Director of Public Prosecutions v Hornsey

[2017] VCC 528

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

AT LATROBE VALLEY
CRIMINAL JURISDICTION

CR16-01547

DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROSECUTIONS

v

LAURINDA HORNSEY

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JUDGE:	HIS HONOUR JUDGE SMALLWOOD
WHERE HELD:	Latrobe Valley
DATE OF HEARING:
DATE OF SENTENCE:	2 May 2017
CASE MAY BE CITED AS:	DPP v Hornsey
MEDIUM NEUTRAL CITATION:	[2017] VCC 528

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

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APPEARANCES:	Counsel	Solicitors
For the Director of Public Prosecutions	Mr P. Bourke
For the Accused	Ms K. Churchill

Pages 1 - 8

 

 

HIS HONOUR:

1Laurinda Hornsey, you have pleaded guilty to one charge of make threat to inflict serious injury, one charge of make threat to damage property, one charge or robbery and one charge of theft.  Those crimes carry a maximum penalty of five years, five years, fifteen years, and ten years respectively. 

2You have also pleaded guilty to uplifted summary matters of fail to appear and commit an indictable offence on bail.  Those crimes carry maximum penalties of 12 months and three months. 

3You are now, as I understand it, 28 years of age.  The offending involved one Anthony Albanese, who it appears clear, owed a drug debt. 

4The Crown opening says to you, during the course of late 2015 - and I am careful what I say here because there may be a trial to follow - you and a
Mr Ferrari attended at Mr Albanese's home to collect the debt.  Mr Albanese says that Mr Ferrari was in possession of a hammer and that threats were made to smash his property and to smash him.

5Ultimately, in an endeavour to get the money to pay the debt, which he was told was going to double if he did not, there was an attendance at another address where the car keys were taken from him, and you have pleaded guilty to that as a robbery.

6The threats to smash both him and his property give rise to the two charges of threat that I have already referred to. 

7In any event, his motor vehicle was taken from his house and was ultimately wrecked.  Apparently, it was not insured and he has suffered a significant loss. One must always bear in mind, of course, that the loss – is what, it was worth not what it would cost to replace it.

8In any event, it has got to be regarded as serious offending.  In the normal course of events it would call for the application of general and specific deterrence, as well as denunciation and appropriate punishment. 

9In your particular situation the circumstances are, in my view, very unusual.  At the time of this offending, you had virtually no prior convictions, there had just simply been one for an assault for which you were fined. 

10You came before me around about 4 October 2016, charged with other matters to which you pleaded guilty.  They involved drug trafficking and I sentenced you to be imprisoned for a period of some 16 months.  At that point in time, you had already served 339 days which I declared as PSD.  That offending had taken place sometime before this offending occurred. 

11But the fact of the matter is that had this matter been able to be dealt with at that time, I would have given you very considerable concurrency.  Indeed, before I sentenced on that occasion, I had adjourned those matters to try and get this matter resolved.  This has now been resolved approximately on the way in which earlier offers were made back at that time and accordingly, I treat it as an early plea of guilty.

12What has happened since is that you have completed the gaol sentence, you have completed a large number of courses, which is very much to your credit, whilst you were going through that gaol sentence. 

13I have looked at the reports of Dr Walton and Mr Healey, which have remained on file.  Dr Walton said that you showed laudable motivation.  In fact, that has been borne out since your release from custody on to a community corrections order which I had ordered to follow. 

14On 1 March of this year you have complied, you are not using and have tested negative for drug testing.  You are in situation where I can certainly comment form the Bench, you look far healthier than you did at the time of my earlier sentencing, and you are in the process of undertaking various programs. 

15It is clear to me that in the normal course of events, had I sentenced you for these matters back when you had something in the order of a years' concurrency to deal with, I would have given you an active custodial sentence. 

16Whether the circumstances are such now, and bearing in mind cases such as Toumngeun and Leach that there is a real chance of your rehabilitation and a real chance of you not reoffending, bearing in mind your relatively slender prior history prior to this. 

17It seems to me in those circumstances it would be in your interest as well as the community's interest that the clear rehabilitation is taking place, the continued - as I indicated, and I will not say it again, had you been sentenced back at the time, it may well have been an active custodial sentence with a very significant degree of concurrency. 

18However, in all these circumstances and effectively, the next, my earlier sentencing remarks to these sentencing remarks, it is my view that the appropriate disposition is a community corrections order; I will make it for two years.  It will be with conviction and the only condition that will be put upon it is 200 work hours. 

19If that causes any problems due to ill health or something like that, you understand that this can always be brought back before me to be extended or dealt with, but there has to be a significant penalty for an armed robber, albeit in a milieu of drug use.  No other orders I have to make?

20MR BOURKE:  License, Your Honour.

21HIS HONOUR:  Sorry, yes.  It is on charge - that is the theft of the motor vehicle.

22MR BOURKE:  Yes, Your Honour.

23HIS HONOUR:  Do I have to cancel?  Has she got a license, Mr Churchill?

24MR BOURKE:  It depends on that, yes.

25HIS HONOUR:  I do not think she has.

26MS CHURCHILL:  Your Honour, do not have those instructions.  Can Your Honour just bear with me for a second?

27HIS HONOUR:  Yes.

28MS CHURCHILL:  She has a full license, Your Honour.

29HIS HONOUR:  She has a full license?

30MS CHURCHILL:  Has a full license.

