Director of Public Prosecutions v Lyons and Lyons
[2018] VSC 488
•30 August 2018
| IN THE SUPREME COURT OF VICTORIA | Not Restricted |
AT MELBOURNE
CRIMINAL DIVISION
S CR 2017 0004
S CR 2017 0005
| DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROSECUTIONS |
| v |
| CHRISTINE LYONS AND RONALD LYONS |
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JUDGE: | KAYE JA |
WHERE HELD: | Melbourne |
DATE OF HEARING: | 15 August 2018 |
DATE OF SENTENCE: | 30 August 2018 |
CASE MAY BE CITED AS: | DPP v Lyons & Lyons |
MEDIUM NEUTRAL CITATION: | [2018] VSC 488 |
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CRIMINAL LAW – Sentence – Murder, attempted murder and assist offender – Jury verdicts – Victim intellectually impaired mother of four young children – Female accused unable to bear children – Motive to kill victim to enable female accused to be mother to her children – Attempt by both accused and co-offender to kill victim by drugging with sedatives – Attempt unsuccessful – Victim violently bashed to death by co-offender with agreement of female accused – Male accused assisted co-offender to dispose of victim’s body – High moral culpability – Premeditation – Grave motive – Female accused low intellect – Impoverished upbringing – Parity issues.
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APPEARANCES: | Counsel | Solicitors |
| For the Prosecution | Ms F Dalziel and Mr B Ihle | Solicitor for Public Prosecutions |
| For Christine Lyons | Mr P Kilduff with Mr R J De Kretser | Stary Norton Halphen |
| For Ronald Lyons | Mr J D Williams with Mr P Smallwood | Victoria Legal Aid |
HIS HONOUR:
Christine Ann Lyons and Ronald Lyons. You were each charged, on indictment, with the attempted murder of Samantha Joan Kelly at Kangaroo Flat between 20 January and 22 January 2016, and, secondly, with the murder of Samantha Kelly at Kangaroo Flat on or about 23 January 2016. The prosecution alleged that you were guilty of both charges on the basis that you had each, together with one Peter Arthur, been a party to, and had participated in, an agreement, arrangement or understanding to kill Samantha Kelly.
The jury found you, Christine Lyons, guilty of both charges, that is, attempted murder and murder. The jury found you, Ronald Lyons, guilty of the first charge, attempted murder, not guilty of the second charge, murder, and guilty of the alternative charge, assisting an offender.
For the purposes of sentencing you, it is, first, necessary to make some findings of fact in relation to the circumstances of the offences for which you have each been convicted. The findings, which I make, are consistent with the verdicts of the jury, and are based on the evidence that was led at your trial.
Christine Lyons, you are 47 years of age. You had previously been married to a cousin of Ronald Lyons, and it is for that reason that you both share the same surname. You had also previously been in a relationship with Ronald Lyons from time to time, but at the time of the offending, your mutual relationship was that of long standing friends. Ronald Lyons, you are 46 years of age. You are divorced, and you have three young sons, who had been living with you for some time in premises at 41 Wesley Street, Kangaroo Flat.
A number of years before the circumstances with which this case is concerned, you, Christine Lyons, formed a relationship with Peter Arthur, and you underwent a marriage ceremony with him. In 2013, you and Peter Arthur moved into the premises at 41 Wesley Street, which you shared with Ronald Lyons and his three sons.
At the time of her death, Samantha Kelly was 39 years of age. She had four young children who were then aged between 6 years and 11 months. Samantha, who was intellectually impaired, had been living for some years with her children in Ballarat. During the period leading to the offence, she had been in a relationship with the father of her fourth child. That relationship was quite turbulent, and had involved a degree of violence by her partner to her. Nevertheless, up to the time of her death, she had remained devoted to him.
Samantha Kelly was a close friend of Shiralee Lyons, who was a cousin of you, Ronald Lyons. At Shiralee’s suggestion, at about Easter 2015, Samantha and her children came to Bendigo and resided at the premises at 41 Wesley Street, in order to give Samantha a break from having the sole care of her children. During that time, she decided that she wished to remain in Bendigo, as it would remove her from pressures which she was experiencing from her partner and his family in Ballarat.
Due to the crowded nature of the premises at 41 Wesley Street, you, Ronald Lyons, were successful in obtaining a lease of neighbouring premises at 47 Wesley Street. Those premises consisted of a house, together with a bungalow at the rear of it. You, Ronald Lyons, resided in the house with your three children. Initially, you, Christine Lyons, and Peter Arthur shared the bedroom in the bungalow, and Samantha Kelly slept in the lounge room of it together with her son. Samantha’s three daughters, including the infant, slept in the bedroom of the bungalow with you, Christine Lyons, and Peter Arthur.
In the weeks leading up to the offences, you, Christine Lyons, and Peter Arthur moved into the house. You slept in the lounge room of that house, and the infant slept in the same bed as you. During the day time, Samantha’s other three children spent most of their time in the house, while, apparently, Samantha remained in the bungalow in a fairly secluded manner.
You, Christine Lyons, have been unable to bear children of your own. In the past you had suffered cancer, and you had undergone a hysterectomy. The prosecution case was that you so desperately wanted to have children of your own, that you were motivated to kill Samantha Kelly, in order that you could take over her children and treat them as your own.
