Director of Public Prosecutions v Lord

[2016] VCC 1259

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

AT MILDURA
CRIMINAL JURISDICTION

CR 16-00717
CR 16-00720
CR 16-00728

DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROSECUTIONS

v

AARON LORD
TROY BRISCOE
RHEANNON VANEK

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JUDGE:	HIS HONOUR JUDGE SMALLWOOD
WHERE HELD:	Mildura
DATE OF HEARING:
DATE OF SENTENCE:	25 August 2016
CASE MAY BE CITED AS:	DPP v Lord
MEDIUM NEUTRAL CITATION:	[2016] VCC 1259

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 J. Taylor
For Accused Lord	Mr T. Sullivan
For Accused Briscoe	Mr H. Middleton
For Accused Vanek	Mr B. Halpin

HIS HONOUR:

1Troy Anthony Briscoe, you have pleaded guilty to one charge of armed robbery, one charge of make a threat to kill, one charge of intentionally causing injury and one charge of false imprisonment.

2Aaron Lee Lord, you have pleaded guilty to one charge of armed robbery, one charge of threat to kill, one charge of intentionally causing injury and one charge of false imprisonment.

3You, Rheannon Vanek, have pleaded guilty to one charge of false imprisonment one charge of assault causing injury and one charge of threat to kill.  Those crimes, armed robbery, 25 years, threats to kill, 10 years, intentionally causing injury, 10 years, false imprisonment, 10 years, are the maximum penalties.

4Each of you has pleaded guilty to a settled indictment and must get the benefit of that plea of guilty.  You are now 32, 24 and 29 years of age respectively.  I accept for these purposes that each of you gentlemen has an element of remorse involved in that plea of guilty and I accept that in your situation,
Ms Vanek, that it is more than remorse, and indeed amounts to shame.

5The two of you gentlemen have very significant prior criminal histories.  You, Ms Vanek, do not.  You must not only get the benefit of the plea of guilty for remorse aspects but each of you must get the benefit of that plea of guilty for the utilitarian effect of it in advancing in the interests of justice and saving the community the cost of a trial.

6It is somewhat disappointing that after the committal back in late 2015 that the matter was then adjourned part heard for another six months before it was resolved.  I am sure that is not the Crown's fault or any of your fault, it is simply an indication of the difficulties in my view being brought about by a problem with committals and the time that they take.

7In any event, I take all of those matters into account on your behalf.  There has been an element of delay because of those matters and I take that into account, but not in a very significant way.

8I turn then to the summary of the offending and before doing that indicate that the contents of the victim impact statement convey the sheer terror that this man must have felt over the conduct inflicted by the three of you.  It has caused ongoing psychological difficulties and I think that any person would understand the absolute dread that he must have felt in the boot of that car for half an hour believing that he was being taken to be executed after, in effect, being tortured for a period of time.

9The summary as I read it should be read in conjunction with the fear that that man was feeling at all in my view given times.  In any event, the victim is a Mr Christopher Pennington.  He had known you, Mr Lord, and you, Mr Briscoe, for a couple of years beforehand.  About 9 am on Thursday 4 June 2015 he got a message from you, Mr Lord, asking if you would give him a hand moving a kitchen cabinet at your house.

10At around 11 o'clock you picked him up in a Holden and drove to the house at 12 Avocado Street, Mildura.  It was the first time that he had been to that address.  Mr Pennington and you, Mr Lord, went into the lounge room near the front door.  You, Mr Briscoe, and you, Ms Vanek, entered the lounge room.  You Mr Vanek were in a relationship with Mr Lord at the time and Mr Pennington had never met you.

11You Mr Lord locked the front door.  You Mr Briscoe stood next to it.  There was a golf club next to Mr Briscoe and Mr Pennington sat on a seat in the lounge room.  It is clear from that that you, Mr Lord, knew that you were going to at least inflict violence on this man or try and extract your money, and it is clear from that by the position of you, Mr Briscoe, that you had agreed to this prior to the arrival of Mr Pennington.

