Director of Public Prosecutions v Hodge

[2016] VCC 1608

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

AT BALLARAT
CRIMINAL JURISDICTION

CR 16-01564

DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROSECUTIONS

v

SHARNTELLE HODGE

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JUDGE:	HER HONOUR JUDGE GAYNOR
WHERE HELD:	Ballarat
DATE OF HEARING:
DATE OF SENTENCE:	1 November 2016
CASE MAY BE CITED AS:	DPP v Hodge
MEDIUM NEUTRAL CITATION:	[2016] VCC 1608

REASONS FOR SENTENCE
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Subject:
Catchwords:
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Cases Cited:
Sentence:

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

HER HONOUR:

1Sharntelle Hodge, you have pleaded guilty before me to one charge of attempting to pervert the course of justice.  The facts underlying your offending are as follows.  Your long time partner and the father of your children was placed on a community corrections order for driving whilst disqualified.

2On 5 August 2015, he went to the Bacchus Marsh football oval to undertake a community corrections program in breach of which and with incredible stupidity he drove his car in direct defiance of the community corrections order which is not to commit another offence punishable by imprisonment.

3Unsurprisingly, this was noted by the Corrections Field Officer, Mr Perkins.  When the program was finished, Mr Davis drove his car along the Western Highway where he was involved in a car accident running into the back of a stationary car giving way to traffic driven by Jasvir Kaur. Mr Davis and Ms Kaur drove their vehicles off the side of the road to exchange details, immediately following which Mr Davis made three telephone calls to you.

4You then called a friend, Sara Evans, to ask her to look after your children, explaining that Mr Davis had been in an accident.  Davis called you again and then at about 4.45 pm - the accident occurred at about 4.20 pm - you drove to the scene of the accident in your car. 

5You and Davis had a conversation while Ms Kaur was still in her car and you approached her car taking photographs of the registration using a camera on your mobile phone.  You then approached the driver's door of Ms Kaur's vehicle and spoke to her, asking her what had happened and while this was going on, Mr Davis opened Ms Kaur's front passenger door and took her purse from the seat, it containing her Victorian driver's licence and $300 in cash.

6He put the purse on the top of Ms Kaur's motor vehicle, taking out her driver's licence and photographing it.  At this stage, Ms Kaur heard you yell to Mr Davis, "Scott, don't do this.  Leave it, leave it".  Ms Kaur got out of her car and took a photograph of Mr Davis's car and after taking the photograph of her licence,
Mr Davis returned it to her purse which he threw back through the passenger side window.

7Kaur fled the scene at about 4.50 pm fearing for her safety because of
Mr Davis's attitude towards her. She stopped at a nearby Shell Service Station and noticed the $300 had been removed from her purse. She then reported the incident immediately to the Ballarat Police Station.

8During the incident, Ms Kaur was in regular telephone contact with her husband, as well as her employer, Peter Burton.  In her statement to police, she said that Mr Davis scared her, made her feel intimidated and afraid for her safety.

9At about 9 pm that evening, two police officers attended your home and arrested Mr Davis who was taken to the Ballarat Police Station and interviewed.  In his record of interview Mr Davis told police that you had driven him to his community work and that at the time of the collision you were driving.  He said the collision occurred because Ms Kaur failed to stop at the "give way" sign at the intersection, putting her in danger of oncoming traffic and rapidly reversed her vehicle colliding with the car driven by you.

10He said that she refused to provide her personal details and did not have a Victorian driver's licence.  That he saw her driver's licence in her car, took it out and photographed it.  He said he saw money in her purse but did not take it.  He also told police that you had left your mobile phone with his mother, Joanne Davis and said that when he rang your phone, he was in fact speaking to his mother where he arranged for her to pick him up from the collision so he could comply with the signing requirements of his CCO.

11He said his mother picked him up from the collision and he left in his motor vehicle which was then driven by his mother while you left in your car which had been dropped off by his own mother.

12On 6 August 2015, you attended the Ballarat Police Station where you were interviewed and provided details in that interview directly supporting the version of events given by Mr Davis, primarily that you were the driver of the vehicle and that at no stage was Mr Davis driving.

