Director of Public Prosecutions v Marovic

[2022] VCC 1383

IN THE COUNTY COURT OF VICTORIA

 Revised

Not Restricted

Suitable for Publication

AT MELBOURNE

CRIMINAL JURISDICTION

CR 21-01500

DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROSECUTIONS

v

EDINA MAROVIC

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JUDGE:	HIS HONOUR JUDGE CHETTLE
WHERE HELD:	Melbourne
DATE OF HEARING:	6 May 2022, 21 July 2022
DATE OF SENTENCE:	23 August 2022
CASE MAY BE CITED AS:	DPP v Marovic
MEDIUM NEUTRAL CITATION:	[2022] VCC 1383

REASONS FOR SENTENCE

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Subject:

Catchwords:

Legislation Cited:

Cases Cited:

Sentence:  83 days imprisonment, 3-year Community Correction Order

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APPEARANCES:	Counsel	Solicitors
For the Director of Public Prosecutions	Mr S.P. Devlin	Mr S Kaiser
For the Accused	Ms M.J. Brown	Ms M Carroll

HIS HONOUR: 

1Edina Marovic, following a sentence indication, you pleaded guilty to one charge of recklessly causing injury.  The facts of your offending are set out in Exhibit A, the prosecution opening, and your counsel indicated that I could treat that document as an agreed statement of fact.  I sentence you on the basis of the facts set out therein.

2At the time of your offending on 8 July 2019, you were then 23 years of age.  You had commenced a relationship with your victim, Yasmin Sivic, who was then 30 years of age.  You were living with your parents in Derrimut and Sivic lived with his family in Dandenong.

3On 2 June 2019, you and Sivic attended an Islamic ceremony equivalent to a marriage, and thereafter Sivic moved in with your family in Derrimut.  Your relationship was volatile.  Sivic disliked your drug use, and you were controlling, constantly texting, and calling him.

4On 19 June 2019, you telephone Sivic, and after an argument, told him not to come home.  He slept in his car, then went to his parents' place.  He woke to messages from you demanding that he return home and answer your queries.  On 7 July, Sivic was staying at a friend's house.  You attended looking for him, but he hid in a cupboard.

5On 8 July, you texted him asking him to meet at his parents' house in Endeavour Hills, and you arrived about 6 pm.  No one else was home.  You came inside and you were both in the living room on the couch.  You yelled at him, demanding that he returned home, and he said he did not want to argue or to return to your home.  You threatened to, 'Fuck his life and his family', and he threatened to call the police.

6You went to the kitchen and obtained a 25-centimetre knife and went back to the lounge room.  You held the knife to your own stomach and said you would kill yourself and that you were psycho.  Mr Sivic went to take the knife from you and sat up on the couch, and as he stood up, you stabbed him once in the chest.  He was bleeding.

7You rang Triple 000 and Sivic went to a neighbours for assistance.  An ambulance arrived and assisted him.  You were hysterical.  When the police arrived, you told them to, 'Fuck off'.  Sivic was taken to The Alfred in a critical condition.  He had a three-centimetre laceration to his lung and underwent surgery.  He lost an extreme amount of blood.  He was taken to intensive care, placed in an induced coma for 36 hours, and was not discharged from hospital until 16 July.

8When you were interviewed by the police, you admitted obtaining the knife from the kitchen, but maintained that you did not stab Sivic and that he sustained his wound in a struggle.  Your victim filed a Victim Impact Statement which is now Exhibit B.

9He outlined the emotional, physical, and financial effect your offending has caused him.  He feels sadness, fear, and distrust.  He has difficulty sleeping.  He says he is diagnosed with PTSD.  I take the contents of the Victim Impact Statement into account in sentencing you.

10You have admitted a criminal record, a very brief one.  In 2008, you received a non-conviction bond for assault with an instrument, and criminal damage.  In 2019, you received another bond for speeding in a motor vehicle.  You served 84 days of pre-sentence detention before being bailed in relation to this offence.

