Director of Public Prosecutions v Houston

[2021] VCC 610

IN THE COUNTY COURT OF VICTORIA

AT MELBOURNE

CRIMINAL DIVISION

Revised
Not Restricted
Suitable for Publication

Case No. CR-18-01956
CR-19-01333

DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROSECUTIONS

v

WILLIAM HOUSTON

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JUDGE:	Mullaly
WHERE HELD:	Melbourne
DATE OF HEARING:	1-4 March 2021, 29 April 2021
DATE OF SENTENCE:	12 May 2021
CASE MAY BE CITED AS:	DPP v Houston
MEDIUM NEUTRAL CITATION:	[2021] VCC 610

REASONS FOR SENTENCE
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APPEARANCES:	Counsel	Solicitors
For the DPP	Ms I. Basedow	Office of Public Prosecutions
For the Accused	Mr A. Marshall	James Dowsley & Associates

HIS HONOUR:

1     On 24 March 2021, following a trial by judge alone heard over four days, you were found guilty of one charge of buggery of a male under 14 years of age and three charges of indecent assault of a male under the age of 16 years. You were found not guilty of a further charge of buggery and were directly acquitted of a charge of indecent assault on the basis there was no case to answer.[1]

[1] DPP v Houston [2021] VCC 226 (24 March 2021).

2     The offending for which you were found guilty involved two young complainants. In my reasons for coming to the verdicts that I came to, I did not refer to the complainants by name and I will continue with that anonymisation in these reasons for sentence.

3      I will deal first with the facts and circumstances of the offences committed against the first victim GT. In dealing with the facts I will refer from time to time to what I said in my reasons for the verdicts.

4     GT was born on 6 January 1953. In 1963, then just 10 years old, GT was removed from his family by order of the Children’s Court. His family were living in far eastern Gippsland. He became a ward of the state, he was placed into the care of the Christian Brothers, who were operating St. Augustine’s Orphanage in a suburb of Geelong.

5     You were, in the 1960’s, a Christian Brother working at St. Augustine’s. One of your main duties was as a dormitory supervisor. GT was placed into your dormitory and thus under your care. He gave evidence that at night, as the boys were going off to sleep, he would hear other boys giggling as you went to various beds. Initially, he felt jealous or left out that you did not come to his bed. He assumed you were tickling the other boys.

6     When you did come to GT’s bed, what you did was fondle his penis under his pyjamas. GT was 11 years old. It was plainly a predatory criminal act of sexual abuse of a child. This first act of fondling the 11 year old GT was charge 1, an indecent assault on a male under the age of 16 years.

7     The prosecution led further evidence, for tendency purposes, that established that this behaviour was repeated often thereafter up until you committed the next level of sexual abuse. That said, I make clear to you that are to be sentenced only for the single incident of the first time this offence occurred.

8     Charges 2 and 3 occur on a single night after the victim had moved dormitories from the first one he was placed in. I concluded that you moved and were his dormitory supervisor at the time of the offending. I made this finding despite your evidence to the contrary. The victim gave evidence that one night when he was in bed, he felt sick and was crying. You came to him and told him to go and get in your bed. He did as he was told, and you then also got into the bed. Once in the bed you pulled his pyjama pants down and first rubbed your groin against his bare buttocks. This conduct was charge 2, an indecent assault of a male under the age of 16 years.

9     You then used your fingers to find and open the victim’s anus. You then penetrated his anus with your penis. This was charge 3, buggery of a male under the age of 14 years. In his evidence GT said that it really hurt him, and he had never been hurt like that before. He continued, and I quote from his evidence, “He started pushing and shoving and pulling me around and going really hard at me”. The victim said that after this anal penetration he became withdrawn and frightened of you.

10  The second victim was CM. He was born on 11 May 1956 in Ballarat. He was one of 11 children. He was made a ward of the state in 1968 and placed at St. Augustine’s Orphanage. When he arrived, you were his dormitory supervisor. He gave evidence that on one occasion in 1968, you came to his bed at night and lay on his bed next to him. You rubbed your naked penis against the victim’s thigh. As a clear indication that you knew what you were doing was wrong, you said to the victim, and I quote from his evidence: ‘You know that we should not be doing this’. This was charged as an indecent assault against a male under the age of 16 years.

