Director of Public Prosecutions v Len Speight (a Pseudonym)

[2016] VCC 1271

IN THE COUNTY COURT OF VICTORIA  Revised

Not Restricted

Suitable for Publication

AT GEELONG CRIMINAL DIVISION

DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROSECUTIONS

v

LEN SPEIGHT (A PSEUDONYM)

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JUDGE:	Grant
WHERE HELD:	Geelong
DATEOF HEARING:	29 July 2016
DATEOFSENTENCE:	17 August 2016
CASE MAY BE CITEDAS:	DPP v Len Speight (A Pseudonym)
MEDIUMNEUTRAL CITATION:	[2016] VCC 1271

REASONS FOR SENTENCE

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APPEARANCES:	Counsel	Solicitors
For theDPP	Ms A Hassan	OPP
For theAccused	Mr A. Paull	M Brugman & Associates

VICTORIAN GOVERNMENT REPORTING SERVICE

565 Lonsdale Street, Melbourne - Telephone: [phone]
185926, 185927

HIS HONOUR:

1Len Speight1, you have pleaded guilty to three charges of indecent assault on a male person, five charges of indecent assault, two charges of incest, and five charges of indecent act with a child under the age of 16.

2The maximum penalties for these offences are as follows:

·     Indecent assault on a male person, five years' imprisonment;

·     Indecent assault, five years' imprisonment;

·     Incest, 20 years' imprisonment; and

·     Indecent act with a child under 16 years, ten years' imprisonment.

3I have heard a summary of the offending. It is not my intention to repeat the whole summary. It is Exhibit A in this proceeding.

4The first three charges on the indictment relate to three occasions between 27 March 1978 and 25 December 1980 when you indecently assaulted your nephew, Keiran Northrop2. He had come to live with you and your wife in the year that he turned 16.

5The first offence occurred on a date before the victim’s 16th birthday. You approached him when he was lying on the couch. You apparently thought he was asleep. You unzipped your pants and put his hand on your penis. You then pulled his underwear down and held his penis for a short time.

6Charges 2 and 3 involve two separate occasions where you grabbed the victim’s penis over his clothing.

7Charge 10 refers to a later offence against the same victim. In the first half of 1994 when Mr Northrop was 30 years old, he visited you and while you were

1  Len Speight is a Pseudonym

2  Keiran Northrop is a Pseudonym

both having a coffee you grabbed and pulled his penis over his clothing.

8The second victim is your son. On a date in the late 1980s when your son was aged seven or eight, you indecently assaulted him by taking his hand and placing it on your penis.

9On another occasion when your son was aged nine or ten you approached him while he was playing with his toys in the lounge room. You lay beside him and rolled him on his back. You put your hands into his trousers and began masturbating his penis. You then went further. You sucked his penis and took his hand and used it to stroke your penis. In a final shocking act of abuse you then pulled his pants down, rolled him onto his stomach and inserted your penis into his anus.

10When your son was aged between ten and 12 there was a further incident where you approached him while he was asleep on the lounge room floor. He woke to find you masturbating his penis.

11Although I have not received a victim impact statement from your son, I am satisfied that your criminal offending would have caused him significant harm.

12The third victim is your grandson. He was ten years old on the 25 December 2015, when you committed four indecent acts against him. You touched his penis, you exposed your penis, you tried to make him touch your penis and you tried to kiss him and put your tongue in his mouth. Two days later, you touched his penis over his clothing.

13Your daughter has provided a victim impact statement in which she details the profound impact the offending has had on her and her family. She describes how her son’s development has suffered greatly, both emotionally and socially. In her statement she says this, “Both parents have suffered emotionally due to high levels of stress caused by the ongoing issues. Jordan3

3  Jordan is a Pseudonym

has been receiving extensive counselling to address the effects of his grandfather’s offending. He was diagnosed with anxiety last year and placed on medication. He constantly wets the bed and has made threats to take his own life. His education has also suffered greatly.”

14Mr Speight you have committed extremely serious criminal offences.

15You abused the trust of three children in the most shocking way. You were the uncle of the first victim, the father of the second victim, and the grandfather of the third victim. These boys were entitled to your love and protection. They received the opposite. You betrayed the trust placed in you as a father, as a grandfather, and as an uncle. Your son and grandson were particularly vulnerable because of their tender years when you offended against them. The offending against your son was offending of the gravest kind involving an act of anal penetration and an act of oral penetration. Your offending was not isolated to a narrow period of time. It covers separate periods of time in the late 70s, the late 80s, 1994 and 2015.

16Mr Speight with this type of offending, general deterrence, denunciation and just punishment are all central sentencing considerations.

17I now move to matters concerning your background and matters relevant in mitigation.

