Director of Public Prosecutions v Davies
[2014] VCC 842
•30 April 2014
| IN THE COUNTY COURT OF VICTORIA | Revised Not Restricted Suitable for Publication |
AT MELBOURNE
CRIMINAL DIVISION
Case No. CR-13-01818
| DPP |
| v |
| MICHAEL DAVIES |
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JUDGE: | His Honour Judge Maidment | |
WHERE HELD: | Melbourne | |
DATE OF HEARING: | 30 April 2014 | |
DATE OF SENTENCE: | 30 April 2014 | |
CASE MAY BE CITED AS: | DPP v. Davies | |
MEDIUM NEUTRAL CITATION: | [2019] VCC 842 | |
REASONS FOR SENTENCE
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Catchwords:
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APPEARANCES: | Counsel | Solicitors |
| For the Crown | Ms A French | |
| For the Accused | Ms A Hancock |
HIS HONOUR:
1 Michael Anthony Davies, you can stay seated for the time being. You pleaded guilty to an offence of causing serious injury intentionally, the offence having taken place on 6 June of last year and you have admitted a number of prior convictions and court appearances. The offence of causing serious injury intentionally has a maximum term of imprisonment of 20 years. It is clearly an offence that is regarded by the community as a very serious offence.
2 The prosecution has tendered and relied upon a summary of the facts in the matter and that is Exhibit A and it has just been read. I am not going to read it again. It shows that your attack was substantially unprovoked and a viscous attack and that you approached a man who was on his mobile phone in circumstances where you had obviously predetermined you were going to attack him with the glass that you had in your hand. You did that and followed it up with further blows with the same hand. It is difficult to see the extent to which there was glass in your hand when you followed it up, but you must have known and intended that you would cause very serious injury to your victim and this was a cowardly attack on your part.
3 The victim has provided a victim impact statement along with some photographs. They show that he suffered a very substantial facial injury which has left him with permanent scarring. Not surprisingly his victim impact statement suggests that not only does he have a physical injury which he has to carry around and is displayed, whenever he goes out and causes him embarrassment, but he has the emotional scars as well which he will no doubt bear for a considerable period of time, if not the rest of his life. All of those factors I am bound to take in to account in assessing the appropriate sentence.
4 Turning to matters personal to you, your counsel helpfully provided me with a summary of submissions along with a bundle of medical reports and letters which show that you have it seems for some time, suffered from anxiety and depression and panic attacks and the effects of alcohol abuse over a long period of time. So you were then it seems and are still suffering from those symptoms. Although of course you will not have access to alcohol on at least a regular basis I imagine. Those were conditions from which you were suffering from at the time of the offending conduct. It seems also that you were going through a difficult period in your life. Your relationship with your long term partner with, whom you have a daughter, broke up earlier in the year. No doubt that led to an increased alcohol consumption and deterioration in your mood and your lifestyle.
5 All of those conditions contributed to the fact that you were not able to work or hold any regular employment for some period of time and were on disability support benefits. I was also supplied with a bundle of letters which include a letter from your current partner Vanessa Rigon, a letter from your father indicating that there is work available for you when you complete your sentence and indicating also that you express genuine regret and remorse for your actions. The bundle also includes a letter from your where you indicate that you do not seek to make any excuse for your conduct and you indicate that you are remorseful for your offence and appreciate the effect that this has had upon your victim. Indeed you expressly apologise to your victim in this letter.
6 I have also been handed a bundle of certificates which indicate that in the period that you have been in custody waiting today's hearing that you have set about availing yourself of courses that are available to you which will help you with your rehabilitation. There is no doubt that you have got a bad criminal record, but what is quite remarkable is that you have been trouble free between 2004 and this offending conduct. I cannot imagine what was going through your head on that particular night. You might have got irritated with the victim, but it was a very bad brain snap on your part and it is not in character at least from the appearance of your criminal record.