11  As is required by the Sentencing Act 1991 (Vic) (‘Sentencing Act’) I must assess the gravity of your crimes and your moral culpability in committing them. Before moving to the particulars of your crimes I make the following general observations as I set out in a recent sentence I passed on a notorious paedophilic catholic priest, Gerald Ridsdale.[2] I said:

The fact that children have been sexually abused in an institutional setting and otherwise is now more well known by our whole community than in the past. However, as we have become more aware of what has gone on in the past we need to be vigilant, especially those in the courts that we are not becoming immune to the horror of what has been done to each victim or the dreadful impact on them and their families. The Final Report of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Abuse commenced with these compelling words and I quote: ‘The sexual abuse of a child is a terrible crime. It is the greatest of personal violations. It is perpetrated against the most vulnerable in our community. It is a fundamental breach of the trust that children are entitled to place in adults. It is one of the most traumatic and potentially damaging experiences and can have lifelong adverse consequences’.[3]

[2] Ridsdale [2020] VSCA 597 (14 May 2020) [2].

[3] The Final Report of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Abuse Executive Summary (2017) 5.

12  Thus, while keeping in mind that all sexual abuse of children involves grave and terrible criminality, what makes your conduct particularly serious are the following matters.

13  First, is the very young age and particular vulnerability of both victims. They were somewhere around the age of 11 or 12, no older. Each was particularly vulnerable having been removed from their family home and connections. In your role at St. Augustine’s, you knew how vulnerable each of these young boys were. To sexually abuse such young and vulnerable children, in particular by the anal penetration of an 11 year old child, only has to be said for the gravity and utter depravity of what you did to be exposed.

14  Second, is your comprehensive breach of trust. There are a number of dimensions to this. First, you were the adult, and in the exercise of the most basic human decency you should not have hurt and sexually abused any child.  Second, these victims were particularly vulnerable as a ward of the state. In all the circumstances, the community, the Christian Brothers who ran the orphanage, the families of the victims and the victims themselves were entitled to expect you would act in accordance with the trust placed in you to look after the victims, especially as they were going off to sleep or feeling unwell and in need of particular care. Your breach of that trust by putting your perverse sexual gratification ahead of the victim’s basic needs to feel safe and cared for renders this offending particularly grave.

15  Although it is clear that the penetrative offence of buggery is the most serious of the offences you committed – and it is a heinous offence – the other charges of indecent assault are in and of themselves serious crimes having significant adverse impact on the victims. As was said in Morris v The Queen,[4] a case involving a primary school teacher fondling and masturbating young students and exposing himself to a young victim. And I quote: ‘It is a grave thing to assault a young boy by exposing his penis and masturbating him... While not penetrative, each such act is a serious invasion of the victim’s bodily integrity and autonomy’.[5]

[4] [2016] VSCA 331.

[5] Ibid [60].

16  Overall, in assessing the gravity of your crimes, it seems to me, by any measure these crimes are serious, and each is a relatively grave example of the type of offending involved.

17  As to your moral culpability – it is particularly high. You knew what you were doing was wrong. You said as much to CM in the very midst of sexually abusing him.

18  Further, you were a part of a religious order which was in part dedicated to the care of children. You, as a Christian Brother, gave out the impression that you adhered to the morals and standards of that Catholic order. However, by this offending you did the opposite. Worse than that, you used the fact that you had access to an authority over children as a means to engage in your perverse sexual abuse of them. The Christian Brothers were entrusted by the State to properly care for children. Your offending diminishes that trust and the standing of that order and the Catholic Church. You are not to be punished for any failings of the Catholic Church or the Christian Brothers to protect children, rather your crimes are to be seen as an example of your own utter hypocrisy – that is your outward appearance of adherence to decent morals while acting in private as a man of no or only base morals.

19  Little more needs to be said as to the assessment of your moral culpability as nothing was put forward from your own personal circumstances that operates to diminish your high personal culpability for these dreadful crimes.

