Director of Public Prosecutions v Hall
[2023] VCC 1451
•16 August 2023
| IN THE COUNTY COURT OF VICTORIA | Revised Not Restricted Suitable for Publication |
AT MELBOURNE
CRIMINAL DIVISION
CR 23-00723
| DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROSECUTIONS |
| v |
| PETER HALL |
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JUDGE: | HIS HONOUR JUDGE DOYLE | |
WHERE HELD: | Melbourne | |
DATE OF HEARING: | 14 August 2023 | |
DATE OF SENTENCE: | 16 August 2023 | |
CASE MAY BE CITED AS: | DPP v Hall | |
MEDIUM NEUTRAL CITATION: | [2023] VCC 1451 | |
REASONS FOR SENTENCE
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Catchwords: Home invasion - reckless injury - car theft - entry in middle of the night – two occupants - three offenders - some pre planning - occupants assaulted - motor vehicle stolen- guilty plea - substantial criminal history - institutionalised offender.
Sentence: Total effective sentence of 5 years and 6 months imprisonment with a non- parole period of 3 years and 8 months.
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APPEARANCES: | Counsel | Solicitors |
| For the Director of Public Prosecutions | Mr C. Brydon | Office of Public Prosecutions |
| For the Accused | Ms M. Shanahan | Slades and Parsons Criminal Law |
HIS HONOUR:
1
Peter Hall, you have pleaded guilty to a charge of home invasion, a charge of recklessly causing injury, a charge of criminal damage, a charge of theft of keys and a charge of car theft. The maximum penalty for the home invasion is
25 years' imprisonment, for reckless injury five years' imprisonment, for theft
10 years' imprisonment. You have also pleaded guilty to the related summary offence of dealing with property suspected to be the proceeds of crime for which the maximum penalty is two years' imprisonment.
2 The facts of this matter are set out in the prosecution opening which was read in open court and tendered as an exhibit on the plea. You were 29 years old at the time of the offending and living in Bundoora. The victims in this matter are Christian Jones and Danielle Reading. Mr Jones and Ms Reading were living at Boldrewood Parade in Reservoir. They were in a relationship.
3 On 28 November 2022 you visited Mr Jones at that address. After about five minutes Ms Reading told you to leave because you were being too loud. As you were walking out you made a comment about the number of car keys that were hanging on hooks on the wall. You said, 'Look how many car keys you've got, you lucky bastard'. At that time Mr Jones and Ms Reading had four vehicles on the premises which they owned.
4 Around 2 am on 30 November 2022 you went back to the Boldrewood Parade address with two unknown offenders, a male and a female. You and the unknown male went to the front door. You knocked at the front door and yelled out, 'It's Pete'. Mr Jones recognised your voice and went to the front door. He opened the door and he could see you there. He unlocked the security door and he saw an unknown male squatting behind you with his face covered. You and the unknown male then forced your way into the address. At the time of entry, you intended to steal property from inside the house. This is the basis of Charge 1, home invasion.
5 The co-offenders followed you in. One of them struck Mr Jones over the head with an unknown object and he collapsed to the ground. The unknown male offender then yelled at Mr Jones, calling him a 'rapist dog'. He then struck Jones with a metal pole. Mr Jones suffered several puncture wounds to his ribs and under his arms. You are not charged in relation to that assault; however, whilst Mr Jones was incapacitated on the ground you struck him with a glass bong, causing three cuts to his head which ranged from 1.3 to 5 centimetres in length. This is the basis of Charge 2, recklessly causing injury.
6
Ms Reading was asleep in the main bedroom. She woke up on hearing
Mr Jones screaming for help. When she woke up, she saw the unknown female offender at the end of her bed looking through her belongings. She got up and pushed past the female. She saw Mr Jones lying on the lounge room floor. By this time, you were standing over Mr Jones with a baseball bat in your hand. The unknown male was standing near you with a shirt pulled over his face.
Ms Reading then kicked the female offender and jumped on top of her, trying to get her out of the house. You walked over to Ms Reading and grabbed her by the hair. You pulled her away from the female offender. You swung the baseball bat and struck Ms Reading's television on the wall, smashing the screen. This is the basis of Charge 3, criminal damage.
7 You asked Ms Reading where the money was in the house. Mr Jones managed to escape out the front door of the apartment. He ran down Boldrewood Parade and then entered a BP service station. He told the attendant there that someone had broken into his house. The attendant called Triple 0 and asked for an ambulance. You and the other offenders took the various sets of car keys off the hooks on the wall and left the property. You tried to steal the vehicles at the front of the property but you were not successful in starting them.
