Director of Public Prosecutions v Czaplinski

[2015] VCC 835

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

AT MELBOURNE
CRIMINAL JURISDICTION

CR 15-00745

DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROSECUTIONS

v

MILOSZ CZAPLINSKI

---

JUDGE:	HIS HONOUR JUDGE SMALLWOOD
WHERE HELD:	Melbourne
DATE OF HEARING:	19 June 2015
DATE OF SENTENCE:	19 June 2015
CASE MAY BE CITED AS:	DPP v Czaplinski
MEDIUM NEUTRAL CITATION:	[2015] VCC 835

REASONS FOR SENTENCE
---

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

---

APPEARANCES:	Counsel	Solicitors
For the Crown	Mr P. Pickering	Office of Public Prosecutions
For the Accused	Ms N. Karapanagiotidis	James Dowsley & Associates

HIS HONOUR: 

1Milosz Czaplinski, you have pleaded guilty to one charge of theft of a motor vehicle, one charge of reckless conduct endangering persons, one charge of attempted theft of a motor vehicle, two charges of attempted armed robbery and a transferred summary matter of assault with a weapon.  Those crimes carry maximum penalties of ten years, five years, five years, 20 years and two years respectively.

2The charge of theft of a motor vehicle and attempted theft of a motor vehicle each contain a mandatory suspension of licence and I indicate that that will be for a period of seven days because it is important that you be in the position of being able to obtain employment upon your release from custody.

3You are 28 years of age and still relatively young.  You pleaded guilty at the earliest reasonable opportunity and have expressed appropriate remorse and you must also of course the get the utilitarian benefit of this plea of guilty.

4Firstly, pursuant to s.464ZF of the Crimes Act, I make an order that you provide a saliva sample for DNA purposes.  That order having been made, I must advise you that should you refuse to provide police with such a sample, they may use reasonable force to take from you.  That order is made and handed down.

5Vert importantly, in your situation, you have no prior convictions or findings of guilt.

6The circumstances surrounding the offending are disturbing.  I note from the outset that you were found unfit to be interviewed and were clearly in a drug induced psychotic state.  You have not endeavoured to avail yourself of any defence in relation to that, but that condition explains the randomness and the aggression of this particular offending.  Yours is a prime example of exactly what is the evil perpetrated on this community by the drug ice.

7On 26 November 2014, at around about 8.45 in the morning, you went to Alan Mance Motors in Barkly Street, West Footscray.  You had worked there previously.  You started to speak to a man who was in the office who asked you if you had found a job.  You made the odd comment that you had not but would be, "Glorified" today.  He did not know what you meant and simply kept working.  You went into the workshop and spoke to other members.  You leant on a car and were told not to.  You then walked to another area within the workshop.  You then got into a white Holden ute that was being fitted out for extras and was not registered.  You got into the car and tried to start it.  You obviously had no permission to do so and that give rise to Charge 1 of theft of a motor vehicle.

8Once you started the car, you executed a three-point turn to get out from where it was parked.  You were told to stop and other staff members were trying to cause you to desist.  You reversed the car and continued to do so at a, "Fair bit of speed."  A car door had been opened by a Ken Kierce who was trying to stop you.  You hit him and knocked him to the ground.  He suffered a grazed elbow and sore shoulder, had a bump on his shin.  That is part of the, in this particular situation, reckless endangerment.  There is no separate charge for that injury.

9You reversed out of the workshop, in the process, hitting two other cars.  Both of which were damaged.  The company has not sought compensation from you.  You were able to reverse the car all the way out of the showroom and drive away before you hit another pedestrian on the footpath.  All that gives rise to reckless conduct endangering serious injury.  You then drove to Sunshine.

10At around about 9.50 am, a Ms Lee had parked her delivery van in Hampshire Road, Sunshine.  You basically got into it and tried to steal it.  She yelled at you to get out and you.  That is the attempted car theft.

