Director of Public Prosecutions v Field
[2024] VCC 713
•20 May 2024
| IN THE COUNTY COURT OF VICTORIA | Revised Not Restricted Suitable for Publication |
AT MELBOURNE
CRIMINAL JURISDICTION
CR-24-00156
| DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROSECUTIONS |
| v |
| RYAN FIELD |
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JUDGE: | HIS HONOUR JUDGE TINNEY |
WHERE HELD: | Melbourne |
DATE OF HEARING: | 13 May 2024 |
DATE OF SENTENCE: | 20 May 2024 |
CASE MAY BE CITED AS: | DPP v Field |
MEDIUM NEUTRAL CITATION: | [2024] VCC 713 |
REASONS FOR SENTENCE
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Catchwords: Intentionally Causing Injury. Random bladed attack to neck of innocent stranger at 6PM in CBD. No provocation. 31 years old at time of offence, sizeable criminal history. Guilty plea; Worboyes v The Queen [2021]. Mental illness; R v Verdins [2007] VSCA 102; limbs 1 and 5. Bugmy v The Queen [2013] HCA 37 disadvantage.
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APPEARANCES: | Counsel | Solicitors |
| For the Director of Public Prosecutions | Mr M. Wilson | Office of Public Prosecutions |
For the Accused | Mr C. Pearson | Greg Thomas Barrister & Solicitor |
HIS HONOUR:
1Ryan Field, you have pleaded guilty to a single charge of intentionally causing injury, a crime punishable by a 10-year maximum prison term.
2You have admitted a lengthy enough criminal history which your counsel, Mr Pearson, concedes is of relevance to my task.
3The prosecutor, Mr Wilson, opened this matter to me last Monday in accordance with the written summary of prosecution opening for plea dated 26 April 2024. That document was marked as Exhibit A. Mr Pearson told me that this was an agreed summary. For that reason, there is no point in my setting out all the agreed facts in these my reasons for sentence. They are agreed and I will sentence pursuant to that summary, as well as the photographs and also the CCTV footage.
4I will give only then a brief summary so that my reasons and my ultimate sentence might be readily understood by anyone who accesses these remarks when they are published online.
5Your victim, Tait Bartlett, was born in May 1997 and so he was 26 at the time of your crime. He was a complete stranger to you. He bore you no ill-will. He was not even looking in your direction as he stood in Elizabeth Street talking with his friend outside the 7-Eleven outlet on the corner of Elizabeth and Latrobe Streets in the CBD.
6It was not some ungodly hour where one might feel, or at least anticipate, the possibility of some alcohol or drug-fuelled violence. It was about 6 PM on a Thursday night in early June of last year. Mr Bartlett was talking to his friend and not even facing in your direction.
7Your quite extraordinary conduct was captured on the CCTV footage which was played on the plea and marked as part of Exhibit A. You can be seen to be walking along Elizabeth Street, and as you came close to Mr Bartlett you can be seen to remove your hand from your pocket. Though not obvious from the footage, very evidently you had a box cutter in your hand. As you passed him you reach around and slashed him to the right side of his neck. This was done without any semblance of any warning. He was completely vulnerable and totally unprepared for any attack at all, much less the attack that you launched.
8You then pushed him to his chest and glared angrily at him and then continued walking on your way. He had no idea who you were or why you did what you did, nor even initially, what you had done to him. He then realised that he had been stabbed or slashed, as he was bleeding when he put his hand up to his neck. He applied pressure to that wound and his friend rang Triple 0. A description was given of the offender.
9Police attended a short time later and they found Mr Bartlett sitting on a bench holding the right side of his throat with a napkin. One of the police members then commenced first aid and paramedics arrived about 10 minutes later and continued with first aid.
10Your victim was taken by ambulance to the trauma unit at the Royal Melbourne Hospital. His injuries are described at paragraphs 17 and 18. He sustained a deep neck laceration; it was about 15 centimetres in length. He required surgery and a three-day in-patient stay in hospital. It was no minor event. He has been left with an obvious scar.
11As a result of the description of the offender, you were then spotted in Flinders Street and challenged by police. You fled along Flinders Lane where you were arrested. You told police that you had dropped a knife and you directed them to that weapon being the box cutter that I have referred to.
12You were taken to Melbourne West police station, but you were behaving erratically and you were not fit to be interviewed.