20  As noted in the remarks made by the Royal Commission into the Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse cited above, these crimes often have had a lifelong adverse impact on the victims. That is evident in this case from the compelling victim impact statements tendered on the plea:

21  CM wrote:

My immediate feelings were of fear after what happened, the intense feeling of being abandoned, as I had no one to turn to.  I was frightened and alone.  I was confused and started to feel guilty, shame and embarrassment that somehow it was my fault.  I had trouble sleeping and commenced bedwetting.  I would lay awake, fearing that he would return.  I lost trust in males and this has been with me my whole life since the assault, making it hard to keep jobs and friendships. My teenage years were lonely.  Looking back over my life, I feel robbed of my innocence and my ability to lead a normal, healthy and happy life.  My future may well have been different if it were not for that one assault as a child.  My marriages were affected due to my poor ability to show affection and express my feelings.  In the mid to late 1990s, I took a lot of sleeping pills and painkillers in an attempt to end my life.  At the time, I thought everyone would be better off without me in their lives.  I am now a widower, retired from work so I can dedicate my time doing what I can for my teenage foster children, who I do not want to go through their short childhood like I did mine. 

22GT wrote in his victim impact statement:

To talk about what happened to me at St Augustine's Boys' Home has been no easy task and has taken a lifetime to come forward and a lifetime of suffering.  As child, I was taken from a safe place with my family and put in an unsafe place.  When I say "safe" place, I mean culturally safe, physically safe, emotionally safe, a place where I felt I belonged and was loved.  There isn't a year that's gone past where I haven't thought about what happened.  Even events in my life since this time which should've been positive and joyful have triggered memories of this traumatic time, a time I would love to erase, but I am unable to.  This trauma cost me my childhood.  This trauma cost me my first marriage and my health.  I have a lot of hang ups and carry a lot of anger with me.  I know I can't always control my emotions and I become frustrated and angry.  I don't want to be an angry person.  I feel a lot of shame, even now.  I get angry when I think about what happened to me, mostly my mental stability has been affected.  When I had things I was not happy about, I would turn to drinking alcohol and/or eating things that are not good for me.  This has affected my physical health over the years, and I take a lot of medication to manage my health conditions.  I have trouble sleeping at times.  I have a lot of anxiety.  I have had and continue to have professional counselling. My second wife is my rock.

23  GT spoke of the importance of finally being listened to, heard and believed during the trial. He said: ‘This is significant to me. After years of feeling unheard, unimportant, unsafe, damaged, ashamed, angry and hurt. The justice system has really helped me. I finally found a way to talk about this and to tell someone about it.’

24  These words echo what was said 15 years ago by Vincent JJA when dealing with another Christian Brother in DPP v Toomey.[6] His Honour said this of those who suffered sexual abuse as children:

Often such victims, experiencing unjustified feelings of embarrassment, shame and guilt that have been induced by the behaviour of the perpetrator, will continue to remain so for many years. Accordingly, and very frequently, as in this case, the commission of the offences will not be exposed until long afterwards. Considered in this light, it is in my opinion apparent that the principle of general deterrence must assume very considerable significance as a sentencing consideration. Further, it is incumbent upon the courts, however long ago the offences were committed, to express the denunciation of the community of such behaviour, through the sentences imposed on perpetrators. They must be seen to vindicate the values of the society that they represent, fundamental to which is the protection of its children.[7]

[6] [2006] VSCA 90.

[7] Ibid [17].

25  In that case, His Honour Vincent JJA went on to give emphasis to the concept of the criminal justice system aiding the victims of historic sexual abuse to recover and rehabilitate. He said:

