Director of Public Prosecutions v Farmer
[2025] VCC 761
•10 June 2025
| IN THE COUNTY COURT OF VICTORIA | Revised Not Restricted Suitable for Publication |
AT LATROBE VALLEY, GEELONG & BAIRNSDALE
CRIMINAL JURISDICTION
CR-23-01107
| DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROSECUTIONS |
| v |
| PETER JEFFREY FARMER |
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JUDGE: | HIS HONOUR JUDGE CHETTLE |
WHERE HELD: | Bairnsdale |
DATE OF HEARING: | 15 April 2025 |
DATE OF SENTENCE: | 10 June 2025 |
CASE MAY BE CITED AS: | DPP v Farmer |
MEDIUM NEUTRAL CITATION: | [2025] VCC 761 |
REASONS FOR SENTENCE
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Subject:CRIMINAL LAW - SENTENCE
Catchwords: Sentence –indecent assault of person under 16, gross indecency with person under 16, plea of guilty
Legislation Cited: s6AAA Sentencing Act 1991, Sex Offenders Registration Act 2004
Cases Cited:Morris v The Queen [2016] VSCA 331
Sentence: Imprisonment, Total effective sentence of 6 years and 6 months, Non-parole period 4 years and 6 months. Sex Offenders Registration – for life.
APPEARANCES: | Counsel | Solicitors |
| For the Director of Public Prosecutions | Mr A. Grant | Ms I. Anticev, Office of Public Prosecutions. |
For the Accused | Mr J. Livy | Mr J. Livy, Tyler, Tipping, Woods. |
HIS HONOUR:
1Peter Jeffrey Farmer, on the eve of a scheduled trial in the Latrobe Valley County Court you pleaded guilty to eight charges of indecent assault of a child and two charges of gross indecency with a child.
2Your offending occurred in 1986, 1987 and 1988 when you were a teacher at a primary school in Victoria. You offended against five young female pupils who you were teaching.
3The facts of your offending are set out in Exhibit A, the summary of prosecution opening for plea.
4I was informed by your counsel that I could treat that document as an agreed statement of fact. I incorporate it into these reasons for sentence and I sentence you on the basis of the facts set out therein.
5Daisy Watkins[1] was a student of yours between January 1986 and December 1986.
[1] A pseudonym
6In the middle of 1986 when she was about eight years old you asked her to come over near the heater in the classroom and instructed her to turn around and told her that you were going to do something to her that would feel nice. You reached under her school dress and put your hand on the outside of her underwear. You touched her on the outside of her vagina through the underwear, holding it in a cupping and rubbing movement for about a minute. That is the basis of Charge 1 to which you pleaded guilty.
7After you completed your behaviour you said, 'Thanks for that, don't tell anyone.'
8On a number of occasions, you put your hand down her pants and touched her bottom. Your offending behaviour was not an isolated incident.
9In the following year, between 1 January 1987 and 31 December 1987, Ms Watkins was still a student in your class. Another student, Scarlett Sweeney[2], was also in your class. Sometime during the year you asked Watkins and Sweeney to meet you at the local tennis courts after school and told them not to tell their parents. You met them at the tennis courts. You suggested going to a nearby hill where they could practise their running, and you sent Watkins to run up and down the hill first. She did this three times at your instructions. When Watkins returned to where you and Sweeney were, she saw Sweeney was lying naked on some clothes on the ground and you were unclothed on the top half of your body. You approached Ms Watkins and said, 'I want to show you something.' You opened Ms Sweeney’s legs, and you touched her clitoris, and that is the basis of Charge 2 to which you pleaded guilty.
[2] A pseudonym
10You said to Watkins, 'I'd like to do the same thing to you if that's okay' and 'How about we try this first.' You were wearing tracksuit pants. You pulled them down and showed the girls your erect penis and you masturbated your penis in front of them. You told the girls to put their hands on your penis saying, 'This feels good, I want you to feel this good.' At your instructions both girls then masturbated your penis for about five minutes, and that is the basis of Charges 3 and 4 to which you pleaded guilty.
11You told Watkins to lay down next to Sweeney and you removed Watkins's underwear exposing her vagina, and that is the basis of Charge 5.
12Between January 1988 and July 1988, Alexis Baxter[3] was a student in your Grade 4 class. She was about nine years of age. You asked students to come up and show you their classwork during the course of the class, and when it was Baxter's turn to show you her work, she would stand next to you and you would put your hand down the back of her school pants, reaching inside her underwear. You would put your finger inside the underwear and touch the outside of her vagina, and this happened every day for two terms that year. Charge 6 to which you pleaded guilty is a course of conduct charge covering this behaviour.
[3] A pseudonym
13In a separate incident you were seen by another student, Jessica Forbes[4], with your hand inside Ms Baxter's underwear. You put your finger inside Baxter's vagina and when you removed it you had red blood on your fingers. That is the basis of Charge 7 to which you pleaded guilty. You described the blood on your fingers as ‘love juice' which you sucked off your fingers.
