Director of Public Prosecutions v Langman

[2019] VCC 1529

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

AT BENDIGO
CRIMINAL JURISDICTION

CR-19-01040

DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROSECUTIONS

v

DAVID LANGMAN

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JUDGE:	HIS HONOUR JUDGE SMALLWOOD
WHERE HELD:	Bendigo
DATE OF HEARING:	19 September 2019
DATE OF SENTENCE:	19 September 2019
CASE MAY BE CITED AS:	DPP v Langman
MEDIUM NEUTRAL CITATION:	[2019] VCC 1529

REASONS FOR SENTENCE
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Subject:
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Cases Cited:
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APPEARANCES:	Counsel	Solicitors
For the Director of Public Prosecutions	Ms A. Hassan	Office of Public Prosecutions
For the Accused	Mr T. Antos	LD Legal Services Pty Ltd

HIS HONOUR:

1David Langman, you have pleaded guilty to three charges of theft, one charge of armed robbery and on charge of attempted armed robbery.  Those crimes carry a maximum penalties of 10 years, 25 years and 20 years, respectively.

2You have pleaded guilty at the earliest reasonable opportunity and indeed were not charged until sometime after the event.  I accept that your plea of guilty attracts a degree of remorse and also you must of course get the utilitarian benefit of that plea.  The situation being where if you had fought this out on the basis of identification each of the victims in this matter would have had to give evidence and that would have been a gruelling experience for them indeed.  So you must get the benefit of that.

3You are now 39 years of age.  You have a significant criminal history.  You have been gaoled in this state for short periods of time and in New South Wales for short periods of time in the past.

4Importantly, you have been extradited to Victoria from having received a sentence in New South Wales.  That sentence was for similar offending as this and involved you being given four years and four months as a head sentence with a minimum term of two years and seven months.  As I understand it, you served that two years and seven months and were then extradited to Victoria where you have been awaiting this plea hearing.  And during the course of that time you have now achieved some 201 days of pre-sentence detention.

5I will go through the summary of the offending and then explain my reasons and the course of action I have taken in moment.

6First, pursuant to s.464ZF of the Crimes Act, I make an order that you provide a saliva sample for DNA purposes.  That order having been made, I advise that should you refuse to provide police with such a sample they may use reasonable force to take it from you.

7The offending all occurred in approximately a week at the end of
July 2016.  The first charge you drove to a Coles Express service and stole petrol.  The next charge was you went to a BP service station in Elmore.  You entered the service station and purported at least to purchase a packet of cigarettes.  A customer walked in and you left and moved your car.

8When the customer left you re-entered, walked behind the counter into the staff only area.  You then pulled out a knife from your pocket with a four inch blade.  You said to the service station attendant, 'Give me your fucking money'.  The attendant and you then walked to the register.  You could be heard to be keep saying, 'Sorry guys', and, 'Hurry up'.  The attendant removed approximately $170 from the cash register and gave it to you.  There is then a description of you.  That is the armed robbery.

9You then left the service station and a short time later went into another
BP service station where you stole a bag of lollies.

10A short time after that you stole a motor vehicle, which you were dealt for in New South Wales and this is simply before me for context.  You had spoken to your sister in the meantime and told her to make sure she looked out for everybody.

11Later on in that afternoon you went to Harcourt in Victoria where you entered the post office.  You pulled a curved blade filleting knife, leant across the counter and attempted to grab cash from the man behind the counter.  He did not immediately realise you were carrying a knife, but pulled back and told you to get out.  As you were leaving you wielded the knife at that man and at another person.  That is attempted armed robbery.  You drove off in the stolen vehicle.

12You then drove into New South Wales and prior to doing that you had again stolen confectionary from a service station.

13I have before me three victim impact statements, one of which was read out.  This sort of offending can literally ruin lives.  Some people never go back to work after having had experiences like this.  It is done for ludicrously small amounts of money and ludicrously small gain.  People are put in absolute terror and obviously a fear of being stabbed and indeed, even being killed.  I do not need a victim impact statement to explain to me just how serious this is.  I am going to take all that very much into account.

14The victim impact statements that have been tendered here outline that clearly.  The psychological damage, the ongoing fear, the paranoia and the very, very significant interference with the lives of the victims afterwards.  It is the sort of offending which is always regarded as serious.  It calls for the application of general and specific deterrence, denunciation and appropriate punishment.  The only option open here, clearly, is one of gaol.  Particularly when one looks at your prior convictions.