12You, Mr Lord, said, "Where's my money, cunt?" and told Mr Pennington to empty out his pockets, which he did.  He removed his wallet and mobile phone.  You, Mr Briscoe, pat searched him and moved his wallet to a couch and you took his mobile phone.

13Mr Pennington saw you, Mr Lord, with the golf club or a golf club.  I understand there were two found.  You were swinging at Mr Lord in his direction from a distance of about three metres.  He apparently owed you $200 for ice from about a year beforehand.  He said that he had given a third person that money to give to you.

14You, Mr Lord, were agitated and said, "You owe me over $500."  You pointed the golf club at his knee and said, "$500 bucks is pretty much a knee cap.  Convince me I shouldn't do it."  You then demanded, Mr Lord, that Pennington ring family or friends to get the money.  He used your phone to call his uncle, grandfather, ex-girlfriend and sister to see if they could help him get money.  They could not.

15He tried to call his parents but they did not answer.  While he was on the phone making those calls for help you, Mr Briscoe, held a knife to his throat.  The prosecution say that the offence of armed robbery was then completed and I accept that that's the case.  You are not to be sentenced for that, Ms Vanek, even though you were present and one would have certain suspicions about all this.

16You, in any event, returned to the lounge room.  I make no finding as to whether you had a knife or not as it is irrelevant to what occurs after this.  In any event, the next charge is that of you, Mr Lord, and you, Mr Briscoe, with a threat to kill.

17You, Mr Briscoe, in company with Mr Lord, said to Mr Pennington, "If you slip up or tell anyone I've got no problem with killing you."  It was put to me during the plea that the unlawful imprisonment was amateurish and there was no disguise, there was no need for a disguise because the man, on your words, would have thought he would have been killed if he told anybody.

18In any event, that is Charge 2, threat to kill.  Charge 3 involves the three of you which is intentionally causing injury.  You, Mr Lord, swung the golf club at
Mr Pennington.  You struck him with the club to the top of his right leg, over his left hand and swung at his feet and legs, but he moved them away.

19You, Ms Vanek, said you would get a tarp to bring into the room as you didn't want blood all over your house.  You got a blue tarp and laid it on the floor.
Mr Lord, you said to Pennington, "Get on your knees.  You're going to die today."  That is part of the threat to kill.  It was put on your behalf, Ms Vanek, that the tarp was to protect the children from the body fluids of drug addicts or something along those lines.  I do not accept that.  It was clearly that you knew that this man was going to be seriously assaulted and just did not want blood on the floor.

20You must have been there when at that point in time when the threat to kill of, "Get on your knees.  You're going to die," was made and the man was then made to kneel on your tarp.  It would be noted that you on the face of all this made absolutely no attempt to persuade either of these men to stop what they were doing.

21Mr Briscoe, you then put a cord around Mr Pennington's neck and used it to choke him until he lost consciousness.  When he finally came around he saw the three of you taking turns to punch and kick him.  You, Mr Lord, put the cord around his neck again and choked him.

22You, Mr Briscoe, watched to see if he was starting to lose consciousness and then you stopped Mr Lord from actually choking him or killing him, is probably what you did do.  In any event, that is the assault and it is a nasty one.

23You, Mr Briscoe, then hog tied Mr Pennington so that his hands were tied behind his back and to his feet.  You, Mr Lord, and you, Mr Briscoe, told him that you were going to take him down bush and kill him and that no-one would miss him.  I have no reason to doubt that he believed that.

24The three of you, and I have no reason to doubt, Ms Vanek, that you were present when it said, the three of you then dragged him on the tarp to the backyard.  Apparently you, Mr Briscoe, used a cigarette to burn the back of his neck.  Having looked at the injury to the back of his neck, if that was done with a cigarette, it took a little bit of time.

25It seems to me, and I will not be making any finding on this, it may well have been done with a cigarette lighter.  Mr Pennington thinks it was a cigarette, but be that as it may, it is a nasty injury to inflict on an entirely helpless man.

