS |
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JUDGE: | HIS HONOUR JUDGE DOYLE |
WHERE HELD: | Melbourne |
DATE OF HEARING: | 22 November 2024 |
DATE OF SENTENCE: | 12 March 2025 |
CASE MAY BE CITED AS: | DPP v Curtis |
MEDIUM NEUTRAL CITATION: | [2025] VCC 259 |
REASONS FOR SENTENCE
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Subject: Sentence
Catchwords: Guilty plea – two indictments relating to serious dishonesty offending – obtain financial advantage by deception and make false documents charges – high value offending – significant losses to victims – continuing criminal enterprise offender for some charges – relevant prior convictions – offences committed whilst on a CCO for dishonesty offending – general and specific deterrence – community protection – unstable background – personality disorder – application of Verdins and Bugmy principles
Legislation Cited: Sentencing Act 1991 (Vic)
Cases Cited:The Queen v Verdins (2007) 16 VR 269; Bugmy v The Queen (2013) 249 CLR 571; Brown v The Queen [2020] VSCA 212; Worboyes v The Queen [2021] VSCA 169
Sentence: 5 years and 5 months imprisonment with a non-parole period of 3 years and 3 months
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APPEARANCES: | Counsel | Solicitors |
| For the Director of Public Prosecutions | Ms A. Liantzakis | Office of Public Prosecutions |
For the Accused | Mr P. Dunn Ms Z. Garde-Wilson | Garde-Wilson Lawyers |
HIS HONOUR:
1Jarred Curtis, on Indictment P11005094, you pleaded guilty to four charges of obtaining a financial advantage by deception. Charges 1, 3 and 4 are continuing criminal enterprise offences. The effect of that is that pursuant to Section 6I of the Sentencing Act 1991 (Vic), the maximum term of imprisonment becomes 20 years, which is double the maximum penalty ordinarily for financial advantage by deception, which is 10 years. When you are sentenced for those offences, it will be noted in the records of the court that you have been sentenced as a continuing criminal enterprise offender on those charges.
2On Indictment Q11512388, you pleaded guilty to further dishonesty offending; namely, 10 charges of making a false document and one charge of obtaining a financial advantage by deception. The maximum penalty for the financial advantage by deception on that indictment is 10 years' imprisonment, and the maximum penalty for the false document offences is 10 years' imprisonment.
3You admitted prior convictions which include similar offences in Victoria and some other dishonesty offences in Canberra.
4The circumstances giving rise to the charges in this case are summarised in detail in the prosecution openings, which were tendered as exhibits on the plea. I will summarise those documents, but I sentence you on the entirety of the prosecution openings.
Indictment P11005094
5At the time of this offending, you were 30 years old. You were born in October 1990.
6The victims in this matter are Allianz Australia Insurance Limited (Allianz) and Westpac General Insurance Limited (Westpac). The offending occurred after you obtained a job at Sedgwick Australia Pty Ltd as a loss adjuster. You started there on 17 August 2020. Your employment was terminated on 24 February 2021 after an internal investigation by Sedgwick Forensic Advisory Services.
7A significant part of Sedgwick's business is domestic and commercial insurance claims, and many of their clients are local and foreign insurers who underwrite Australian risk.
8Sedgwick provides loss adjusting services for claims on domestic home and contents policies issued by Westpac and Allianz.
9Loss adjusting services provided include:
·undertaking an initial assessment and an assessment of the urgency of the claim;
·undertaking inspection of the loss;
·obtaining evidence of the loss, including from the insured party, other persons, and from photographs;
·reporting to the insurer to make recommendations about policy response, including the quantum of repairs and other expenses;
·recommendation on plans and strategies for resolving the claim, which may include a cash settlement or plans for repairs; and
·seeking the authority to resolve the claim if required.
10On 1 February 2021, the branch manager of Sedgwick was informed by Sedgwick's HR department that you had an adverse criminal history check, which you were disputing. On 22 February 2021, Sedgwick was contacted by one of your previous employers, who alleged criminal behaviour by you, including insurance fraud. On 24 February 2021, your employment was terminated because you had failed to disclose your criminal history. On 26 February 2021, Sedgwick reviewed all the claims you had handled.