15A number of matters were put on your behalf by way of a plea submission and really what it comes down to is the concept of totality.

16You do apparently have a partner, you have got six children.  Upon your ultimate release you hope to be able to reside with them.  You were raised in Deniliquin by a grandmother and you were close. She has now passed away.

17You did get to Year 11 in school, you worked in abattoirs in Melbourne for a period of time.  You have done concreting and a lot of what would appear to have been labouring type jobs.  As I have indicated, you do have that long term relationship.  How strong that is I have obviously got no idea.

18You were an alcoholic from the age of 18 until 35.  You progressed through the various drugs, from cannabis, speed, heroin and finally methylamphetamine.

19The offending which occurred, as I said occurred over around about a week, and you were on an amphetamine bender.  That offers no excuse.  In one sense it does not even offer an explanation that cannot be called in aid for you in these circumstances.

20You have been previously hospitalised for drug induced psychosis on a self-reporting basis to your counsel.  Your currently being medicated for schizophrenia.  I accept that in gaol you are on olanzapine, which is not a light hearted medication and that you would have a degree of mental difficulties, including, I would suspect, depression.  But none of those matters relate to this offending and cannot be called in aid in respect of any Verdins principles.

21What it comes down to is this, it has to be a gaol sentence.  In New South Wales you were sentenced to be imprisoned, as I understand it, for a period of four years and four months, with a minimum term of two years and seven months.  That offended included an armed robbery very similar to the armed robbery that was committed.  That four years and four months is an aggregate sentence and it is almost impossible to determine what the individual charges comprised of within that aggregate.  There are other charges of dishonesty, receiving stolen goods and as I was told by your counsel there was a police pursuit involved in all that.  But I am not privy to that brief and not privy to what was put on your behalf, so I can just make an estimate.

22What, and I have discussed this with counsel, I think should be done here in fairness to you, but also to make sure that there is a proper sentence imposed is calculate what I would have given in general terms as a total overall sentence.  The offending all occurred within the space of a week, it is all very similar.  And in my view, had a I been sentencing you in this state for all that offending, bearing in mind the principles of totality and your attempt to avoid a crushing sentence and give you some prospects of rehabilitation, my view is I would have sentenced you to a total effective sentence of something in the order of six and a half years.

23That being so, and I am being transparent by doing this, I think the simplest way of doing this for me is to simply subtract two years and six months, give or take, from that sentence.  That leaves - you are still owing 18 months to the New South Wales parole board, but as a matter of practicality you will still be in custody here for the bulk of that, if not all of it.  So you are getting the benefit of that in one sense, I suppose.  That would then leave me here with an effective sentence of around about four years and I then impose a minimum term on that.

24So that is the general concept of what I propose to do and when I actually go through the figures I believe it makes sense.

25What I will do is this:  on each of the minor thefts, that is the petrol and the confectionary, I will give you one month concurrent on each one.  On the charge of armed robbery, three years; on the charge of attempted armed robbery, two and a half years.

26I direct that 12 months of the sentence imposed on the attempted armed robbery be cumulative upon the sentence imposed on the robbery.  That gives a total effective sentence of four years.  For the armed robberies, that is a total of four years.

27In these circumstances, I direct that you serve a minimum term of two and a half years before coming eligible for parole.

28And I direct that 201 days be reckoned as having been served under this sentence.

29I have got no idea what to say in the s.6AAA.  I think the simplest bet is because we have got to put one in the thingo.  I will just simply say under s.6AAA, five and a half with four.  Yes, so that is the 6AAA.  That all make sense to everybody?

30MS HASSAN:  Yes, Your Honour.

31HIS HONOUR:  And is that explanation clear enough as to why I've done it this way>?

32MS HASSAN:  Yes.

33MR ANTOS:  As Your Honour pleases, yes.

34HIS HONOUR:  All right, what I'll also do is - the victim impact statements I'll tender those or I'll make them Exhibits, that will be Exhibit B and the Crown opening I will make Exhibit A.

35#EXHIBIT A -    Crown opening.

36#EXHIBIT B -    Victim impact statements.

37MR ANTOS:  Yes, as Your Honour pleases.

38HIS HONOUR:  All right, so there's nothing else we need ‑ ‑ ‑

39MS HASSAN:  No, Your Honour.

40HIS HONOUR:  No, all right.  All right.  Yes, you can pop out the back and have a yarn in there if you like.  Yes, just stand down.

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