31HIS HONOUR:  Can I suspend it?

32MR BOURKE:  You can, Your Honour.

33HIS HONOUR:  Right, I will just suspend it for a week.

34MS CHURCHILL:  Thank you, Your Honour.

35HIS HONOUR:  That being the appropriate disposition in my anxiously considered view. 

36MR BOURKE:  I can tell.

37HIS HONOUR:  Two hundred hours over two years with conviction.

38MS CHURCHILL:  She drove here, Your Honour.  She is on her own.  I do not know if Your Honour can make that order for commencing tomorrow?

39HIS HONOUR:  I think what I will do I will - I can backdate it, can I not?  I think I can.  I think I am allowed to backdate her license suspension.

40MS CHURCHILL:  I do not know the answer to that.  I will have to look it up.

41MR BOURKE:  But ‑ ‑ ‑

42HIS HONOUR:  She probably would not have thought about the driving. 

43MR BOURKE:  No, no, that is understandable.

44HIS HONOUR:  Look, the only thing I can do, I think I can - a license suspension, I am sure I have got the power to direct when it starts.  I am sure I have because I have often backdated them, so when we get Magistrates' Court ones, I am backdating them all the time.

45MS CHURCHILL:  Yes, I think that might be right.

46HIS HONOUR:  What I will do is I will simply say license suspension for seven days to commence from tomorrow.

47MS CHURCHILL:  Thank you, Your Honour.

48MR BOURKE:  As Your Honour pleases.

49HIS HONOUR:  That is the way to do it, I think.

50VOICE (from body of court):  The system (indistinct).

51HIS HONOUR:  The system - that is nice to know.

52MR BOURKE:  The computer says "yes".

53HIS HONOUR:  The computer says "yes", it is a great comfort in all moments of spiritual doubt when the computer agrees with you.

54MR BOURKE:  It is good enough for me, Your Honour.

55HIS HONOUR:  Yes, all right.

56MS CHURCHILL:  Could I just approach the dock?

57HIS HONOUR:  Yes, of course.

58MR BOURKE:  Sorry, Your Honour ‑ ‑ ‑

59HIS HONOUR:  Sorry, that is not a summary matter as well, as you realise, yes - on all of them. 

60MR BOURKE:  Yes, Your Honour. 

61HIS HONOUR:  Yes.  What do you want?  Sorry, can I just - what I will do, she has got - sorry, I will just do this this moment.  She has got a corrections appointment tomorrow, has she?

62MS CHURCHILL:  Thursday, she said, yes.

63HIS HONOUR:  Where?

64MS CHURCHILL:  Here, I assume - yes.

65HIS HONOUR:  All right, where she living at the moment, (indistinct)?

66MS CHURCHILL:  Nearby.  How far?

67HIS HONOUR:  All right.  Well, yes, all right, that is all right, yes.  I was just wondering.

68MS CHURCHILL:  Five minutes away, yes

69HIS HONOUR:  No, that is all right.  Walking, I take it?

70MS CHURCHILL:  I think Thursday is still within two working days, so she can ‑ ‑ ‑ 

71HIS HONOUR:  I am not going to mess around too much.

72MS CHURCHILL:  No.

73HIS HONOUR:  All right, well that is all good.

74MS CHURCHILL:  Thank you, Your Honour.

75HIS HONOUR:  Yes.  Now, what is the problem, Mr Bourke?

76MS CHURCHILL:  If I might be excused then, Your Honour?

77HIS HONOUR:  Not yet, not yet.

78MS CHURCHILL:  Not yet.  Sorry, we still ‑ ‑ ‑ 

79HIS HONOUR:  No, Mr Bourke's trying to sort of throw one last punch, I think.

80MR BOURKE:  There is a compensation order sought, Your Honour.

81HIS HONOUR:  For what?

82MR BOURKE:  The car or that the - it is in the sum of $40,000.

83HIS HONOUR:  No way.  Can I just simply say this and this happens all the time and I get jack of it.  It is compensation, all right, it is the value of the car, not what it costs to replace it; that is not compensation. 

84MR BOURKE:  Mr Albanese swore on his police statement that at the time this offence took place, the car was worth $26,000.

85HIS HONOUR:  Yes.  Well, he can sue in the civil courts.

86MR BOURKE:  As Your Honour pleases.

87HIS HONOUR:  I am not making compensation for a list of things that arise out of drug debts.  He can sue, that is his rights.

88MR BOURKE:  Well, he can, Your Honour.  The other matter is - no.

89HIS HONOUR:  Plus, I have got to look and her means and ability.  I am not going to make it.

90MR BOURKE:  As Your Honour pleases.

91HIS HONOUR:  You have got another one too, have you?  There is another order you want?

92MR BOURKE:  I am sorry, no, no.

93HIS HONOUR:  No, that is all right.  Yes.  No, all right, well I am not going to make that, she has got nothing and I am not going to - if you are mixing in that milieu and your car goes; he can sue in the civil jurisdiction.

94MR BOURKE:  Well, she was the trafficker, Your Honour, not Mr Albanese.

95HIS HONOUR:  Well, either way, he owed the money.  I will stay here, yes.  Yes, thanks - actually, no, I have to (indistinct) the dock.  Yes, thanks,
Ms Churchill  You are excused.

96MS CHURCHILL:  Thank you, Your Honour.

97HIS HONOUR:  I will just leave the Bench while he gets in the bench and switcheroo.

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