26In any event, he was put into the boot of the car and you, Mr Briscoe, demanded that he be quiet or you would kill him then and there.  The three of you struck him again with your feet and the boot was closed.  You, Mr Lord, and you,
Mr Briscoe, then drove away from the house.  You drove for about half an hour with that man in the boot of the car.

27He managed to free himself of the ropes and then the car was driven back to the house that you had come from.  I have already said what I think about or what I have no doubt Mr Pennington felt during that period of time.  The boot was open and you, Mr Lord, said, "We're going to hold you hostage in the shed and you can work out how to pay me.  For your sake you want to hope that your ex pays up tomorrow."

28Charge 5 is a threat to kill, although it is only to you, Ms Vanek.  Apparently while he was in the shed you came out of the house and said to him, "You better not make any noise or I'll slit your throat."  Some explanation was given that that was in case you made noise and woke the children up.

29If any mother is in that situation with a man that she has seen threatened to be killed by others and kidnapped in the way that he effectively was, talk about make that threat, I just do not accept that and I have no idea what you were up to.

30In any event, he was in the shed and it was an aluminium garden shed about four metres squared.  I do not need to go through all of that.  He was locked in that for a significant period of time, taken out once to urinate by you, Mr Lord, and otherwise kept there until he made his escape.

31He ran to a phone box and called 000.  He waited until police arrived and the police then went to, as I understand it, the premises.  He went to the Mildura Base Hospital.  His injuries, which relate of course to Charge 3, were slight nasal tenderness, marked bruising around the eye, tender and swollen nose and occiput, ligature marks around his wrists and ankles, three centimetre burn on the back of the neck, which I have referred to, and a visible bruise on the right upper thigh.

32Obviously the photographs of Mr Pennington have been tendered and I have viewed those and they support the description given in the Crown opening of the injuries that were caused to him.  He was, however, discharged home that same morning with moderate treatment, that simply being pain relief.

33As I understand the situation at around about a quarter to five in the morning police attended at the address.  You, Ms Vanek, were located and arrested, and at about 5 am you, Mr Lord, and you, Mr Briscoe, arrived in the car.  I am told that police were concealed and you walked in and were arrested.

34A search warrant was conducted.  The items that have been referred to in the Crown opening were found consistent with what had been said by Mr Pennington, and significantly for you, Ms Vanek, Mr Pennington's wallet was found in your handbag.

35The rope and the cord were found in the boot as described by Mr Pennington and there is a great deal of corroborative material as to what he said took place, in particular the photographs.  You were all then interviewed.  You, Mr Briscoe, made limited admissions and tried to minimise your involvement.  The other two of you essentially denied it.

36The history of the matter is that you were charged, that you, Mr Lord, and you, Mr Briscoe, have remained in custody ever since.  You, Ms Vanek, were in custody for five days before being bailed. You were charged on
5 June.  Your first committal mention was on 22 September 2015.  There was another committal mention a month or so later and then on 6 November 2015 a contested committal commenced, and it was then adjourned apparently to 27 to 28 April 2016, but I have made comment about the undesirability of those sorts of timeframes being involved without criticising anyone at the bar table or their instructors.

37Bail was refused for each of you men and the matter then proceeded.  As I understand it, it was resolved at the completion of the contested committal on 27 and 28 April.  As indicated, I will give all three of you the benefit of having pleaded once all the material was available and in a situation like this where the witness was Mr Pennington I can see why a committal would be desired by counsel.

38That is as I understand the history.  It does not make a great deal of it other than the comment I made earlier about the delay that is involved in all this.  The offending has got to be regarded in my view as very serious.  I have indicated already during the course of the plea that I regard the unlawful imprisonment as a particularly ugly example of that crime.

39It calls for the application of general and specific deterrence.  It falls clearly for denunciation and an appropriate punishment.  In the situation of you, Mr Lord, and you, Mr Briscoe, it is getting pretty close to the need for public protection.  I know this all took place in a drug scenario, but it simply cannot be done.

