Director of Public Prosecutions v Edwards

[2017] VCC 354

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

AT WANGARATTA
CRIMINAL JURISDICTION

CR 16-01253

DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROSECUTIONS

v

IVAN EDWARDS

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JUDGE:	HER HONOUR JUDGE HARBISON
WHERE HELD:	Wangaratta
DATE OF HEARING:
DATE OF SENTENCE:	3 April 2017
CASE MAY BE CITED AS:	DPP v Edwards
MEDIUM NEUTRAL CITATION:	[2017] VCC 354

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

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APPEARANCES:	Counsel	Solicitors
For the Director of Public Prosecutions
For the Accused	Mr M Kats

HER HONOUR:

1Mr Edwards, I will be directing my remarks to you so you can stand up, thank you. 

2Ivan Edwards, you have pleaded guilty before me to one charge of armed robbery.  You committed this armed robbery together with Robert Darke, who I sentenced at Wodonga in November of last year.

3The offence occurred at a house at McCrohan Street, Wodonga on 10 January 2016.

4The circumstances of your offending with Mr Darke are unusual. Briefly, you had found out that a ring and bracelet had been stolen from a friend of yours.  The background to that theft had been the involvement of a group of your acquaintances in drugs and the accumulation of drug debts.  You had not been involved in any of this but you took it upon yourself to retrieve the bracelet for your friend.  You had been, I understand, successful in retrieving the ring at some earlier time, but not the bracelet.

5You attended this house believing that the owner of the house had the bracelet.  You took with you a friend, your co-accused, Mr Darke.  Mr Darke was disguised with a mask.  You were not disguised at all. 

6When you arrived you knocked on the door.  The owner of the house was not at home.  There was a man at home by the name of Robert Blundy.  You had never met each other before but you persuaded him to let you inside. 

7Once inside you accused him of having the bracelet.  He denied it.  You made him empty his pockets.  He did so, putting his wallet on the table and taking $110 in cash out of the wallet, which he also put on the table.  At one stage Mr Darke produced a knife.  Mr Blundy was, understandably scared.

8Mr Darke then took the cash of $110 and you and Darke left the house.  You were later seen on CCTV drinking at a local night club presumably spending Mr Blundy's money which has not been recovered.

9As a result of your actions both you and Darke have thus been charged with the offence of armed robbery. 

10On the day that this matter was listed for trial, 27 October 2016, your counsel requested a sentence indication from me.  After hearing the matters put forward on that application, as it was at the time, I indicated that on my view, on the material able to be presented at that time, your offending required a sentence of immediate imprisonment, longer than the period that you had already spent in remand. 

11Notwithstanding that indication, Mr Edwards, you entered a plea of guilty later on that same day. 

12One of the very significant matters pressed on your behalf on your plea hearing was that you were part-way through a program of drug rehabilitation at Odyssey House.  I determined to adjourn the plea hearing until today to give you a chance to demonstrate that your life had changed as a result of your participation in this program and as a result of other matters which I heard about regarding your personal circumstances, and to give you the opportunity to prove to me that a non-custodial sentence would be appropriate.

13Between then and now I have received up to date reports from Odyssey House and I have identified them earlier in this plea hearing.

14It is important that I record how matters stood at the time of your original plea.I was provided with your criminal record, both in Victoria and New South Wales.  That record revealed a very significant history of offending in both States. 

15In Victoria, your offending commenced in 2006 and continued up to the end of 2015.

16In New South Wales, your offending commenced in 1996 and continued up to 2010.

17Those offences included many assaults and driving offences; of particular note is that in Victoria, as well as being sentenced to short periods in gaol, you have in the past had the benefit of community-based orders, including an intensive correction order, and you have contravened the conditions of several of those orders. 

18You have also been previously convicted of recklessly causing injury, making a threat to kill and numerous drug offences. 

19Mr Edwards, when this very bad criminal history is combined with the seriousness of this offence of armed robbery, had I sentenced you in November of last year I would have had no alternative but to sentence you to a significant time in prison.

20However, as I said, on the original plea it was indicated to me that you were part-way through a program of drug rehabilitation at Odyssey House and I have now received reports in relation to that participation.

21You have completed all three levels, as I understand now, of the Odyssey House program.  Within Odyssey House you have taken on a significant role of responsibility being now an aide to the medical staff in the facility.  This is an extremely important role involving the need for confidentiality and you have carried it out very well.

22I am confident from all the reports that I have received that you are now free of drugs and that you are well on your way to rebuilding your life.

23Mr Edwards, you are an Aboriginal man.  You have also, during periods when you were off drugs in the past, contributed handsomely to the welfare of the Aboriginal community in Wodonga.  You have participated in men's programs run by the Mungabareena Aboriginal Co-operation and indeed you were a founding member of a men's group for Aboriginal men. You have participated in mentoring young Aboriginal people organising activities such as cultural camps.

24The most recent reports that I received indicate that you have now resumed your participation in those programs and you have been involved over the last period of months in providing support, safety and guidance to other Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander residents.  You are described now as being “a reliable and inspiring role model to them and the broader community”.

25I have taken that quotation from the letter that I received signed by Mr Smithers and Ms Walsh and dated 3 April 2017. 

26At the original plea hearing I received a psychological report from Liz Stacey, who is a psychologist working at Odyssey House.  I have now received updated information in relation to the matter contained in that report.  She set out your level of participation in the Odyssey House program together with your difficult and very abusive family history and your efforts to manage your long-standing issues with anger and depression.  

27She indicated that for the first time in your life you were entering upon a rehabilitation program specifically focusing on your drug and alcohol addiction and that you are learning new ways of behaving in relationship.  She described you last October as being committed to continuing your treatment but needing further time to practice your newfound social skills.