11On 1 March 2021, invoices raised against 12 home and contents insurance claims you managed were deemed suspicious, requiring further investigation. The invoices were from a company, MS Roofing.
12Documents were obtained from your work laptop and your email account.
13The invoices investigated had been submitted to Allianz and Westpac as attachments to loss adjuster reports prepared by you recommending payment to resolve domestic insurance claims where you had been the loss adjuster.
14These invoices were fraudulent and are identified in the table set out in the prosecution opening. The total amount of fraudulent invoices supplied to Allianz and Westpac was $421,700.65.
15All the invoices recommended a payment to an HSBC bank account. Enquiries were made in relation to the business, MS Roofing. The history of that company was that it had changed its name to MSS Investments Pty Ltd on 13 August 2009. MS Roofing remained a registered business name, with a director and a place of business in Toowoomba in Queensland.
16Further investigations revealed that:
·MSS Investments had not traded as MS Roofing since 2008 when it merged with Xcell Roofing;
·MSS Investments does not do insurance work in Victoria;
·MSS Investments were not aware of you or Sedgwick, nor had they done any work for Sedgwick; and
·MSS Investments had no connection to the HSBC bank account provided to Westpac and Allianz, nor had they received any payments from those organisations.
17Westpac and Allianz paid out on the invoices you submitted in the amounts set out in the table in the Crown opening.
18On 30 March 2021, Sedgwick sought a freezing order against you in the Supreme Court, which was granted on 31 March 2021. On that day, Justice Keogh froze your assets, and you signed a deed of settlement and a release to repay $15,450 upfront to Sedgwick, with ongoing weekly payments of $150. I have been told that you have not been making the ongoing weekly payments of $150, and the bulk of the amount fraudulently obtained is still outstanding.
19A subsequent police investigation triggered by the proceedings in the Supreme Court revealed that the HSBC account was created on 21 August 2019 in your name, with your date of birth and an address in Brighton East. The account was closed on 4 November 2021.
20Following those amounts being deposited into the HSBC account, which was yours, you transferred the money to your Members Equity Bank account.
21You were interviewed by police on 12 March 2022 in respect of these matters. You made a no comment record of interview. You were charged 14 months later.
22The charges are broken down as follows: Charge 1 is a rolled-up charge which covers the amounts obtained from Allianz between 29/10/20 and 04/01/21, listed in Schedule A to the indictment; Charge 2 is a rolled-up charge in respect of Westpac from 07/01/21 to 12/02/21, listed in Schedule B to the indictment; Charge 3 is a further rolled-up charge relating to further amounts obtained from Allianz between 04/01/21 and 08/02/21, listed in Schedule C; and Charge 4 relates to an amount of $63,978.42 from Allianz, paid into your account on 18 February 2021.
23You pleaded guilty on 7 September 2023, at the second committal mention hearing in this matter. I accept this was a plea of guilty at the earliest opportunity given there had been negotiation between the parties prior to that time.
Indictment Q11512388
24At the time of these offences, you were between 31 and 32 years of age. You were at that time the owner of Curtis Consulting Pty Ltd, which was registered on 16 March 2022. The victim in this matter is the 120 Group Pty Ltd (120 Group), which is a building and construction company specialising in insurance repairs. They had four directors: Etienne Harburn, Leon Dewitt, Oliver Stokes, and Andrew Webber.
25In November 2021, you went to the address of Leon Dewitt to wash his dog. At that time, you owned a Jim's Dog Washing service. You told Mr Dewitt falsely that you were a structural engineer with Curtis Consulting and that you were a qualified carpenter.
26In January 2022, 120 Group received business to complete engineering assessments for Suncorp Insurance. The board of directors at the 120 Group decided to discuss with you a potential partnership, with you providing engineering reports for Suncorp Insurance matters.
27On 2 May 2022, you entered a contract with the 120 Group to provide building and engineering consultancy as a subcontractor. By late June 2022, this arrangement progressed to you being made a non-executive director of the 120 Group in exchange for associating your domestic and commercial builder's licences with the 120 Group.