40The principles of Verdins it is agreed do not apply to any of you.  Accordingly there is no relief for you there.  In my view for each of you there has to be an active custodial sentence and for you, Mr Briscoe, and you, Mr Lord, it has to be a very significant one indeed.

41I then turn to the matters personal to each of you.  On your behalf, Mr Briscoe, was a report of Dr Ball, and I will refer to that again in a moment, together with three references, if they can be called that, about assistance people may endeavour to give you on your ultimate release.

42You have now been in custody for 447 days.  You have spent approximately five months in various forms of lockdown and I have taken that into account as making gaol that you have already done harder for you.  You have a very significant criminal history and probably I do not need to go through it.  There were a number of matters for violence.  You have received custodial sentences over the last 14 or 15 years since you were in probably your late teens as I worked that out.

43You have had opportunities for parole though I understand despite the submission that you could handle parole, in relation to what I am about to refer to I do not think you got it at all.  You have had many opportunities if you chose to do so to address your offending behaviour.

44It was put to me in this situation that had never really been addressed, but the fact of the matter is, Mr Briscoe, that that is a matter for you.  I am not going to go through each and every crime that you have committed over an extended period of time.  I think the real relevance here though is this; on 8 March 2013 you were given a period of 15 months' imprisonment for a number of offences, including aggravated burglary with a person present and intentionally cause injury.

45You served that 15 months and were out, as I understand it, for around about eleven months before this offending occurred that I am about to sentence you for.  Just to put this offending into some sort of context, the offending that you had originally been sentenced for was that on 1 May of 2011 this occurred; a man was woken by a knock to his front door, opened it and found a female and two males had come inside.

46The female demanded $10,000 and one of the males began assaulting the man by hitting him over the head with a torch.  The female and other male ransacked the victim's bedroom and have gone through a safe he had in his wardrobe while he was being assaulted by the second male.  He has given descriptions of all these people and the people then decamped.  That bears a disturbing resemblance to the sort of offending that has occurred here.

47It is in the report of Mr Ball that you do not learn from previous experience.  You received 15 months for the conduct on that occasion and obviously you will receive a much more significant sentence this time.  I probably should also point out in your situation on 29 June 2011 you were given a sentence of 16 months imprisonment for various types of offending so you are no stranger to the gaol system and I would be concerned about you becoming institutionalised.

48Indeed, as I understand the police report from the offending that gave rise to the 15 month sentence, by the time that had been investigated fully you were already undergoing the sentence of the 16 months, so I do not know how that all worked out, if they waited until you finished that before you got the
14 months, but be that as it may, that is what occurred.

49Very helpful submissions were put on your behalf by your counsel and they are on the court record.  I accept that you do come from a dysfunctional family.  I accept that there was neglect from your parents and that you were separated from them and homeless from around about the age of eleven.

50You have described how you lived on the streets in the care of protective services and with friends.  Your schooling only got to about Year 7 and as is so typical in these sorts of matters, you attended six different primary schools and were a poor student, having learning difficulties, disciplinary problems and behavioural issues.

51When you ultimately, left school you had real difficulty in sustained or paid employment.  You had a number of relationships and I accept that there is a nine year old son, Marcus at Merbein, if I remember correctly, who you had been seeing on a regular basis, and that has been confirmed.  That was up until your incarceration.

52You have to your credit done a number of programs on remand which is not that easy to do and I note that you have no visits to the gaol and receive occasional phone calls.  You have reached the age where childhood does not help a lot and even though you may have had all those matters occur in your younger years and the way that you have been dealt with over the years, you know full well, Mr Briscoe, that you cannot do what you did, and that that sort of offending attracts significant sentences indeed.

53I then turn to the report of Dr Ball, a well-recognised forensic psychologist.  He confirms essentially what your counsel told me about your background.  He confirmed that at the present time you are on methadone for opiate dependency, though this offending apparently has been to a certain extent blamed on ice.

54He said that he detected no evidence of frank mental illness, no psychotic symptoms, hallucinations or delusions.  Apparently you have previously had drug induced psychosis.  He said that your immediate recall, short term memory and long term memory were intact.  You were orientated in time and place.

