Director of Public Prosecutions v Guy
[2019] VCC 1656
•11 October 2019
| IN THE COUNTY COURT OF VICTORIA AT MELBOURNE CRIMINAL DIVISION | Revised Not Restricted Suitable for Publication |
Case No. CR-16-01601
| DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROSECUTIONS |
| v |
| STEVEN GUY |
---
JUDGE: | HIS HONOUR JUDGE C. RYAN | |
WHERE HELD: | Melbourne | |
DATE OF HEARING: | 26 September 2019 | |
DATE OF SENTENCE: | 11 October 2019 | |
CASE MAY BE CITED AS: | DPP v Guy | |
MEDIUM NEUTRAL CITATION: | [2019] VCC 1656 | |
REASONS FOR SENTENCE
---
Subject: CRIMINAL LAW
Catchwords: Sentence – Contravention of Community Correction Order – False imprisonment – Intentionally cause injury – Contravention proven – Re-sentenced on original charges.
Legislation Cited: Sentencing Act 1991
Cases cited: DPP v Guy [2018] VCC 587
Sentence: 4 years’ imprisonment with a non-parole period of 2 years and 9 months imprisonment; 743 days pre-sentence detention; 6AAA declaration: 6 years imprisonment with a non-parole period of 4 years imprisonment.
---
APPEARANCES: | Counsel | Solicitors |
| For the DPP | Mr W. Drent | Solicitor for the Director of Public Prosecutions |
| For the Accused | Mr D. Cronin | Papa Hughes Lawyers |
HIS HONOUR:
1 Steven Guy, on 26 September 2019, you came before me in respect of a prosecution for contravention of a Community Correction Order that you were placed on as part of the sentence imposed on you by her Honour Judge Cotterell on 27 April 2018 [2018] VCC 587. I annex her Honour Judge Cotterell’s sentencing remarks to my Reasons for Sentence.
2 In her reasons for sentence her Honour Judge Cotterell took into account a number of matters and made findings that I must take into account in the exercise of my sentencing discretion. In particular her Honour noted the disadvantage that you have suffered throughout your life since childhood including your limited education. Her Honour moderated the application of the principles of general deterrence and specific deterrence owing to your mental illness. Further, she found that your mental condition may result in any sentence weighing more heavily on you than on a person of normal health. Her Honour found that the psychotic state in which you committed the offences arose from your then undiagnosed schizophrenia, but could not quantify the extent that your abuse of methyl-amphetamine contributed to your psychotic state. Additionally, her Honour found that you had expressed empathy and remorse in respect to your victim.
3
In respect to Charge 1 of false imprisonment and one charge of intentionally cause injury, her Honour sentenced you to 729 days’ imprisonment and declared 624 days as time served by you as pre-sentence detention.
In addition, she released you on a Community Correction Order for a period of three years with conditions. In short, you were sentenced to two years’ imprisonment and, at the time of sentence, had a further 105 days to serve before you would be at liberty and subject to the Community Correction Order imposed on you. Through your counsel, Mr Cronin, you admitted your contravention of the Community Correction Order.
4 The prosecution relied on a report from the Department of Justice and Regulation dated 17 October 2018 authored by Timothy O’Donoghue, Advanced Case Manager, and Kirra Dickie, Court Assessment and Prosecution Services. Their joint recommendation was that your Community Correction Order be cancelled and that you be resentenced for your original offending.
5 In short, you commenced your Community Correction Order upon release from prison on 9 August 2018. Between 9 August 2018 and 8 September 2018, you attended a number of appointments in respect to your mental health and drug treatment. However, on 4 September, you were subject to a urine test that returned positive results for amphetamines, methyl-amphetamine, cannabis, Methadone and Buprenorphine. It would appear that as a result of becoming aware of the urine analysis results, you ceased any contact with Community Corrections.
6 On 30 October 2018, a charge and warrant was issued in respect of your contravention. On 20 November 2018, you failed to attend a scheduled judicial monitoring hearing and, on 15 July 2019, the warrant was executed on you. Your Community Correction Order is due to expire on 9 August 2021.
7 I will not repeat the matters set out in her Honour Judge Cotterell’s Reasons for Sentence that relate to your background and the circumstances of your offending save to say, on my assessment of your offending, it represents serious examples of the offences of false imprisonment and intentionally causing injury. Additionally, at the time of your plea hearing before her Honour Judge Cotterell, you admitted your prior criminal history which contains convictions for contravention of Family Violence Intervention Orders, offences of violence, dishonesty offences and robbery, dating from June 2007, when you were aged approximately 27, until October 2017.
8 Despite living in the Mordialloc region after your release from prison, you travelled on a daily basis to Ascot Vale to meet with a person who was described by your counsel as a friend, Sarah Duggan. You commenced a relationship with Sarah Duggan, and the two of you abused methyl-amphetamine together. Sarah Duggan worked as a prostitute from her home in Ascot Vale, and it appears that you resided with her and acted as security for her whilst she serviced her clients.
9 After a period of approximately four months, you stopped using methyl-amphetamine and commenced to use heroin and, until very recently, were still residing at Ascot Vale.
10 I was informed that in recent weeks you have obtained accommodation in Mordialloc and have expressed a desire to clean-up your life.