This notion of social rehabilitation is one that I do not believe has been accorded anything approaching significant recognition as an identifiable underlying concern of the criminal justice system. It seems to me that the process of social and personal recovery which we attempt to achieve in order to ameliorate the consequences of a crime can be impeded or facilitated by the responses of the courts. The imposition of a sentence often constitutes both a practical and ritual completion of a protracted painful period. It signifies the recognition by society of the nature and significance of the wrong that has been done to affected members, the assertion of its values and the public attribution of responsibility for that wrongdoing to the perpetrator. If the balancing of values and considerations represented by the sentence which, of course, must include those factors which militate in favour of mitigation of penalty, is capable of being perceived by a reasonably objective member of the community as just, the process of recovery is more likely to be assisted. If not, there will almost certainly be created a sense of injustice in the community generally that damages the respect in which our criminal justice system is held and which may never be removed. Indeed, from the victim's perspective, an apparent failure of the system to recognise the real significance of what has occurred in the life of that person as a consequence of the commission of the crime may well aggravate the situation.’ It is well to bear in mind that the rehabilitation of the victim of sexual abuse may often be more difficult to achieve than that of the perpetrator. Frequently the damage will be profound and a long time will pass before it can be addressed at all. In the meantime, childhood will be destroyed, self-esteem damaged, educational and career opportunities lost and the capacity to form and maintain relationships seriously impaired. The notion to which I have adverted underpins, I believe, such concepts as restorative justice, just punishment, the vindication of rights and the attribution of responsibility based on moral culpability. The vindication of the victim in cases of this kind, in particular, is profoundly important if the criminal justice system is to perform its role properly.[8]

[8] R v Toomey [2006] VSCA 90 [21]-[22].

26  As Vincent JJA emphasised, with crimes of this kind, the most important sentencing purposes are denunciation and deterrence. Many courts have repeatedly made this point, including Kidd CJ in his sentencing remarks when he imposed sentence on you in 2016 for a greater number of like crimes perpetrated by you at St. Augustine’s in the 1960’s.[9]

[9] R v Houston [2016[ VCC 638 [92]-[93].

27  The sentence imposed by the Chief Judge was 12 years and nine months with a minimum non parole period of eight years. This adds another dimension or array of considerations for me in my task of coming to a just and appropriate sentence for the crimes I found you guilty of. In particular, I must give consideration to the principle of totality, especially in light of the fact you are now more elderly, at 82 years old, than you were at the time you were sentenced by the Chief Judge. Also, you now have been in prison since you were 77 years old, the last of which has been in the restrictive circumstances due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

28 However before dealing with those topics, I turn to your personal circumstances. In doing so, I make it clear that your Counsel did not put forward that your past good character could operate as a mitigatory factor as it might in other cases, and indeed did when you were sentenced by Kidd CJ. That is because in the intervening years Parliament has inserted s 5AA into the Sentencing Act. It reads as follows:

(1)  Despite section 5(2), in sentencing an offender for a child sexual offence, a court must not have regard to the offender's previous good character or lack of previous findings of guilt or convictions if the court is satisfied the offender's previous good character or lack of previous findings of guilt or convictions was of assistance to the offender in the commission of the offence.

29 Thus by reason of s 5AA of the Sentencing Act, I cannot take into account your previous good character and lack of prior convictions before the offending, as I am satisfied that your character and lack of prior convictions enabled you to join and be accepted as a Christian Brother, which was in turn of assistance to you in committing the offences. Your Counsel did not contend otherwise.

30  However, in order to know who you are, and what the future holds, it is necessary to raise matters personal to you without there being any weight given to your past good character.

31  By way of summary your upbringing was in a close family living in Coburg. You had an older sister and a younger brother, now both deceased, your brother tragically at a young age. You have nieces and nephews that remain in touch and supportive of you. I will refer to this in more detail shortly.

32  As an adolescent you showed interest in joining the Christian Brothers, and by the young age of 14 you were living at a boarding school for trainee Brothers in New South Wales. You spent the next 5 years or so training to become a Brother and obtaining qualifications as a teacher. You took your vows as a Christian Brother in 1959.

33  You were then appointed to various Christian Brothers schools in Melbourne and regional Victoria. You were moved to St. Augustine’s in 1963. You remained there until 1971.Thereafter, you were appointed to schools in Melbourne. You were a teacher and a sports master.

34  In 1993 you were moved to a facility in Parkville that looked after elderly Brothers. You were placed in charge of that facility in 1999. You remained there until you sought to leave the Christian Brothers in 2006. This process was protracted but ultimately you formally left that order in 2008.

35  Thereafter you secured work as a driver in a chauffeur business. You lived in a private rental in Glenroy until your incarceration after you were found guilty of the offences that led the Chief Judge to impose the sentence that I have referred to.