55He then goes on to say that you impressed him as impulsive, anti-social and reckless, and I might point out here I have seen a number of Mr Ball's reports and this seems to be a direct quote in every one of them.  But be that as it may, with a limited capacity to act with good judgment.

56You have a lengthy history of failing to learn from previous mistakes and present as impaired in your capacity to plan any positive and self-sustaining behaviour.  He points out that you have a personality disorder and I take that into account, that your counsel concedes that it does not get to the level of Verdins.

57One of the difficulties in these sorts of situations is that people with anti-social personality disorders can be assisted, but there is also the counter-argument that they can become and are difficult to treat and are a risk to the community.

58I take into account that you do have this condition and I accept that you wish all of this had not ever taken place.  I look at the paragraph on p.5 of Mr Ball's report talking about impulsivity and recklessness and he puts out that your history of presentation indicated that you were aggressive and intimidating and the like.  As I say, I see that frequently in his reports and the same sort of material relates to you, Mr Lord, and I take it with a certain grain of salt.

59The fact of the matter remains that you have for a long time been offending, you have received gaol sentences on a regular basis and your solution to problems seems to be a preparedness to subject other people to violence and terror to achieve what in this case would have seemed to have been $100 or a couple of hundred dollars.

60That is the end result of it all.  The prospects of your rehabilitation are entirely in your hands I suspect and the risk of you re-offending has got to be regarded as high unless you rehabilitate and I will regard that prospect of rehabilitation as guarded indeed.

61I then turn to your situation, Mr Lord.  You, as I have said, are 24 years of age and therefore younger than Mr Briscoe.  You have, it seems to me, less prior convictions than Mr Briscoe and you haven't had as much difficulty in the prison system since you were locked up as he has.

62On the other hand, I think whilst he was actively involved in all this, it seems to me clear that this was your idea and you have to suffer the consequences of it.  In this sentencing I have taken into account the Renzella time and I have taken into account, not in a mathematical way obviously, the lockdown time that you have spent as well as the other matters I have indicated.

63Parity has to play a part in this and whilst I have given you a lesser sentence because of your age and your somewhat lesser priors, it is not one of great magnitude.  You also have had a very unfortunate upbringing.  You have prior convictions which do not involve that much violence, but certainly involve serious offending.

64In your particular situation the last significant matter was in September of 2012 when you received a sentence of 14 months.  That sentence included false imprisonment and recklessly cause injury and threat to kill.  The circumstances of the offending that gave rise to that were that you and another went to an address and abused a victim through a doorway over some unknown matter.  One would suspect drug debts, but anyway a number of you then forced your way into this man's unit, assaulted him by punching and kicking him.

65He has attempted to get to his phone to call the police, however you, Mr Lord, have taken his phone, removed the battery.  You have then held him down on the couch and using a knife from his kitchen held it to his throat.  You warned him not to tell anyone or you would do worse.  The three of you then forced him to walk to a shopping centre where he was made to withdraw a hundred dollars from his bank account and then a further $600.

66He was then walked back to his house or his unit where other things were stolen from him.  He received head injuries, including a black eye and bruising to his face, head and soreness over his body.  In your situation, Mr Lord, that also has a very unfortunate echo as to what occurred to the gentleman in this case, and whilst that offending - you were given that sentence back in 2012 for that type of offending, and you don't seem to have learned a lot.

67You have received other sentences of imprisonment, some of them being suspended, as has Mr Briscoe, and I am not going to go through all those.  It is obvious that each of you has a significant criminal history.  I then again in your case refer to the report of Mr Ball.  He says that you have a personality dysfunction.

68He points out that you are on Quetiapine, which is an anti-psychotic, and methadone, again for opiate dependence.  In these situations those anti-psychotics as I understand it are not used for psychosis but to quieten prisoners down.  So there is nothing here to suggest, as I have said, that there are any Verdins principles involved in all this.