28Pursuant to this partnership, numerous reports were completed, including for major domestic building contracts.
29Charges 1-10 relate to false documents you provided to the 120 Group, purporting that they were genuine. The 120 Group employed you as a director believing you had the necessary qualifications and licence to undertake your employment duties.
Charge 1, email correspondence
30In December 2022, Oliver Stokes, a director of the 120 Group, was in the process of transferring your building licences to the 120 Group. He was notified you were bankrupt. You explained the cause of your bankruptcy to be your ex-wife taking out loans in your name. You provided false email communications between yourself and your ex-wife with the subject heading 'fraud'. The false emails were an email dated 8 August 2020 purporting to be from you to your ex-wife, alleging that she had created loans in your name, and a false email response from her which read, 'I'm sorry'. These documents were false.
Charge 2, false criminal history check
31You provided a criminal history check document to the 120 Group which suggested you had 'no disclosable court outcomes'. That document was false.
Charge 3, Medicare card
32In January/February 2023, Mr Stokes was preparing for an audit and requested identification documents from you and your building licence. You provided him with a false Medicare card. The false detail was the expiry date, which you had changed from 2013 to 2023.
Charge 4, birth certificate
33You were asked to provide a birth certificate. You provided a document with false details, including your name, date of birth, place of birth and your parents' names.
Charge 5, certificate of currency from Jim's Insurance
34You provided the 120 Group with a false certificate of currency from Jim's Insurance on which you had changed the occupation description from 'dog wash' to 'Curtis Consulting'.
Charge 6, false criminal history check
35During the period you were involved with the 120 Group, you provided a false certificate of currency from Zurich Australian Insurance Ltd, purporting that it was a genuine document. The fraudulent document purported to cover Curtis Consulting whereas your policy with Zurich covered Jim's Dog Wash.
Charge 7, Bovill Risk and Insurance Consultants Pty Ltd ('Bric Insurance')
36In January 2023, the 120 Group was required to arrange a building permit for a particular project. In completing the application, insurance documents were required by the building surveyor in February 2023. Director Stokes requested insurance documents from you, and you provided a false certificate from Bric Insurance on or about 22 February 2023. Bric Insurance had no records or documents in relation to you, Curtis Consulting, the policy number provided, or any other details provided by you.
Charge 8, Victorian Building Authority ('VBA')
37This is a rolled-up charge. During your employment with the 120 Group, you told them you had a current and active builder's licence with the Victorian Building Authority, covering a domestic builder's licence and a commercial builder's licence. You provided a series of false documents to support the existence of these licences. This included a letter from the VBA indicating you had licences reinstated on 2 August 2022, but that they may take up to six months to appear on the VBA website. You also provided a scanned copy of a registered builder's licence in your name with your photograph on it. Further, you provided email correspondence dated 15 February 2023 from the VBA to you which further supported that you had an existing licence.
38Enquiries with the VBA confirmed that all these documents were false. You were not registered in the register of builder practitioners, and there is no record of a letter dated 3 August 2022 from the chairman and commissioner. The letter did not contain a true signature.
Charge 9, Diploma of Building and Construction
39You provided the 120 Group with a false Diploma of Building and Construction, purporting this to be a genuine document issued by the Housing Industry Association ('HIA'). Enquiries revealed you were not a student at the HIA, the diploma was never issued, and the other details were incorrect.
Charge 10, Bachelor of Civil Engineering
40You provided the 120 Group with a false Bachelor of Civil Engineering (Honours), purporting this was a genuine document issued by Deakin University on 1 April 2008. Enquiries with Deakin University confirmed that the document was false and that there are no student records under your name or date of birth.
Charge 11, obtaining financial advantage by deception
41This is a rolled-up charge which covers the period between 11/03/22 and 24/01/23. You were paid by the 120 Group into a Commonwealth Bank of Australia account and an ANZ account.
42By falsely representing you were an engineer and qualified to complete engineering reports, and that the documents you provided were genuine, and that you had a domestic and commercial building licence, you dishonestly obtained $287,918.84 across 98 separate transactions. These transactions were set out in a table in Appendix A in the prosecution opening.
