Director of Public Prosecutions v Mauot

[2021] VCC 1388

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

AT MELBOURNE

CRIMINAL DIVISION

CR-21-00461

DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROSECUTIONS

v

BARNABA MAUOT

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JUDGE:	HIS HONOUR JUDGE CARMODY
WHERE HELD:	Melbourne
DATE OF HEARING:	9 September 2021
DATE OF SENTENCE:	15 September 2021
CASE MAY BE CITED AS:	DPP v Mauot
MEDIUM NEUTRAL CITATION:	[2021] VCC 1388

REASONS FOR SENTENCE
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Subject:   CRIMINAL LAW – Sentence
Catchwords:   Aggravated home invasion – armed robbery – youthful   offender – no special reason for imposing a non-parole   period not less than three years – no special and   compelling reasons for mandatory imprisonment on   Category 2 offences
Legislation:   Sentencing Act 1991; s10A, A 10AC
Case cited:  Worboyes v The Queen [2021] VSCA 169, R v Wyley   [2009] VSCA 17, Azzopardi v The Queen [2011] VSCA 372, R v Mills (1998) 4 VR 235, Verdins; Buckley; Vo   (2007) 16 VR 269
Sentence:   Total effective sentence of five years’ and six months’   imprisonment with a non-parole period of three years’ and       six months’ imprisonment.  

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APPEARANCES:	Counsel	Solicitors
For the Director of Public Prosecutions	Mr F. Cameron	Director of Public Prosecutions
For the Accused	Mr M. Page (Plea) Ms S. Stanley (Sentence)	Leanne Warren & Associates

HIS HONOUR:

1Barnaba Mauot, on 9 September 2021 you pleaded guilty to the following charges on indictment number L10787707.1:

·Charge 1, aggravated home invasion.  This charge has a maximum penalty of 25 years imprisonment. 

·Charge 2, armed robbery of Nazanin Amirafa.  This charge has a maximum penalty of 25 years imprisonment. 

·Charge 3, armed robbery of Robin Muzai Azad.  That charge also has a maximum penalty of 25 years imprisonment.

2You admitted your prior criminal history of two charges of robbery.  The court dates were 25 June 2019 and 15 February 2019.  You were serving a Community Corrections Order for both of those court dates when you committed the offences for which you are now to be sentenced.  You also have prior convictions for driving related offending.  Those matters are not relevant for the purposes of this sentencing process. 

3On calculation, you have served 535 days of pre-sentence detention, not including this day. 

The circumstances of your offending

4The prosecutor tendered a Summary of Prosecution Opening dated 7 September 2021.  It was Exhibit “A” on the plea and it was read out in court at the time of your plea hearing. 

5At the time of the offending you were 21 years old.  You are now 23.  The offending took place at a family home in Oakleigh East.  You had attended at that place for an 18th birthday a few weeks prior to the offending that is before the court. 

6On 25 March 2021, which is the day of the offences, at approximately 10.40 pm, you attended at a house situated on Franklin Street in Oakleigh East.  You attended at this address with six other males, all of whom had African appearance.  You were captured on CCTV from the house attending at the front door wearing gloves, dark clothing, a black headband and Nike bumbag.  You did not attempt to cover your face or to disguise your appearance.  As you approached the front door the footage from the CCTV camera shows you directing the other males to hide behind the large verandah pillars and the front walls of the house so they would be out of sight of the person who opened the door to you.  This footage is Exhibit “C” on the plea.

7You then knocked on the front door of the residence.  Ms Amirafa who was in her bedroom at the time, heard the knock at the door and saw you through the security camera system to the house.  She called out to her sons, 'Someone is at the front door for you.' 

Charge 1: Aggravated home invasion

8Matthew Azad who was one of the sons, approached and opened the front door.  Almost immediately after the door was opened, the other six males emerged from their hiding spots and moved quickly to enter the house.  All of the men, except for you, were either wearing masks or had their faces sufficiently covered to conceal their appearance. As the men entered the house, you could be seen on CCTV directing them inside and could observe several of them carrying the following items: a knife, a large machete in a sheath, a double barrel shotgun, and a roll of duct tape.   