[4] A pseudonym
14In the same year, between January 1988 and July 1988, Kelsey Jackson[5] was a student in your Grade 4 class, and again she was about nine years of age. One time during this period Jackson was summoned to your desk at the front of the classroom to look at her work. You put your hand under her school dress and inside her underwear, touching her vagina under her underwear. That is Charge 8, part of a rolled-up charge.
[5] A pseudonym
15On another occasion that year, Jackson was seated in a back row of the classroom and you came and sat next to her. You put your hand down the back of her school pants, touching her buttocks on the outside of her vagina, and that is part of the rolled-up Charge 8 to which you pleaded guilty.
16In the same year, 1988, Angela Nowak[6], was another student in your Grade 4 class, and she was about 10 years of age. One Monday morning the class had a swimming lesson at the local pool. She had forgotten to bring a change of underwear for after the swimming lesson and she had to wear her wet bathers under her school dress following the swimming lesson. You asked her to sit next to you in the front of the classroom. You put your left hand under her school dress, touching her vagina over her wet bathers. That is the basis of Charge 9 to which you pleaded guilty. You discovered that she was wet, and you held your palm of your hand against her vagina for one or two seconds before removing it.
[6] A pseudonym
17During July of 1988 you were seen by someone working in a nearby shop to be standing on the school oval with Sweeney during a lunchbreak. Claire Jones[7], the person who observed you, saw you take your hands out of Sweeney's pants before moving apart. She reported the incident to the school principal. You were told not to attend the school again and the parents of the children were informed.
[7] A pseudonym
18At this stage you entered the school against instruction and placed notes on the students' desks along with presents for some of the girls and you resigned on 2 September 1988.
19Police investigation was commenced but the parents of the children did not wish to put the children through the court process.
20In May 2019, police commenced an investigation into you again following a report by Kelsey Jackson. You were arrested on 7 April 2022 in Queensland, and you participated in a record of interview making admissions about some of your offending but denying others.
21The offences to which you have pleaded guilty of gross indecency with a child under 16 with the aggravating feature of care and supervision, carry the maximum penalty of three years' imprisonment, and indecent assault with a child under 16, five years' imprisonment. At the time they are the penalties that I have to deal with in sentencing you.
22You have no prior convictions; however, you were dealt with in the Northern Territory in 1997 for a subsequent matter of aggravated assault involving sexual contact with a student.
23You have heard the victim impact statements read. It is clear that your crimes have caused significant and irreparable psychological harm to your victims. Issues of loss of trust, hypervigilance, post-traumatic stress disorder, severe depression and anxiety, have arisen for all of your victims who feel shame, fear and suffer from insomnia. The damage you caused these children has ruined their lives. I take all the victim impact material into account in sentencing you.
24Turning to your personal circumstances. They are set out in detail in the psychological report of Sandra Cokorilo, Exhibit 2 on your plea. I propose to summarise those circumstances.
25You were born in May 1959 in Brisbane. You moved to Victoria when you were three and remained there until you were 30 at the conclusion of this offending. You travelled through Queensland and the Northern Territory from 1994 to 1997 where your subsequent matter arose, and you then resided in Cairns until about two years ago.
26You discovered that you and your sister were adopted, and you found this to be somewhat emotionally destabilising.
27You completed a Diploma of Primary Teaching after you finished Year 12, and you worked in Victoria as a teacher until 1988 in the circumstances I have just outlined. You worked as a teacher in Alice Springs until your subsequent matter arose.
28Subsequently, you have taken various jobs working selling books to schools. You have worked as a storeman, a porter and cleaner. You have worked for about 85 per cent of your adult life. You owned and operated a coffee shop until that failed financially in 2021, probably as a result of Covid matters. For the last two years, prior to your incarceration, you have been surviving on Jobseeker payments.
29You have had three significant relationships, but you have no children. Your last relationship concluded with a Japanese national woman which commenced in 2005 that fizzled out into a platonic relationship over the next 15 to 20 years.
30You have expressed to Ms Cokorilo a profound sense of guilt and grief for your offending. You exhibit self-loathing but you stated to her that you have come to terms with your behaviour and resume functioning normally.
31You had two suicide attempts as a result of these issues.
32I accept that you have genuine remorse for your behaviour. Ms Cokorilo says that you were a paedophile, that you realised you had a sexual attraction to young children when you were about 21 years of age, that your sexual urges overwhelmed your commonsense that led to you offending.
33You acknowledge that your offending constitutes a significant breach of trust, and you appreciate the damage that you have caused these children. In that light your pleas of guilty are given some extra weight because you have saved the children the need to give evidence.
34Ms Cokorilo's opinion is that you have a low risk of re-offending, primarily, as I understand her report, because your age has seen your paedophilic interests decline. She reported that you are rated a moderate risk of sexual deviation, but you were a paedophile suffering from a paedophilic disorder, but that is not the case at present. On that basis she assessed you as a low risk of sexual recidivism.
35Your offending was extensive, repetitive and repulsive. Each offence involved a serious breach of trust; trust in the community, trust of the parents for their children, trust that you would care for them and not molest them. Your victims were young, fragile and innocent girls.