The prosecution adduced a substantial body of evidence in support of that motive. In particular, there was evidence that, in the period leading to the offences, you had proposed to a neighbour that she and her husband be involved in a surrogacy arrangement with you, whereby she would bear a baby for you. In those discussions with the neighbour, you told her that you had approached a number of other people requesting that they be involved in such an arrangement on your behalf. In addition, in the period leading up to the offending, you had provided a home to two teenage girls, who were each subject to out-of-home care orders, and you had acted as a mother to them. You had also taken over the role of mother to Ronald Lyons’ children. More specifically, the evidence demonstrates that, in the period leading up to the death of Samantha Kelly, you had substantially taken over the role of mother of her four children, and, in particular, you had become closely attached to the youngest child.
Based on that evidence, and consistently with the jury’s verdicts, I am satisfied that, in the period leading to the commission of the offences, you had a powerful desire to permanently assume the role of mother to Samantha’s children, and that you engaged in the attempt to kill her, and in the murder of her, in order to fulfil that desire.
The prosecution further alleged that you, Ronald Lyons, and Peter Arthur both knew how much Christine Lyons wished to have children of her own, and that you and Peter Arthur were each so devoted to Christine Lyons that you wished to help her to achieve that objective by killing Samantha Kelly. As a result of its verdict, on the first charge, I am satisfied that the jury accepted that that was the motivation for you, Ronald Lyons, to participate in the attempted murder of Samantha Kelly.
The prosecution case was that the agreement to kill Samantha Kelly was formulated between both of you, and Peter Arthur, in about mid-January 2016. Shiralee Lyons gave evidence that, a few weeks before that period, and specifically in late December 2015, she was involved in two conversations with you, Christine Lyons, and Peter Arthur, in which you and Arthur asked her to assist them to murder Samantha. While there are some grounds upon which to have reservations about Shiralee Lyons’ evidence relating to those conversations, nevertheless, based on my observations of that witness in her evidence, and on the verdicts of the jury, I am satisfied that those conversations did occur.
Shiralee Lyons also gave evidence as to a third conversation between herself and you, Christine Lyons, and you, Ronald Lyons, during the course of a motor vehicle journey between Dunolly and Bendigo on or about 18 January 2016. She stated that, in that conversation, both of you discussed with her possible methods by which Samantha Kelly might be murdered. There were quite strong reasons upon which to doubt that that conversation took place, and for the purposes of sentencing both of you, I shall disregard it.
The conversations which you, Christine Lyons, had with Shiralee Lyons, at around Christmas 2015, do not form part of the offences for which you have been convicted. However, they are relevant, because they establish that the idea of killing Samantha did not occur to you suddenly in about mid-January 2016, but that you had been seriously contemplating her murder as at late 2015.
The prosecution case, in relation to the two offences charged against both of you, was based substantially on the evidence of Peter Arthur. In November 2016, Arthur pleaded guilty to the murder of Samantha Kelly, and he gave an undertaking to the judge, who sentenced him, to give evidence on behalf of the prosecution at your trial. As a consequence of that undertaking, Arthur received a significant discount on the sentence that was imposed on him for the murder of Samantha Kelly. Accordingly, at the trial, I directed the jury that it must treat his evidence as potentially unreliable, both because he had been criminally involved in the events with which this case is concerned, and, also, because as a result of his undertaking, he stood to be re-sentenced if he did not assist the prosecution and give evidence in accordance with the version of the events that he ultimately gave to the judge who sentenced him. Nevertheless, and despite that direction, it was open to the jury to accept the evidence of Peter Arthur. As a result of its verdicts, it would seem clear that the jury accepted part, but not all, of Arthur’s evidence. In that respect, it is to be noted that some important aspects of Arthur’s evidence were supported by other independent evidence.
Based on the evidence, and consistent with the jury’s verdicts, I am satisfied that, in mid-January 2016, you each agreed with Arthur to kill Samantha Kelly, and that it was proposed, at that time, that that outcome be achieved by administering to her doses of sedative and other medication to which you each had access. At that time, you, Christine Lyons, had been prescribed a number of medications for different medical conditions from which you suffered. They included medications that had sedative and similar properties. Peter Arthur was then acting as your guardian, and he supervised your use of them. Arthur’s evidence, which I accept, is that the plan was initially put into effect one evening in mid-January. You, Ronald Lyons, crushed and mixed some of the medication into a drink that was given to Samantha Kelly by you, Christine Lyons. Those actions do not form part of the charged events, which, as I have already mentioned, commenced on 20 January, but they form part of the background events immediately preceding the commission of the offence contained in the first charge, attempted murder.
On 20 January, you, Christine Lyons, and Peter Arthur attended the Tristar Medical Clinic in Eaglehawk. You requested that the doctor, who saw you, prescribe Oxycontin to you. However, as he was not your regular doctor, he instead prescribed Temazepam, which is a sedative for insomnia. On the same day, you and Peter Arthur attended at the Chemist Warehouse in Kangaroo Flat, where you purchased a number of items, including the Temazepam tablets. I am also satisfied that on the same day you purchased a packet of Phenergan at a different pharmacy.
On the same evening, Peter Arthur prepared some drinks in the kitchen, while you, Christine Lyons, were talking to Samantha in the lounge room of the house. You, Ronald Lyons, were in the kitchen. You crushed up some of the medication, that had been purchased that day, and you put them into drinks that were given to Samantha by Christine. On the next morning, Samantha was unsteady on her feet, and she complained that she had been sick twice during the night.
The evidence of Peter Arthur, which was in substance accepted by the jury, is that over the ensuing two days, you both participated in the administration to Samantha Kelly of further doses of the medication that you had on the premises, including the medication that you, Christine Lyons, had purchased with Arthur on 20 January. On a number of occasions during that period, you, Christine Lyons, gave to Arthur tablets of sedative medication, and you instructed him to take them to the bungalow and to administer them to Samantha Kelly there.
