Director of Public Prosecutions v Hodgson
[2019] VCC 2026
•28 April 2015
| IN THE COUNTY COURT OF VICTORIA | Revised (Not) Restricted Suitable for Publication |
AT MELBOURNE
CRIMINAL DIVISION
Case No.CR-14-02031
| DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROSECUTIONS |
| v |
| SHANE HODGSON |
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JUDGE: | HIS HONOUR JUDGE BOURKE | |
WHERE HELD: | Melbourne | |
DATE OF HEARING: | ||
DATE OF SENTENCE: | 28 April 2015 | |
CASE MAY BE CITED AS: | DPP v Hodgson | |
MEDIUM NEUTRAL CITATION: | [2019] VCC 2026 | |
REASONS FOR SENTENCE
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APPEARANCES: | Counsel | Solicitors |
| For the Director of Public Prosecutions | Ms M. Mahady | |
| For the Accused | Ms J. Smith |
HIS HONOUR
1 Shane Hodgson, you are to be sentenced for one charge of armed robbery and one charge of being a prohibited person in the possession of a firearm. The maximum sentences are 25 years' imprisonment for armed robbery, and 10 years' imprisonment for being a prohibited person in possession of a firearm.
2 You pleaded guilty in this court but not before me on 4 February 2015. When interviewed by police on 7 March 2014 you did not make admissions. However the history of proceedings against you need to be considered in a broader context.
3 On 18 December 2014 I sentenced you for other but I would find related matters. On 29 January 2015 I sentenced your co-offender Neil Harris on this armed robbery and other serious offences. In my 18 December sentence of you I stated as follows in respect of the history of proceedings against you, unfortunately it is necessary to quote a large section.
"The history of proceedings against you, Shane Hodgson is somewhat complicated. When interviewed by police about the May 2013 offences on 25 to 26 May 2013, you denied most of the offending. You also denied offending upon which you were later discharged at committal. You were committed on these offences in December 2013 after a hand-up brief and you entered a plea of guilty. After a contested committal as to other matters, you were discharged on those including armed robbery. You had been in remand custody between 25 May and 7 November when you were granted bail at a committal mention. That is a period of 167 days, approximately five and a half months of pre-sentence detention related only to the May offending."
4 I should go back and say that the offending charged on the second Indictment 14009529.1 was committed during the period late January to early March 2014. I return to my narrative of the history of proceedings.
"You, Hodgson, pleaded guilty before me on 10 May and there was a plea hearing. The matter was then adjourned for sentence for further hearing. As stated you committed the offences on the second indictment during late January to early March 2014. You were arrested, interviewed and then remanded in custody on 6 March 2014."
5 I note Ms Mahady, I am moving out of the quotation that the interview is taken to be 7 March in this proceeding, I do not think that matters much.
"You have remained so until today, that is a period of 287 days, about nine and a half months related to the January to March offences now before me. When interviewed by police on the day of arrest, 6 March, and later in custody on 24 April, you made denials and also exercised your right to silence. Committal went by hand-up brief on these charges in July. You have been charged with other offences related to the January-March period. You do not admit those and as I understand there was a contested committal listed for
18 November. These matters were the subject of submission to me towards the end of your plea hearing. In April to July of this year the plea before me that is related to the first offending in May 2013 was further adjourned several times. The purpose was to attempt resolution of the later charges and have those also heard and sentenced by me. This resulted in you pleading guilty before me on 21 October to 12 charges on the second indictment. Plea hearings ran on that day and on 11 November."
6 There were then further delays which do not need particular explanation here.
7 In short, these offences before me today were committed by you in the January to March 2014 period referred to as the subject of that second indictment. This armed robbery was a subject of the committal proceedings listed for 18 November at which the man Sharp was going to give evidence. This was together with other very serous offending involving allegations of shooting and injuring a man in Kilsyth. After that committal you made offers to plead to this armed robbery upon withdrawal of the shooting charges.
8 Eventually in early February 2015 your offer was accepted. This indictment was filed and listed for plea hearing before me on 14 April. You receive the benefit of your plea of guilty and the level of cooperation that history of these proceedings shows.
9 At the 14 April plea hearing, Ms Mahady for the Crown tendered a written Crown opening. Ms Smith for you provided a chronology of proceedings which has in part informed the history I have just described. You committed Charge 1 on this indictment on 2 March 2014 at the Box Hill Golf Club. The Crown opening sets out the circumstances of that.
10 At about 10.15 pm you and Neil Harris entered disguised and carrying shotguns. You threatened staff. You further entered the cashiers area. You were not successful in getting access to a safe, however you stole approximately $8,000 in cash from various parts. As I stated when sentencing Harris, it was a serious example of the crime of armed robbery.
11 Charge 2 is the firearm possession offence. You possessed on the same date a sawn-off shotgun connected with the armed robbery at Charge 1. you are established as a prohibited person because of your prior criminal record.
12 No victim impact statements have been tendered, however I have little doubt that the staff, particularly the employee upon whom the armed robbery focused, Samantha Prosenak, and patrons were very frightened and affected.
13 It is necessary in this case to have considerable reference to my earlier sentences of Harris and particularly of you. You, Harris and an older man named Sharp were co-offenders on much of the January to March 2014 offending on which I sentenced you in December. In that sentence I stated as follows.