36  For many years, commencing well after you left St. Augustine’s, you were a dedicated volunteer for the Therry-Penola Old Boys Football Club. Your service was recognised by life membership.

37  Your Counsel tendered a number of testimonials, some of which speak of your positive and practical contributions to a number of families that you met at the schools you taught at after St. Augustine’s.

38  Your niece in Melbourne and nephew in Canberra wrote of the close relationship they have with you that has endured, despite your incarceration. All who wrote letters of support made clear that in their interactions with you over many years you have been a good uncle and a caring friend. There has been no concern about or indication of inappropriate behaviour.

39  You have not further offended in the many decades that have passed since your offending in St. Augustine’s, nor have any allegations come forward arising from your time at other schools or sporting clubs.

40  As I noted you are now 82 years old. Other than some elevated prostrate markers which are not such as to raise concerns, you enjoy good health for your age. You are able to attend the prison gym 6 days a week and daily play table tennis. You involve yourself in what is available for you to do, including religious worship and volunteering as a goal umpire in the local football league. As noted, your extended family remain in contact and provide support.

41  Doing the best I can with the terms of imprisonment and dates they were fixed, your current sentence means your earliest release date is 22 April 2024 and your sentence will be fully served on 22 January 2029. Your Counsel conceded that my sentence must extend both the current non-parole period and the head sentence. He urged that any extension of time be moderate or moderated by reason of you being more elderly. It was put that given your age, further incarceration will or could be a significant portion of your remaining days.

42  The prosecution also urged there be an extension of the current non-parole period and the head sentence.

43  The principles to be considered when sentencing elderly offenders are well known. Indeed, they were applied by the Chief Judge in sentencing you in 2016.[10]

[10] Ibid [62]-[69].

44  In all the circumstances of this case, given the tensions created by your current age of 82 and the lengthy sentences you are undergoing, those principles regarding sentencing elderly offenders warrant full recitation here.

45  The Court of Appeal set out the following sentencing considerations in the well-known case of The Queen v RPL:[11]

[11] [2009] VCSA 271 [39].

i.The age and health of an offender are relevant to the exercise of the sentencing discretion.

ii.Old age or ill health are not determinative of the quantum of sentence.

iii.Depending upon the circumstances, it may be appropriate to impose a minimum term which will have the effect that the offender may well spend the whole of his remaining life in custody.

iv.It is a weighty consideration that the offender is likely to spend the whole or a very substantial portion of the remainder of their life in custody.

v.Other sentencing considerations may be required to surrender some ground to the need to exercise compassion to take account of the real prospect that the offender may not live to be released and that the offender’s ill health will make his or her period of incarceration particularly onerous.

vi.Just punishment, proportionality and general and specific deterrence remain primary sentencing considerations in the sentencing disposition notwithstanding the age and ill health of the offender.

vii.Old age and ill health do not justify the imposition of an unacceptably inappropriate sentence.

46  Thus, I must, when I consider the appropriate sentence, keep well in mind that at your age, my sentence may well mean that as a consequence, you are more likely to die in custody. This is a weighty matter and I must consider whether some of the usual sentencing considerations that I have already referred to, such as denunciation and general deterrence, may have to yield or be moderated somewhat. That said as is made plain in RPL and other cases involving elderly accused, I cannot impose what is an inappropriate and inadequate sentence, including the orders for cumulation on the sentence you are undergoing, on account that it may mean that the elderly person dies in custody.

47  The principles of totality must also be considered both in dealing with the four charges that I found you guilty of and with respect to the sentence you are currently undergoing. However, with respect to the sentences I must impose for each of the four charges I found you guilty of, the principles of totality must yield to some degree by reason of the fact that for each of these offences, you are to be declared a Serious Offender, as defined in s 6E of the Sentencing Act.

48  As an overview, it seems to me that the proper application of the principle of totality gives rise to number of important considerations. Firstly, the principle of totality requires that I fix appropriate sentences for each offence. It requires that when making orders for concurrency or, importantly, cumulation, I must ensure that the total sentence is proportionate to the overall offending, no more and no less. This must be so with respect to both the head sentence and the non-parole period. This is best achieved by considering first the individual sentences that I have concluded are appropriate for the crimes you committed, and then consider orders for cumulation, and then again the total term of imprisonment imposed. And then, finally I must step back and reconsider the sentences so as to ensure that they meet the totality of the offending and I must adjust if they do not. This is the practical process of ensuring that the principle of totality is applied.