43During your employment, the 120 Group became suspicious of you due to the delay in providing documents and inconsistencies within the documents. You were removed as a director on 22 February 2023. In February 2023, the 120 Group contacted Suncorp Insurance, who then ceased their requests for engineering reports. The matter was reported to the police.
44On 5 July 2024, Suncorp Insurance requested damages from the 120 Group for fees charged to Suncorp Insurance for reports completed by an unqualified engineer and a reimbursement claim of related expenses. Dispute resolution negotiations are ongoing between the 120 Group and Suncorp. Suncorp are claiming a significant amount from the 120 Group, and it is unknown what the precise damage to the 120 Group will be.
45You were interviewed by police on 25 April 2024. You made a no comment interview. You were charged and bailed on 17 July 2024.
46This matter resolved on 3 December 2024 but was adjourned for the prosecution to file an additional charge as per the resolution. You pleaded guilty on 13 December 2024, which was the first committal mention.
Gravity of your offences
47The Court of Appeal has emphasised on many occasions the importance of general deterrence when sentencing for fraudulent offending such as yours. Your offending was deliberate and calculated, and therefore general deterrence must be given substantial weight in sentencing.
48In relation to Indictment P11005094, the quantum of the offences is large, and most of that money has disappeared. In my opinion, there is little prospect that Allianz and Westpac will ever be reimbursed.
49For Charges 1, 3 and 4, you are a continuing criminal enterprise offender, which means the maximum penalty is 20 years' imprisonment, which reflects the seriousness of those offences.
50Charges 1, 2 and 3 are rolled-up charges encompassing many criminal acts, and the offending across both indictments involved multiple systematic criminal acts. I accept the prosecution submission that your conduct was deliberate and systematic.
51The offending on Indictment P11005094 occurred over four months. Your counsel, Mr Dunn, placed some emphasis on what he described as the confined period of the offending on this indictment. However, the offending in that case only ended because your employment was terminated, and when one steps back and considers the offending across both indictments and the surrounding prior convictions, it is apparent you were constantly committing dishonesty offences, so a confined period, if four months can be described in that way, is of little significance.
52Although you used your own bank account, making detection much more likely, there was sophistication in that you used a registered business name, created false invoices and used two separate bank accounts to obtain the funds. This offending involved multiple criminal acts. The offending only ended when your employment was terminated after investigation. There is no reason to think that you would have voluntarily desisted.
53You lied to your employers about your criminal history. You would not have been employed by Sedgwick if they had known about your prior conviction. In that position, you breached the trust of your employer, Sedgwick; its two clients, Allianz and Westpac; and you also referred to your ex-wife as having created an email which she never did.
54At the time of this offending, you were subject to a community correction order imposed just one month before this offending started, on 23 September 2020. The offending for which you received the community correction order was also fraudulent conduct. This is an aggravating factor.
55On Indictment Q11512388, your offending was sophisticated. Charges 1-10 involved multiple false documents, including false criminal history checks, a birth certificate, false degrees and building licenses. The creation of these documents must have involved considerable preparation and know-how.
56You falsely represented yourself as an engineer and as a result obtained a substantial amount of money from Suncorp across the 98 separate payments. The offending occurred over 10 months.
57You did, I am told, use qualified engineers for most, but not all, the reports. I was told that you, an unqualified person, wrote about 30 of them yourself. The use of qualified engineers does not really ameliorate your offending a great deal and is not much comfort to the 120 Group, who you have left in a very difficult position, facing legal claims from Suncorp for a substantial amount.
58Your offending was calculated and deliberate, the quantum of the offences is high, and your moral culpability is substantial. You are obviously a person who can lie, and in a compelling and persuasive fashion. You are basically a 'con man'.
Personal circumstances
59Your personal circumstances were set out by your counsel, Mr Dunn, and are the subject of an extended chronology, which is one of the tendered defence documents. I have exercised considerable caution when assessing what you say about your background because it is evident from the offences and from your criminal history that anything you say about yourself is likely to be untrue. Furthermore, at the plea hearing in this matter, I was told that your children were living with you, your current partner and her children in Rosebud. This assertion is also in the written defence submissions, and your current partner also suggests this is the case in the letter that she wrote to the court.