28I am persuaded that the extra time that I have given you, through this adjourned plea hearing, has consolidated that progress that you have made.

29I have also received a letter from Trisha McGee dated 30 March 2017.  She is the Koori case support worker at Odyssey House.  Her description of what you have been doing over the past few months, and particularly your trusted position within the Odyssey House framework, is very encouraging as to your continued rehabilitation. 

30Mr Edwards, I recognise that in the offending which I have described you made no attempt to disguise yourself and did not have any weapon.  The decision to produce the weapon and also to take Mr Blundy's money was a decision of your co-accused and I accept that on his part it was a spur of the moment decision.  

31Your own purpose in going to the house was to retrieve a stolen item not to rob anyone in the house.  In my view, this puts your offending at a low level of culpability overall. 

32I also take into account that you have pleaded guilty to this offence.  This is a significant recognition of your remorse.  It is also of assistance to the community as the community has been spared the cost of a trial.  It is of assistance to your victim because he is not being required to give evidence. 

33The trial would have been complicated by the involvement of various witnesses in drug related activities and I accept that this gives weight of a further nature to your plea of guilty.

34Although I recognise that it is important to take into account general deterrence in sentencing you today, and this would have been a major factor in sentencing you had I done so last November, I am persuaded that the circumstances which I have outlined today justify a non-custodial sentence.

35I am persuaded that your prospects of rehabilitation are excellent.  You have continued on the path which you had outlined that you expected to go on when I spoke to you at Wodonga last year.  You have the opportunity now and have taken that opportunity to be a real positive role model for Aboriginal youth.

36In my view, to send you to gaol will be to destroy all the progress you have made to date.  It would be a tragedy for you individually, but it would also be a tragedy for the community, and particularly the Aboriginal community of Wodonga.  Having you as an asset, as a man who has been through the criminal justice system and has been able to rebuild your life will, in my view, be a very significant advantage to those people working in Wodonga and within the broader community to try to provide some help and assistance to Aboriginal youth who might otherwise go through the courts as you did. 

37I have therefore decided, Mr Edwards, in the circumstances of this case, to sentence you to a very short period of imprisonment; in effect, corresponding to the 79 days of pre-sentence detention that you have already completed.  This will mean that you will not need to serve any further period of actual incarceration. 

38I will also sentence you to a community corrections order.  The community corrections order will be for three years and it will contain the usual terms of a community corrections order.  I need to explain those terms to you although I am sure that Mr Kats will explain them to you in more detail once I have left the Bench. 

39You must not commit any other offence during that period of three years for which you could be imprisoned.  You must comply with all orders and requests made by community corrections to you.  You must receive visits from community corrections officers.  You must report to a community corrections centre, and I understand that the centre is at South Morang, within two days of this order being made.

40You must let a community corrections officer know within two clear working days of you changing your address or job.  You must not leave Victoria without first getting permission to do so from the Secretary or his or her delegate and you must obey all lawful instructions from the Secretary. 

41Now, as well as that, the orders which I propose to add to the community corrections order are that you perform 300 hours of community work over the period of three years of the order.  I will order that all hours of treatment and rehabilitation count as unpaid community work.  I will order that you be under the supervision of a community corrections officer for the full period of three years.

42I will order that you undergo assessment and treatment for drug abuse, for mental health assessment and treatment, if required, and that you participate in programs or courses that address factors relating to that offending. 

43So, Mr Edwards, I can only impose that community corrections order if you agree to all those conditions.  Having heard those conditions; do you agree to them.

44OFFENDER:  Yes, I do.

45HER HONOUR:  All right, thank you, I will pass down the document.  Mr Kats, if you could explain it to Mr Edwards.  If you are happy with it, Mr Edwards, I would like you to sign it please.

46OFFENDER:  (Indistinct.)

47(Orders signed and acknowledged.)

48HER HONOUR:  Yes, now, Mr Edwards, you have signed that document and so have I, so the order will take effect. 

49I need to tell you that if you had not pleaded guilty to this charge then I would have ordered that you be imprisoned for a period of four years and I would have ordered that you serve a period of three years imprisonment before becoming eligible for parole.

50I will declare that you have now served 79 days in custody and that 79 days be reckoned as time already served.

51Mr Edwards, how old are you now?

52OFFENDER:  Thirty-nine.

53HER HONOUR:  Sorry?

54OFFENDER:  Thirty-nine.

55HER HONOUR:  Thirty-nine years.  All right, Mr Edwards, I understand that your father has now passed away and you are attending that funeral on this Friday.  My recollection is that your Aboriginality came through your father.  Is that right?

56OFFENDER:  Yeah, it's my step-father (indistinct).

57HER HONOUR:  All right.  Can I say to you this, you now have the chance to change the past.  Many people do not get that chance.  You have got a chance to change the past.  Your contribution to Aboriginal people, and particularly Aboriginal young people in this area, could be immense. 

58I am giving you this opportunity for your own benefit and also for the community's benefit.  If you do not take this opportunity and you come before a court again, your record of offending is very bad and you should expect, whatever the offence is that you commit, that you will spend a very significant time in gaol.  Do you understand that?

59OFFENDER:  (Indistinct).

60HER HONOUR:  Thank you, well, the best of luck and ‑ ‑ ‑

61OFFENDER:  I'd just like to (indistinct) express ‑ ‑ ‑

62HER HONOUR:  Thank you, you have got a lot of people here supporting you today and they will support you into the future, and I would expect that you would not come back before a court again. 

63Yes, thank you; is there anything else?

64COUNSEL:  No, Your Honour.

65HER HONOUR:  Thank you, you can now leave, Mr Edwards, but Mr Kats, can you wait until you get the order.  Yes, thank you.

66COUNSEL:  As Your Honour pleases.

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