"The January to March 2014 offending involved you, Neil Harris and Paul Sharp. There were six incidents of primarily serious offending which involved armed robbery or aggravated burglary upon domestic and commercial premises. There were firearm possession offences and assaults related to these. Injury was caused on some but not all occasions. Shane Hodgson you were involved in four of these incidents. Harris was involved in five, the both of you were involved jointly in three of those. Paul Sharp was involved with you in two. He was also sentenced for one other very similar incident of offending without you but with another person. On the indictment there are five offences of car theft, four committed by Harris alone and one by you with him jointly. Those cars were or are suspected of being used in those main offending incidents that I have spoken of. All of these offending incidents, particularly those upon the domestic premises were of considerable similarity."
14 This offending before me today as stated lies within, toward the end of that period of offending. When I sentenced Harris he was sentenced for this Box Hill armed robbery and another armed robbery on a commercial premises in Bayswater. When I sentenced you in December I set out the circumstances of offending and also in considerable detail your personal circumstances. Those included an extensive criminal record for a person of your age.
15 In sentencing you today I rely heavily upon the sentencing considerations and other factors I found relevant to that sentence. Most if not all were also relevant to my sentence of Harris. All of these matters remain as important to this sentence of you. They include consideration of adverse sentencing purposes such as deterrence, denunciation and proportionate punishment; but also such matters as your highly damaging personal history, your youth. You were 18 to 19 at the time of offending and you are now 20. And also your effort in a long remand custody at rehabilitation. I have not been complete.
16 Ultimately I decided upon the sentence of both you and Harris of that offending to impose Youth Justice Centre detention of three years. I did not declare pre-sentence detention which in your case had been a period of over 15 months. I should add that I sentenced Harris in the same way including an individual sentence of three years' detention for this Box Hill armed robbery.
17 On 14 April, this plea hearing, I was told that you had an unsettled period when first placed at the Malmsbury Youth Justice Centre. I accept that this was in a significant way related to the concluding of your relationship with your treating psychologist Dr Narelle Warden. Your involvement with her, including in adult remand, and her evidence before me were critical matters in my decision in December 2014 that I would not sentence you to adult prison.
18 Your behaviour has improved at Malmsbury, you present as more settled and determined to complete your sentence there and avoid returning to gaol. You have a new psychologist and are also a client of the psychiatrists associated with the centre. Your present Youth Justice worker Lesley Morrison was at court and has confirmed much of this.
19 I intend sentencing you also to Youth Justice Centre detention of three years for the offence of armed robbery and a lesser concurrent period for the firearm offence which is connected to the armed robbery. As stated the matters important in my earlier sentence remain so. I have also decided that the principles of totality and parity with the sentence of Harris speak strongly for such sentences. I am of the view that applying totality if I had sentenced you in December 2014 for these offences at the same time as the other matters, I would have imposed these sentences and therefore still given you the chance of rehabilitation and assistance in the Youth Justice system.
20 In that 18 December sentence of you I stated as follows.
"I have found this an exceedingly difficult sentence that is in part reflected by the delay since final plea hearing. The tension between questions of your respective youth and the desirability of your rehabilitation and the seriousness of the offending is extremely evident here. Ultimately I have decided that you should be given the best opportunity of rehabilitation. After anxious consideration of the competing factors I see that to be in the community's interests. You have been found suitable for further Youth Justice Centre detention."
21 Now before I sentence you, as I understand it this as well as the other matters on which Mr Hodgson was sentenced in December were committed whilst on bail, I should not be seen as having ignored that fact, indeed I refer to it in my December sentence. By that I mean I have not ignored the provisions of s.13(3C) I think is of the bail section about cumulation.
22 I sentence you as follows.
23 On Charge 1 you are sentenced to three years' Youth Justice Centre detention.
24 On Charge 2 you are sentenced to six months' Youth Justice Centre detention.
25 I make no order or orders for cumulation between these sentences and in respect of my 18 December sentence. In part I refer to my remarks on cumulation in my 18 December sentence.
26 Now as to other matters, I need to indicate what I would have sentenced had he pleaded not guilty. It is never easy but this is particularly difficult. Doing the best I can, I repeat my earlier indication in December of 2014 under s.6AAA, that is you would have received a total effective sentence of six and a half years with four years minimum in adult prison. Doing the best I can to individualise but with some difficulty, the individual sentences on these matters would have been something in the range of four years perhaps, four years for the armed robbery and six months for the firearm offence but of course totality and the need for only partial cumulation and/or really concurrency would have played into that.
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HIS HONOUR: That is as good as I can do on s.6AAA. Now are there other matters that I need to attend to?
MS MAHADY: Yes Your Honour, there's a disposal order for a number of miscellaneous items including - - -
HIS HONOUR: These will be - - -
MS MAHADY: This is caps, a machete, balaclava, gloves, security camera.
HIS HONOUR: I see.
MS MAHADY: And then there's also a forfeiture order for the firearm Your Honour. I have got three copies.
HIS HONOUR: Yes, well I will sign those two orders. They're not opposed I take it.
MS SMITH: No Your Honour.
HIS HONOUR: And forfeiture. Now is this it, the proceedings thus far are over?
MS SMITH: Yes Your Honour.
HIS HONOUR: All right, you've got clear air, it's up to you whether you make the most of it or not. I am not going to repeat what I have said to you before so I wish you the best with it. I will sign these orders. I will sign those in duplicate - no, that is the forfeiture order. They have been signed in triplicate.
MS MAHADY: Thanks Your Honour, I'm sorry again for being late.
HIS HONOUR: Not that is all right. You are both excused, thank you for your assistance.
MS MAHADY: Thank you Your Honour.
HIS HONOUR: Mr Hodgson can be taken back into custody now. Thank you Ms Morrison for coming. I will just wait here I think for the other matter, you can both go though.
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