69You saw the psychiatrist and went through the same process that Mr Briscoe went through.  In terms of your personal history you told him that you were the only child of biological parents but said that you were largely raised by your maternal grandparents.  You have no knowledge of your biological father.  He left when your mother was pregnant.

70You described a basically functional family of origin but then said that there had been violence and you grew up around violence, which included physical punishments.  You said to him that you had no major childhood injuries but you had been diagnosed with attention deficit disorder and had been medicated for a number of years.  It would be interesting to know whether you were medicated on Ritalin or not.

71In any event, you left home when you were about 16 and basically lived with friends.  You left school at Year 11 and had had difficulty with that education.  You, as with Mr Briscoe, have an inconsistent employment history.  You worked in labouring positions.  You have had a number of significant intimate relationships.  You have had something like as I understand it three children, but no contact with them or their mothers.

72You began drinking alcohol at around 13, using cannabis and using heroin.  I accept that in each of your cases you were using amphetamine at around about this time.  You were regarded by Mr Ball as having a problem with anti-social and self-defeating personality features.  He then repeats the paragraph that we have seen so often, and says that you satisfy the criteria for an anti-social personality disorder and he considers that condition to be severe.

73The same matters then refer to you as refer to Mr Briscoe and each of you realistically is a young - or not so young in your case now, Mr Briscoe - person who has had a difficult childhood who has a personality disorder who has resorted to the use of drugs, and all that in combination has resulted in violent offending against other people.

74Your circumstances are that rehabilitation again is in your hands.  The risk of you re-offending has to be regarded I think as relatively high.  Unless you do rehabilitate there is nothing else that can be done for you and it is all up to you as your counsel has no doubt very dramatically impressed upon you this morning.

75You, Ms Vanek, are in a somewhat different position to the other two and there are very different factors involved in the disposition to be imposed.  As I have indicated and I do not make any secret of it, I do not think this crime can be dealt with with anything less than a custodial sentence.

76However, in your particular situation as the report of Dr Turnbull - I have a letter from the Ramsay Clinic, a couple of references or reports from the Sunraysia Health Services, a report from the Tristar Medical Group.  I heard sworn evidence from Mr McKinnon on your behalf and there is also a report from him.  You clearly suffer from anxiety and depression.

77Mr McKinnon says that they can be dealt with by medication.  It may be that they have never been dealt with properly in the past and that you have had them for a significant period of time.  They do not in this situation give rise, as I have already indicated twice, to the principles involved in Verdins, but of course I take them into account as to how this in your situation has to be regarded as uncharacteristic behaviour occurred.

78I accept that you had been drug addicted for a very long period of time.  In circumstances such as that it is to your credit that despite having been addicted for over a decade you have no real criminal history.  That gives me confidence in your power or abilities to rehabilitate yourself.

79As I said, you had no prior convictions, you were kept in custody for five days after this, and I take into account also that assistance was offered to the Crown by way of giving the evidence, but the Crown did not accept that offer.  Why they did not I am not informed.  It is really none of my business.  I assume that they probably did not think you were needed or did not believe you, one of the two.

80But in any event, that letter was sent.  I have been told that and I give you some benefit for that, but I am unable to put it any higher than that I think in this particular situation.  You have your history outlined in the report of Mr Turnbull and also the reports of the various health people who dealt with you over the years and are dealing with you at the current time.

81You have, as I understand it, three children, one of whom is older, about 12, in the care of your mother, and two younger ones who have been in your care.  You had a young baby at the time that this offending occurred and around about that time you had been diagnosed with ovarian cancer and had that operated on and removed.

82I take that into account in this situation, that your emotional situation may have been somewhat unbalanced, but there is no formal evidence before me that I can draw any conclusive opinions or attitudes from.

83You had been at the time of this offending off substances for a  period of time but had relapsed not long beforehand.  It was seems that Mr Lord had moved into your premises at around about the time that you lapsed.  I am not going to buy into any of that.

84The situation is that it is clear that the people who work with you regard you as having a desire to reform your life, a desire to look after your children, and I accept that that is very much what you do desire.  You have been making efforts in recent times to achieve that and they are somewhat laudatory in their praises of those endeavours that you have been making.