8 A witness named Matt Thomas was at a nearby address visiting a friend. He heard yelling and screaming coming from the Boldrewood Parade address. He approached the female co‑offender and told her to get out of the vehicle. The unknown male approached him and threatened him with a metal bar. You attempted to steal one of the vehicles but you could not get it started. You and the unknown co‑offenders then fled the scene, heading south down Boldrewood Parade, without any of the vehicles.
9
Police arrived at Boldrewood Parade at around 2.23 am. They left at around
4 am. Between 4 am and 8 am Mr Jones saw you loitering in an apartment block nearby. You had an argument with him about the offending. At around
8 am Mr Jones was taken to the Austin Hospital by ambulance. At 9.15 am you were still hanging around near the property. You still had the stolen car keys and you used those to enter Mr Jones' Holden Commodore and steal it. You were intercepted at 10.16 pm driving that vehicle which was damaged. When you were arrested an ANZ debit card in the name of
Jin Ping Lim was found inside the stolen car. This is the basis of the summary charge of dealing with property suspected to be the proceeds of crime.
10 You were interviewed by police on 1 December 2022. You gave a 'no comment' record of interview. You were arrested and remanded in custody in relation to these charges. You have been in custody ever since.
11 A victim impact statement was provided by Mr Jones. He says he has been left emotionally scarred by the offending. He says he often isolates himself to avoid triggering memories of your attack. His social circle has become smaller. He says he wakes up in the middle of the night and he struggles to fall asleep. He feels guilt that he was unable to stop you and the co‑offenders coming into the house. He feels he was unable to protect his partner. He feels guilty about running outside, leaving his partner inside, and this has been the source of arguments between them. He says the incident has shattered his sense of safety and security.
12 A victim impact statement was also tendered from Ms Reading which was read this afternoon. In that victim impact statement, she goes back through the details of the offence and says she is now afraid to answer the door to her home.
13 You indicated your intention to plead guilty to the charges on the indictment on 8 May 2023. This indication came after resolution discussions with the prosecution and a committal case conference. I regard this as an early plea of guilty. I am prepared to accept your plea is indicative of some remorse for the offending and indicates a willingness to facilitate the course of justice. You have spared the court and the prosecution the resources involved in running a trial and you have spared the victims the experience of having to come and give evidence about this offending. The utilitarian value of your plea is higher in the current environment where this court still faces a backlog of trials because of the suspension of trials during the pandemic. You must receive a palpable discount for your guilty plea.
14 You have a substantial and relevant criminal history. Your history covers a wide array of different offences and includes significant dishonesty offending and violent offending. You have received multiple sentences of imprisonment, including sentences with non‑parole periods. On my assessment of your criminal history, you received your first prison sentence in 2014 for handling stolen goods. In 2015 you were sentenced to 18 months' imprisonment, together with a community correction order to run for three years, for armed robbery and kidnapping. You breached that community correction order.
15 Further prison sentences were imposed in 2016 and in July 2017 the correction order was varied and you were placed on a further community correction order. You breached that order again and on 3 October 2017 you were finally sentenced to a period of imprisonment of four months concurrent with yet another prison sentence you had received in September 2017 for dishonesty, driving and assault offending. A further period of imprisonment was imposed on 14 December 2018 for a range of offences, mainly dishonesty.
16 Then on 30 July 2019 for aggravated carjacking, offensive weapon and other offences you were sentenced to three years and nine months' imprisonment with a non‑parole period of three years. The small gap in the parole period I think is explained by the minimum non‑parole period required for aggravated carjacking of three years. You were released on parole in May of last year. You were only on parole for six weeks. These offences occurred some six to seven months later.
17 You have offended for over a decade consistently and seriously. All attempts by the courts to assist you in rehabilitating via community-based dispositions and supervision have failed. You are not to be punished again for your prior convictions, but your history is relevant to your moral culpability, specific deterrence, community protection and, of course, to the assessment of your prospects of rehabilitation.
18 You are now 29 years old. You were brought up in the northern suburbs of Melbourne. Your father abused alcohol, committed crimes and received sentences of imprisonment in your early childhood. He was violent to your mother. When you were 13 years old you started using cannabis and drinking alcohol. You were using methylamphetamine by the time you were 15 years old. In your mid-teens you went to live with your father. He was still abusing alcohol and provided no behavioural boundaries or any emotional support to you. You report being subjected to violence at the hands of your father and his friends.
19 You returned to live with your mother when you were 16 years old. This was a positive change and you were able to significantly reduce your alcohol use. In January 2010 your cousin died in a motor vehicle accident along with others and a month later a close friend of yours died in a motorbike accident. You were affected by the deaths of your cousin and your friend and turned back to alcohol and drug use to cope. Soon you were reoffending, leading to the very substantial criminal history that I have described.