60After the plea hearing, your ex-wife, Lucy Miles, filed an affidavit in which she suggests a lot of the information provided by you as to your personal background, including references to her, are inaccurate. She also says you have not seen your children since April 2024. At around that time, she took out an intervention order against you. They have been living with her since. Your counsel confirmed at the further plea in this matter that this was in fact the true situation. Accordingly, I have no confidence in acting on unsupported information from you.
61I have, though, been told the following basics about your background.
62You were born in Warrnambool in October 1990. Your father was a man named Robert Cristina, who worked as a truck driver. Your mother is Wendy Curtis. You have a sister, Chloe. She was born two years after you. Your parents divorced in 1993. You then lived with your mother and sister outside Warrnambool. In 1995, you moved to Bacchus Marsh. I was told your mother's parents helped support her and you and your sister. You went to Bacchus Marsh Primary School.
63In 1997, your family moved to Ocean Grove. Your mother met a man named David Mulder and partnered with him. They got married. Your mother, Mr Mulder, you and your sister moved to live at Waurn Ponds.
64In 1999, you moved to Torquay. You describe family violence, including fights between David Mulder and your biological father.
65In 2000, you describe being hospitalised after being assaulted by Mr Mulder, who you say was domineering and violent.
66In 2001/2002, the family lived at Bells Beach. Around that time, you commenced high school in Geelong.
67You later moved to Buninyong near Ballarat, and you went to secondary school in Ballarat. Your say your mother had some psychiatric problems and had to be treated in a hospital at some point, and you lived with Mr Mulder.
68In 2005, your mother left Mr Mulder and moved to Buninyong with her parents and supported you and your sister. After that, you moved to Colac.
69Then your mother met Darren Stokes, who worked in the ADF. He was posted to Pakistan, and your mother and sister went to Pakistan with him. You remained in Victoria, and you say you moved in with your father in Lara, which lasted for about six months.
70In 2007, you left school and started an apprenticeship in carpentry. At some stage, you left Lara.
71At the end of 2007, your mother returned with Mr Stokes from Pakistan. They relocated to Canberra. Your mother was pregnant. You moved to Canberra to live with the family. You worked as an apprentice carpenter. You were a
part-time student at The Gordon Institute of Technology.72In 2010, you moved out of home into a share house. By that time, you were apparently a qualified carpenter. You had mental health issues, with anxiety and depression.
73In 2011, you committed a series of offences which were dealt with at the Canberra Magistrates' Court. I was told these offences related to thefts from building sites.
74You then moved back to Victoria and lived in Craigieburn. You obtained a job with a recruiting firm in the building industry. You met and then later became engaged to Lucy, your ex-wife.
75I was told you lived in Ballarat at some point, but you lost a job because you stole some petty cash.
76I was told that in 2013, you moved to Launceston with Lucy where you had some employment with a Commonwealth Work for the Dole program. Lucy worked in a local pharmacy.
77In 2016, your son Henley was born. You had a second child, a daughter Teddie, in July 2017. I was told by that time you and Lucy had moved back to Victoria, and you were living on the Mornington Peninsula. Soon after Teddie was born, your partner Lucy left you to go and live with her parents.
78Various problems followed, including drinking and gambling, and there were attempts to patch up the relationship. You had a job in the Commonwealth Public Service at Frankston, which you lost.
79In 2018, your prior convictions commence in Victoria, and they involve substantial dishonesty offending.
80I was told you met your present partner, Sarah Studley, a dog groomer, in 2021. She has three children. You have apparently been running a maintenance and cleaning business for Airbnb properties as well as a dog grooming business, and she works as a dog groomer. She has not attended any of the court hearings in this matter. Until I remanded you in custody, you were apparently living in Rosebud with her and her children.
Prior convictions
81You have multiple relevant prior convictions. You have the prior convictions I referred to, in 2011 in Canberra for dishonesty offences.
82Your criminal history in Victoria commences in June 2018 when you were convicted at the Dandenong Magistrates' Court for deception offending involving a false document. You received a fine. In September 2018, you were convicted of further deception offences and thefts at the Moorabbin Magistrates' Court and received another fine.