9Once the six men were inside the house, you closed the front door and the group of men, not you, kicked and punched Matthew Azad in the loungeroom, demanding to know where the safe was kept.  Ms Amirafa emerged from her bedroom and was almost immediately pushed back by two men.  She screamed in response and one of the men grabbed her by the throat and said, 'Shut the fuck up.  I'm not going to hurt you, Nanazin, just give me your money and anything you have.'  Both of the men were yelling and swearing at Ms Amirafa, stating that they were going to kill her.  It is not said by the prosecution if you were the person directly involved in any of that. 

Charge 2: Armed robbery of Nazanin Amirafa

10Ms Amirafa was forced back into her bedroom and pushed onto the bed.  Ms Amirafa said to the two men, 'I'll give you anything I have, just don't hurt my sons.'  The tall man with the shotgun said, 'How much have you got?'  Ms Amirafa took out her wallet from her handbag and handed the man between $180-$200.  The man than demanded that she unlock her phone but she could not remember the PIN number.  The tall man with the shotgun hit her in the neck with a wooden handle and pushed the metal end into her stomach, causing her pain.  He then grabbed her Apple iPhone 6 Plus from her.  Ms Amirafa told the men she had coronavirus and not to touch her.  After she said that, the two males started kicking her to the stomach and then everywhere all over her body.  They then exited her room and went to Robin Azad's bedroom. 

11Once she was alone, Ms Amirafa pushed the flyscreen off her bedroom window and jumped through the window to escape her own house.  She then ran to Franklin Street to the corner of Keith Street where she spoke to a neighbour, who notified the police by calling triple zero.  In addition to the money that she had handed over and her iPhone 6, Ms Amirafa also had an iPad which was left in the house when she fled and it was not there upon her return. 

Charge 3: Armed robbery of Robin Azad

12Whilst the assault on Ms Amirafa was occurring, Robin Azad had closed his bedroom door but whilst searching for a weapon to protect himself, two males pushed open that door, entered his bedroom and immediately started hitting him.  Again, the prosecution do not submit you were one of those men. 

13One of the offenders had the double barrel shotgun pointed at Azad's chest and face.  Azad saw the gun with the wooden handle with two barrels side by side and seen it was loaded.  He also saw two shotgun cartridges in the barrels at the tip of the gun.  Another offender had a hunting knife and was lunging at Robin Azad, trying to stab him whilst demanding the money.  The man with the gun said, 'Where's the money?  Show me where the drugs are.'  Robin Azad replied, 'Take everything, just don't hurt my mum.' 

14During the course of the interrogation, one of the men used a taser on Robin Azad but this had little effect on him so the man with the double barrel shotgun then hit Azad with the butt of the gun approximately 20 times causing him to bleed from the head.  The offenders then kept telling Azad, 'Where's your phone and laptop?'  One of the males demanded the PIN code of his phone and the password to his laptop to which Azad replied, 'I'll give it to you.  Just let me plug it in to charge it up.' 

15One of the others males then entered the bedroom and demanded, 'Where are the keys to the safe?'  Robin Azad said that it was his mother's safe and he did not know where the key was.  He said he would try to open it, so he got up off the floor and walked towards his mother's bedroom.  Once Azad was inside his mother's bedroom he was pushed to the floor and the shotgun was pointed at his head.  The male who had the shotgun shouted, 'Put in the code.'  When Azad said he needed the key, he did not know the code, the group then hit him and punched him to the head.  One of the males took the safe and walked out of the bedroom where the group also took the contents of Robin Azad's wallet which contained $400-$500 in cash, as well as his learner's permit, his Medicare and Westpac debit cards. 

16The group then left via the front door of the house carrying the safe to one of their waiting cars.  The safe contained $30,000 in cash which were the proceeds of a payout Ms Amirafa had received.  There was also several items of jewellery taken, including gold necklaces, bracelets, earrings, and rings. 

17In response to the triple zero call, the police units began arriving at the address at approximately 11 pm.  A divisional van consisting of Constables Anderson and McCauley arrived at the corner of North Road and Franklin Street, approximately a hundred metres south of the address.  Two of the offenders were observed by police officers exiting the garage of the house, running around the corner into Keith Street where they jumped into a silver Holden Commodore, registration number THM 455, and they drove away.  Police initiated a pursuit of the vehicle which resulted in the vehicle being intercepted 1.2 kilometres away from the house near the intersection of Beleura Grove and North Road in Clayton. 