49  However, in your case, I must give effect or at least not ignore the expressed intent of Parliament, that serious sexual offenders like you are to be treated or sentenced differently to other offenders. As was said by the McHugh, Gummow and Hayne JJ in their joint judgement in R H McL v The Queen,[12] with respect to the then s 16(3A) of the Sentencing Act, which was the legislative predecessor of s 6E:

The need for judges not to compress sentences is especially important where the accused person is a ‘serious sexual offender’ within the meaning of s 16(3A) of the Sentencing Act and similar provisions. Section 16(3A) gives effect to a legislative policy that serious offenders are to be treated differently from other offenders. It was plainly intended to have more than a formal effect, which is the effect it would frequently have if its operation was subject to the full effect of the totality principle...The evident object of the section is to make sentences to which it applies operate cumulatively rather than concurrently. The section gives the judge a discretion to direct otherwise. But the object of the section would be compromised and probably defeated in most cases if the ordinary application of the totality principle was a sufficient ground to liven the discretion....sentencing judges need to be astute not to undermine the legislative policy inherent in s 16(3A) by applying the totality principle to the sentences as if that section was not on the statute book.

[12] [2000] HCA 46 [76].

50  In Gordon v The Queen,[13] Redlich JA revisited the tension between the principle of totality and the provisions of s 6E and importantly observed that one factor that would weigh in favour of cumulation would be when the objective gravity of the total offending increases.

[13] [2013] VSCA 343.

51  Here the only description that can be given to these four offences, in particular, charge 3 the offence of buggery, is that the objective gravity is very high, thus this weighs in favour of greater cumulation.

52  Accordingly, the principle of totality must have more limited application in the face of the serious offender provisions passed by our Parliament. The principle of totality is not wholly eliminated but the statutory provisions must be appropriately applied.

53  One further matter that arises as a consequence of the serious offender provisions and that is, I must regard protection of the community as the primary sentencing consideration. I note the prosecution does not seek the imposition of a disproportionate sentence to achieve that purpose, and I will not impose a disproportionate sentence.

54  In my view given your age and your conduct in the intervening decades, you pose so little risk, in fact, in practical terms there is no risk of future like offending on your release.

55  The Sentencing Act by operation of s 5(2)(b) requires that I have regard to current sentencing practices. I have considered other sentences imposed for like offences and like offenders for historic sexual assault including, importantly, those sentences imposed on you by Kidd CJ for like offences committed at the same time, place and in very similar circumstances.

56  I have considered other relatively similar cases of a person in an institutional position of authority, such as clergy of the Catholic Church or teachers or others in like positions, who have committed the offence of buggery on a young child.[14] I have also applied the principles for sentencing for historical offences as set out in Stalio v The Queen.[15] I note that in more recent times, and in respect of a different type of historic offence, the Court of Appeal in Hague v The Queen said: ‘However, just as current sentencing practices cannot control the sentencing discretion in a particular case and does not cap and collar the sentence, past practice cannot have a greater or more controlling effect’.[16]

[14] Gill [2019] VSCA 92, DPP v Ridsdale [2020] VSCA 597 (14 May 2020); DPP v Claffey [2019] VCC 1068; DPP v Klep [2014] VCC 2294; Kovac [2017] VCC; DPP v Paull [2020] VCC 484; Smith [2020] VCC 656

[15] [2012] VSCA 120.

[16] [2019] VSCA 218 [252].

57  I have been guided and I have applied what the High Court in Dalgleish,[17] described as ‘individualised sentencing’ with respect to all matters including s 5(2)(b).

[17] [2017] HCA 41.

58  In the end, I am of the view that the sentences imposed by Chief Judge Kidd are a broad guide as to what is the just and appropriate sentence for the crimes you committed with your particular and personal circumstances but taking into account your now greater age at the point of sentence.