20 Your counsel, Ms Shanahan, in her detailed plea on your behalf pointed out that you have only had 27 months in the community since January 2014. You have otherwise been in prison. She submitted, and I accept, that the risk of institutionalisation has materialised in your case. As I observed earlier, you were released on parole in May last year. You were under supervision for a period of six weeks. You went to live with your sister in Wallan and gained employment as a roof tiler. However, you started to use GHB, and your sister decided you could no longer live with her, understandably.
21 Your drug use escalated and you were hospitalised in August 2022, presenting with behavioural disturbances because of acute drug intoxication. I have been provided with the discharge summary from Northern Health which confirms your admission and release on 2 September 2022. The offending occurred just months later and you have been in custody since then.
22
I have received a neuropsychological report written by Mr Martin Jackson back in 2019 for the criminal proceedings that resulted in your last sentence.
Mr Jackson reviewed your psychological and psychiatric history and referred to a report provided by a psychologist, Mr Michael Bilyk, dated 9 June 2012. At that time Mr Bilyk diagnosed you as suffering from a conductive disorder and symptoms of an antisocial personality disorder. Mr Jackson refers to a psychological report from July 2016 written by Mr Jeremy Parker, who formed the view that at that time you suffered from a mood disorder, best described as a persistent depressive disorder, which emanated from your experience of family violence during childhood, your father's alcoholism, your mother's drug use, and the tragic deaths of your cousin and a family friend in 2010.
23 In Mr Jackson's report it is noted you have a borderline full-scale IQ of just 70. You are described generally as having a conduct disorder, an antisocial personality disorder, a post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety disorder and a persistent depressive disorder. Mr Jackson referred to a mild traumatic brain injury, but there is no evidence that you suffer an acquired brain injury.
24 I accept that your personal upbringing, as described in Ms Shanahan's submissions and in the psychological material, did involve deprivation. You were exposed to family violence and your father was obviously a negative role model. You are, of course, the product of your formative influences and in your case your upbringing has plainly contributed to your drug addiction and ongoing criminality. I accept this is a factor which reduces to an extent your moral culpability. On the other hand, you have become a person who is entrenched in drug use and criminality and the factors referred to in your upbringing are, it seems to me, impediments to successful rehabilitation.
25 Similarly, your mental health issues, although they are part of the background against which I must assess your moral culpability, are also obstacles to your rehabilitation. Having regard to your entrenched criminality and the gravity of this offending I assess your prospects of rehabilitation as poor to guarded.
26 Home invasion is an inherently serious offence as reflected by the maximum penalty of 25 years. It is also a category 2 offence which means I must impose a sentence of imprisonment unless one of the stipulated statutory exceptions is satisfied. There is no submission in this case, and nor could there be, that anything other than a substantial prison sentence is appropriate.
27 Offending such as this is terrifying to victims and has a long-term impact on the sense of safety and security which they are entitled to feel inside their homes. It is clear from the two victim impact statements that this has been the effect on Mr Jones and Ms Reading which I must take into account in deciding the sentence.
28 This was an entry into a residential home by three offenders at 2 am in the morning. There must have been some planning involved. You recruited two co‑offenders to help you enter the address of the victims, their home. The plan was to steal their cars. You had observed the car keys on the hooks just a few days earlier. I do not conclude that you planned the offending over two days, but it is obvious there was some preplanning. For example, you had to recruit the co‑offenders and then organise yourselves to attend in the middle of the night, a time selected no doubt to maximise the vulnerability of the victims who one would have expected to be asleep. Indeed, Ms Reading was asleep and particularly vulnerable. The objective gravity of the offending is clearly substantial.
29 It was entirely predictable that to further your aim of stealing the car keys, and then the cars, which was your intent at entry, some violence would take place, which it did. During the violence, you smashed the victims' television to quell their resistance.
30 You are not to be punished for the assault of the co‑offender against Mr Jones, but a serious aspect of that offence of reckless injury is that you assaulted Mr Jones while he was incapacitated on the ground because of your co‑offender's assault which you witnessed. There was no real threat and yet you hit him with the glass bong causing an injury.
31 You committed the car theft some hours later. Having been chased away from the property you loitered around until the next morning. When Mr Jones had been taken to hospital you took that opportunity to steal the car. You were not chastened or deterred by the confrontation at the residence some hours earlier. This was a violent incursion into a residential home in the middle of the night. It was deliberate, planned and persistent offending for which your moral culpability is significant even though reduced moderately by your background of deprivation.