7 You now have to bear the consequence of that. I have no doubt that you had a difficult upbringing. I have got no doubt that the break-up of your parents' relationship and the various events that followed will have contributed to the difficulties you have had in life. Of course the continuing abuse of alcohol and will have fuelled your bad behaviour over a very significant period of time. But you are 43 years of age now and I suspect that this has given you an opportunity of reflecting on your life. You seem to have a promising relationship going and you have got family and friends standing by you who are capable of supporting you, not just through the period of your incarceration, the period of your term of imprisonment, but afterwards and your prospects of rehabilitation of leading a decent life, of staying out of trouble is very much in your hands aren't they.
8 You are going to have to conquer the alcohol problem and really set about sorting yourself out mentally and physically and enabling yourself to settle down to a regular pattern of work and pattern of support. It will be hard for you not to have any contact with your young daughter. I take that in to account. It will be hard for you to cope with the prospect of a term of imprisonment with the positive things that are on the outside awaiting you, but I hope that that's going to be an incentive to you to make the best use of your time whilst you are in prison. You may have heard of Marngoneet Prison, you may not, but it does offer specialist courses and alcohol is one of the courses that it offers. I see you are on the waiting list for the Caraniche team so hopefully they will help you and may help you to get in to Marngoneet if that is what seems to be indicated.
9 I think you do have reasonable prospects of rehabilitation and I think that the long gap in your offending conduct suggests that you have the ability to stay out of trouble and hopefully that will occur in the future. Obviously your plea of guilty is very much in your favour. The fact that you pleaded guilty at the earliest reasonable opportunity. You made no bones about the fact that you committed the offence or to try and run away. All of that I think is to be taken in to account in your favour as well as the remorse that you have shown. I do take in to account the fact that the physical and the psychological issues that you have presently and have had for some time, will make serving your time in prison harder. I take that in to account in reduction of sentence.
10 I have got to balance all that against the seriousness of the offence. It is quite a bad offence of its kind and I am required to impose a term of imprisonment upon you that properly reflects the seriousness of that offending conduct. I am required to punish you adequately for the offence. As the prosecution pointed out, general deterrence, that is deterring others from behaving that way is of particular importance. Offences of this kind, glassing is a fairly prevalent offence in licensed premises and around licensed premises. People need to be deterred. Other people need to be deterred from committing that kind of offence. The other factor about which there was some discussion is that I am required to take in to account the need to deter you. I think that is true but I am encouraged by the absence of other offences of this kind in your record and the very substantial gap between this offence and your last offending conduct in 2003/2004.
11 So I have to balance all of those factors against the need to facilitate rehabilitation. It is urged on me that I should impose a sentence which includes a lengthy opportunity for parole to give you the opportunity of a substantial part of the overall sentence being served whilst on parole. I think that is a fair submissions in all the circumstances and I am inclined to sentence you on that basis. The prosecution supplied me with a number of cases. I think I am fairly familiar with the principles. The most recent of those cases was the case of Kumahl which was a young offender of good character, or relatively good character and was a glassing offence. I think it was a bottle actually and the bottle did not break. That was said to be a mitigating factor. He was sentenced to four years and six months with a non-parole period of two years and six months.
12 Arguably with your record a higher sentence would be justified. But I think in all the circumstances with your guarded but reasonable prospects of rehabilitation a similar sentence is I think an appropriate sentence. Could you stand please. For the offence of intentionally causing serious injury I convict you and sentence you to imprisonment for a period of four years and six months and I order that you serve a period of two years and six months before you become eligible for parole. But for your plea of guilty I would have sentenced you to six years imprisonment with a non-parole period of four years. I make the order that is sought under s.464ZF(2) of the Crimes Act for you to provide a forensic sample. You are probably familiar with that process, but it will involve an authorised officer coming to see you and asking you for a scraping from the inside of your mouth. If you comply with that request all well and good, but if do not then the officer will be authorised to take a blood sample and use reasonable force to obtain that blood sample so I am sure you will not put them to that trouble, so I will make that order.
13 I declare 49 days of pre-sentence detention as the period to be reckoned as time served on the sentence that I have imposed and deduct it administratively from the actual period that you will have to serve. Take him down thank you.
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14 HIS HONOUR: Those orders are now signed.
15 MS FRENCH: Thank you Your Honour.
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HIS HONOUR: Yes all right, I'll just leave the Bench for a few minute
thank you.
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