11Your personal history is set out in the report of Adam Deacon, part of Exhibit 1.  His report states: 

Ms Marovic is a 26-year-old woman living with her mother and eldest half-brother in Derrimut.  She is employed in a logistics role and operates a private make-up business.  She is engaged to her current partner, a man aged 32 years of age, for a month.

12You were raised in Sunshine.  Your father died from Lewy body dementia in December 2018.  Your father was a violent criminal.  He was constantly in and out of prison through your adult life.  He was convicted of murder of a previous partner.  You, during your childhood, witnessed considerable violence.  Your father beat your mother unconscious and your family were financially impoverished.  Your father had taught you to protect yourself by bashing bullies.

13You attended Sunshine Heights Primary School and Sunshine Secondary College, and you left following Year 11 before completing a Diploma in Make-up.  You have been diagnosed with ADHD since you have been released from prison.  Dr Tofler has a report to that effect.  As such, you were prone to mood swings and were easily irritated.

14After you finished your diploma, you had difficulty finding work in your field, so you worked in sales and retail roles, also working for the Commonwealth Bank as a teller.  You resigned from work to care for your father whilst he was dying, and you found it difficult watching his decline and demise.

15You commenced using cannabis when you were aged 16, and you then experimented with methylamphetamine and ecstasy at the age of 18 or 19.  You used cannabis to help you sleep and to deal with your anxiety issues.  You had been involved in a number of relationships prior to your current relationship, and the report outlines your relationships previous to Sivic, and they were violent relationships which left you damaged.

16Your second partner abused methamphetamines and steroids and you had difficulty leaving him, but that relationship terminated when you took up with Mr Sivic in April 2019.  You described your relationship with Sivic as negative.  You said that he was financially and sexually abusive.

17You decided that you needed to stop using cannabis.  You went and put yourself into hospital, but Sivic told you to leave and to medicate yourself with GHB.  You said that you were constantly drug-affected with GHB, methylamphetamine, and cannabis subsequently.

18In dealing with the offence, the report states that you attended Sivic's property in Endeavour Hills.  You noted that you were affected by a combination of GHB, methylamphetamine, cannabis, and prescribed medication.  You claim that Sivic yelled at you, and your version of events given to the doctor is at complete odds with that in the summary, and your counsel has said I should rely on the summary, not what you told the doctor.

19Since your arrest, you were remanded, as I said, for some approximately three months and you were bailed with the CISP program, assigned a case worker, and you engaged in counselling through MatchWorks.  You were then referred to Dr Tofler, who I previously mentioned diagnosed you with ADHD.

20You were diagnosed with a border personality disorder when you were 16, and as such, you are susceptible to experiencing rapid mood and attitude changes you experience anxiety, flashbacks, nightmares relating to your past abusive relationships.

21Dr Deacon reports that you were raised in a dysfunctional, insecure, and unstable family environment, a factor that is relevant to sentencing.  That you had an unstable and insecure childhood that predisposed you to developing personality psychopathology, and he refers to the report of Dr David Ball, also in Exhibit 1, in that regard.

22Dr Deacon reports that you experienced a complex grief reaction and associated adjustment difficulties following your father's death.  You were troubled by two abusive relationships, 'and her relationships were marked by marked power imbalance and submissions.'  The second relationship was troubled by mutual drug use.

23You reported that your mental health was significantly compromised during your relationship with Sivic. 

Her deteriorating mental health, partly directly related to her persistent drug use, but also stressors connected with her drug use and issues emerging in her relationship with Sivic.  Ms Marovic's mental health was compromised by post-traumatic stress disorder, symptoms mostly stemming from the past abusive relationships.  Her PTSD was also likely related to her childhood trauma from her father's abusive nature.  Ms Marovic was very likely in a particularly heightened and deregulated mood state.  This mood state reflects a combination of her underlying borderline personality disorder, combined with the effects of a cocktail of illicit drugs.  Her mental health has markedly improved since she has been detained in custody and following her release into the community.

