Director of Public Prosecutions v de Gorgio

[2014] VCC 503

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

AT MELBOURNE
CRIMINAL JURISDICTION

CR 13-02275

DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROSECUTIONS

v

NATALIE DE GORGIO

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JUDGE:	HIS HONOUR JUDGE SMALLWOOD
WHERE HELD:	Melbourne
DATE OF HEARING:
DATE OF SENTENCE:	2 April 2014
CASE MAY BE CITED AS:	DPP v de Gorgio
MEDIUM NEUTRAL CITATION:	[2014] VCC 503

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

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APPEARANCES:	Counsel	Solicitors
For the Director of Public Prosecutions	Ms F. Cockram
For the Offender	Ms C. Woodward

HIS HONOUR: 

1Natalie de Gorgio, you have pleaded guilty to one charge of blackmail.  You have also pleaded guilty to three uplifted summary matters; one of being a learned driver with no licence plate; one of being a learned driver with no experienced driver beside you; and one of dealing in the proceeds of crime.  The first two matters carry monetary penalties only and on those you are convicted and discharged. 

2The situation is that you are 35 years of age, you pleaded guilty at an early reasonable opportunity and I accept that in the ultimate, at least, you have expressed appropriate remorse.  You must also get the utilitarian benefit of that plea of guilty. 

3It is a situation where you do have prior convictions - it is a bit hard to work out exactly, one has to be careful about breaches with this but - essentially for dealing in drugs. 

4It was put to me that - and the material seems to indicate - that that was on behalf of other people, but in any event, that offending did not start until you were, on my calculation, approximately 32 or 33 years of age and would appear to have been relationship, or lack of relationship based. 

5The compensation orders are made and handed down. 

6The circumstances of the offending; a Mr Sorab Segal had had his house burgled, it would seem, in the early part of 2013.  Various items had been taken.  On 28 June, you contacted Mr Segal with a text message saying, "You are in danger."  He did not know you.  You sent a succession of text messages and phone calls; I have been through that list.  You identified yourself initially as Layla and asked to meet him at a service station.  He then met you there. 

7You told him that you had found his contact details on his stolen laptop and his ex-tenant's phone - I am not quite sure what the ex-tenant's about, I should have asked. 

8You told him that his stuff was with the bikies but that you could get it back.  He offered to pay $500 for it and you agreed to meet back at the service station in 15 minutes.  You went home.  You sent him further text messages saying that they effectively, wanted much more than that.  He then counteroffered $600 and agreed to meet you at the service station. 

9At the service station some few minutes later, he agreed to pay the $600 in exchange for you getting his stuff back.  When he said he wanted it back before he gave you the money, you said, "You are trying to disrespect the bikies."  He then made an ATM withdrawal and handed you $600 which you placed in your bra.  You informed him that you would ring him in an hour's time. 

10On the next day, you demanded an additional $600.  You informed him that the guy you had given the $600 had taken it off another biker, that they wanted the money and that if the police were called, "We will pay." 

11You said to him that they were threatening you.  When he asked whether he was getting his stuff back or not you said, "It's not fair on me too, the main man shot two bullets into the air and he wants the money.  He said he was going to send the bikers to you until he got it." 

12It was during those matters that this charge of blackmail became a very ugly one in my view.  I do not quite understand how all this came about or how Mr Segal got himself into this situation, but the fact of the matter is that I have no doubt that the end result of it was that he was frightened by all this and ultimately, though perhaps he should have done it a lot earlier, went to the Epping Police Station. 

13The situation is that around about that time you drove past his house, and that gives rise to the driving offences, and you were found in possession of the stolen driver's licence of a male person. 

14I have before me the victim impact statement of Mr Segal in which he displays a great degree of anxiety and concern over what took place.  I have to be careful of that document because, whilst it may be true for all I know, there is no certainly no material before me to support the basic assertions that he made.  In any event, I do not really need a victim impact statement to bring home to me how concerning offending of this nature would be to the victim and the serious manner in which the courts have historically regarded it. 

