Director of Public Prosecutions v Griffiths

[2020] VCC 1163

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

AT MELBOURNE
CRIMINAL JURISDICTION

CR 20-00549

DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROSECUTIONS

v

JORDAN GRIFFITHS

---

JUDGE:	HIS HONOUR JUDGE MASON
WHERE HELD:	Melbourne
DATE OF HEARING:	30 July & 3 August 2020
DATE OF SENTENCE:	3 August 2020
CASE MAY BE CITED AS:	DPP v Griffiths
MEDIUM NEUTRAL CITATION:	[2020] VCC 1163

REASONS FOR SENTENCE

---

Subject:Plea - sentencing

Catchwords:            Armed robbery - commit indictable offence whilst on bail

Legislation Cited:     Sentencing Act 1991

Cases Cited:

Sentence:200 days' imprisonment

---

APPEARANCES:	Counsel	Solicitors
For the Director of Public Prosecutions	Mr T. Crouch	Office of Public Prosecutions
For the Accused	Mr A. Malik	Valos Black & Associates

HIS HONOUR:

1Jordan Griffiths, you have pleaded guilty to one charge of armed robbery and one transferred summary charge of commit an indictable offence whilst on bail.

-Armed robbery carries a maximum penalty of 25 years' imprisonment. 

However, I note that you committed this offence in company with a co-offender. This makes it a Category 2 offence, which means that pursuant to s.5(2H) of the Sentencing Act 1991 I must impose a custodial sentence alone for this offence unless certain criteria apply. None of the matters of exception apply here.

-Committing an indictable offence whilst on bail carries a maximum penalty of three months' imprisonment or 30 penalty units.

2You were born on 31 March 2000 and are now 20 years old.  You were aged 19 at the time of the offending last year. 

3You have a criminal record, about which I will go into more detail later. 

4There is a co-offender in this matter, who was 17 years old at the time of offending.  He pleaded guilty in the Children's Court on 6 March 2020 and was sentenced to a six-month Youth Supervision Order.  The witness in this matter is the co-offender’s housemate who was travelling with you and the co-offender at the time of the offending.  He was then 18 years old. 

5The circumstances of the offending are set out in detail in the prosecution summary tendered as Exhibit A.  In basic summary, the events were as follows. 

6On 19 January 2020 the victim was travelling home after working a nightshift.  He left the Springvale railway station at 6.42 am. 

7After leaving the railway station the victim walked down Springvale Road.  You, your co-offender and the witness were walking nearby.

8You, Mr Griffiths, crossed the road by yourself and approached the victim on the median strip.  You began behaving aggressively towards him.  After some time your co-offender also approached.  One of you asked the victim if he had anything on him.  After he said that he did not, one of you said that you had seen his phone earlier and demanded that he give it to you.  The victim took out his wallet and showed it to you both.

9Your co-offender took out a pair of serrated scissors.  He asked you to “smash” the victim for not giving you his phone.  Your co-offender then started counting down from five in a threatening way.  The victim was scared and when your co-offender reached “one” the victim gave him his wallet.  He looked through the victim's wallet.

10While this was occurring you were pushing on the victim's shoulder in such a way that he could not run away.  You demanded that the victim give you his phone.  The victim refused to do so.  The victim asked the co-offender for his wallet back.  He did not give it back.  The two of you rejoined the witness and you all walked away towards a nearby Woolworths store.

11The victim called a friend, who picked him up in his car. 

12The victim's wallet contained $40 AUD, 600 Pakistani rupees and his house keys.  The wallet also contained the victim's credit card, bank card and identification documents.

13Police obtained closed circuit television footage which shows the events leading up to the robbery. 

14The three of you were arrested by police for armed robbery in the vicinity of a bus stop. 

15Police located two ID cards of the victim near a skip outside the nearby Woolworths, and located the victim's wallet and bank card by a park bench nearby.