11 During your time living with Sarah Duggan in Ascot Vale, her home was subject to a number of home invasions during which you suffered injuries by being struck to the head on one occasion and being stabbed in the leg on another.
12 Sarah Duggan was delivered of a child three weeks ago. The child’s name is Misty Rose. Because of Sarah Duggan’s long-standing history of drug abuse, the Department of Human Services are involved in the current and future care of the child Misty Rose.
13 You are not the father of Misty Rose. However, you express a desire to be involved in her upbringing. You will have little or nothing to do with the child’s upbringing until Sarah Duggan’s difficulties with drugs have been resolved and she is determined to be a person suitable to have the care of a young child, and the same will apply to you.
14 Sarah Duggan is presently in Odyssey House, and I was told that she had a history of clean urine analyses for a period of three months prior to the birth of her child.
15 As previously mentioned, you have recently obtained accommodation with a friend in Mordialloc and, as recently as two days prior to your contravention hearing, you consulted a medical practitioner in Frankston to obtain a script for Methadone.
16 Whilst living in Ascot Vale some five months ago, you were prescribed Seroquel by a medical practitioner, as well as Diazepam.
17 As you had spent two years in custody pursuant to her Honour Judge Cotterell’s sentence, Centrelink stopped your pension payments and you were not in receipt of any benefits until May of this year.
18 Mr Cronin of counsel made reference to the reports that were relied on during your initial plea hearing, being the reports of: Alison Mynard, clinical psychologist, dated 22 October 2017; Dr Adam Deakin, consultant psychiatrist with the Victorian Institute of Forensic Mental Health dated 22 December 2017; and Ian Mackinnon, forensic and consultant psychologist, dated 11 July 2014.
19 Dr Adam Deakin opined that your mental state was clearly characterised by an active psychotic process at the time of the commission of your offending for which you were sentenced by her Honour Judge Cotterell. Further, Dr Deakin opined that your mental health had substantially improved whilst you had been in prison and that you appeared to be drug-free in respect of illicit substances, but had been prescribed a combination of psychotic and antidepressant medication and, as a consequence, your psychotic symptoms had partly moderated.
20 You have a long history of polysubstance abuse and suffer from psychotic episodes involving delusional beliefs, which may arise from an endogenous psychiatric illness or the consequences of your abuse of methylamphetamine.
21 In my view, you have failed miserably to comply with the Community Correction Order imposed on you by her Honour Judge Cotterell which, in my opinion, was designed to be principally therapeutic in nature crafted to assist you in overcoming your drug addiction and to treat you for your psychiatric illness. Once you ceased any contact with Community Corrections, you ceased taking all antipsychotic medication and engaged in the abuse of methylamphetamine, which could only have exacerbated your psychiatric illness. To some extent, this conduct was mitigated by you abstaining from methylamphetamine and taking on the abuse of heroin. However, this does not in any way auger well for your rehabilitation, the prospects of which must be regarded as poor.
22 In my opinion, the assessment made by the Corrections officers is an entirely appropriate one based on their understanding of your history, and now my understanding of your history and conduct since you ceased contact with Community Corrections.
23 Accordingly, in my opinion, your Community Correction Order should be cancelled and you should be resentenced for your original offending.
24
I must take into account your plea of guilty before her Honour Judge Cotterell and what flows from that plea, being that it is some evidence of remorse and that it had utilitarian benefit. Further, I must take into account your admission that you contravened the Community Correction Order. In addition, I take into account all of the matters set out by way of your offending and background,
as set out in the Reasons for Sentence of her Honour Judge Cotterell, as well as the contents of the reports to which I have already referred.
25 The maximum penalty for false imprisonment is 10 years’ imprisonment, as is the maximum penalty for intentionally causing injury. As I indicated earlier in these remarks, I regard your offending as serious examples of offending of their kind. The maximum penalty for contravening a Community Correction Order is 3 months’ imprisonment. Will you please stand?
26 By this Sentence, I must punish you, publicly denounce your conduct, and deter you and others from committing these types of crimes. Taking into account the circumstances of your offending and their effects, your personal circumstances and antecedents, endeavouring to produce a sentence that reflects and promotes the purposes of sentencing in a manner appropriate to you and your offending, I sentence you as follows.
27 For the contravention of a Community Correction Order, one month's imprisonment.
28 On Charge 1 on the indictment, three years' imprisonment.
29 On Charge 2 on the indictment, two years' imprisonment.
30 I order that 12 months of the sentence imposed on Charge 2 be served cumulatively upon the sentence imposed on Charge 1.
31
This results in a total effective sentence of four years' imprisonment, and
I fix a period of two years and nine months' imprisonment as the period of imprisonment that you must serve before you will become eligible for parole.
32 I declare that you have spent 743 days by way of pre-sentence detention, not including today.
33 Pursuant to s.6AAA of the Sentencing Act 1991, I declare that but for your plea of guilty, I would have sentenced you to six years' imprisonment with a non-parole period of four years' imprisonment.
34 Are there any matters that arise, gentlemen?
35 COUNSEL: No, Your Honour.
36 HIS HONOUR: Thank you. Remove the prisoner, please. I will stand down and await the jury's verdict.
- - -
0
0
1