83In 2020, you were fined again at the Melbourne Magistrates' Court for obtaining a financial advantage by deception for offences which occurred in 2019. In September the same year, you were placed on a community correction order for obtaining over $20,000 by deception when you took money from the victim for a car sale, and then drove off in the vehicle while he was inside the VicRoads office, obtaining the transfer. A further financial penalty followed in November at Heidelberg Magistrates' Court for a deception offence on bail dating back to April 2020.
84In October 2021, at Moorabbin Magistrates' Court, yet again you were fined for obtaining property by deception when you accessed a stolen credit card and spent over $1,000 at Cannings Butchers. That occurred in February 2020.
85Then in June 2022, for theft and handling stolen goods, you were placed on a two-year undertaking which extended to 5 June 2024. Obviously, you were on that undertaking when some of this offending happened.
86On 7 December 2023, for significant deception offences which occurred in 2021, 2022 and on 19 April 2023, you were again placed on a community correction order for a period of 18 months with unpaid community work and conditions designed to assist your rehabilitation. I have been told you have breached that community corrections order by non-compliance, and you are due to be dealt with in relation to that breach on 20 March this year.
87The prosecution and defence both provided a chronology of your criminal history, including the facts on which your prior convictions were based and the commission dates. You have in the past offended in the workplace.
88You are a recidivist dishonesty offender. Your prior convictions occurred before, during and after the offences in this case. No order made by the courts has deterred you from further offending or assisted in your rehabilitation.
89You have, in fact, been dealt with very leniently in the years since 2018, but your offending escalated, and the offences for which I must sentence you are by far the most serious you have committed.
90Your prior convictions are relevant to your moral culpability for the offences in this case. They are relevant to the importance of specific deterrence. As I said, no other sentence has deterred you. Through my sentence, I must send you a message that if you continue your fraudulent conduct, you will face significant punishment. Obviously, your prior convictions are also relevant to your prospects of rehabilitation. Given your consistent offending over a long period, the need to protect the community from your dishonesty is also a consideration.
Guilty pleas
91You pleaded guilty to the charges on both indictments at the earliest reasonable opportunity. It was inevitable in these matters that negotiations would take place as to the appropriate charges, and that is what happened. Your pleas of guilty indicate a willingness to facilitate the course of justice. The utilitarian value of your guilty pleas is significant. Trials for the offending on both indictments would have been complex and occupied a significant amount of court time. You have spared the court and the prosecution the use of the resources required for such trials.
92Your pleas are also indicative of remorse, but in my opinion, there is little other evidence of genuine remorse. The fact that you continued to offend after the first set of charges had been detected is significant, and I am doubtful that you have real remorse for this fraudulent offending. In coming to that view, I have taken into account that you provided false information in respect of your current living situation and where your children are living at the present time.
Psychological report
93The psychological report from Mr Luke Armstrong dated 23 November 2023 was tendered. Mr Armstrong was not assessing you in respect of the most recent offending, the 120 Group charges. He sets out your personal circumstances based on what you told him.
94In his report, Mr Armstrong says he has no doubt your attachments were defined by neglect and emotional deprivation. He says your familial experiences were compounded by domestic violence and physical abuse. He says:
His narratives corroborate with his affect and appearance during disclosures.
95Mr Armstrong says you present with a level of detached affect and accompanying emptiness. He further says your detached affect negatively reinforces your offending decisions, which means the kind of boundaries that would prevent a person offending based on consequential thinking are impaired in you. He says that your offending activities likely alleviate your anxiety in the short term and reinforce your behaviour. He describes your behaviour as dissociative. He says intertwined with your dissociative tendencies is what is defined in the literature as 'pseudologia fantastica' or pathological lying.
96He says lying is a cardinal feature of your offending and features centrally in your relationships. Lying is a means by which you enhance and control your emotional world. One of your characteristics is the capacity to, in some cases, change or drop stories when confronted with inaccuracies. He witnessed this firsthand in his consultations with you.