11You left there and walked to the Sunshine Plaza.  Again, a few minutes later, one Ms Zammit was shopping and returned to her car.  It was an Audi.  She commenced reversing out of its parking spot and you were standing in front of her.  You started to hit the front of the car with a rolled up item and screamed at her to get out of the car.  She states that you repeatedly screamed at her, "Get out of the fucking car," while hitting the front of the car.  You then went to the driver's side door and tried to open it and endeavoured to pull her from the car.  She was crying.  She said that she was petrified and obviously I have read the victim impact statement in this matter.  She was beeping the horn get people's attention and yelling for help.  She said that you were aggressive and kept yelling at her and pulling at her arm to get out of the car for a number of minutes.

12Other people observed you pointing a large knife at her as you did this.  It is difficult to work out whether she saw a knife or not, but there was certainly one present and she was terrified in any event.  You were told by another male to stop and you did.  She went to the police station.

13You were substance affected, as I have indicated, and were screaming and yelling in the car park.  A number of people observed you with a knife.  You were then approached by a security guard, who identified himself, and you threatened him with that knife.  That is the summary charge of unlawful assault.  You went from that area and he followed you at a safe distance.

14A few minutes after that, a Ms Nguyen was parking her car in Sunshine.  She had a three year old son asleep in the rear of the car.  No doubt, you would not have known that.  You approached the driver's window and started banging on the window with the knife and screaming at her to give you the car.  She started screaming and froze when she saw the knife.  That gives rise to the second charge of attempted armed robbery.

15Police were called by a number of people.  When they attended, you were still banging on the window of the car.  They had to draw their firearms and tell you to drop the knife, which you did.  You then complied with police requests and made the further odd comment that you needed, "Protection."  Apparently you kept repeating that.  You were taken into custody and, as I have indicated, found to be in an unfit state to even be spoken to.  As I said, I have read the victim impact statement that has been provided and it undoubtedly was a very terrifying experience and has had ongoing psychological effects for Ms Zammit.  I take that all, obviously, into account.

16On the face of it, offending such as this has to be regarded as serious and in the normal course the eventual call for general and specific deterrence as well as denunciation and appropriate punishment.

17I will then look at matters personal to you.  A very succinct series of submissions or outline of submissions was presented by your counsel, which has been exhibited in this matter.  Basically, you are 28 years of age.  You had hardships as a child.  Your mother died when you were very young and your father when you were about 16.  You have limited family support and you had to operate independently from a young age.  It was in those circumstances that drug use developed.

18To your credit, you have repeated Year 12 twice.  You did a pre-apprenticeship course at the Batman TAFE and you have been able to obtain certificates.  You originally obtained a motor mechanic apprenticeship, which you were able to complete at Alan Mance Motors, working there for three years.  You then, after that, worked for a year, as I understand it, in Sydney Road as a diesel mechanic.  You have now been unemployed for a period of about one and a half years, but of course nearly seven months of that has been in custody.  You have been in custody since the day of your arrest and I simply, as I pointed out during the course of the plea, that was a very sensible course for a couple of reasons.

19Outlined in those submissions is the drug addiction that you have been subjected to.  You used cannabis in your early teens, heroin and amphetamine in your late teens, methamphetamine in your early 20s.  You started injecting ice approximately two years ago.  That usage has increased dramatically in that period of time.  One of the benefits of your having been in custody for approximately seven months is that you have been able to withdraw from ice and have remained drug free.

20As a direct consequence of this ice use, from the end of 2013 to the end of 2014 when this offending occurred, you were admitted to hospital on seven separate occasions for psychosis.  As I understand the material before me, your last entry to a hospital for a psychotic episode was only a couple of weeks prior to this offending.  Your condition had got to the point where you were unable to maintain properties that had been left to you by your parents and indeed, your affairs in that sense are looked after, as I understand it, by the State Trustees.