24You have engaged with a number of mental health professionals, counselling, and you are also aided by a stable relationship.  Your mental health and personal circumstances are appreciably different to the time of your offending.  Most significantly, you have abstained from illicit drugs, removed yourself from unstable and toxic relationships, and engaged in stable employment.  Dr Deacon reports that you are unlikely to pose a risk of reoffending whilst you maintain the current stability in your life.

25I take the contents of the reports of Dr Deacon and the report of Dr Ball into account in sentencing you.  I take into account your plea of guilty.  You have accepted responsibility for your actions.  You have demonstrated remorse and spared the community and your victim the cost and trauma of a criminal trial.  You are entitled to a reduction in sentence to reflect that plea of guilty.

26The value of your plea is increased because of its greater utilitarian value in the time of COVID-19, which has caused severe disruption to our legal system.  It is now over three years since you offended.  You have demonstrated rehabilitation and settled in a non-abusive, supportive relationship and you have not reoffended.  I take your dysfunctional, abusive, and disrupted childhood into account in sentencing you.

27The Court of Appeal in Bolton outlined the significant value of community corrections orders to both punish and rehabilitate offenders.  The prosecution conceded that an extensive, properly conditioned community corrections order would fall within sentences open to this court.

28You have spent time in custody, and in my view, it would be unjust to return you to custody after three years have elapsed.  Your offending was serious.  Normally, conduct such as yours would attract a significant custodial sentence.  Because of the matters urged by your counsel, and those which I have referred to, I am persuaded to accede to your counsel's submission and impose a combination sentence for your offending.

29I have had you assessed for suitability to undergo a community corrections order.  Forensicare clinician, Gregory Lane, reported that you are now a 26-year-old partnered, casually employed warehouse logistics worker and make-up artist residing in Derrimut with your mother.  Forensicare databases indicate that Ms Marovic received mental health review and treatment from Oxygen Youth Health between February 2021 and October 2021.

30You are diagnosed with emotional, unstable personality disorder, borderline mental health disorder due to harmful use of stimulants, schizoid personality disorder, severe depression episode without psychotic symptoms, and mental and behavioural disorder due to cannabis use.

Ms Marovic reported that she is currently adherent with prescribed medical cannabis, antidepressant medication, mirtazapine, sleep hypnotic medication, zopiclone, and her mood stabiliser, cariprazine.  Ms Marovic identified a positive effect on her mental state from both medication and participation in therapy since the time of her offending behaviour.

31He concludes:

Ms Edina Marovic has a documented history of PTSD, AHD, borderline personality disorder, anxiety, mood and emotional dysregulation, and polysubstance misuse.  She presents today as relatively stable in her mental state, reporting adherence with prescribed medication, and an abstinence from methylamphetamine use.  Ms Marovic appears to have actively participated in a mental health regime since being released from prison.  She displays good insight into the need not to reoffend and remain mentally stable and focused on achieving her pro-social goals.  It is respectfully recommended that ongoing assessment or treatment of Ms Marovic's mental health be made a condition of the community corrections order in order to promote wellbeing and reduce the likelihood of reoffending.

32You were found suitable to undergo a community corrections order.  Would you stand up, please, if you can?  Ms Marovic, can you stand up?  Just while I impose sentence.  On the one charge of recklessly causing injury, you are convicted and sentenced to a combination sentence of 84 days' imprisonment and a community corrections order for three years.

33That community corrections order will have the following conditions attached.  You are to perform 200 hours of unpaid community work.  You are to undergo treatment and assessment and rehabilitation for drug abuse, treatment and rehabilitation for alcohol, treatment and rehabilitation for mental health, and treatment and rehabilitation programs to reduce offending.  You will be under supervision – subject to supervision.  I order that 60 hours of the treatment and programs ordered can be applied against the work hours that I have ordered you to do.