97Mr Armstrong focused on emotional neglect and deprivation in your early and adolescent years, accompanied by a level of poverty. He also said that substance abuse and family violence further destabilised you, and these matters had a profound effect on your personality development. Secondly, he said that your identity is defined by the fact that you have no self-image at all. This absence of identity or self-image allows you to construct your identity to the needs of your environment, which has allowed you to construct a facade to hide your acting-out and offending.
98He describes you as having a spectrum of personality disordered features which overlap with a dependent and borderline personality disorder. You qualify, in his view, as a person with a borderline personality disorder.
99He believes that to assist your rehabilitation, you need treatment with a psychologist in the field of personality disorders. He says people with personality disorders require long-term treatment and the establishment of corrective therapeutic relationships based on trust, confrontation when required and self-accountability.
100Mr Armstrong said that a separation from your children will trigger a disproportionate crisis and distress because of your personality disorder. Of course, this report was written before you lost contact with your children in April 2024 after what I have referred to as an intervention order taken out against you earlier, so that is not a significant matter.
101You did see an AOD clinician, Daryl Vine, and he provided a report which indicates your participation with him. Mr Dunn relied on this material and submitted that you have not offended since 2023, which, he submitted, indicated your rehabilitation has commenced.
102On the other hand, I have been told you breached the community corrections order imposed in April 2023 and that you intend to admit that breach by
non-compliance, and there are other offences pending, so it is difficult to positively conclude that any steps towards rehabilitation have been substantial.103I can only take a guarded view of your prospects of rehabilitation.
Submissions
104Your counsel, Mr Dunn, submitted that you suffer from significant mental health issues, based on the report of Mr Armstrong. He submitted that the Verdins[1] principles were applicable to reduce your moral culpability and to moderate specific and general deterrence. He furthermore submitted that Verdins principles 5 and 6 are also relevant.
[1]The Queen v Verdins (2007) 16 VR 269.
105He submitted that your upbringing and circumstances of deprivation were such that the principles in the case of Bugmy[2] have application to reduce your moral culpability. There is an overlap between the Bugmy and Verdins principles in this case because Mr Armstrong causally connects the deprivation in your upbringing, if that is accepted, to your borderline personality disorder. Based on Mr Armstrong's report, I accept that there have been some deficits in your upbringing that have contributed to your personality type or disorder.
[2]Bugmy v The Queen (2013) 249 CLR 571.
106But the application of the Verdins and the Bugmy principles are not straightforward in this case. While Mr Armstrong is clear that you have a borderline personality disorder which he believes is related to your upbringing, there is no supporting evidence of your account of your early years, and I cannot make any definite findings on an unsupported account from you in a case where you supplied false information about your circumstances.
107It was submitted as well that the Verdins principles apply based on the diagnosis of a borderline personality disorder. The type of personality disorder described in Mr Armstrong's report is not the type of mental state issue that usually attracts the full application of the Verdins principles. This, in my opinion, is a different type of case to the situation in the decision of Brown[3] in the Court of Appeal, where there was extensive expert evidence concerning the offender's severe personality disorder and the Court of Appeal held that in some circumstances a personality disorder might attract Verdins principles 1, 3 and 4.
[3]Brown v The Queen [2020] VSCA 212.
108However, in the end, I am satisfied, and the Crown conceded, that based on Mr Armstrong's report, your upbringing must have been unstable to some degree, and as a result, your psychological function is compromised by a borderline personality disorder, which is, in turn, causally related to the offending. This is relevant to reduce the assessment of your moral culpability and is a moderating influence on general deterrence.
109However, yours is an entrenched condition, and your dishonesty offending is at recidivist levels, and in relation to the offences I am dealing with, it is
large-scale. Even allowing for a reduction, having regard to your psychological issues, your moral culpability remains significant for this very deliberate offending which occurred over a significant period and involved multiple criminal actions.110Specific deterrence must be given emphasis in deciding this sentence, as I referred to earlier. There is little in the psychological material to suggest you are not capable of understanding from significant punishment the message that if you continue to offend, you can expect repeated periods of imprisonment. In Mr Armstrong's report, he says you:
... present with insight. There is an understanding that his coping mechanisms have become completely counterproductive, in fact destructive to the victims.