21This period of time that you've spent in gaol has been a salutary one for you.  It has been explained to me that you have been kept in a situation where there has been lockdown at 4 o'clock each day and you have had very few visitors.  To your credit, you have participated in a number of courses and the certificates were tendered before me.  I might also point out that the hospitalisations that I have referred to are all supported by medical material that has been tendered and is on the file.

22This sort offending calls for an active custodial sentence.  In your particular situation, you have now served 205 days.  I have had you assessed for a community corrections order.  I am not going to go into all the principles of Boulton and like decisions.  Yours is a situation which calls for what is about to occur.

23You clearly need ongoing supervision and assistance.  You clearly need, ongoing upon your release, assistance with the non-use, if I can put it that way, of amphetamine and ice.  This offending was of such a nature that were you to relapse back into extended amphetamine use and relapse back into psychosis, I think you must understand yourself that if you are going to commit offending like this with a big knife, the chances are that one day you are going to get a very, very big gaol sentence from a judge sitting with red robes.  You must understand, I am sure you do, the consequences not only for yourself of using ice again, but to innocent people going about their business.  These two ladies were both terrified and it is very, very fortunate that neither of them was physically hurt and they could have been hurt very seriously.  I say that not as an attack upon you, but simply as part and parcel of the extraordinary peril this drug is presenting to this community.

24In any event, I am confident in the matters that were put before me that you are determined to rehabilitate and that you will make full use of the facilities available in a community corrections order.  That order will be for three years and will commence upon your release.  It will include the condition the of treatment for drugs and supervision.  There is a punitive aspect to it all, but my major purpose with it is for you to have access to assistance if your existence starts to spiral out of control.

25In all the circumstances, on the charges, I will impose an aggregate sentence of 205 days.  I direct that 205 days be reckoned as having been served under this sentence.  That being so, you are to be released subject to central records downstairs.  You will commence the CCO early next week and I trust that you will make full use of it.  In these situations where you have had a significant period of time in custody, it is the first time you have been in custody and as I have said before, you have no prior convictions.  I regard that as sufficient punitive punishment and there is no need for any work hours to be attached.

26If you can rehabilitate and no use drugs, the risk of you reoffending, bearing in mind your past history, should be very low indeed.  You have been assessed by Corrections as a medium risk of offending.  That is always a bit debatable what that means.

27Other orders I need to make or is that it?  I just simply direct that 205 days be reckoned as having been served under this sentence.  I do not do a 6AAA because it is not part of that Division.

28MR PICKERING:  I was just thinking, because you imposed a term of imprisonment as well, but I will take Your Honour's guidance.

29HIS HONOUR:  No.  The 6AAA relates to Part IV or whatever it is and that is not where this comes from.  The Sentencing Advisory Council have communicated with me because I have said this on a number of occasions and they share my view.

30MR PICKERING:  In that case, so do I, Your Honour.

31HIS HONOUR:  So there is no other orders I have to make?  All right, we will get Mr Czaplinski to sign that.  If you would not mind going down with him.

32MS KARAPANAGIOTIDIS:  Thank you.

33HIS HONOUR:  Sorry, it should say in the sentencing remarks, you have been assessed and accepted as suitable for a CCO.  It has got to say that as well.

34All right, that CCO is made and handed down.  There is no further orders?

35MS KARAPANAGIOTIDIS:  No, Your Honour.

36MR PICKERING:  No, Your Honour.

37HIS HONOUR:  If you could just stand up for me for a second.

38OFFENDER:  Yep.

39HIS HONOUR:  I understand where all of this has come from and drug psychosis and the like, what I am simply saying to you is this that the real risk that you run is that as you now know, the knife, the people, you stab somebody, you are over the road and you are getting 20 on the bottom.  I mean that is the reality of using ice.  I am sure you understand that.  I am not having a go at you, I am just making clear that do not lose sight of your rehab.  The consequences would be dreadful you and for somebody else, I suspect.

40OFFENDER:  I understand, yeah, thank you.

41HIS HONOUR:  Thank you.  Thank counsel for that.

‑ ‑ ‑