Director of Public Prosecutions v Ferrari

[2017] VCC 531

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

AT MELBOURNE
CRIMINAL JURISDICTION

CR 16-01546

DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROSECUTIONS

v

SAM FERRARI

---

JUDGE:	HIS HONOUR JUDGE SMALLWOOD
WHERE HELD:	Melbourne
DATE OF HEARING:
DATE OF SENTENCE:	3 May 2017
CASE MAY BE CITED AS:	DPP v Ferrari
MEDIUM NEUTRAL CITATION:	[2017] VCC 531

REASONS FOR SENTENCE
---

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

---

APPEARANCES:	Counsel	Solicitors
For the Accused	Mr R. Chaudhuri
For the Director of Public Prosecutions	Mr P. Bourke

Pages 1 - 4

 

 

HIS HONOUR:

1Sam Ferrari, you have pleaded guilty to one charge of handling stolen goods, one charge of making threat to inflict serious injury, one charge of make threat to damage, one charge of robbery and one charge of theft.  Those crimes carry maximum penalties of ten years, five years, five years, 15 years and ten years, retrospectively.

2The charges of handle stolen goods and theft involve motor vehicles, and therefore will involve a loss of licence, and what I will simply do in that scenario is any licence to drive a motor vehicle is cancelled for a period of two months.  That is commencing from today's date.  I do not have to worry about it again then.  That will be concurrent.

3You are 28 years of age.  You pleaded guilty to a settled indictment.  You must get the utilitarian benefit of that plea of guilty.  You do have a significant criminal history, though when one goes through it, it is not as bad as it looks; the vast majority of the matters all having been dealt with on the one day.  You have previously been on community correction orders, and in fact, at the moment are the subject of breach proceedings.  I have seen the report in regard to those breach proceedings and have acted upon that.  I have also, yesterday, sentenced your co-accused in this matter in these circumstances; I did not give her a custodial sentence but she had already undergone a custodial sentence in relation to other matters and had a very significant loss of concurrency, so I do not regard parity as being of any real significance.

4The first charge that you face is the handling of a blue Ford utility.  One Andrew McGregor had obtained that from a caryard in Morwell, saying that he wanted to take it for a test drive, and did not take it back.  At some stage you became in possession of it.  You have agreed in your defence response that you put false numberplates on it, and you, effectively, were driving it around.  You knew, apparently, an Anthony Albanese.  You knew him through a Larinda Hornsy, who, as I have indicated, I have already sentenced.  Albanese owed a $500 drug debt to Hornsy, though I noted at the committal he said he did not.  In any event, the two of you arrived at Albanese's house on a debt collecting mission.  You had a hammer and threats were made both to smash up the property, or to smash up Mr Albanese. This is in mid-October of 2015.  There was then a bit of to-ing and fro-ing about trying to get money to pay back the debt.  He was told if it was not paid it would be doubled or increased dramatically.  In any event, the two of you drove  Mr Albanese to his son's home, at his suggestion, and endeavoured to get the money.  Whilst at that address you each remained in the car.  Mr Albanese's son heard the two of you threaten his father that if he did not pay you would take the car.  Ultimately, then under threat, he handed over the car keys.  I note for the purpose of the transcript that the original Crown opening had the hammer referred to at this period of time.  That has now been deleted in terms of the opening that was read out by counsel, and accordingly, it is robbery, not armed robbery.  In any event, he gave over the keys and you and Hornsy took the vehicle.  That was recovered sometime later in a wrecked condition, as I understand it.  That gives rise to all the charges; the robberies of the car keys, the theft.  The handling stolen goods is of the blue vehicle, the theft is of that vehicle that belonged to Mr Albanese, and the threats are what was said to him whilst, admittedly, you had the hammer in your possession at his premises.

5There is a victim impact statement; I have taken that into account.  The offending has to be regarded as serious and the normal course of events calls for general and specific deterrence as well as denunciation and appropriate punishment.

6Insofar as these matters were concerned you did 308 days on remand.  The submission was put that that period of time plus a community corrections order would be an appropriate disposition, and I agree with that proposition.  The matters personal to you are essentially contained within a report from Southern Health, which - whilst now of some antiquity - indicates your history.  You clearly had difficulties with your father, who, as I understand it, was ultimately imprisoned, and was a heroin user.  You witnessed domestic violence as a child and you have clearly been a user of illegal substances since your mid-teens.  You are now in your late 20s.  It has been discussed during the course of these reports, that I have now had the opportunity of reading, that you may have a schizophrenic/schizoaffective disorder, and it would appear that your father had that as well.  You have certainly suffered from hearing voices and hallucinations.  Whether that is as a result of persistent drug use and psychosis or as a result of a latent schizophrenia, I am unable to say, thought the medical reports tendered infer the latter.

7I think in this situation that the disposition suggested is the one that should be used.  I will direct that the medical reports remain on the court file so that we are all aware of them.  There is no suggestion here of the principles of Verdins being enlivened, or anything along those lines.  I think a community corrections order has sufficient punishment value in it, together with the 308 days.  I do not propose to put work hours, however you will be on a CCO which will be with conviction, obviously, and will include supervision, programs to reduce
re-offending, drug assessment and mental health assessment.  The prospects of your rehabilitation I will be somewhat cautious of.  The risk of you
re-offending in view of your past history would have to be regarded as significant.

8Accordingly, if you agree you will be sentenced to be imprisoned for a period of 308 days as an aggregate sentence, and that is to be followed upon release, which will be immediately by the community corrections order that I have directed, and I direct that 308 days be reckoned as having been served under this sentence.  So do you want to get him to sign that now, if he wants to?  Yes, that will be for two years.  Yes, that order is made.

9Pursuant to s.6AAA I say that but for the plea of guilty you would have been sentenced to be imprisoned for a period of three years with a minimum term of 18 months.

10MR BOURKE:  Your Honour pleases.

11MR CHAUDHURI:  As Your Honour pleases.

12HIS HONOUR:  All right, well he can go now.

13MR BOURKE:  And could I also file the original indictment for Hornsy, Your Honour?  It's arrived as well.

14HIS HONOUR:  Yes.  Certified as being filed.  Yes, thanks, Mr Chaudhuri, you're excused.

(At this stage the court proceeded with another matter.)

‑ ‑ ‑