You, Ronald Lyons were involved in that activity on substantially fewer occasions. However, the evidence of Peter Arthur, which by its verdict the jury accepted, was that on one occasion you fetched the packet of Phenergan that had been purchased by Arthur and Christine Lyons, and handed it to Christine, who in turn gave Arthur two tablets of the Phenergan to take to Samantha with a glass of water. In addition, on another occasion, Christine Lyons, handed you a couple of tablets, which you took out to the bungalow and gave to Samantha.
Toxicological analysis of blood and liver samples, taken from the deceased body of Samantha Kelly, revealed that she had ingested six different medications that had sedative or associated properties or side effects, including Temazepam, and that four of the drugs, that were detected, had been prescribed for you, Christine Lyons. The toxicologist, Dr Gerostamoulos, stated that three of the drugs were detected in the liver, which meant that they would probably have been ingested by Samantha Kelly in the period of 24 hours or 48 hours before she died.
It was on the basis of that evidence that the jury convicted both of you of the first charge, of attempted murder.
The second charge, the murder of Samantha Kelly, was based on the evidence of Peter Arthur, together with the evidence of the conduct of each of you after Arthur had killed Samantha Kelly, and the evidence of motive to which I have referred. As I have noted, the jury found you, Christine Lyons, guilty, and it found you, Ronald Lyons, not guilty, of that charge.
The evidence of Peter Arthur was that, after the attempts to kill Samantha Kelly by medicating her had been unsuccessful, it was decided, in the early hours of 23 January 2016, that Arthur should kill Samantha by a different means. Peter Arthur stated that both of you were involved in making that decision and communicating it to him. By its verdict, the jury was satisfied, beyond reasonable doubt, that you, Christine Lyons, were a party to that decision, but it was not satisfied that you, Ronald Lyons, were.
Peter Arthur also gave evidence that after that decision was made, you, Ronald Lyons, took him to the bungalow, showed Peter Arthur his (Peter Arthur’s) own hammer and handed it to him, and then you both returned to the house, whereupon Christine Lyons instructed Arthur to go to the bungalow and kill Samantha Kelly with it. That aspect of Peter Arthur’s evidence, implicating you, Ronald Lyons, in the killing of Samantha, was artificial and contrived. It is not surprising that the jury did not accept it, and that the jury found you not guilty of count 2.
Thus, consistently with the verdicts of the jury, I am satisfied that, in the early hours of 23 January, you, Christine Lyons, and Peter Arthur together decided that an alternative means of killing Samantha Kelly should be put into effect. I am also satisfied that you, Christine Lyons, directed Arthur to go to the bungalow to kill Samantha with the hammer that Arthur had left in the unit when you and he were residing there. On Arthur’s own evidence, when he attended at the unit, he took possession of the hammer, and struck Samantha Kelly a number of blows about the head with it.
In his evidence, Arthur claimed to have blacked out after striking her twice. The evidence of the forensic anthropologist, who re-constructed Samantha Kelly’s skull after her body was located, and the evidence of the forensic pathologist, demonstrates that Samantha Kelly was struck about the head by Arthur with at least seven blows, and that each blow was inflicted with extreme force.
When Arthur returned to the unit, he reported to you, Christine Lyons, that he had murdered Samantha Kelly.
In the early hours of the following morning, you, Ronald Lyons, assisted Arthur to remove Samantha’s body from the bungalow, by helping him to carry it to, and put it into, a vehicle at the premises. Arthur then drove the vehicle on his own towards Maryborough. He disposed of Samantha’s body by placing it in the bed of a dry creek at Shelbourne, and covering it with soil. Subsequently, on 11 February, when Arthur confessed to the killing of Samantha Kelly, he guided the police to that location, and Samantha’s body was recovered. It is that conduct by you, Ronald Lyons, that constituted the alternative offence of assisting an offender, on which you were convicted. In particular, you were convicted on the basis that you assisted Arthur in the disposal of Samantha Kelly’s body, with the purpose of impeding the apprehension, prosecution, conviction or punishment of Arthur for the murder of Samantha.
In the following days, you, Christine Lyons, told a number of people, totalling at least sixteen, that Samantha was no longer living at the premises at 47 Wesley Street. In order to conceal what had happened to her, you told those persons that, in the early hours of the morning of 23 January, she had entered the house, and spoken to you while you were in bed, telling you that she had had enough, and that she no longer wished to care for her children, and that thereupon she walked out of the premises and had not been heard of since. That evidence was relied on by the prosecution as an implied admission by you, on charge 2, that you had, in the early hours of 23 January, agreed with Peter Arthur that Samantha be murdered at that time in the manner in which I have just described.
After Samantha Kelly’s death, you, Christine Lyons, took a number of steps to further your goal of becoming established as the mother of her four children. There was evidence that if you had had daughters of your own, you would have called them Neisha and Shaneeka. There was also evidence that, even before Samantha died, you had begun to call the second youngest child by the name of Neisha, and the youngest child by the name Shaneeka, instead of by their correct names. Significantly, in the short period after Samantha’s death, her four children had become so used to the younger two of them being known by those names, that they reacted strongly when either of them was referred to by her correct name. In addition, at the commencement of the school year in 2016, you withdrew the second youngest child from the pre-school that she had been attending in the previous year, and then re-enrolled her at the school using the name of Neisha Lyons. The enrolment form, which was tendered in evidence, nominated both you, Christine Lyons, and Ronald Lyons, as her parents.