13Ultimately police checked the version of events supplied by Ms Kaur, her employer and Mr Perkins, the Community Corrections Officer who saw Mr Davis driving to and from his community correction program.  They also checked with your friend, Ms Evans, about your phone call to her requesting her to care for your two children as Mr Davis had been involved in a car accident.

14This matter proceeded fairly swiftly and resolved on 2 September and resolved on 2 September 2016 where you entered a plea in a further committal mention on 8 September 2016, the committal thereby proceeding by way of straight hand‑up‑brief.

15I now turn to your personal circumstances.  You are 30 years of age and have no prior convictions.  You met Mr Davis, who is your partner and the father of your two children who are now aged 7 and 4, when you were 19 and the two of you bought a house in Broomfield upon which you have a $400,000 mortgage.  You undertook an office administrative traineeship between the ages of 16 to 18, worked in Melbourne for Swan Insurance for five years, then worked as a receptionist with Seek Accounting Services which you began in 2010, and you currently do bookkeeping on a part time basis for a fruit and vegetable wholesaler in Ballarat.

16The problem seems to have arisen when your partner, Mr Davis, lost his licence as he is the proprietor of a concreting business.  It would appear that his licence is extremely important to his employment and his employment is extremely important to your family, he being the main breadwinner.  It would seem that there was a great deal of pressure and panic on your part when you received a phone call from Mr Davis about the accident that he had and this led to your decision ultimately to support his version of events.

17I received two references, one being from your former employer, Ms Suzanne Forte of Seek Accounting Services and another from your friend Beth Campbell.  Both of them speak of your honest and hardworking nature.  I accept that this offending is very much out of character for you.

18The prosecution submitted that I should deal with you by way of a community corrections order pointing to the seriousness of the offending, the amount of false detail that you gave to police and therefore submitting that the seriousness of this offending, (although this offending was conceded not to be at the higher end of the range of seriousness), was in and of itself of sufficient gravity to warrant that more punitive response although at no stage was a gaol sentence ever sought.

19You need to understand, Ms Hodge, that perverting the course of justice or attempting to pervert the course of justice is one of the more serious criminal offences a court deals with.  The seriousness of it is marked by the maximum penalty, 25 years, which is one of the highest maximum penalties imposed for any crime.

20Perversion of the course of justice or attempts to pervert the course of justice have the potential to completely undermine the criminal justice system and it is regarded very seriously indeed by the courts.  Had I not been satisfied that you are a person of good character, that there were particular circumstances of pressure surrounding your offending and that this offending was very much out of character to the person I am satisfied you normally are, I would not have hesitated to place you on a community corrections order and make you undertake unpaid community work.

21However in my view, clearly you do not require any rehabilitative measures.  You are entitled, given your early plea of guilty and your unblemished record, to be given an opportunity to avoid that more serious penalty but you need to understand that what you did was extremely grave and that unlike most first offenders, you have not just gone to the Magistrates' Court, you have ended up before the County Court.

22So I have decided in the circumstances that I will place you on an undertaking to be of good behaviour but a conviction will be recorded, and it is not a nice conviction. You will have a conviction for having appeared before the County Court so if you ever get in trouble again with the law, this will appear on your record. Whilst I am satisfied that the likelihood of you re-offending is extremely low, you need to bear that in mind.

23In all the circumstances therefore, I am going to place you on an undertaking to be of good behaviour for a period of 12 months.  We will prepare the documentation.  Pursuant to s.6AAA, I declare that had you not pleaded guilty, I would have placed you on a community corrections order for a period of 18 months and ordered a large number of work hours.  Thank you.

24Can you stand up please. The undertaking goes for 12 months and if you commit any offence in the next 12 months, you will be brought back in front of me and I will re-sentence you on this, do you understand?

25OFFENDER:  Yes, Your Honour.

26HER HONOUR:  So you must not commit any offence.  You must be of good behaviour for the next 12 months.  All right.

27OFFENDER:  Yes, Your Honour.

28HER HONOUR:  Thank you, we will get you to sign this please.

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