111Therefore, specific deterrence remains a significant factor.
112Mr Dunn also relied on delay. There was 14 months' delay between the interview and charge for the Sedgwick offences, not attributable to you. Police investigations in complicated financial offending such as yours do often take a long period, but you had to wait for some time with that matter hanging over your head before you were charged. Even though the Sedgwick offences go back some time, quite a bit of the delay has been caused because you further offended, and you were waiting for the 120 Group charges to catch up and be consolidated with the Sedgwick matters.
113In my opinion, the significance of delay as a mitigating factor in this case is not substantial. It cannot be said that you have demonstrated much rehabilitation in the time that you have been waiting for these matters to come before the court. You further offended after the Sedgwick matters by committing the
120 matters, and as I said earlier, you have the breach of the correction order pending in the Magistrates' Court.114The defence written submissions refer to the Worboyes[4] principles. The guilty plea to the Sedgwick offences was entered at the Magistrates' Court on 7 September 2023. That was a time by which the backlog in this court from the pandemic had largely been brought under control. The contribution of your plea to the reduction was therefore minimal, and although I allow some additional discount for that guilty plea, it is not a matter of any great significance in this case.
[4]Worboyes v The Queen [2021] VSCA 169.
115It is also suggested in the defence material that the pandemic conditions played a role in the Sedgwick offences. I do not accept this because your pattern of dishonest offending was established well before the pandemic and continued unabated after it.
116Other mitigating matters suggested in the written submissions include good character and demonstrated rehabilitation. As I have said, I think, I do not accept that these are significant factors in this case. I do not accept there has been any significant extra-curial punishment in this case either, another matter mentioned in the defence written submissions.
Aggregate Sentence
117Section 9 of the Sentencing Act allows me to impose an aggregate sentence for multiple offences which are 'founded on the same facts' or are part of 'a series of offences of the same or a similar character'. I am satisfied, based on this provision, that it is appropriate in this case to impose an aggregate sentence in respect of each indictment. What that means is that I can impose one sentence for each group of offences, that sentence being proportionate to the total criminality of that offending covered in that indictment. I will make orders for cumulation between the two aggregate sentences. The aggregate sentence for the Sedgwick offences will be the base sentence.
Totality
118The totality principle requires that the total sentence I impose across both indictments must be just and proportionate to the total criminality of the offending. The Sedwick offences and the 120 Group offences obviously are entirely separate sets of offences, covering separate time periods, where the impact of the offences falls on different companies and individuals. My sentence allows for significant cumulation between those two sets of offences to reflect this.
Non-parole period
119The non-parole period is the minimum period justice requires you to serve before becoming eligible for release. The non-parole period mitigates punishment in favour of rehabilitation, and I have not lost sight of the need to facilitate your rehabilitation. However, the non-parole period must be consistent with the objective gravity of the offence. You have not served a period of imprisonment in the past, and I have decided to allow for a reasonably extended period of supervision should the parole board release you when you become eligible for parole.
Sentences
120The sentences that I impose in this matter, Mr Curtis, are as follows.
121For the charges on Indictment P11005094, you are convicted and sentenced to an aggregate period of imprisonment of three years and nine months.
122In relation to the charges on Indictment Q11512388, you are convicted and sentenced to an aggregate period of imprisonment of two years and eight months. I order that 20 months of that sentence is to be served cumulatively on the base aggregate sentence on Indictment P11005094.
123That should make a total effective sentence of five years and five months.
124I fix a non-parole period in this matter of three years and three months.
125Pre-sentence detention in this matter is 36 days, so I allow 36 days to be deducted from the sentence that I have imposed pursuant to Section 18 of the Sentencing Act.
126But for your plea of guilty, I would have imposed a sentence of seven years and eight months, with a minimum non-parole period of five years and five months. That is the Section 6AAA in this matter.
127Are there any other others, Ms Liantzakis?
128MS LIANTZAKIS: No, Your Honour.
129HIS HONOUR: All right, all right. Those are the orders that I will make in this matter.
130MS LIANTZAKIS: As the court pleases.
131HIS HONOUR: All right. I will now adjourn until 10.30.
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