Director of Public Prosecutions v Jeremiah

[2016] VCC 1239

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

AT MELBOURNE
CRIMINAL JURISDICTION

CR 16-00763

DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROSECUTIONS

v

RICKY JEREMIAH

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JUDGE:	HIS HONOUR JUDGE MAIDMENT
WHERE HELD:	Melbourne
DATE OF HEARING:
DATE OF SENTENCE:	25 August 2016
CASE MAY BE CITED AS:	DPP v Jeremiah
MEDIUM NEUTRAL CITATION:	[2016] VCC 1239

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	Ms N. Burnett
For the Accused	Mr R. Gibson

HIS HONOUR:

1Ricky Jeremiah, you have plead guilty to an indictment charging you with one offence of attempted armed robbery; and one offence of making threat to inflict serious injury; one offence of resisting a police officer; one of offence of criminal damage, and you have admitted your prior criminal history.

2The prosecution tendered and relied upon a summary of prosecution plea opening, which is Exhibit A.  It has been read very recently.  I am not going to read it again, and it sets out the circumstances in which, on 26 January of this year you attended the Crib Point milk bar and carried out what can only be described as an inept, perhaps somewhat desperate attempt to obtain money from the store proprietor by threatening him with a knife and making a threat to inflict serious injury upon him.

3The event is captured on CCTV footage.  It is apparent that you were in dishevelled state at the time, that you did not ever produce the weapon that you had with you and that although no doubt you instilled fear as to what you might do in your victim, he dealt with the matter in a calm and rational manner.

4You clearly were not in a rational state. When arrested shortly afterwards you resisted police and then committed criminal damage within the police vehicle that was used to convey you to the police station.

5The offence of attempted armed robbery is a very serious offence.  It is more serious than any offence of  which you have been convicted to date and on one view represents some escalation in your offending conduct.  I am bound to take into account the effect that that kind of offending has on victims, though there is no victim impact statement and, as I have already indicated, the primary victim at any rate and others within the vicinity did not seem to be seriously threatened or upset by your conduct.

6Your counsel has provided me with a number of important documents, including his outline of submissions and a neuropsychological report dated 29 May 2013, along with two reports from Dr Lester Walton, the last of which is dated
19 July 2016, and confirms a diagnosis of schizo-affective disorder complicated and aggravated by drug abuse.

7That amended diagnosis rose as a result of further information provided to
Dr Walton, enabling him better to understand your medical history and psychiatric history and the attention that you have attracted from previous conduct and assessments by psychiatric staff.

8I also received copies of reports from Ms Fiona MacDonald, who has just given evidence before me and she has assisted me in understanding better the family circumstances and the daily issues that you have to deal with, with the intellectual disability from which you suffer and the mental illness that is diagnosed by Dr Walton.

9Your counsel urged me to accept that a number of the principles that emerged from the well-known case of Verdins apply so as to reduce your moral culpability and the need to hold you up as an example to others in holding you up as an example to deter others from committing offences of this kind, also reducing the need for individual deterrence of you.  It is also, I think, plain that your conditions have and will continue to make serving your time in prison harder and those are all factors which should persuade me to reduce the sentence that would otherwise have been appropriate.

10I have to also consider your prospects of rehabilitation.  They do not seem to be good, unfortunately.  The intellectual disability from which you suffer and the mental illnesses and, obviously, your substance abuse issues are likely, it seems to me, to cause you to re-offend. The opportunities you have had through community correction orders to address those factors have not been accepted in the past by you, at least not to a satisfactory degree.  It does not seem to me therefore that there is likely to be any benefit gained for you in imposing a community correction order in addition to a term of imprisonment.  Rather, it seems to me that the continued support of your mother and
Ms MacDonald and, to some extent, the Parole Board, offer you a better opportunity of putting this matter behind you and settling down to a less troubled life. I propose, therefore, to accede to your counsel's second submission, namely to impose a term of imprisonment with a non-parole period that will not require you to serve any or any much more than the sentence that you have already served effectively through the 212 days of pre-sentence detention that you have racked up thus far.

11You have pleaded guilty and that is very much to your credit and I give you full benefit of that plea.

12It seems to me that it is likely that you have and do show a degree of remorse and I accept that in the cold light of day you do appreciate the wrongfulness of your actions and the likely effect of your actions on others.

13I am now ready to impose sentence upon you so would you stand, please?

14For the offence of attempted armed robbery I convict you and sentence you to imprisonment for a period of 18 months.  For the offence of making a threat to inflict serious injury I convict you and sentence you to imprisonment for a period of 12 months.  For resisting a police officer I convict you and sentence you to a imprisonment for a period of two months, and for criminal damage I convict you and sentence you to imprisonment for a period of one month.  All of those sentences will run concurrently and I order that you serve a minimum of seven months before you become eligible for parole.

15I declare the 212 days pre-sentence detention as time to be reckoned as served on the sentence that I have imposed and deducted administratively from the time you will actually have to serve and order that that matter be noted in the records of the court.

16It means that you are now eligible for parole.  You will have to make application for parole and that will have to be considered and hopefully that will enable some arrangements to be put in place for you supervision and assistance to get back on your feet.  You have already the support of Ms MacDonald, it seems, and your mother and it may be, I do not know, that there will be other supports possibly in the form of your former girlfriend.  I know that she has not been in touch recently but there is no explanation as to why that is the case and one does not know how that might all pan out. But at least there are some supports and hopefully there will be further supports provided through the Parole Board when you are assessed as being suitable to be released on parole.  I hope that will not be too long but that is a matter out of my hands.

17I make the disposal order and the order for the provision of a forensic sample in accordance with the drafts that I have been provided with.  So far as the provision of a forensic sample, that means a scraping from the inside of the mouth, you will be asked by an authorised officer to do that whilst you are in custody.  If you fail or refuse to provide the sample in that way the authorised officer will be able to take blood from you.  He is authorised to take blood and may use reasonable force to do that.  I am quite sure you will not put them to that trouble, all right.  Take a seat for a moment whilst I draw up those orders.

18MS BURNETT:  Your Honour, just in terms of a 6AAA declaration.

19HIS HONOUR:  Yes, 6AAA, I will impose a sentence I would if it had not been for his pleas of guilty I would have imposed a sentence of two years' imprisonment with a non-parole period of 16 months.

20MS BURNETT:  Thank you, Your Honour.

21HIS HONOUR:  So you had better add the s.6AAA.  No, you have already done that.  I see.  That is it.  Is it 24th today?

22COUNSEL:  25th.

23HIS HONOUR:  25th.

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