59  Thus doing the best I can I impose the following sentences:

60  For Charge 1, an indecent assault of a male under the age of 16 years, you are sentenced to a term of imprisonment of 20 months.

61  For Charge 2, an indecent assault of a male under the age of 16 years, you are sentenced to be imprisoned for a period of 12 months.

62  For Charge 3, buggery of a male under the age of 14 years, you are sentenced to be imprisoned for five years and six months.

63  For Charge 6, an indecent assault of a male under the age of 16 years, you are sentenced to a term of imprisonment of 20 months.

64  I order that 6 months of charge 1, two months of charge 2 and 10 months of charge 6, which recognises the separate second victim, are cumulative on each other and on the base sentence of five years six months. Thus, the total sentence is therefore seven years.

65  As noted above, I have considered, then stepped back and reconsidered this sentence and the sentence that you are currently undergoing so as to ensure a just, proportionate order for cumulation is made that meets and recognises the totality of your crimes committed by you as a young man, who now has to serve the punishment as a man in your 80’s.

66  Doing the best I can I order that three years and six months of the sentence that I have imposed be served cumulatively on the sentence that you are currently undergoing, as set by Kidd CJ on 17 May 2016.

67  That gives an overall total sentence of 15 years and six months.

68  I note that there were days counted from the time you went into custody on 22 April 2016.

69 By operation of s 14 of the Sentencing Act, I am required to fix a new non parole period. Again, taking into account all the matters mentioned thus far in fixing the sentence and ordering the amount of cumulation. That is matters both for you and against you and matters that, essentially, take up the concepts of compassion in sentencing of an elderly person.

70  But I have come to the conclusion that there must be an extension to your current non a parole period, though as I said there is a more acute need to moderate the length of that time that by law you are incarcerated, and it is a need to moderate because of your age.

71  I fix a new non parole period of 10 years and nine months, which is fixed from the 22 April 2016, the day you went into custody.

72  I declare you are a serious sexual offender for all offences. I will ensure that this declaration is entered onto the records of the Court.

73  By operation of the Sexual Offenders Registration Act, you are to be registered on the sex offenders register and remain on that register for life.

74  Ms Basedow, Mr Marshall, do the mathematics add up, and are there any other orders?

75  MR MARSHALL:  I believe the mathematics adds up, Your Honour.

76  HIS HONOUR:  Thank you.

77  MR MARSHALL:  I do not seek any other orders

78  HIS HONOUR:  Thank you.

79  MS BASEDOW:  No other orders.

80  HIS HONOUR:  No other orders?  So, as a sexual offender required to be under the Sex Offenders Registration Act, we have to provide documents.  It would have been done online and so on and so forth.  I do not know that we have them or - I do not have an associate either.  Yes, what will occur - I mean,
Mr Houston is currently on the register and on it for life as it stands, but it is a requirement under the Act that is all repeated.  Documents will be printed by this court, signed by myself and by my associate - my tipstaff.

81  But the point here is that they will be provided to Mr Houston in the cells later today. I need to make clear to him that there are obviously consequences or responsibilities that he does register once released and that there are consequences if he does not register and does no remain in compliance with all the requirements under the Registration Act. 

82  And effectively, what has to happen is that I sign a document that indicates that I have given a document to Mr Houston, he needs to sign a document today that he has got that document.  Can you manage all that, Mr Marshall, or your instructor manage all that later today?

83  MR MARSHALL:  Yes, Your Honour.

84  HIS HONOUR:  Yes.  I take it if he were not in court, as we thought he would not be, it would all be done virtually, and I would accept that he would sign the - he has been given the documents and signed for it in a virtual hearing, so there it is.  I do not think there is anything further need be done?  No,  I thank counsel again for their very considerable assistance, Mr Brown and here, Ms Basedow, and the instructing solicitors who have managed this case with great skill.  Mr Houston can be removed.  I thank everyone else here for the dignity they have shown, and I expect it to remain.  Thank you. 

85  Mr Marshall, the sentence that I - it will be available very quickly, there are just some - it is not revised and there will need to be some revising done of things that were said that were important to be said during the course of the hearing. 

86  MR MARSHALL:  Thank you, Your Honour, I would be grateful.