34You need to report to Werribee Community Corrections Centre at 87 Synnot Street, Werribee, Victoria, within two working days of today.  So, you need to be there by Thursday night.  By Thursday.  I need to make it clear to you that if you breach this order, if you fail to comply with this order, you come back before for resentencing.

35If you commit any offence in the next three years, you will be brought back before me for resentencing in relation to this.  Ms Brown will tell you; you do not want that to happen.  I have given you an opportunity to get on with your life and not return you to prison.  But if you behave like you did, there will be no option.  Do you understand?

36OFFENDER:  Yes, Your Honour.

37HIS HONOUR: All right. I indicate, pursuant to s6AAA of the Sentencing Act, that but for your plea of guilty, I would have imposed a term of imprisonment of three years with a minimum of two.  Are there any other orders required?  Now, how do I get her to sign the order, Ms Brown?  Can we send it to – are you anywhere near her, or are you in a different location?

38MS BROWN:  We're not together, Your Honour, but if Your Honour – if Your Honour's staff is able to send that order through to my instructor's office, and then that – the arrangements can be made for Ms Marovic to come in and sign the order and have it returned today.

39HIS HONOUR:  Thank you very much.  If that could be done, I would be indebted to you.  All right.  Mr Devlin.

40MR DEVLIN:  Your Honour, there's no problem with the sentence at all.  Can I just clarify a couple of points that I may have misheard?  When Your Honour was describing the offending, did Your Honour say that they were both on the couch?

41HIS HONOUR:  No.  He was on the couch.  At one stage they were both on the couch.  She got up and went to the kitchen and when she came back in, he started to get up, and as he stood up, she stabbed him.  That's what I said.

42MR DEVLIN:  And that's correct, Your Honour.

43HIS HONOUR:  Yes.

44MR DEVLIN:  In relation to the pre-sentence detention, Your Honour ‑ ‑ ‑

45HIS HONOUR:  Yes.  I've got to declare the 84 days of pre-sentence detention.

46MR DEVLIN:  It's 83 days, Your Honour.

47HIS HONOUR:  Have I been counting today?  Okay.

48MR DEVLIN:  No, 83 not counting today.

49HIS HONOUR:  All right.  Well, in which case, I'm going to amend my sentence.  My sentence is to 83 days imprisonment, and I will declare 83 days as already served.

50MR DEVLIN:  Yes, Your Honour.  I believe – I'm sorry, Your Honour, it just dropped out for a second.  But Your Honour stated the Crown position as combined?

51HIS HONOUR:  Yes.  You said a properly constructed CCO combined with the time she has served might fit the bill.

52MR DEVLIN:  Yes, Your Honour.

53HIS HONOUR:  You weren't all that enthused about it.  I accept that.

54MR DEVLIN:  No.  That's okay, Your Honour.  And the only other matter, I think Your Honour said in relation to the sentence on the charge of – I believe Your Honour said, 'recklessly cause injury'?  But you might have said ‑ ‑ ‑

55HIS HONOUR:  No, recklessly cause serious injury.

56MR DEVLIN:  Thank you, Your Honour.

57HIS HONOUR:  Okay.

58MR DEVLIN:  I just wanted to make sure it was serious injury.  They're the matters.  Nothing further, Your Honour.  Thank you.

59HIS HONOUR:  All right.

60MR DEVLIN:  And in relation to disposal, there was just the disposal of the knife.

61HIS HONOUR:  Yes.  I make the disposal order sought by the prosecution.

62MR DEVLIN:  Yes.  Thank you, Your Honour.

63HIS HONOUR:  Thank you.  Thank you, Ms Brown.

64MS BROWN:  As Your Honour pleases.

65HIS HONOUR:  We'll email that to your instructor now.

66MS BROWN:  Thank you, Your Honour.

67HIS HONOUR:  And I will terminate the links, please.

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