Director of Public Prosecutions v Mazzonetto

[2021] VCC 1929

IN THE COUNTY COURT OF VICTORIA

Revised

Not Restricted

Suitable for Publication

AT SHEPPARTON

CRIMINAL JURISDICTION

CR 21-01141

DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROSECUTIONS

v

WILLIAM MAZZONETTO

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JUDGE:	HIS HONOUR JUDGE SMALLWOOD
WHERE HELD:	Shepparton
DATE OF HEARING:
DATE OF SENTENCE:	25 November 2021
CASE MAY BE CITED AS:	DPP v Mazzonetto
MEDIUM NEUTRAL CITATION:	[2021] VCC 1929

REASONS FOR SENTENCE

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Sentence:

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APPEARANCES:	Counsel	Solicitors
For the Director of Public Prosecutions	Mr D. Cordy	Office of Public Prosecutions
For the Accused	Mr J. Anderson	Slater & King Lawyers

HIS HONOUR: 

1William Jack Mazzonetto, you have pleaded guilty to one charge of prohibited person possess imitation firearm, one charge of false imprisonment and one charge of possession of a drug of dependence.  Those crimes carry maximum penalties of ten years, ten years and one year respectively. 

2Insofar as the drug of dependence is concerned, on that matter bearing the nature of it, I will simply convict and discharge. 

3You are now 26 years of age, and were 24 years of age at the time of the offending.  You have pleaded guilty to a settled indictment and must get the benefit of that. 

4I assume, for these purposes, that there is an element of remorse involved, and obviously you must get the utilitarian benefit of that plea.  I am very conscious of the decision of Worboyes which in situations such as this justifies a sentence which may be more lenient, than would otherwise have been imposed to endeavour to reduce the lists.

5You have already done 98 days on remand for these matters and a subsequent period of 38 days on remand for another matter.  I take into account that that 98 days would have been done at the height of the COVID lockdowns and that to incarcerate you again now would involve further quarantine and further lockdowns and I do not propose to do so.  In the circumstances I am about to describe, one has to take into account the milieu in which it all took place. 

6The Crown opening is that at approximately 3.30 am on 15 May 2020 so there's obviously a degree of delay, one Tunk Oldemir was outside his room in the Ibis Hotel in King Street.  That hotel is well known, by reputation at least, to me.  You exited his room at that time and proceeded to walk down the hallway.  You turned the corner and confronted Mr Oldemir.  I assume from that that the confrontation was not pre-planned.  A conversation took place, you produced a silver handgun and Mr Mazzonetto was then effectively forced to go into his room.  That gives rise to the use of the – the possession of the firearm and also the false imprisonment. 

7Inside the room, you produced a syringe filled with methamphetamine.  The pair of you went over to a bed.  You sat down, you appeared to be affected by drugs and I have no doubt that you were.  You began to fall asleep.  Mr Oldemir obviously in fear sat down for a period of time, but every time he tried to leave, you would apparently wake up and point the gun at him.  About an hour into all this, you eventually fell asleep and he ran from the room down to the foyer, told police what had happened and police took over from there. 

8You were arrested in the room of a Mr Daniel Sutherland who was apparently a friend of yours.  A silver coloured handgun was found and you subsequently admitted to the possession of that handgun.  I don't need to go through all the forensics involved in this, because you have pleaded guilty.  You made partial admissions when being interviewed by police and you at that time, admitted to being an ice user and having a loaded – which can be a bit of an emotive word – a syringe with you, with methylamphetamine in it, and as I said, I think already admitted to having the gun.

9You were then incarcerated for 98 days prior to being bailed.  Subsequent to that, you have been placed on a CCO with therapeutic conditions, I am assuming, and safely assuming, involving mental health and drug aspects.  You had previously been on CCOs which were breached.  Those CCOs had only been in place for about a month or so, but you were effectively homeless, and I don't put a lot of weight on that. 

10In any event, there would have been no time, as the learned prosecutor said, potentially at least, for those programs to have taken place even if one works on the basis that in this present climate, they do take place. 

11The offending obviously is serious.  You cannot go pointing guns at people no matter what the circumstances of it are, and no matter what the other person's position in life may be. 

12In your situation, specific deterrence is up in the air a bit.  General deterrence has to play a part of it.  Denunciation not so much, but there must be an appropriate punishment. 

13I will go through your history in brief.  I do not need to go through it in massive detail.  I have a report from ARBIAS and very helpful submissions from your counsel.

14The situation is that in fairly brutal terms, you were born in Werribee, your mother was a Yorta-Yorta woman.  She left the family unit when you were four.  You have not seen her since you were five.  It appears that she had drug and alcohol addiction.  You were initially in your father's care after separation, but your father suffered from alcohol abuse and you were removed from his care at the age of five.  You then moved between foster homes and residential care units for the majority of your formative years with very little stability. 

15I make it clear here that the consequences of residential care units are indeed well known to me.  In fact, I saw a statistic the other day that says that any child who – sorry – 80 per cent of any children who spent more than six months in a residential care unit will never live above the poverty line.  But in any event, that is what they did to try and assist you in life. 

16You were with your brother for a period of time and he was eventually placed with an Aboriginal family and I understand he is into serious problems himself at the present time. 

17You have very little education.  Year 7 seems to have seen it out and you worked in abattoir once for about eight months, but otherwise you have not had employment.  You have been admitted to hospital a couple of times in the context of acute stress and situational crisis.  You have got a significant number of prior convictions which seem to involve effectively the use of drugs and support what is being said about you.

18I do not think I need to take it any further.  You have got, in your situation, you would not have a clue what I am talking about, but the principles in regard to Bugmy of course apply in this.  If you can stay in Shepparton perhaps and stay out of Melbourne and just wandering the streets, things might improve for everybody.  You are presently living with your father.  I father from the material that you do not get on particularly well with him, but if you somehow manage that and keep yourself out of trouble, you may be able to avoid becoming institutionalised. 

19The prospects of your rehabilitation are problematic.  The risk of you reoffending if you use drugs is obviously going to be high, but I think in these circumstances bearing in mind your plea, bearing in mind the Bugmy aspects of your childhood and the difficulties that you have faced over the years and the fact that there is a potential presence of an acquired brain injury and a lot of other complex trauma deficits, I think in fairness to yourself and also hopefully, for the benefit of the community, I think that the appropriate sentence is to give you time served and then put you a two year community corrections order which will be with conviction. 

20The only condition of that will be that you perform 100 hours of community service work.  I will direct that those community hours can be set off against programs being conducted under other concurrent CCOs but the work hours are to be cumulative. 

21All right.  We will just get that typed.

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