18In the meantime, the offenders carrying the safe and armed with the weapons were able to leave the residence undetected by police who had been focused on arresting the occupants of the vehicle involved in the pursuit. 

19Now, dealing with the complicity in respect of you and the other offenders, while you were not armed when you entered the house with your co-offenders, you were present inside the house when the armed robberies occurred.  The prosecution case is that you were complicit in that offending, in that you were working together with the co-offenders towards the same goal when the offences occurred and this is demonstrated by your conduct in having:

a)attended at the front door of the house with the group and directed the others to hide out of sight;

b)that you had knocked on the door and alerted the occupants of the house to your presence on the expectation that they would open the front door to you;

c)that you directed others in the group to enter the house; I add to that, I do not think they would have needed much direction from you;

d)being aware that other members of the group carried weapons and duct tape with them as they entered the house;

e)being aware of the demands for the cash and valuables from the residents of the house upon the entry; and

f)known it was probable that the group members were going to use the duct tape on the occupants or prevent them from leaving the house and/or to steal items from the house. 

20It is not suggested that you were the leader of the pack in this offending and, indeed, you attending at the door undisguised leaves you in a most vulnerable position to detection, as indeed has occurred.  You were seen on CCTV as a passenger in the back seat of the silver Commodore THM 455 some 35 minutes before the police pursuit referred to above in these reasons.  That connects you to the car. 

21On 29 March 2020, police executed a search warrant at your address and arrested you.  At the time you were wearing a black hairband and had two hair ties for your dreadlocks similarly to the night of the offending.  Police seized the black Nike bumbag which was the same one you had been wearing on the night of the offending. 

22On 30 March 2020, police retrieved a blue Samsung mobile phone from the glovebox of the silver Holden Commodore which contained a SIM card which was registered to you.  Police also received an iPhone 6 belonging to Ms Amirafa which was located in the front passenger footwell of the Holden Commodore.  You are the only person arrested and charged for these offences.  The identity of the other offenders is known to you.  Both Robin Azad and Nazanin Amirafa were treated for their injuries at The Alfred Hospital. 

23You indicated your plea of guilty to Charge 1 at the committal hearing on 5 March 2021.  Charges 2 and 3 were resolved on 14 July 2021.  Your plea is an early one. 

Victim Impact Statement

24A Victim Impact Statement was filed by Nazanin Amirafar; it was Exhibit “B”.  At the day of the plea it was not signed but was identified for identification.  In that Victim Impact Statement she sets out how the offending has affected one of her sons to the extent that he does not come out of his room.  Ms Amirafar has withdrawn from her friends.  She states that she panics when someone knocks on her door.  She has started sleeping in the daytime as she is too frightened to go to sleep at night in the fear of someone breaking into her house.  As a result of her injuries, she spent a couple of days in hospital.  She has lost her sense of safety in her own home.  Your offending has had a direct, dramatic and adverse effect on her life and her relationships with one of her sons. 

Personal circumstances

25At the time of the offences, you were 21 years old.  You are now 23.  You were born in South Sudan.  Your family escaped the war-torn Sudan to a refugee camp in Egypt.  In 2004 when you were aged six, you arrived in Australia with your parents and one younger brother.  You have a younger half-sister who was born here in Australia.  When you were seven years old your father died.  The circumstances of your father's death are not known to you.  Your father travelled to New South Wales to go fruit picking and some time later he was found dead.  Your father had also worked, as I understand it, as a nurse in the past.  You have enjoyed a good relationship with your mother.  Your mother speaks well of you in her reference letter which was Exhibit 4 in this plea.  She states you were an important contributor as a brother to your siblings.  Your mother works in the disability sector. 

26

You had no education in Sudan or Egypt.  You witnessed the violence and disruption in your country of birth and then the refugee camp in Egypt.  You attended grade 3-6 at St Mary's Primary School in Dandenong.  You then attended at St John's Regional College in Dandenong.  You completed year 12 and successfully so and then enrolled in Health Science at Deakin University.  After a year of that course, you dropped out.  You started work at McDonald's as a

16-year-old and you remained in that employment until you were 20.  You worked at Coles for approximately three months and did sporadic labouring all the time up until your arrest for these offences. 

27As a young man you played sport, injuring your right hand in 2013 and tearing your ACL in 2019 whilst playing football. 