15I have had a look at comparative cases that were handed up and obviously, blackmail is regarded as serious, though can differ considerably between occasions of it; some victims are old and elderly and unable to defend themselves; some are not.  They are of assistance, but certainly not determinative of this particular matter.  However, I do regard this as a serious example of blackmail.  The application of general and I think in your situation, specific deterrence as well as denunciation and appropriate punishment. 

16It would be a common situation where such offending caused an active custodial sentence to impose.  The defence position here was that because of your personal circumstances as well as the nature of the offending that a community corrections order was open and that is the course I should take.  I have had you assessed for such an order and you have been deemed to be acceptable. 

17I then looked to matters personal to you.  A number of documents were tendered on your behalf including a report from the Northern Medical Centre, which confirms that you have depression.  There were references from family, which is not uncommon in these situations; there is a report from Forensicare, which confirms post‑traumatic stress disorder and there is also a letter from Centrelink indicating that you have at least, in recent times, been endeavouring to find employment.

18There is also the report of home grant services who describe the difficulties that you had with accommodation going back to around about 2009.  Most importantly, there was a report from Mr Bob Ives, a psychologist who is well-known to me.  It is clear from the situation in court that you have, at least at this particular moment in time, a good deal of family support. 

19I direct that the report of Mr Ives remain on the court file so that anybody with a genuine interest may look at it.  I do not think in circumstances such as this where both the defence and the Crown are aware of all the contents of it that it needs to be outlined in great detail. 

20As indicated during the course of discussion your offending did not occur until you were in your early 30s and, of course, reasons for that become apparent.  In short compass you are the daughter of Lebanese Christian‑migrant parents and it was a patriarchal family.  Your mother's life, you have said, was made miserable by the authority wielded over her by her father and brothers.  She trained as a hairdresser and went into an arranged marriage with a delivery driver 24 years her senior. 

21She had three children of which you are in the middle.  Your father was disengaged and never spent much time with the family.  Your parents separated when you were 11 and you had virtually no contact with that father since.  Between the ages of 7 and 11, you were regularly sexually abused by a near relative.  I do not need to go into the details of that other than to say that I accept that that is the case and make the simple observation as Mr Ives would, that children who have been sexually abused very rarely make happy adults. 

22You subsequently found out that your sister had been similarly abused and your mother was told.  You kept that information to yourself for many years with the subsequent consequences of feelings of violation, shame, guilt and humiliation.  After your parents separated, your mother had no option but to return to live with her parents.  She was regarded as being a "fallen woman."  She was then able to form a relationship with another man who owned his own business.  That man, on the material before me, did not treat you particularly well and was derogatory of you. 

23Your older sister was able to leave - or escape the house, was the expression you used - and live independently at about the age of 18.  You were not able to.  Mr Ives seems to accept that the compounding effect of your childhood sexual abuse, the coercive control and environment of your grandmother's house and the "unrelenting criticism" of your stepfather laid the foundations for poor mental health, inability to cope and poor decision-making. 

24You are married and have two children now aged - I think I am right in saying this - 12 or 13 and 6 or 7.  Your marriage broke down and it was after that period of time that you went through states of homelessness and your problems insofar as the courts were concerned, began. 

25I will simply, insofar as that matters concerned, just quote one paragraph of Mr Ives's report and when I say this I am very conscious of decisions such as Bugmy.  Childhood abuse does not go away in five minutes.

"She left her husband in 2008 and the resulting six years have involved a very unstable, confusing and messy lifestyle.  With continuing depression and anxiety, poor general mental health, poor physical health living in public housing in very rough undesirable neighbourhoods, worry over children, poverty, consorting with dubious characters, being exploited and abused and manipulated by male companions, selling marijuana, being subject to police raids, being evicted, homelessness and often itinerant, erratic, secretive lifestyle with paranoid fears of persecution; needing assistance from family agencies to bring up her children, but always avoiding DHS involvement and staying for periods with her in-laws and mother in late 2013, spending some weeks in remand at the Deer Park Women's Prison having been refused bail."