85All the matters that are contained in Dr Turnbull's report I take into account.  You had real difficulties as a child which has caused you to go to drug addiction and he described it as a personality dysfunction.  You are currently he says on psychiatric medication and he did not suggest any change to that and he believed that your future and the risk of you re-offending depended largely on your ability to achieve abstinence from illicit drugs.

86That is realistically up to you and since this has occurred you have done what you can to remedy the situation and I take all those reports into account.  The differences between you and the others are that you have no prior convictions.  You have had the children, and whilst I do not regard as exceptional circumstances for the purpose of mercy, I accept that in the situation he has described in the reports that your lack of ability to see those children and look after them during the period of incarceration will have a dreadful affect upon you.

87That makes you in my view very different from the other two, and accordingly whilst I intend to give you a significant sentence of imprisonment due to the extreme seriousness of this offending, it is not in the same category as what they get.  The Crown conceded in your situation a disposition of a custodial sentence plus a community corrections order is within range, and indeed I think in all these circumstances it is well within range and that is what I propose to do.

88That community corrections order which will commence after a period of imprisonment will be for 18 months.  It will be with conviction.  There will be no work hours and it will have the conditions if you agree of drug and alcohol, mental health and medical.  I will now proceed the sentence in respect of the others.  It is, as I said, a number of times in my view very serious offending.

89Will you stand for me please, Mr Briscoe?  On Charge 1 of armed robbery, three years.  On Charge 2 of threat to kill, one year.  On Charge 3 of intentionally cause injury, one year, and on Charge 4 of unlawful imprisonment, five years.  I direct that six months of the sentence imposed on Charge 1, three months of the sentence imposed on Charge 2, and three months of the sentence imposed on Charge 3 be served cumulatively upon each other and upon the sentence imposed on Charge 4.  That gives an effective head sentence of six years.

90I direct that you serve a minimum term of four years before becoming eligible for parole.  I direct that 447 days be reckoned as having been served under this sentence.

91Mr Lord, please stand up for me?  You, Mr Lord, on Charge 1, three years, Charge 2, one year, Charge 3, one year and Charge 4, five years.  That is the same as is imposed on Mr Briscoe.  In your situation because you are younger and the other factors as I have mentioned, including the Renzella time or lack of the loss of opportunity to concurrency, I have ordered less cumulation.

92Accordingly for you on Charge 1 - so three months of the sentence imposed on Charge 1, two months of the sentence imposed on Charge 2, two months of the sentence imposed on Charge 3, be served cumulatively upon each other and upon the sentence imposed on Charge 4.  That gives an effective head sentence of five years and seven months, and I direct that you serve a minimum term of three years and nine months before becoming eligible for parole.  There is pre-sentence detention of 285 days.  Thank you, Mr Lord, you can sit down.

93You, Ms Vanek, on the charge of false imprisonment, nine months imprisonment.  I direct that five days be reckoned as having been served under that sentence.  On the two other charges if you agree you are placed on a community corrections order for a period of 18 months with the conditions that I have outlined, and that CCO will be with conviction.  Are there any other orders that I have to make at this stage before the CCO is signed?

94Pursuant to s.6AAA I see no reason to make any miniscule distinctions, save that but for your plea of guilty, Mr Briscoe, if this matter had proceeded to trial you would have been given nine with six, you, Mr Lord, if this matter would have been given eight and a half with five and a half, and you, Ms Vanek, I do not do a 6AAA because there is a CCO involved.

95Are there any other orders?

96MS TAYLOR:  No, Your Honour.  You have signed the disposal order.

97HIS HONOUR:  You will explain it, Mr Halpin?

98MR HALPIN:  I'll explain it to her, yes, Your Honour.  I will visit her.

99HIS HONOUR:  It commences after the completion of the sentence.  I just might need to put that in otherwise it will come up as starting in two days.  You will have to do it again, Mr Halpin.  Otherwise she would have been in breach of it in about three days' time.  Thank you.  Remove the prisoners.

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