16You were conveyed to Dandenong police station where you participated in a record of interview and stated: 

a)    you were born on 31 March 2000, are 19 years old and identify as Aboriginal;

b)    the co-accused wanted to bash or hurt someone and threatened to hurt you if you did not participate - you participated by walking up and grabbing the victim but did not hurt him because it was not the right thing to do;

c)    the co-accused threatened the victim with scissors and took his wallet and passed it to you;

d)    the co-accused wanted to go to Springvale and you just followed him because you had no one else to hang around with;

e)    while walking down the street in Springvale you both saw the victim walking;

f)     after grabbing the victim by the shirt you told the co-accused you would not continue the attack because the victim was a random person who did not deserve it - the co-accused then took out a pair of scissors;

g)    the co-accused threatened to hurt the victim if he did not give him his possessions and threatened him with scissors;

h)    the co-accused snatched the wallet from the victim's hand;

i)     after the robbery you all went towards Woolworths;

j)     there was no serrated knife, that would have been the co-accused's scissors;

k)    the victim probably would have been worried you were going to hurt him. 

17On 14 April 2020 you were committed for plea at the Magistrates' Court.

18I now turn to your personal circumstances. 

19As I noted earlier, you are now 20 years old, you were 19 at the time of this offending and you have a criminal record commencing with an appearance at the Proserpine Children's Court in 2013 at the age of 13 when you were “reprimanded” for three episodes of shoplifting, and later at age 17 when you were placed on a good behaviour bond for three months for committing a public nuisance.

20You appeared at the Proserpine Magistrates' Court on three occasions in 2017 for various theft, wilful damage and trespass offending, over which you were given a total of 120 hours of community service. 

21You then moved to Victoria where your criminal career has unfortunately continued, with two appearances - the first in the Ballarat Magistrates' Court in March 2019 when you were still just 18, where you were convicted and placed on a good behaviour bond for one year for theft and committing an indictable offence whilst on bail, to which you have also pleaded guilty in this current matter.

22Your second appearance was on 25 October 2019 in the Bail and Remand Court where, for violence and weapons offences, you were placed on a Community Correction Order for 12 months.  I note that this order recommended, amongst other treatment conditions, that you be considered for culturally specific programs and for programs to address violence, and that you were to report for judicial monitoring. 

23I further note that you committed the offending for which you are to be sentenced today less than three months after being given your Community Correction Order.

24Your personal history is set out more particularly in the psychological report from Ms Lechner, which is Exhibit 2. 

25In summary, your parents separated when you were five to six years old and you were exposed to family violence.  You and your mother moved to Queensland when you were around eight or nine to get away from your father. 

26You attended school until partway through Year 10.  You felt that your learning ability was below average and report being diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and Autism Spectrum Disorder.  You were a good football player at school and had hopes of resuming playing after completing this sentence. 

27You had some employment in fencing for a short time before moving from Queensland to Victoria in 2017.  You reconnected with your father and lived with him for about six to seven months; however he was abusive towards you and your siblings and used heroin, methamphetamine and cannabis on a regular basis.

28Between 2018 and 2020 you were homeless, living on the street and couch-surfing. 

29From age 16 to 17 you began to use marijuana and continued to use cannabis up to the time of your arrest, having smoked about 3.5 grams of cannabis on the day of offending.  You have also previously experimented with methamphetamines and ecstasy. 

30Part of your motivation for this offending was to obtain money to purchase cannabis.

31The report from Ms Carla Lechner, clinical psychologist, which was tendered on your plea, assessed you as having symptoms at the time of assessment consistent with a diagnosis of clinical depression, and your presentation at interview and reported history as being consistent with a dual diagnosis of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and Autism Spectrum Disorder.  Formal testing also indicated further cognitive challenges. 

32Ms Lechner also expressed concerns about you being able to manage in an adult prison environment, considering your psychosocial immaturity and other vulnerabilities.