18You are a 67-year-old man without prior convictions. This latter fact is not a significant matter in mitigation, given the time over which the offending occurred.

19I do not intend to go through your background in any detail. A 2013 report from Megan Robson, a clinical psychologist registrar, details your background clearly enough. She says this at page 2 of her report, “Mr Speight described an unremarkable developmental history. He reported that he had a normal birth at term in Scotland and had no health issues or serious incidents as a

child.” You completed year 12 and then completed an Associate Diploma in Business. You were married in 1971 and you have a good work history. The last 16 years of your working life were spent working as a prison officer. Your counsel said that when you were young an older cousin sexually abused you. It was not suggested that this explains or excuses your offending, in any way.

20I am satisfied that you are genuinely remorseful for the offending. Your remorse was not immediately obvious. Indeed, when your daughter first confronted you with the allegations made by her son, you denied them. When the police interviewed you, you did not make full admissions. However, and importantly, after you were charged, you accepted every allegation and indicated an early plea of guilty to all charges. This was a clear sign by you of your acceptance of responsibility. There was no committal hearing and the victims have not had to go through the trauma of giving evidence. I am satisfied that your behaviour in accepting the charges and pleading guilty to all of them, shows remorse. In addition, your plea has also saved the community the cost and expense associated with a criminal trial. You will be given credit for all these matters.

21I acknowledge that two charges, charges 1 and 15, proceeded because of admissions you made to the police. This is also a matter in your favour.

22You have suffered from depression for some years. The diagnosis precedes your apprehension for these offences. I accept that your depression should allow for some moderation of sentence on the basis that prison will be more onerous for you than it would be for a person without depression.

23You are 67 years old. You do not have any significant issues with your physical health. In these circumstances there can only be very modest moderation of sentence on the basis of your age.

24Your  past  work  history  means  that  you  will  spend  your  prison  time  in

protection. There will be appropriate moderation of sentence in recognition of this fact

25Because you will be sentenced to a term of imprisonment on the first two charges, you are to be sentenced on charges 3 to 15 as a serious sexual offender. Accordingly, I direct that this be entered into the record of the court. This also means that in determining your sentence, I must regard protection of the community as the paramount sentencing consideration.

26The prosecution do not seek a disproportionate sentence and I do not intend to impose such a sentence. The various purposes of sentencing can be fully achieved without the imposition of such a sentence.

27Section 6E of the Sentencing Act is relevant. This section requires the imprisonment terms for a relevant offence to be served cumulatively unless otherwise directed. There is a tension between this section and the principle of totality that is not easy to resolve. I have determined that to allow the full operation of that section would, in this case, produce a disproportionate and crushing sentence.

28Your counsel submitted that you have reasonable prospects of rehabilitation.

Given your likely age upon release, your full acceptance of responsibility, and the fact that it is highly unlikely that you will have any contact with young children from your family in the future, I am prepared to find that you do have reasonable prospects of rehabilitation.

29Mr Speight would you please stand.

30You are convicted and sentenced as follows -

·Charge 1, 12 months' imprisonment.

·Charges 2, 3 & 10, six months' imprisonment on each charge;

·Charge 4, 12 months' imprisonment;

·Charge 5, 18 months' imprisonment;

·Charge 6, three and a half years' imprisonment;

·Charge 7, two years' imprisonment;

·Charges 8, five years' imprisonment;

·Charges 9, two years' imprisonment;

·Charges 11, 12 and 13, two 2 years' imprisonment on each charge; and

·Charges 14 and 15, six months' imprisonment on each charge.

31I order six months of the sentence on Charge 1, nine months of the sentence on Charge 6, six months of the sentence on Charge 11, and six months of the sentence on Charge 13 be served cumulatively upon each other and on the sentence imposed on Charge 8. This makes a total effective sentence of seven years' and three months'. I fix a minimum term of four years and nine months before you will be eligible for release on parole.

32I declare that you have served 19 days pre-sentence detention.

33Had you pleaded not guilty and been found guilty after trial, I would have imposed a total effective sentence of ten years imprisonment, with a minimum term of seven and a half years.

34Your offending attracts the provisions of the Sex Offenders Registration Act 2004, and you will be required to comply with the reporting obligations of that Act for the remainder of your life. My associate will shortly provide you with a document that details your obligations.

35I also order that you undergo a forensic procedure for the taking of a scraping

from your mouth. If you fail to co-operate in the taking of the sample, the authorities will take a blood sample and may use reasonable force to obtain that sample. I make the order because of the seriousness of the offending and also because the making of the order is in the public interest.

36You can be seated.  You can remove the prisoner, thank you.

37(Prisoner removed.)

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