13There is a chronology of the matter before the court. You pleaded guilty at an early stage, and you have been in custody since your arrest. As I have said, the footage of your crime was played. The photographs of the site of the injury and the nature of the scar are also before me. The depth of the cut prior to surgery is disclosed at p121 of the depositions, the post-surgery scar at p123. There was no need for any of those photographs to be filed or tendered on the plea. That was accepted to be the position of Mr Pearson. It was a gaping wound in an area where there are many vital veins and arteries, as the expert opinion at p172 makes plain.
14This was serious offending indeed. You are very fortunate not to have more seriously injured or even killed your victim given the nature of the weapon, the way you wielded that weapon and the site on his body that you targeted.
15So much then for what is only really a brief summary of the agreed summary in this matter. As I have said already, I will sentence pursuant to the more detailed agreed summary dated 26 April 2024 and those other matters I have referred to including the footage and the photographs.
Impact
16There is an impact statement placed before me with an attached psychological report. This was marked as Exhibit B. The impact statement was read aloud by the prosecutor.
17Mr Bartlett attended the plea last week with his wife, his father and also his stepmother. They join the sentencing hearing today by way of Webex.
18Your victim has felt angry, fearful, depressed and even suicidal. He is afraid of crowds and loud noises and going out in public. He really has had to alter his work arrangements and he has been attending counselling. He also has physical effects being nerve damage to the right-hand side of his face with a loss of feeling there and also some pain. He is left with a daily reminder of your crime with a visible scar of which he is very self-conscious. That scar was obvious to me viewing from the Bench where I sat to Mr Bartlett's position sitting in the first row of the seats in the public gallery in the course of the plea.
19He has stopped doing many things he previously enjoyed doing and feels that his life has very much altered for the worse. There is a lack of independence referred to in the expert report. Your crime has caused him very significant impact which I take into account.
In mitigation
20Mr Pearson conducted the plea in mitigation on your behalf last Monday and relied upon an outline of submissions dated 9 May 2024. He relied upon the expert psychiatric report from Dr Owens and some course certificates. He filed a remand history as well as some contemporaneous medical notes held by Justice Health, as well as the reasons for sentence of Judge Howie from 2012. As to the remand history, the prosecution in fact filed a more up-to-date history which was marked as Exhibit D.
21Either by reference to the written material or the oral submissions made on the plea, Mr Pearson informed me as to your family, education, work, drug use, relationship and mental health history. He made some submissions to the court as to the level of objective gravity of the offence and he dwelt for some time on the apparent motiveless nature of this crime. He made some submissions as to the relevant sentencing purposes in play and also as to your prospects of rehabilitation.
22In the sensible plea conducted on your behalf he relied mainly upon the following matters in mitigation:
· Your early guilty plea;
· Your disadvantaged background (Bugmy[1]);
· The application of two of the principles, the first and the fifth from the case of Verdins[2];
· He conceded that the offence was serious and that a prison term with a non-parole period was the only possible outcome available to the court here.
[1]Bugmy v The Queen [2013] HCA 37 (‘Bugmy’)
[2]R v Verdins [2007] VSCA 102 (‘Verdins’)
Prosecution
23The prosecutor, Mr Wilson, had prepared some detailed sentencing submissions dated 10 May. Those submissions, which were marked as Exhibit C, dealt with the crime of intentionally causing injury on a general level as well as descending to the matters in aggravation and mitigation in this case. The submissions really were quite uncontroversial and for that reason I do not see any need to repeat them in these my reasons. The only real disagreement was whether Limb 1 of the case of Verdins had any application here. The Crown argued that that first limb was not enlivened. Your counsel, Mr Pearson, argued otherwise.
24The prosecution also placed a table of cases before me, though they were not suggesting that any of those were on all fours. Mr Pearson referred me to the case of Rivera[3], though again not as being on all fours.
[3]Rivera v The Queen [2020] VSCA 5
25The various cases I was referred to had differences in virtually every direction and they certainly do not dictate the sentence required in this case.
26The Director of Public Prosecutions for this State was arguing that a term of imprisonment was required and of a duration requiring the fixing of a non-parole period. Of course, that outcome had already been readily conceded as being inevitable by your own counsel.
27I am not bound by the submissions made as to sentence by either counsel, I am, after all, the one exercising a sentencing discretion, I have to reach my own view as to the appropriate sentence in this case. I will come back a bit later to consider the various submissions made by the parties.