On 9 February, you both made formal statements to the police, which you signed, at Bendigo Police Station, in which you each repeated the same false account, that you had given to other persons to whom you had spoken, namely, that during the early hours of 23 January, Samantha Kelly had come into the house and told you, Christine Lyons, that she had had enough and that Christine could have the children, whereupon she walked out and had not been seen since. At the conclusion of the statement, you each acknowledged that the statement was true and correct, and that you made it in the belief that a person making a false statement is liable to the penalties of perjury.
On 11 February, both of you, and Arthur, were arrested, and were separately interviewed at the Bendigo Police Station over the ensuing two days. In the course of your interview, you, Christine Lyons, told the police that you last saw Samantha Kelly on the evening of 21 January. You said that on the next day, Peter Arthur from time to time went out to the bungalow to take food to Samantha, but he told you not to go out there. You also told the police that, during that time, Arthur told you that ‘Sammy won’t hurt the kids no more’. He told you that he had put a pillow over Samantha’s face, that she had fought him off, and that she was going to go to the police. Ultimately, after further questioning by the police, you, Christine, told the police that you believed Samantha was dead. You gave various explanations for the false account that you had given to the police on 9 February as to Samantha Kelly’s whereabouts, including that you were fearful of Peter Arthur, that you wished to protect Arthur, and that you wished to protect yourself and the children and everyone.
At the conclusion of your interview, you were initially charged with assisting an offender. You were subsequently charged with the attempted murder and murder of Samantha Kelly. You have been in custody since the date of your arrest on 11 February 2016.
In the initial part of your interview, you, Ronald Lyons, said to the police that Samantha had physically mistreated her children. You also said that she was besotted with her former partner, and that he had threatened to kill her. I have no doubt that those statements, made by you, were designed to buttress the false account that you had previously given to the police, namely, that Samantha had walked out on her children in the early hours of 23 January.
The interview was then suspended, and resumed on the next day, 12 February, after the police had located Samantha Kelly’s deceased body. On being told of that circumstance, you denied killing Samantha, but said that you thought that Peter Arthur might have killed her. When the police put to you that it would have been difficult for Arthur to carry Samantha’s body to the vehicle on his own, and that the police would be conducting DNA testing on it, you admitted that you helped Arthur to move Samantha from the bungalow to the van. You denied killing Samantha. You said that, in the early hours of the morning, Arthur had come in and said that he had done ‘something stupid’, that he had killed Samantha. When you heard that, you were a bit shocked. You also told the police that you did not ask Arthur what had happened, because you did not want to know. You said that you assisted Arthur to move Samantha’s body from the bungalow into the van, because you thought that you would get blamed for the death of Samantha.
Initially, you were charged with assisting an offender. After being held in custody until 23 March 2016, you were released on bail. In the meantime, in September 2016, Peter Arthur participated in a further interview with the police, in which he admitted that, in the period of two days leading to the murder of Samantha Kelly, he, together with you and Christine Lyons, had attempted to kill her by administering sedative medication to her. As a consequence, you were again arrested, and you were interviewed on 26 September. In that interview, you again denied that you had been involved in the murder of Samantha Kelly. You also denied being involved in drugging her. Following that interview, you were charged with the attempted murder, and murder, of Samantha Kelly. You have been in custody since that date.
Those, then, are the relevant facts and circumstances of the offences for which you have both been convicted. Based on those facts, it is necessary to make an assessment of the seriousness of your offending for the purpose of sentencing you. In doing so, I am mindful that in your case, Christine Lyons, I must be careful that I not impose any double punishment in respect of the offences for which you have been convicted. In particular, in determining your culpability for the offence of murder, for which you have been convicted, I shall disregard any of the actions performed by you that formed part of, or were relevant to, the offence of attempted murder, for which you have also been convicted.
You have each been convicted of most serious offences. The maximum sentence for the crime of murder is life imprisonment, and the maximum sentence for attempted murder is 25 years’ imprisonment. Those maximum sentences, for each offence, reflect the high value that our society places on the sanctity of human life and on the protection of the life of each individual in our society.
The circumstances attending the offending by each of you were particularly serious. The attempted murder of Samantha Kelly by both of you, and, subsequently, the murder of her by you, Christine Lyons, was premeditated, calculated and planned. As I have already outlined, you, Christine Lyons, formulated the intention to murder Samantha in late December 2015, and subsequently, by mid-January 2016 you had developed the plan to do so by drugging her. You, Ronald Lyons, formed the intention of assisting to murder Samantha Kelly in about mid-January.
The motive of both of you for the attempted murder of Samantha Kelly, and the motive of you, Christine Lyons, for the ultimate murder of her, was particularly grave, namely, to enable you, Christine Lyons, to become the mother to her four young children. The evidence, and the victim impact statements, demonstrate that Samantha was a loving, devoted and caring mother. The motive of each of you, to take from her, her four young children, by depriving her of her life, was heartless and thoroughly evil.
The offence of attempted murder was committed over a period of more than two days, during which each of you participated in the drugging of Samantha Kelly with the specific intention that she be killed. At no time did either of you resile from, or even express reservations about, that plan. Rather, it only failed to succeed because the dosages of medication administered by each of you, and Arthur, to Samantha, were insufficient to kill her at that time.
Throughout the period of the offending, and at the time of her murder, Samantha Kelly was vulnerable, and, to all intents and purposes, defenceless, against the designs of each of you and Peter Arthur. She had come to live with you both, and with Arthur, in order to escape the pressures to which she had been subjected by her boyfriend and his family in Ballarat. Samantha trusted each of you and Arthur, and she sought refuge with you. In the most flagrant manner, each of you and Arthur totally betrayed that trust that she reposed in you.