28You first used cannabis when you were 15 years old.  At age 18 you started drinking alcohol and would describe yourself as a binge drinker.  You reported to Ms Cidoni, a forensic psychologist, that your father was an alcoholic.  At age 20 years you commenced the use of benzodiazepine.  You were using methylamphetamine, benzodiazepine and cannabis in the lead-up to this offending.

29You were examined by Dr Gina Cidoni, a forensic psychologist, for the purposes of this plea.  Her report dated 24 August 2021 was Exhibit 2 on the plea.  You have been assessed as low average in global cognitive functioning.  You were diagnosed as suffering PTSD.  Ms Cidoni assesses you as a medium risk of violent reoffending.  You have also been assessed as satisfying the criteria for substance use disorder. 

30You have two prior convictions for robbery.  On 15 February 2019, at the Dandenong Magistrates' Court, you were convicted of robbery and theft and placed on an 18-month CCO with work and other conditions.  This CCO was current when you committed these offences.  On 25 June 2019, at the Dandenong Magistrates' Court again, you were convicted of robbery and failing to appear on bail and placed on a 12 CCO.  This CCO was also current when you committed these offences.  In 2018, you had two separate court appearance for driving and related charges.  I note that the period in remand for these offences is your first time in prison. 

31None of you co-accused were arrested or charged for these offences.  You will be sentenced for your role in these offences, not the roles of your co-offenders. 

32I note that I do not assess you as being the leader of the pack in this offending.

Sentencing considerations

33The basic purpose for which a court may impose a sentence are just punishment, deterrence, both specific and general, rehabilitation and the denunciation of your actions and the protection of the community.  In sentencing you, I must have regard to a range of factors, such as the seriousness of your offending, your culpability for it and your personal circumstances. 

34I am also required to balance the interests of the community in denouncing your criminal conduct with the interests of the community in seeking to ensure, as far as possible, that you as an offender are rehabilitated and reintegrated into society.  I am also required to take into account current sentencing practices in fixing your sentence.  That inquiry is directed particularly, but not exhaustively, to the kinds of sentences imposed in comparable cases and the statistics for those sentences at the time. 

35I have considered the statistics and current sentencing practices.  I am mindful that each case must be considered in the light of its own particular circumstances and many of the cases would be distinguishable in your case, as indeed they are from one another.  Of course, the currently sentencing practices are but one of the factors that I have to take into account in fixing your sentence.

36The maximum penalty in respect of each of the charges is 25 years imprisonment. In respect of Charge 1, aggravated home invasion, you are subject to s10AC of the Sentencing Act. That section provides that, in sentencing an adult offender for the charge of aggravated home invasion, the court must impose a term of imprisonment and a fixed non-parole period not less than three years unless a special reason is able to be established pursuant to one of the exceptions outlined in s10A of the Sentencing Act.  Your counsel conceded that no special reason could be established in your case. 

37Further, the two charges of armed robbery, in company, were Category 2 offences under the Sentencing Act. Therefore, a term of imprisonment was mandatory unless special and compelling circumstances could be established.  Your counsel conceded that there are no special or compelling circumstances in your case.

38You have pleaded guilty to the charges.  Your plea of guilty was indicated at an early stage and your plea does have the utilitarian value of allowing for the orderly and affective administration of justice.  There is a certainty of outcome and the resolution of the substantive issues raised by your offending.  Your plea also allows for the preservation of the court and police resources to deal with other matters and your plea vindicates the public confidence in the legal process set up to protect the community. 

39Your plea is also a clear acknowledgement by you that you accept responsibility for your criminal behaviour on this occasion.  Your plea also recognises you are willing to facilitate the course of justice in the community and I accept that your plea of guilty to these charges indicates and demonstrates remorse on your part. 

40By your plea of guilty you have avoided the necessity of your victims having to relive the frightening experience in the form of giving evidence in a trial. 

41The Court of Appeal in Worboyes v The Queen [2021] VSCA 169, set out a number of reasons why a plea of guilty in the times of the COVID-19 pandemic is particularly significant in the sentencing process and then it went on to say as follows:

'For these reasons, we consider that - all other things being equal - a plea of guilty entered during the currency of the COVID-19 pandemic is worthy of greater weight in mitigation than a similar plea entered at a time when the community and the courts are not affected by the pandemic's effects.  A plea of guilty during the pandemic ordinarily should attract more pronounced amelioration of sentence than at another time.  Although a sentencing judge need not quantity the extent of any discount, he or she must ensure that the plea of guilty results in a perceptible amelioration of sentence.'