Background
28I will turn firstly to your background. I will do that quite briefly and that is because I have no reason not to accept the submissions and the material placed before me as to your personal background. I see no need to repeat it all. Much of it is set out in the detailed expert report of Dr Owens. Some is also referred to in Mr Pearson's written outline.
29You were born in January 1992, and you are now 32 years of age. Your parents separated when you were young. You mentioned to Dr Owens that you believe your father was at one point imprisoned for murder. I do not know if that is so or not. You had no contact with your father in the early years. You had one brother and a half-sister, but you have fallen out of contact with your siblings. Your mother is still alive, and she attended the plea hearing the other day and again is here today providing support.
30There was some violence in your home at the hands of your stepfather in the six or seven years that he was present in your life. You also witnessed physical assaults upon your mother. It was hardly an ideal environment to grow up in.
31You finished up at Year 7 level at school. I am told you can read and write. You fell in with what is described as the ‘wrong crowd’ at school and started using drugs very early on indeed.
32You had a number of foster care and secure placements and absconded from many of them and roamed the streets.
33Your counsel says there was one long-term relationship which produced a daughter who is now 10 years of age. You have had no contact with that child for many years. A later relationship was characterised by family violence as evidenced by a number of entries in your criminal record.
34Your counsel described your employment record as abject, and your entire adult life as being blighted by drug use, poor mental health and incarceration. It is a pretty bleak picture.
35Dr Owens' report sets out some of the detail of the mental health concerns, diagnoses and treatment over the years. He refers to the earlier prepared court reports of Mr Cunningham and Ms Cidoni. It is clear enough that illegal drugs have been massively problematic for you, and they have on occasions at least, produced psychosis in the past. You also have, it would seem, abstained in prison from using your prescribed antidepressant medication. That was the position before your release and leading to this offending and is the position since you have been held on remand.
36You were released from custody on 5 June 2023, so only a matter of days before this offending, and you promptly resumed illegal drug use.
37I have mentioned that in the past there has been a diagnosis of drug induced psychosis. That was made as early as when you were 15 years of age and was also the view of Dr Cunningham at one point when he saw you back in 2012.
38Dr Owens thinks that you have a major personality disorder. He describes a delusional disorder which he believes is not explained by drug use as your strange persecutory mindset persists many months now post reception. That would not be expected to be the case in the absence of ongoing drug use, and I am told that you have abstained from illegal drugs though no evidence was placed before me as to that fact. You are evidently quite insightless and presently you do not see much point in treatment, it would seem. See paragraph 77 of that report.
39You do not presently believe there is any need to engage with mental health professionals or to take medication. You also have suffered and continue to suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder.
40The contribution of illegal drug use to your disordered thinking at the time of the offending is difficult to untangle from other contributing factors which might have a mitigatory value. Your counsel concedes that that is the position. See paragraph 17 and 4.1 of the outline.
41The prosecution argue that it is impossible to find to the required standard any realistic connection, and hence Limb 1 of that case I have mentioned, Verdins, is not enlivened here.
42You have a lengthy enough criminal history, and it is obviously of some relevance to my task. I will not set it all out, there is no point in me doing that, and the document will not alter. There are a number of appearances before the adult courts over the last decade for offences of differing levels of seriousness and you have breached a number of orders designed to keep you in the community and to foster your rehabilitation. There are a number of instances of violence offending disclosed in that criminal history. You have been confined on a number of occasions including for offences of violence – not just a number of summary assaults, there are three recklessly causing injury matters dealt with separately over the years. There are dishonesty, weapons, driving and family violence matters. Also the serious armed robberies dealt with back in 2012 which were addressed in Judge Howie's remarks marked as Exhibit 6.
43I have already mentioned that you had emerged from prison only days before this offence, in June 2023. Mr Pearson took me in some detail to the remand history to spell out the very limited periods where you have been out of custody over the last dozen or so years. I will not work my way through that material in my reasons. It is obviously the position that you have spent more time in custody than out, and of course whilst one is always concerned about the risk of institutionalisation, the fact is you continue to offend and at a level that can really be met with only one outcome and that is more prison.
44You do not fall to be sentenced a second time for any of these past matters in your criminal history. You received those sentences and served them. However, I have to make judgments as to your risk of offence and the extent of the need to deter you and protect the community from you. I have to make judgments as to your future prospects of rehabilitation and they are most definitely not rosy. Plainly, I must deter you and others and protect the community from you.