Samantha Kelly was intellectually impaired. She had limited resources. Over the period during which the medication was administered to her between 20 January and 22 January 2016, she became increasingly debilitated, and the medication made her feel unwell. The continued administration of the medication to her by each of you and by Arthur was callous and ruthless. At no time did her debilitated state excite in you any human feelings of pity, remorse or sympathy.
I am satisfied on the evidence that you, Christine Lyons, were the key architect of the plan to kill Samantha Kelly, and that you orchestrated the means by which it was put into effect. You were involved in purchasing the medication that was necessary for carrying out the plan. In addition, you were involved in the administration of each dose of the medication to Samantha. It was you who decided when it should be given to her, and the dosages by which it should be administered. The offences of attempted murder, and ultimately the murder, of Samantha, were committed principally for your own selfish purposes. By the commission of those crimes, you sought to rob an innocent and vulnerable woman of her children, so that you could take over the role of being a mother to them.
The part played by you, Ronald Lyons, in the attempted murder of Samantha Kelly, was less substantial than that of Christine Lyons, but it was not insignificant. You were involved in the formulation of the plan to murder her by medicating her in mid-January 2016. In addition, on at least two occasions, you were involved in the implementation of that plan by either preparing the medicated drinks for Samantha, or by administering the medication to her yourself.
I am also satisfied that you, Christine Lyons, were the principal instigator of the altered plan to kill Samantha Kelly, by which you requested and directed Peter Arthur, in the early hours of 23 January, to proceed to the bungalow and to bludgeon her to death. At that time, Samantha Kelly was significantly reduced by the effects of the medication, that had been administered to her over the previous two days. I am satisfied that, if you had not directed Arthur to murder her in that manner, he would not have proceeded to have done so of his own accord.
On the other hand, having had the opportunity to observe Arthur in the witness box over a number of days during the trial, I am satisfied that he was by no means meekly subservient to your wishes, but, rather, he was a willing and committed participant in the scheme to murder Samantha. While Arthur committed the murder in order to fulfil your desire to take over her children, in that way he was motivated by a personal desire of his own to endear himself to her. Arthur carried out the murder of Samantha in a most brutal and violent manner. Taking those matters into account, in my view, it is appropriate to treat the culpability of both you and Peter Arthur, for the murder of Samantha Kelly, as being substantially equal.
Your offending, in respect of the murder of Samantha, was aggravated by the series of lies that you told about her whereabouts in the days following her death. Those lies were calculated by you to conceal Samantha’s death, and to allay any suspicion which might fall on you arising from her sudden disappearance from the premises at 47 Wesley Street. You sought to give credibility to your lies by maligning Samantha, falsely suggesting that she had been involved in drugs, that she had mistreated her children, and that she had abandoned her children because she no longer cared for them.
Ronald Lyons, you were also convicted of the alternative offence of assisting an offender, on the basis that you assisted Peter Arthur to dispose of the body of Samantha Kelly, and you told lies as to her whereabouts, knowing that Arthur had murdered her, and with the intention of impeding the arrest and prosecution of Arthur for her murder. The maximum sentence for assisting an offender, where the principal offence is murder, is 20 years’ imprisonment. The offence of assisting an offender is a serious criminal offence, because it constitutes conduct that undermines and frustrates the proper administration of justice, by assisting those, who have been responsible for serious criminal offences, to escape or avoid detection, apprehension and conviction for their crimes.
I am satisfied that you would have been well aware of the serious nature of the circumstances in which Samantha Kelly had been murdered by Arthur. In particular, you would have been aware that the offending was premeditated, that Samantha was isolated and vulnerable, and that she was murdered by acts of brutal violence inflicted on her by Arthur while she was debilitated by the effects of medication that had been administered to her over the previous two days.
Your conduct, in assisting Arthur to dispose of Samantha Kelly’s body, was callous. It deprived Samantha of dignity in death. If Arthur had not subsequently relented, and told the police where her body was located, her children would have grown up never knowing where their mother was buried. It would have deprived them, and others close to Samantha, of any form of closure concerning her death.
On the other hand, you made early admissions to the police as to your role in assisting Arthur to dispose of Samantha Kelly’s body. You offered to plead guilty to the alternative charge, of assisting an offender, at the committal hearing, albeit in settlement of all the charges against you. In his preliminary opening, your counsel invited the jury to convict you of that charge. I take each of those matters into account as factors mitigating the seriousness of the alternative offence for which you have been convicted.
The principal victim of the offences, for which you have both been convicted, was, of course, Samantha Kelly. By your actions between 20 January and 22 January 2016, you both attempted to take her life, and Christine Lyons, by your actions on 23 January, you were criminally involved in taking her life. The evidence and the victim impact statements demonstrate that Samantha was a loving and devoted mother to her children, and a much cherished member of her family. Despite her disabilities, she strove hard to care for her four young children and to provide a warm and loving home for them. You both attempted to take, and you, Christine Lyons took, her life from her. By doing so, you deprived her of the opportunity of raising her children, and of experiencing the joy and fulfilment of being part of their lives as they grew up.
Equally, you, Christine Lyons, have taken, from four innocent young children, the mother who loved and cared for them so much. The elder three children were old enough to have formed a bond with their mother, and the victim impact statements reveal that they have been struggling to come to terms with the fact that she is no longer part of their lives. The youngest child will never know her mother, and will grow up in the knowledge that, by your brutal actions, you sought to, and ultimately did, take from her that which is every child’s right, namely, to be raised and loved by her own mother.