42Your counsel referred to this as the Worboyes discount and I take this matter into account when fixing your sentence. 

43At the time of your offending you were 21 years old.  I regard you as a youthful offender.  It is a principle of sentencing law that when a young offender or a youthful offender such as yourself is to be sentenced, the sentencing disposition should be tailored, taking into account all other sentencing considerations, to promote your rehabilitation.  This approach serves the interests of the individual offender and the community as a whole. 

44In the case of Mills[1] there were three propositions of sentencing set out:

1)Youth of an offender, particularly a first time offender (which you are not) should be a primary consideration of the sentencing court where the matter properly arises.  In your case, it is the first time you have served a sentence.

2)In the case of youthful offenders, rehabilitation is usually far more important than general deterrence.  This is because punishment may in fact lead to further offending, thus, for example, individualised treatment focusing on rehabilitation is to be preferred.  In short, the rehabilitation benefits of the community as well as the offender.

3)The youthful offender is not to be sent to an adult prison if such a disposition can be avoided.  In this case, it has not been avoided and cannot be avoided.

[1]R v Mills (1998) 4 VR 235

45The benchmark of what is serious as to justify an adult prison may be quite high in the case of a youthful offender and where the offender has not previously been incarcerated a shorter period of imprisonment may be justified. The last proposition in particular is a general principle expressed in s5(4) of the Sentencing Act. 

46In more recent times, the Court of Appeal has made pronouncements of the considerations of youth in sentencing practices and in the case of R v Wyley[2] President Maxwell said as follows:

'Mills [referring to the previous case I have just read from] constantly reminds the sentencing courts that this court on appeal that there is great public benefit in the rehabilitation of an offender and in maximising the prospect that the offender will carry on a law abiding life int eh future.  But that consideration is not unique to young offenders nor is there any one correct answer as to how the balance is to be struck between that consideration and others which may point towards a period or a longer period of imprisonment rather than a non-custodial sentence.  Thus understood, the later cases of the DPP v Lawrence and The Crown v Nguyen are not to be viewed as excluding the principles of Mills but simply as instances of how those principles are to be applied.'

[2]R v Wyley [2009] VSCA 17

47As counsel properly conceded towards the end of the submissions there is a role of general deterrence to play in relation to every class of case.  In relation to certain classes of cases, however, general deterrence may have a particularly important part to play.  The present case is of that kind.  Aggravated home invasions in circumstance of this kind are so prevalent that general deterrence is to be seen to have particular importance.  But again, the role of general deterrence will vary with the circumstances of the case. 

48In offending such as aggravated home invasions calls for a measure of general deterrence.  These issues were recently considered in Azzopardi v The Queen[3] where Redlich JA, as he then was, and Coghlan and Macauley JA agreed with him saying as follows:

'The general propositions which flow from these authorities is that, where the degree of criminality of the offences requires the sentencing objectives of deterrence, denunciation and just punishment for the protection of the community to become more prominent in the sentencing calculus.  The weight to be attached to youth is correspondingly reduced.  As the level of seriousness or the criminality increases, there will be a corresponding reduction in the mitigation or mitigating effects of the offender's youth.  But only in the circumstances of the gravest criminal offending where there is no realistic prospect of rehabilitation may the mitigatory consideration of youth be viewed as all but extinguished.' 

[3]Azzopardi v The Queen [2011] VSCA 372

49The offence of aggravated home invasion is, by definition, a serious offence.  The seriousness of your offending is indicated by the following matters:

a)The offending was planned. The victims home was deliberately targeted in order to steal money from the occupants, that goes with the question of ‘where’s the safe.’

b)Your co-accused wore masks and disguises; you did not. 

c)You acted as the friendly agent in the sense that you got one of the occupants to open the door once you knocked on it.

d)You directed the other offenders to hide from view prior to you knocking on the door of the house.

e)There were six other offenders with you. 

f)You knew that the other offenders were armed with weapons, one of that had a shotgun.

g)You were present in the house when the occupants had the gun pointed at them.

h)At the time of entry of the house, you knew at least one person was present inside the house.