45I have dealt only quite briefly with your background, as I said I would. I have not covered every detail that has been placed before me or that is referred to in the lengthy report.
46An offender's circumstances and their experience during their childhood in their formative years must be considered in sentencing, not just out of some historical curiosity, but because the effects of social disadvantage do not diminish with time. They are likely to have profound and lasting consequences and they can sometimes explain, but not excuse, the offending. Taking lifelong damage that is the result of childhood exposure to violence, abuse or neglect into account when sentencing is really just the mark of a humane society.
47Mr Pearson made it plain that he was relying upon the principles derived from the High Court case of Bugmy[4]. These principles have been re-stated in a large number of cases since, including the case of Herrmann[5] in our Court of Appeal. He made it clear that he was relying upon those principles in the general fashion described in the case law and no issue was taken by the prosecution on that score. The application of these principles does not depend upon proof of any causal connection between the background and the offending. In fact a causal connection is very difficult to establish.
[4]Bugmy v The Queen [2013] HCA 37 (‘Bugmy’)
[5]DPP v Herrmann [2021] VSCA 160 (‘Herrmann’)
48I am left in no doubt at all that your background was disadvantaged. There was a level of dysfunction and instability in your developmental years. You were exposed to violence and the absence of positive role models in your formative years. Many things that most of us would take for granted simply did not exist in your early life. Yours was clearly a most unenviable background. I give it full weight in the way in which that phrase is employed in the case law, including Bugmy, Herrmann and Sabatucci[6] and discussed in cases such as Newton[7] and Dhal[8].
[6]Sabbatucci v The Queen [2021] VSCA 340
[7]Newton (a pseudonym) v The King [2023] VSCA 22
[8]Dhal v The King [2023] VSCA 289
49I take your background into account, as far as I am able to, including as giving rise to some reduction in your culpability. There can be a softening of some of the retributive and deterrent purposes of sentencing.
50The case law makes it clear enough though that social disadvantage will not attract the same weight in every case, or in the same fashion. The weight to be given to disadvantage will depend on the nature and the extent of that disadvantage, the nexus, if any, with the offending, though no causal link is required, and also the nature of the crime or crimes and the relative importance in a particular case of sentencing considerations, things such as deterrence, community protection and rehabilitation. See the case of Terrick[9]. Our backgrounds leave their mark and yours most certainly has. The reality is no one would choose such a background as you had and of course you had no say in it at all.
[9]DPP v Terrick [2009] VSCA 220
51You are now 32 years of age. This was a serious crime. Community protection and general and specific deterrence necessarily must have a large role to play in my task. There are limits to the application of these Bugmy principles – I apply them though to my task.
Guilty Plea
52I turn to some of the other matters raised on the plea. Firstly, the fact and the stage of your guilty plea. I will treat it as a plea at the earliest opportunity.
53You have taken this early responsibility for your crime by pleading guilty when you did. The summary jurisdiction application that was made in the Magistrates' Court was perhaps a silly distraction which was bound to fail but that does not fall at your feet or in any way affect the value of your guilty plea.
54You also told the police about the location of the box cutter and led them to it, and I take that into account in your favour.
55As a result of your guilty plea the time, cost and the effort of a committal hearing in the Magistrates' Court and a trial up in this court has all been avoided. No witnesses have been required to give evidence at all. Mr Bartlett has at least been spared that experience. You have in this fashion then facilitated the course of justice and you must be rewarded for doing so.
56Mr Pearson did not refer me to the case of Worboyes[10], however, the matter settled in September of last year at a stage when the backlog in this court was close to being brought under control. It had not, however, been entirely cleared and certainly no announcement had been made at that point that it had been cleared.
[10]Worboyes v The Queen [2021] VSCA 169 (‘Worboyes’)
57I have said recently in another case, and I say also in your case, that I believe we are now at a point where any future decision to plead guilty will not be met by any heightened sentencing benefit derived from the Court of Appeal decision of Worboyes. We have now moved beyond the global pandemic. Further, the pandemic backlog in this court has now actually been cleared. We are operating in this court at pre-pandemic levels, as the Chief Judge announced to the profession in October of last year. This case, though, settled just before that announcement.
58I take the view that it is appropriate to give some heightened benefit to your guilty plea in line with the principles derived from Worboyes. I do not believe that the case of Chalmers[11] referred to by the prosecutor says otherwise, as my brother judge in that case did not even decide the issue that had been flagged before him. So I will treat your guilty plea as worthy of some extra weight for the many reasons set out in that decision. I take these various matters into account in mitigation.