I have read the victim impact statements of Samantha’s mother, Vivienne Kelly, her father, Kerry Kelly, her brother and sister-in-law, Michael Kelly and Danielle Stephenson, her aunt Tracy Lubcke, and her cousins Rachel Lubcke and Kierria Twyford-Smith. It is clear that Samantha was a loyal and cherished member of her family. Your cruel actions have inflicted profound pain and anguish on each of the family members to whom I have referred.
In that regard, it is appropriate to mention, in particular, Samantha’s brother, Mark Kelly, and her sister-in-law, Danielle Stephenson. They were both very close to Samantha. At the time of her death, they were raising two young children of their own. As I have already mentioned, after her death, they have selflessly taken over the role of parents to Samantha’s four young children. That role has been particularly difficult, as each of Samantha’s children have disabilities of their own. I commend Mr Kelly and Ms Stephenson for the care and devotion that they have given to their sister’s children, and for the great sacrifices they have both made in doing so.
The victim impact statements are relevant because they are a salutary reminder of the extent and depth of the grief and suffering that have been, and will continue to be, the inevitable consequence of the offences which you each committed. While your sentences are to be based on a rational analysis of the facts of the case, and the application of relevant sentencing principles, it is important to keep in mind the grave effects of the crimes that you have each committed, and the profound sorrow and pain that has been caused to so many as a direct consequence of them.
As I stated, the offending by each of you was particularly serious. In your case, Christine Lyons, the aggravating factors relating to the murder of Samantha Kelly, and to which I have referred, are such that, in the absence of any mitigating circumstances, would warrant the imposition of a sentence of life imprisonment on you on that charge.
I turn then to the matters relating to the personal background of each of you which have been relied on mitigation of sentence.
Christine Lyons, you were born on 13 April 1971 in New South Wales. Your parents separated when you were nine years of age. Materials, that were tendered on your plea, indicate that your father had been violent to you and your younger brother. Subsequently, your mother re-partnered. During your childhood, you were raised in circumstances of severe disadvantage, that were marked by a dysfunctional and disorganised family structure. It would seem, from reports tendered on your plea, that your household consisted not only of your mother and her partner, but also your mother’s sister and her children, your mother’s brother, and your grandmother.
A clinical psychologist, who examined you and other members of your family in 1984, when you were thirteen years of age, noted that you had undertaken the role of being the mother to your twin siblings, who were then twenty months old. Your mother, your aunt and your mother’s partner were described as having minimal insight into the emotional needs of you, your siblings and your cousins. Nor did they have any insight into their own inadequacies as parents. The family was described as being a ‘seriously socially and emotionally deprived unit’. Both you, and the three other elder children, had been subjected to sexual abuse by your uncle. In addition, the New South Wales Department had received numerous reports of physical neglect, inadequate food, over-crowding, educational neglect, and physical and emotional abuse of you and the other children.
The Montrose Family and Community Services records at that time noted that you were developmentally delayed. You were assessed as having an intelligence that was in the low average range, but it was noted that your intelligence quotient had seriously deteriorated.
You attended Ryde Primary School, after which you attended the Marist Sisters College at Woolwich. You were placed in a special class at that college due to the effects on you of your deprived and dysfunctional upbringing. Eventually, you completed Year 8 level shortly after turning 16 years of age. After leaving school, you never secured any open market employment, and you have been in receipt of the disability support pension from the age of 16 years because of your low intelligence quotient.
You were first diagnosed with depression when you were 16 or 17 years of age, at which time you were prescribed anti-depressant medication. Since then, the condition has been treated by medication for most of your adult life. During your time in custody, you have been treated with the anti-depressant medication Escitalopram.
At the age of 16 years, you commenced a relationship with Dennis Lyons, which lasted for four years. Some years later, in 2006, you commenced a relationship with Ronald Lyons, who you had known since you were very young. At that time, you were both living in Kerang. You and Ronald moved to Golden Square in 2009, where you lived together in rental accommodation provided by the Housing Commission. However, the house was condemned, and you were unable to find other accommodation. As a result, you both, together with a cousin of you, Christine Lyons, then began to live in the forest together with Ronald Lyons’ three young sons. You lived there in tents from March 2010 in most impoverished circumstances. Ultimately, you, Christine Lyons, left Ronald in mid-2010 and moved to New South Wales. There you re-commenced a relationship with Peter Arthur. As I have already noted, you and Arthur subsequently came to reside with Ronald Lyons and his three children at 41 Wesley Street in 2013.
You have suffered a number of health problems. In particular, you suffer osteoarthritis, asthma, elevated blood pressure and diabetes. You have been unable to bear children of your own. In 2006, you underwent a hysterectomy after being diagnosed with endometrial cancer. In 2013, you were diagnosed with thyroid cancer, and you underwent a thyroidectomy, with subsequent removal of your lymph nodes.
You were examined by Dr Lester Walton, a consultant psychiatrist, in December 2016, and more recently in July of this year. Dr Walton considered that you have a chronic mixed anxiety and depressive disorder with an underlying intellectual disability. He expressed the view that, as a consequence of your intellectual impairment, you would have difficulty exercising sensible decision making and proper social judgment. In addition, your intellectual disability and chronic depression have the effect that imprisonment will be more onerous for you, and, due to your intellectual disability, you will be more vulnerable to the deleterious effects of institutionalisation.