50Your moral culpability for this offending is high.  You and your co-offenders deliberately targeted this home and violated the occupants entitlement to feel safe in their own home, purely because you and the unknown offenders want something that the occupants possessed.  You were indifferent to the effect that your conduct had on the occupants. 

51At the time of your offending you were serving two CCOs imposed on you for the offences of robbery.  Ms Cidoni assesses your risk of reoffending as moderate.  These two factors weigh on an assessment of your prospects of rehabilitation.  I assess your prospects of rehabilitation as fair, given your youth, your family support and your past employment history and your education prospects.  You can turn your life around from the dangerous path that you had set upon in 2019 and 2020. 

52I accept that limb 5 of Verdins[4] case considerations applies to your sentencing process.  You have been diagnosed with PTSD and are prone to major depressive episodes.  The compromised psychological and mental state that you suffer from will have and has made your time in custody more burdensome than a prisoner who has normal mental health.  Further, your anxiety condition will be aggravated by the known risk to prisoners' health of the COVID-19 variants breach the health protocols at the prisons and take hold within the prison population. 

[4]Verdins; Buckley; Vo (2007) 16 VR 269

53The offending for the two armed robberies is pleaded on the basis that you were complicit in those offences but did not personally take place in the assaults and threats on the occupants of the premises.  There is no evidence that you received any direct benefit from the offences, other than the possession of the phones.  As the only offender without a disguise, you were the most likely to be apprehended and so it turned out to pass. 

54I am required to take into account the sentencing principle of totality.  I will cumulate only that part of the sentence in Charges 2 and 3 on the base sentence in Charge 1 to reflect your part in that extra criminality but moderate such cumulation so as not to impose a crushing sentence upon you. 

55I sentence you in the hope that you are able to obtain parole at an early stage in your sentence so that you can be supervised out of the criminal justice system in a structured and sound way. 

56In the circumstances of these offences, denunciation, general and specific deterrence in your case, protection of the community, are paramount sentencing considerations.  You are entitled to moderation of your sentence due to your youth and your plea of guilty and the other factors to which I have referred. 

57Barnaba Mauot, I sentenced you as follows:

·On Charge 1, the aggravated home invasion, you are convicted and sentenced to four years and six months imprisonment.  That's the base sentence.

·On Charge 2, armed robbery, you are convicted and sentence to three years imprisonment.

·On Charge 3, armed robbery, you are convicted and sentenced to three years imprisonment.

58I order the following cumulation; that, as I say, Charge 1 sentence of four and a half years is the base sentence.  On that sentence to be cumulated are six months of the sentence in Charge 2 and six months of the sentence in Charge 3 to be cumulated on one another.  That is a total affective sentence of five years and six months. 

59I fix a non-parole period of three years and six months. 

60I declare that you have served 535 days pre-sentence detention, which is not including today, and I will sign the disposal order which was sought for the knife. 

61In relation to s6AAA, but for your plea of guilty, I would have sentenced you to seven and a half years with a five-and-a-half-year non-parole period. 

62HIS HONOUR:  Is there anything else?

63MR CAMERON:  Thank you, Your Honour.  Nothing from our end.  The disposal order and the PSD is correct.  That's all from the prosecution side of the Bar table.  Thank you, Your Honour. 

64HIS HONOUR:  Yes, thank you.  Mr Mauot, if you can just tap the table so you can come on.  If you could just tap your table.  Thank you.  Mr Mauot, I've just imposed a significant sentence upon you but you have a chance, hopefully, to get parole at a relatively early stage and, if you do get parole, and that's what you should be aiming at whilst you're in gaol, that you should take every chance and advantage of the Parole Board if and when they grant it to you, so that you can go back to your family, be assistance to your mum and to your brother and younger sister and be the person you really can be.  By that I mean you're smart, you can go back to education, you can even do education whilst you're inside there and prepare yourself for entry into society.  Stay away from the drugs and stay away from the people that you went to this house with.  So that's all I've got to say.  Thank you. 

65OFFENDER:  Thank you, Your Honour. 

66HIS HONOUR:  Sorry, did you wish to speak with Mr Mauot?  I can leave the link open so you can speak to him directly and I'll ask the prosecutor and myself and staff will leave, except for my tipstaff who facilitates. 

67MS STANLEY:  Yes, Your Honour.  If I could just have a couple of minutes with him, that'd be much appreciated.

68HIS HONOUR:  Certainly.  Thank you very much, I'll do that. 

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