[11]DPP v Chalmers [2023] VSC 764 (“Chalmers”)
Remorse
59Mr Pearson recognised there were real difficulties in any acceptance of the presence of genuine remorse in this case, notwithstanding your early guilty plea.
60You still labour under some strange mindset as to your victim following you, though I am told that these thoughts are less powerful now. No doubt that mindset is a byproduct of your state of mental health, predominantly the delusional disorder referred to by Dr Owens. However, that is the reality. There is really no remorse on display in this case other than what might be implied from the early guilty plea. I am prepared to imply some minimal remorse and I take that into account.
Rehabilitation
61As to your rehabilitation, I see no need to beat about the bush. Mr Pearson does not pitch those prospects too high at all saying in his written outline that they are conditionally poor. You are a mature offender with a host of past appearances. You have been sent to prison on multiple occasions and yet you continue to use drugs of dependence and to offend, sometimes violently. You have breached court orders designed to foster your rehabilitation. You have virtually no remorse and still to this day harbour some belief that your victim had been following you. Your background was one of disadvantage but of course that will not change overnight.
62You have at least used your time wisely in prison and still have some family support, as is evidenced by your mother's attendance the other day and today.
63The delusional disorder which I will make some allowance for in a Verdins fashion, comes into sharp focus when I consider the aspect of community protection. You are a danger, as this offence surely demonstrates. I have no reason to think the sentence I will impose will have any great deterrent effect in your case. You abstain from using prescribed drugs and you use illegal drugs which disinhibit you and interact with, or contribute to, the underlying mental illness that exists. I have no reason to be particularly optimistic.
64Your counsel submitted really that you had some prospects – I do not doubt that, but I believe those prospects are presently poor. There is an obvious risk of future violent offending.
Dr Owens
65I have mentioned the report of Dr Owens and the related Justice Health documents filed on the plea. I will not set out all this material or even the submissions made to me. There is just no need. I have Dr Owens' opinion that you likely have a major personality disorder with problems in the domains of negative affectivity, dissociality and disinhibition. Also post-traumatic stress disorder and a substance use disorder. I said earlier you have previously been diagnosed more than once with a drug induced psychosis and Dr Owens says that that history, together with your ongoing drug use, places you at a higher risk of developing a more established psychotic illness such as a delusional disorder. Indeed, he says you had developed that disorder as at the time of the offence and still labour under it. He says it had a direct relationship with the offending. That disorder impacted upon your capacity for appropriate judgment and rational or calm decision-making.
66He makes it clear your insight is poor and ongoing drug use would make your illness more difficult to treat. He spells out the intensive treatment needs that exist in this case but is, for good reason, guarded as to your future prospects – so am I.
67Mr Pearson argued that two of the principles from the case of Verdins had some application here, namely, the first and the fifth limbs. He was not submitting that it was a straightforward business. He accepted that the use of drugs was hard to disentangle from the delusional disorder referred to. Nonetheless, the delusional disorder played its part. He submitted there was a causal connection, or at the very least, a realistic connection between the disorder and the commission of the crime required to enliven the first limb from that decision. Dr Owens' opinion supported the existence of a direct connection.
68This otherwise senseless and motiveless crime of violence had, at its heart, the persecutory mindset referred to. Your belief that your victim had been following you and was associated with corrupt police, led you to do what you did.
69The prosecution, whilst accepting the application of the fifth limb, disputed that the first limb from that case was engaged, referring as they did to disinhibition from drug use as well as the absence of any strong evidence of psychosis upon your time in custody on remand. It seems to me, though, that that rather ignores the quite bizarre nature of this crime itself, the turning back in anger and glaring at the man that you had just slashed, the man who had done nothing to you. It suggests some pretty strange workings in your mind.
70The Crown position also ignores the fact that you were still maintaining this mindset as of December when you spoke to Dr Ownes, and even today to a lesser extent. These things go against this being a drug-induced psychosis or someone merely acting in some disinhibited fashion owing to drug use. I observe it would represent a pretty extraordinary act in a disinhibited state and hints more of a compromised thought process to my way of thinking. Dr Owens says as much, and I act on that evidence.