In September 2017, Ms Susan Carey, a clinical neuropsychologist, conducted a range of intellectual tests on you. In summary, she found that you have a full scale IQ score of 70, which places you at the low end of the borderline range. As a consequence of your deficit, your ability to demonstrate reasoning and judgment is impaired, and you are vulnerable to the suggestions of others. Ms Carey is of the view that your mental functioning at the time of the offending, and during the lead up to it, was compromised in comparison to that of a person of normal cognitive and psychological functioning. In particular, it would take you more time, than a person without your conditions, to process information, and to weigh up the factors for or against your proposed conduct. Ms Carey has noted that you had struggled with bullying while you were in the mainstream prison population, and after you had been moved to protective custody, due to your psychological condition and your vulnerability. Accordingly, Ms Carey is of the view that a term of imprisonment will weigh more heavily on you. She also considers that incarceration has already had a deleterious impact on your mental health.
During your time in custody, you have also attended counselling sessions with the Western Region Centre Against Sexual Assault. In those sessions, you have discussed the trauma to which you were subjected during your early years, including family violence, neglect and sexual assault. The report of that centre notes that you had, from a young age, and during your formative years, been expected to perform the role of a mother to your two younger siblings from the time they were very young. As a consequence, you began to self-identify through rescuing others, and, since then, you have experienced difficulties identifying appropriate boundaries.
The evidence, to which I have just referred, is relevant to the assessment of your subjective culpability for the offences for which you have been convicted. The principles of sentencing, that have been recently considered by the High Court, in its decisions in R v Bugmy[1] and Munda v Western Australia,[2] provide that an individual’s deprived and disadvantaged background may, in an appropriate case, mitigate an offender’s sentence. In the present case, the offending by you was committed very much in a quasi-family setting. Your history reveals that you suffered significant disadvantage and deprivation during your formative years. The effects of the dysfunctional family, in which you grew up, were complicated by your low intelligence and your lack of normal socialisation. It is clear that those effects have endured. In that way, your culpability, for the two offences for which you have been convicted, while particularly high, is less substantial than if you were a person who had had the advantage of a normal upbringing, and who was of average intellectual capacity.
[1](2013) 249 CLR 571.
[2](2013) 249 CLR 600.
I am also satisfied, on the evidence of Dr Walton and Ms Carey, that, due to your psychological condition, and your impaired intellectual functioning, a term of imprisonment will be more onerous for you. As Ms Carey has noted, you will have difficulty engaging with other prisoners, as a result of your reduced intellectual capabilities and your under-developed social skills. As a consequence, you will find it more difficult to be continually in close confines with other people, and, as Ms Carey has concluded, that will contribute to the psychological burden which will be imposed on you by a lengthy period of incarceration.
You have no previous convictions. During your period of incarceration, you have attended a number of courses, and certificates of program completion in respect of those courses were tendered on your plea. Your conduct, while in custody, and your lack of previous convictions, are each matters that are relevant as mitigating factors, and also in providing a basis upon which to have some optimism in respect of your prospects of rehabilitation at the conclusion of your sentence.
Those, then, are the principal mitigating factors in your favour. The critical question is whether, in all the circumstances of the case, I should impose upon you a sentence of life imprisonment in respect of your conviction for the murder of Samantha Kelly.
That question has been quite difficult to resolve, and I have given careful consideration to it. In view of the objective gravity of your offending, the arguments in favour of the imposition of such a sentence on you are persuasive. As I have already discussed, objectively speaking, your culpability for that offending was very high. However, those factors must be weighed properly against the mitigating circumstances, to which I have just referred, and in particular, your impoverished and dysfunctional background, your limited intellectual capacities, the fact that a long term of imprisonment would be more onerous for you by reason of your psychological and intellectual deficits, and the fact that you have no previous convictions. Taking those matters into account, I have reached the conclusion that, in all the circumstances of the case, the imposition of a life sentence on you for the murder of Samantha Kelly would not be warranted.
In determining the length of your sentence, it is necessary to take into account the sentence that was imposed on your co-offender, Peter Arthur. The judge, who heard Arthur’s plea, imposed a sentence of 16 years’ imprisonment with a minimum non-parole period of 13 years. On appeal by the Director of Public Prosecutions, the Court of Appeal increased Arthur’s sentence to that of 22 years’ imprisonment with a minimum non-parole period of 18 years.
As I have already discussed, I regard the objective culpability of both you and Peter Arthur, for the murder of Samantha Kelly, as being substantially equal. The sentence imposed on Arthur was significantly discounted by reason of his plea of guilty, and the undertaking that he gave to cooperate with the prosecution and give evidence against both you and Ronald Lyons. You do not have the benefit of those mitigating factors. On the other hand, it is clear, from the reasons of the Court of Appeal, that in evaluating the gravity of Arthur’s offending, the court took into account, as an aggravating factor, the attempts to kill Samantha through a drug overdose in the days preceding her murder. As I have stated, you are to be separately punished for those actions in the sentence I shall impose on the charge of attempted murder. Accordingly, in order to avoid double punishment of you for the same actions, I do not take them into account in determining the sentence to be imposed on you on the charge of murder.
In addition, although Arthur did have a difficult upbringing, he was assessed to be of average intelligence, and his formative years were not marked by the grave and profound dysfunction and disadvantage to which you were subjected during your upbringing. Those factors, to some extent, also offset the sentencing benefit accorded to Arthur by reason of his plea of guilty and his undertaking, and are relevant to the application of the principle of parity of sentence.
I turn, then, to consider matters personal to you, Ronald Lyons. You were born on 23 July 1972, and you grew up in Swan Hill. You were raised in modest circumstances, and, from an early age, you undertook farm work and other jobs in order to supplement the family income.