36You offended against your victim in the presence of other female students, and although you are not charged with sexual penetration offences, three of your indecent assault charges, that is Charges 2,7 and 10, involved some penetration of your victim. Those charges are therefore upper-level examples of the offence of indecent assault of a child. Your other offences represent mid-level examples of those types of offences.
37Your counsel filed written submissions which I carefully considered, and he relied on five matters in mitigation of your offending.
38Firstly, your pleas of guilty. Those pleas of guilty have significant utilitarian value, you have spared the community the cost of a criminal trial, but more importantly, your victims the trauma of giving evidence at such a trial. You are entitled to a significant reduction in sentence to reflect those pleas of guilty.
39Secondly, he relied upon your remorse. You made some admissions in your record of interview, and you wrote written apologies to some of the victims. I accept, as I have said, that that remorse is genuine.
40Thirdly, your lack of prior conviction and your lack of further offending since your 1996 subsequent matter in the Northern Territory. It is now some 30 years since you have offended.
41Fourthly, there is a 37-year delay in dealing with these matters. You have aged and your paedophilic illness has abated. However, lengthy delays are not uncommon in these cases as children often are reluctant or cannot, as was the case here, report the offending. You enjoyed life in the Queensland sunshine while your victims have endured years of personal distress.
42Fifthly, your counsel relied on your prospects for rehabilitation. Given your lack of offending for 28 years your prospects must be seen as reasonable, if not good.
43However, principles of general deterrence, just punishment and denunciation of your conduct are the principal sentencing considerations in your case. I must sentence you recognising your offending against each of these young victims, there must be some cumulation of sentence in respect of each offence and totality is a relevant consideration. Nothing other than a term of imprisonment is appropriate for each of your offences. Your counsel conceded that such a sentence was inevitable in your case.
44You fall to be sentenced as a serious sexual offender on Charges 3 to 16. I am required to treat the protection of the community from you as the principal sentencing consideration. In order to achieve that purpose, the court can impose a disproportionate sentence, but the prosecution do not submit that I should do so, and I do not intend to do so. Given your age I can properly protect the community from you with the sentencing options otherwise open to the court.
45There is also a presumption of cumulation of sentence for those charges - that is Charges 3 to 16. I will not order full cumulation as total cumulation would result in a crushing clearly excessive sentence.
46I do order that it be recorded in the records of the court that you have been sentenced as a serious sexual offender on Charges 3 to 10 on the indictment..
47I have been assisted in determining sentencing practices by the cases referred to by the learned prosecutor during the course of his plea submissions, and particularly the case of Morris[8].
[8]Morris v The Queen [2016] VSCA 331
48On all charges you are convicted.
49On Charge 1, the charge of indecent assault in relation to Daisy Watkins, you are sentenced to 12 months' imprisonment.
50On Charge 2, the charge of indecent assault with Scarlett Sweeney, you are sentenced to 18 months' imprisonment.
51On Charge 3, the charge of gross indecency with a child under 16 relating to Daisy Watkins, you are sentenced to 12 months' imprisonment.
52On Charge 4, the charge of gross indecency with a person under the age of 16, you are sentenced to 12 months' imprisonment.
53On Charge 5, the charge of indecent assault relating to Daisy Watkins, you are sentenced to 12 months' imprisonment.
54On Charge 6, the course of conduct charge, indecent assault in relation to Alexis Baxter, a child under 16, you are sentenced to two years' imprisonment.
55On Charge 7, the charge of indecent assault in relation to Alexis Baxter, you are sentenced to 20 months' imprisonment.
56On Charge 8, the rolled-up charge relating to Kelsey Jackson, you are sentenced to 12 months' imprisonment.
57On Charge 9, the charge of indecent assault with Angela Nowak, you are sentenced to 12 months' imprisonment.
58And on Charge 10, the indecent assault of Scarlett Sweeney, you are sentenced to 12 months' imprisonment.
59Having regard to principles of totality and cumulation, I order that six months of the sentence imposed on Charge 1, nine months of the sentence imposed on Charge 2, six months of the sentence imposed on Charge 3, six months of the sentence imposed on Charge 4, six months of the sentence imposed on Charge 5, nine months of the sentence imposed on Charge 7, six months of the sentence imposed on Charge 8 and three months of each of the sentences on Charges 9 and 10 be served cumulatively upon the sentence imposed on Charge 6, which is the base sentence.
60That is an effective term of imprisonment of six years and six months.
61I order that you serve four years and six months of that sentence before you are eligible for parole.
62I indicate that but for your pleas of guilty, pursuant to s6AAA of the Sentencing Act[9], I would have imposed a term of imprisonment of eight years with a non-parole period of five and a half.
[9]s6AAA Sentencing Act 1991
63Pursuant to the provisions of the Sex Offender Registration Act[10] you are to report pursuant to that Act for life.
[10]Sex Offender Registration Act 2004
64I declare 103 days of the sentence I have just imposed, not including today, has already been served by way of pre-sentence detention.
65Are there any other orders required, Mr Grant.
66MR GRANT: No, thank you, Your Honour.
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