33A psychiatric report was also obtained from Mr Martin Markus, a senior assessment clinician.  Mr Markus opined that although your schizophrenia diagnosis is based on a self-report, it was his impression that you currently present with low-grade symptoms of psychosis which are likely due to a chronic mental illness as opposed to drug-induced.  These symptoms appear to become exacerbated during times of psychosocial destabilisation and may result in an elevated risk of harm to yourself and others.

34The nature of this offending is obviously serious.  Armed robbery is a cause of great terror, and the production of a weapon has the potential to have dreadful consequences, albeit originally unintended.  Your offending was in company and in the very early hours of the morning when few people were present.  You initiated the physical act, and manhandled and threatened the victim.  These acts against what are regarded as soft targets in the public domain are to be strenuously discouraged.  Principles of general as well as specific deterrence are significant matters in sentencing considerations, notwithstanding your youth.

35Your offending was aggravated by the fact that you were on bail at the time of offending, as well as subject to the conditions of a Community Correction Order which had been imposed less than three months before the current offending.  That order had been imposed following offences also relating to violence.

36In mitigation, I have taken into account the submissions made by your counsel and the prosecution and I accept, in particular:

·     your plea of guilty and expressions of remorse,

·     your early plea of guilty,

·     your youth,

·     your disadvantaged early life,

·     your compromised mental health, and

·     the hardship you have experienced in custody and the more restrictive conditions that have been implemented as a result of the current pandemic.

37Strict principles of parity with your co-offender do not apply in your case because of the very different sentencing regimes which apply between adult and child offenders.  Nonetheless, in your case, where your co-offender is very close in age and you are still eligible yourself for a Youth Justice Order disposition, I consider it appropriate that your sentence should be moderated in the context of the sentence imposed upon your co-offender.

38Determination of the precise role you played is difficult because of conflict in the accounts given between you, the victim and the witness.  There is some consistency with parts of your account and that of the victim.  The account given by you in your record of interview was not challenged by the prosecution and was in fact incorporated into the prosecution statement of facts.  I accept that you did not produce the weapon, but otherwise initiated the contact and played a significant role in the offending.  You are also older than your co-offender.

39In the circumstances, any difference in role of offending is marginal.  I do not accept that there was sufficient evidence before me to accept your explanation that you were acting under duress from threats from your co- offender.

40Mr Griffiths, I will now pronounce your sentence. 

41On Charge 1 on the indictment of armed robbery, you are convicted and sentenced to 200 days' imprisonment. 

42On transferred Summary Charge 2 of commit an indictable offence whilst on bail, you are convicted and sentenced to 14 days' imprisonment. 

43I make no order for cumulation on the basis that this offence arose from the offending on Charge 1 and has otherwise been taken into account by me as an aggravating circumstance of the offending on that charge. 

44The total effective sentence is 200 days' imprisonment.

45Pursuant to s.18(4) of the Sentencing Act 1991 I declare that the period of
197 days, not including today, be reckoned as time already served under this sentence and I direct that the fact of this declaration and its details be noted in the records of the court.

46Pursuant to s.6AAA of the Sentencing Act 1991, but for your plea of guilty the sentence that would have been imposed is 18 months' imprisonment with a minimum period of 12 months to be served before eligibility for parole.

47Because the prosecution opening was not read in court I have not referred to - and I do not think it was referred to in the course of plea discussions - a disposal order that was sought.  That order is sought, I understand, Mr Crouch? 

48MR CROUCH:  Yes, the order is sought.

49HIS HONOUR:  Thank you, Mr Crouch.

50So the Crown is seeking an order for the disposal of the scissors and other items connected with the commission of the offending and I take it, Mr Malik, that you, on behalf of your client, do consent to the disposal order being made?

51MR MALIK:  Yes, Your Honour.

52HIS HONOUR:  So that being the case, that the application has been made and consent has been obtained, I will make that order today.  Are there any further matters from either counsel?

53MR MALIK:  No, thank you, Your Honour.

54MR CROUCH:  No, Your Honour.

55HIS HONOUR:  Thank you.  That concludes this matter.

- - -