You were educated at Swan Hill Technical School to Year 11 level. After leaving school, you engaged in seasonal work picking fruit in orchards. You also worked on a large potato farm. In 1998, you were involved in a serious motor vehicle accident, as a consequence of which you suffered a significant back injury. As a result, you were unable to continue working on farm properties.
Subsequently, you attended courses in aged care nursing, and you obtained certificates 2 and 3 for it. You then worked at Kirralee Nursing Home for a period of 12 months in about 2004. However, thereafter you have not been engaged in any gainful employment.
In 1998, you commenced a relationship with Katrina Brain in Swan Hill. You have three sons by that relationship, who were respectively born in 2002, 2003 and 2004. Your eldest son is deaf, and is autistic. Your middle son has severe autism and has been slow in his development. Both of them attended Kalianna Special School. Your youngest son has eyesight problems, but he was able to attend mainstream primary school. You separated from Katrina in 2006. Initially, the children remained with her, but they were then placed in your care in September 2008 arising out of concerns for their welfare. They remained in your care until you went into custody.
As I have already noted, you have known Christine Lyons since you were both very young, and you were in a relationship with her between 2006 and mid-2010. In December 2010, you were able to obtain accommodation at 41 Wesley Street, and, as I have noted, subsequently Christine and Peter Arthur moved into those premises with you.
Those then, in a nutshell, are your personal circumstances. In short, you were raised in modest circumstances. It is to your credit that you have taken responsibility for, and provided care to, your three sons, since they were young, in circumstances of some difficulty. Your criminal history discloses that you have come before the courts on seven separate occasions between 1994 and 2007. However, in each case, the sentence imposed on you was such as to indicate that your offending was relatively minor. I do not regard your previous convictions as being of any particular relevance to the determination of your sentence in this case.
You are now 46 years of age, and you have not previously been in custody. Since the committal proceeding in January 2017, you have been held in protective custody, and it appears that you will continue to serve your sentence in that way. During your time in custody, you have worked in the central work program, making badges for the guards and signs. That work is performed by trusted prisoners. You have limited time in the yard because you are in protective custody, and you have been quite isolated from your family. Your sons have been placed in out of home care, and you have not had any contact with them. You have always had a close relationship with your mother, who lives in Nyah West. However, because of her age, and health difficulties, she has only been able to visit you once during your time in custody.
In conclusion, then, the offending by each of you was particularly serious. It is necessary that the sentences that I impose on both of you be sufficient to adequately express the condemnation by the Court, and by the community, of the appalling nature of the crime in which you were both involved in attempting to take the life of Samantha Kelly, and of the crime that you, Christine Lyons, committed in participating, with Peter Arthur, in the murder of Samantha. It is also necessary that the sentences, that I impose on you for each of the offences for which you have been convicted, must be of sufficient severity to serve as a general deterrent to others, by constituting a strong message to the community that conduct of the kind in which you both engaged will result in the imposition of severe sentences involving substantial periods of imprisonment.
It is also necessary that the sentences be sufficient to teach a lesson to each of you as to the wrongfulness of your conduct, and as such to specifically deter you from such conduct upon your eventual release from prison. In addition, it is necessary to take into account the need to protect society from each of you until that lesson has been learnt and absorbed by you.
Christine Lyons, as a result of your conviction on the charge of attempted murder, the Sentencing Act provides that you are to be regarded as a serious violent offender for the purposes of determining your sentence on the charge of murder. However, I do not consider that it is necessary to impose a sentence on you longer than that which is otherwise proportionate to the gravity of the offence, in order to protect the community from you. Further, in the circumstances of the case, it is appropriate that I direct that there be substantial concurrency between the sentences imposed on you for each offence, in order to conform with the requirements of totality and justice.
In determining the term of imprisonment to which you are each to be sentenced for the offence of attempted murder, it is necessary to give appropriate effect to the principle of parity of sentencing. As I have already discussed, you, Christine Lyons, played a significantly more substantial role in devising and implementing the plan to murder Samantha Kelly by medicating her. In addition, you had contemplated murdering Samantha Kelly for a longer period than did you, Ronald Lyons. On the other hand, the personal mitigating circumstances that apply to you, Christine Lyons, are more substantial than in your case, Ronald Lyons.
Taking those matters into account, I sentence you, Christine Lyons, as follows:
(1) On the charge of the attempted murder of Samantha Kelly, I sentence you to 12 years and six months’ imprisonment.
(2)On the charge of the murder of Samantha Kelly, I sentence you to 26 years’ imprisonment.
I direct that four years of the sentence on the charge of attempted murder be served cumulatively upon your sentence on the charge of murder. Thus, your total effective sentence is 30 years. I direct that you serve a minimum 23 years before you become eligible for parole.
Pursuant to s 18(4) of the Sentencing Act, I declare that the period of 932 days be reckoned as already served under the sentence which I impose. I shall cause a notation to be made in the records of the Court that that declaration was made.
Ronald Lyons, I sentence you as follows:
(1)On the charge of the attempted murder of Samantha Kelly, I sentence you to 10 years’ imprisonment.
(2)On the alternative charge of assisting an offender, I sentence you to four years and six months’ imprisonment.
I direct that two years and six months of the sentence on the charge of assist offender be served cumulatively upon your sentence on the first charge, of attempted murder. Thus, your total effective sentence is 12 years and six months. I direct that you serve a minimum nine years before you become eligible for parole.
Pursuant to s 18(4) of the Sentencing Act, I declare that the period of 746 days be reckoned as already served under the sentence which I impose. I shall cause a notation to be made in the records of the Court that that declaration was made.
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