71The fact of no report in the Justice Health file of observations of a disturbed mental state in the period of this remand attracting acute attention is not decisive on this score. Dr Owens says this sort of delusional disorder can go undetected and it not incompatible with the disorder existing, as I find it does, now and did at the time.
72So whilst recognising that disinhibition from drug use was likely to have had some role and that that sort of thing cannot be mitigatory, I do make some allowance for the first limb of Verdins owing to the existence of that delusional disorder. There is some reduction in culpability as you had the compromised mindset referred to. There would be no mitigation if this was merely a drug-induced psychosis. It is clear given the passage of time and the persecutory mindset being maintained to a degree, that that is not the position. I do also accept that your time in custody will be more onerous.
73What is plain though is that the condition which enlivens the Verdins allowances requires me also to give greater weight to community protection in my sentencing task. The danger that you represent with this delusional disorder can be seen in this crime itself; a random dangerous bladed attack upon a completely innocent and unsuspecting member of the public in a crowded public street by someone with close to 20 years of drug use under their belt, and someone who presently does not believe there is any great need for mental health treatment. Someone who has poor insight.
74Mr Pearson was explicit in disavowing any weight to be given to the other limbs from that decision of Verdins, so he conceded there was no basis to reduce the weight to be given to specific or general deterrence and no reason at all to think that prison is likely to lead to any significant deterioration in your condition such as to enliven the sixth limb. Only the reduction in culpability and the increased prison burden, and I do accept those submissions.
The Offence
75Let me turn then to the offence.
76The agreed summary describes your offending. There is no point repeating all the agreed facts, I have the footage after all. This was a serious instance of intentionally causing injury. The absence of some features of aggravation, for instance pre-planning or in company offending, must not obscure the many features of aggravation that do exist in this case - they virtually leap off the page. This was a totally unprovoked and completely random attack. It was not rational and it was dangerous, one where the victim was totally innocent, and not just that, totally unaware of any impending violence. It took place in a busy public place with people going about their business at 6 o'clock at night in the CBD. This attack might have been launched against any person that you came across. That is how random it was. We see many others crossing your path in the short footage which was played – they were lucky. Mr Bartlett was not. It was launched against him, Mr Bartlett, a person who had his back to you and he was attacked without any warning. You used a bladed implement, a box cutter, and slashed him across the neck or throat, an area with vital structures – it was a deep cut. The gaping wound captured in the photograph says it all. How unlucky was he, on one view, to come within your delusional world, and yet how lucky on another view of the facts not to have been far more seriously injured, or worse, killed.
77You cannot predict the outcome of that sort of strike or slash to that region with any precision or nicety. Though you were undoubtedly motivated by compromised thinking, it must not be forgotten you intended to cause injury. That is the charge I am dealing with you for, intentionally causing injury – not intentionally causing serious injury or recklessly causing serious injury. You succeeded in causing injury. You knew it was wrong. You knew it was criminal. You fled from the police and discarded the box cutter. You told the police you were sorry and that you knew what had happened. To your credit, you at least disclosed what you had done with the weapon.
78This crime has caused great impact upon Mr Bartlett. He will never forget this night. The physical scar will be with him forever, and of course it is not just the physical scar. He has been deeply emotionally impacted as well and lives a very different life at this point. There has been deep impact in this case.
79This crime was committed by a mature man with a long enough history before the courts, including for matters of violence, a man with an inability in the past to learn from past mistakes or to take chances offered by the courts. One who has seen the inside of a prison on numerous occasions but who upon release just keeps using illegal drugs and does really not pay regard to mental health issues – one who had been released from prison only days before this attack and yet was back on the illegal drugs and behaving violently with a weapon in a public place. I regard the offence as a serious instance of the crime of intentionally causing injury, and Mr Pearson did not say otherwise.
Purposes
80I have to consider a number of purposes of sentencing. Rehabilitation is one such purpose. I certainly do not ignore that purpose and I certainly do not say you have no prospects of rehabilitation, but your prospects, presently viewed at least, are poor.
81I must give appropriate weight to the other purposes of sentencing. I am required to punish you justly and proportionately. Punishment is an important sentencing purpose here. I must also denounce your conduct. Again, that is of importance. This really was outrageous, dangerous and brazen conduct, even allowing for the impact of your delusional thought processes. Even if thinking you had been followed, what a response to take to someone with a box cutter in the fashion that you did.