32 As to the offence of being in possession of property reasonably suspected of being the proceeds of crime, that seems to me indicative of your ongoing criminality, but does not add greatly to the criminality of this offending and I propose to impose a short concurrent sentence in relation to that offence.
33 Both counsel in this matter submitted that the only available disposition was a significant sentence of imprisonment with a non‑parole period.
34 Ms Shanahan, on your behalf, submitted that it is clear you need extensive supervision and support in the community if you are to rehabilitate. I accept the force of this submission. She submitted I should impose a non‑parole period which allows for a reasonably significant period of supervision. She submitted that the period of six weeks on parole at the end of your last significant sentence was insufficient to provide any meaningful assistance.
35 Mr Brydon for the prosecution submitted that given your criminal history, and given the objective gravity of this offending, sentencing considerations of general and specific deterrence and denunciation must be given emphasis. He also submitted that in your case your criminal history involves persistent and serious offending and that community protection assumes considerable importance in deciding the appropriate sentence. He submitted any non‑parole period must be consistent with the need for community protection and should not erode general and specific deterrence.
36 The prosecution provided me with a table of comparable cases which were discussed on the plea. I have had regard to those cases as indicative of current sentencing practices which are a guide and one of the many matters to consider in deciding the appropriate sentence. Of course, no two cases are the same, either in relation to the facts of the offence or the circumstances of the offender, and what is required is individual justice to your case.
37 The totality principle means that the total effective sentence imposed must reflect the overall criminality of your offending. In this case where the offences are part of a series of related offences occurring close in time substantial concurrency between the charges is required. However, there is a need for some cumulation to reflect the separate incidents of criminal conduct covered by the charges. In particular, the offence of recklessly causing injury and car theft strike me as deserving of some not insignificant period of cumulation in the circumstances of this case.
38 In sentencing you I must have regard to general deterrence. The sentence I impose must send a message to individuals inclined to offend in this fashion that significant punishment will be the result if they are convicted. Given your history there is also a need to send a message to you that if you continue to commit serious crimes the result will be lengthy periods of imprisonment. Further, simply protecting the community from your offending is also a consideration that must be emphasised. I must also denounce your offending and impose just punishment. Whilst you do not have particularly positive prospects of rehabilitation, I must attempt to facilitate your rehabilitation as far as is possible in the circumstances.
39 In this case I have fixed a period that allows for a relatively extended period of supervision in the event the Parole Board grants you parole. Of course, the non‑parole period must be in line with the objective gravity of the offence. It is the minimum period that justice requires you serve before becoming eligible for release on parole.
40 I am about to sentence you now, Mr Hall. In relation to Charge 1 of home invasion you are convicted and sentenced to four years' imprisonment. In relation to Charge 2 of recklessly causing injury you are convicted and sentenced to 16 months' imprisonment. In relation to Charge 3 of criminal damage you are convicted and sentenced to eight months' imprisonment. In relation to Charge 4 of theft relating to the keys you are convicted and sentenced to three months' imprisonment. In relation to Charge 5 of car theft you are convicted and sentenced to 10 months' imprisonment. In relation to dealing with the proceeds of crime reasonably suspected you are convicted and sentenced to two months' imprisonment.
41 I order the following periods of cumulation on the base sentence for the home invasion, Charge 1, and on each other as follows: recklessly causing injury eight months cumulation - that is Charge 2, Charge 3 of criminal damage four months cumulation, and Charge 5 six months cumulation, making a total effective sentence of five years and six months. I fix a minimum non‑parole period of three years and eight months.
42 Pursuant to s6AAA I indicate that but for your plea of guilty I would have imposed a total effective sentence of seven years and six months' imprisonment, with five years and six months minimum non‑parole period.
43 On the charge of car theft any licence you hold is cancelled and you are disqualified from obtaining a further licence for a period of 12 months.
44 I think pre‑sentence detention is 252, is that right?
45 COUNSEL: Yes.
46 HIS HONOUR: I allow 252 days of pre‑sentence detention to be deducted from the sentence that I have imposed. As indicated earlier I make the disposal order sought. Any clarification required?
47 MS SHANAHAN: No, Your Honour.
48 MS BYRNE: No, Your Honour.
49
HIS HONOUR: All right. Do you want the link left open so you can talk to
Mr Hall?
50 MS SHANAHAN: Yes, I will. Thank you, Your Honour.
51 HIS HONOUR: Yes, I'll leave the link open, Mr Hall, so Ms Shanahan can talk to you. Thanks, Ms Shanahan. Thanks Ms Byrne.
52 MS BYRNE: Thank you, Your Honour.
53 HIS HONOUR: I'll adjourn.
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