26It is a pretty sad summary of someone's existence. 

27The ultimate diagnosis of Mr Ives and it is one that I could hardly disagree, is that you suffer from severe depression, that you suffer from severe anxiety and that you suffer from post‑traumatic stress disorder. 

28He describes mark peculiarities in thinking and perception and considers that you may even suffer full‑blown hallucinations.  Those matters obviously bring very much into play the principles outlined in Verdins and similar dispositions, obviously you were aware that this was offending and you have participated in it. 

29Whether you were doing this at the direction of others or not, I have no idea, and you have offered no explanation to the police in that regard, so I just simply sentence in a vacuum, insofar as that is concerned. 

30In the end, I think that a community corrections order is the ideal disposition for you.  You will be aware that if you breach that community corrections order, particularly by reoffending and anything of the nature of this sort of offending, you will be imprisoned and imprisoned for a significant period of time. 

31In the decision of Tom Guenen in the Court of Appeal, Neave J said in the DPP v Leach:

"It is particularly important that this court should not devalue or deny the right of a sentencing judge to act mercifully in the case where it seems to the judge to be an instance where an opportunity for reformation of an offender ought be grasped.  That, after all, may be a decision which redounds very much to the benefit of the community."

32And further, the President of the Court of Appeal in the DPP v Tokava:

"A sentencing judge should be astute to investigate whether a non-custodial disposition is to be preferred, even in the case of a serious offence, if in the long term the community's interest will be best served by that course.  This court should seek to promote public understanding of the fact that, apart from the interest of the individual whom it is sought to rehabilitate, an important interest in itself, there is a vital community interest in maximising the prospects of rehabilitation of an individual who has been convicted of a serious crime."

33The quote from the President, I think, is most pertinent in this situation. 

34You got to your early 30s, where at least been detected offending and if you avail yourself of the opportunities, which will be given to you by the people within corrections, the prospects of your rehabilitation should be good.  If that rehabilitation is effective, bearing in mind your limited criminal history, the risk of you reoffending should be low. 

35Now you have reached a point in your life, and I am sure you understand this, that if your offending continues it will result in significant custodial sentences.  You have already done a period of 13 or 14 days on remand for other matters and you would have a pretty good appreciation of what being in custody involves. 

36Your children are presently living with your mother‑in‑law and it is your desire to be reunited with them.  That should act as a catalyst for your potential rehabilitation. 

37In the end, that is the situation that we are left with.  You will be, if you agree, placed on a community corrections order; it will be with conviction.  Conditions of that will be that you perform 350 hours of community work.  I direct that you have the condition that your mental health be assessed and treated and that hours spent in that can be counted as against community correction work. 

38There will also be, obviously, supervision.  I have in recent times been monitoring these.  I think in your situation there is no real point in that, if, as you claim, you do not use drugs, you should be able to get through it.  But I make it very, very clear to you, Ms de Gorgio that if you breach this, you are brought back before me, then you are in.  There will be no messing about and it will be for a significant period of time. 

39All right, are there any other orders or gratuitous comments I have to make?  I have got - mental health is it not?  Yes I did. 

40MS WOODWARD:  Your Honour just to clarify, you are not minded to order - make a declaration in respect to s.6AAA.

41HIS HONOUR:  No I am not going to do that with a CCO. 

42MS WOODWARD:  As Your Honour pleases.  If I may be excused momentarily.

43HIS HONOUR:  Yes. 

44MS WOODWARD:  Thank you. 

45HIS HONOUR:  Obviously that CCO incorporates the proceeds of crime, yes. 

46MS COCKRAM:  That is the 195.

47HIS HONOUR:  Yes. 

48MS COCKRAM:  As Your Honour pleases.  Your Honour just to clarify, is that two years?

49HIS HONOUR:  Three. 

50MS COCKRAM:  Three.  As Your Honour pleases. 

51HIS HONOUR:  Yes.  All right, that order is made.  Thanks ladies. 

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