82Community protection is of real importance here, for obvious reasons. You are a repeat offender who within days of release has committed this serious crime. I spoke of the heightened role of community protection given the existence of the delusional condition I have made a Verdins allowance in relation to. What a danger you represent. I must protect the community from you. Community protection looms large in my task, though of course my response must be proportionate to the gravity of the crime.
83I have to give adequate weight to specific deterrence and general deterrence; they are each of obvious importance here. Specific deterrence relates to the need to deter you. Courts have tried to deter you in the past and have not succeeded. I must deter you from ever doing anything like this again – that is of obvious importance. General deterrence is of real importance as well given the nature of this crime involving as it did a completely unprovoked attack and the use of a blade in a public place. The use of a blade raises the stakes very considerably. We, as judges, must deter people from carrying and using bladed weapons. General deterrence relates to the need to deter other future offenders and it must be given weight in my task; it is an important matter despite my Bugmy allowances.
84This court must pass sentences which would cause those considering committing crimes such as yours to reflect and to re-consider their position. We seek to deter future like-minded offenders from senseless acts of violence.
85I have to pay regard to the impact of the crime and also the maximum penalty. I have already mentioned the impact has been large. I must pay regard to current sentencing practices, and I do. It is not a single controlling factor. I have looked at the statistical material on the Sentencing Advisory Council site for the crime of intentionally causing injury. Statistical material has inherent limitations. I have looked also at the Judicial College of Victoria online assortment of sentencing cases for intentionally causing injury, as well as the cases to which each side referred me to.
86I am sentencing you for your crime, for this instance of intentionally causing injury. That is not a mathematical or statistical task or one where the outcome in this case is somehow dictated by what had happened in those other cases or by average outcomes as disclosed in the statistics. A court must never impose a sentence more severe than that which is required to achieve the sentencing purposes. Prison is genuinely a disposition of last resort. It plainly is required here, there is no debate on that score, nor as to the fact that I will be required as a matter of law to fix a non-parole period. This was all conceded, and correctly so.
87I can make no assumptions as to your getting parole. That will be for the Adult Parole Board to determine. It has nothing to do with me. In fact, I am prohibited from considering the possibility of your early release. I work on the assumption that you will serve every day of the head sentence I will soon impose. Given the duration of the sentence soon to be imposed, I am required, as a matter of law, to fix a non-parole period.
Forfeiture Order
88There is an application for forfeiture of the items set out in the schedule attached to the forfeiture order. This application is made pursuant to the provisions of s33 of the Confiscations Act and there is no opposition to my making this order. I am satisfied of the matters I am required to be satisfied of under the relevant provisions. I order pursuant to those provisions that the property referred to in the schedule be forfeited to the Minister. I have signed that order and pronounced it in an abbreviated fashion.
89Mr Field, stand up now, if you would. I am sorry to have taken so long to get to this point.
Sentence
90On the charge of intentionally causing injury, I convict and sentence you to 5 years 3 months' imprisonment.
Non-Parole Period
91I fix a period of 4 years during which you will not be eligible for release on parole.
Section 18 Pre-Sentence Detention
92You have already served 347 days of this sentence by way of pre-sentence detention and that will be entered into the records of the court pursuant to s18 of the Sentencing Act.
6AAA
93I have told you I have taken into account your guilty plea and reduced your sentence accordingly. If you had pleaded not guilty and been found guilty of this offence following a trial before a jury, I would have convicted and sentenced you to six and a half years' imprisonment. I would have fixed a non-parole period of five years and three months in that setting.
Just grab a seat then for a moment, I will see if there is anything else. Mr Wilson, anything from your perspective?
94MR WILSON: Nothing further, thank you, Your Honour.
95HIS HONOUR: Mr Pearson, any other matters from your perspective?
96MR PEARSON: No, there is not, Your Honour. Thank you.
97HIS HONOUR: Will you go down and see your client ‑ ‑ ‑
98MR PEARSON: Yes, I will duck down briefly, Your Honour, yes, thank you.
99HIS HONOUR: Mr Pearson will come down and see you, Mr Field, and have a chat about what has occurred here today and your rights in relation to this sentence. I will revise these sentencing reasons once I get them back from VGRS. I typically do them on the day that I get them back, but it will take a few days. That completes the matter, then, so Mr Field can be removed now, thank you.
100OFFENDER: Thank you, Your Honour.
101HIS HONOUR: I have signed that order. I think I will say 10 o'clock tomorrow then, please.
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