Director of Public Prosecutions v Mead

[2014] VCC 1664

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

AT LATROBE VALLEY
CRIMINAL JURISDICTION

CR-14-00745

DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROSECUTIONS

v

JULIE MEAD

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JUDGE:	HIS HONOUR JUDGE SMALLWOOD
WHERE HELD:	Latrobe Valley
DATE OF HEARING:
DATE OF SENTENCE:	3 October 2014
CASE MAY BE CITED AS:	DPP v Mead
MEDIUM NEUTRAL CITATION:	[2014] VCC 1664

REASONS FOR SENTENCE
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Subject:
Catchwords:
Legislation Cited:
Cases Cited:
Sentence:

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APPEARANCES:	Counsel	Solicitors
For the Director of Public Prosecutions	Mr D. O'Doherty
For the Offender	Ms A. Burnnard

HIS HONOUR: 

1Julie Mead, you have pleaded guilty to one charge of recklessly causing serious injury.  That crime carries a maximum penalty of 15 years' imprisonment. 

2You are now 42 years of age. 

3You pleaded guilty to a settled indictment, and I accept that you have now at least displayed appropriate remorse.  You must also, of course, get the utilitarian benefit of that plea of guilty, and I take into account obviously that it is a settled indictment. 

4You do have a prior criminal history.  You have one without conviction disposition for an assault on, I am told, your sister which somehow involved your children.  That disposition would indicate that it was not a matter of great significance.  Your other matters would tend to support the description of your early background as given to me by your counsel.  Importantly, these matters are now some 16 or 17 months old, and you have no matters pending. 

5A summary of the offending is that you and the complainant had been residing in the same block of units in Wonthaggi together for about six months.  On 3 June 2013 you spent the morning together.  You went into Wonthaggi where you went to a chemist and a supermarket bottle shop.  The pair of you purchased a bottle of red wine and a bottle of vodka, returned to your unit and began to drink.  You were both seriously affected by alcohol at the end of all of this, and I understand that one of the eye witnesses essentially described you as "legless".

6In any event, during the afternoon the two of you got into a heated argument about the complainant believing that you had stolen money and tobacco from her.  You denied taking those things.  The complainant started to wrestle with you, and that resulted in you getting a kitchen paring knife from the drawer.  You threatened the complainant with the knife, and she then apparently pinned you down to prevent the use of the knife. 

7At approximately 5 pm the pair of you stopped fighting and the complainant left your unit to go to her own, about 25 metres away.  She was approaching the front door of her unit when you came at her, holding the Wiltshire knife in your right hand.  You, with an overhand motion, stabbed her.  She raised her left arm in an attempt to block, but this only resulted in the knife wound being to her armpit.  You retreated immediately from the area of the stabbing and returned to your unit, and I note obviously that you only stabbed her the once. 

8She was bleeding profusely from her injury and sought help from a neighbour.  She was taken to Wonthaggi Hospital where she received medical treatment to a wound under her left arm and she was admitted overnight.  The Crown opening says the wound was four centimetres deep, but obviously with a knife, the depth of the wound depends upon whether bones have been struck and all sorts of things. 

9She lost a significant amount of blood, but no nerves or organs were interfered with or severed.  She was given stitches and medication for pain management and went home.  She has had further medical appointments. 

10You, yourself, did not suffer any injury. 

11Injuries.  The injury can be described, I think, as serious, though it is certainly not at the highest end of seriousness.  The difficulty is the way in which it was caused.  It is not a small knife, and whilst you are not to be sentenced for what might have happened, you might be lucky to be where you are. 

12In any event, police were called to the units.  They found the knife which I have seen a photo of.  You interviewed at the Wonthaggi Police Station, said that you had been drinking and that you had originally got the knife in self-defence, but could remember not a great deal after that.  You denied stabbing her, but it is clear that you were very intoxicated, and I do not place any great significance on that lack of memory. 

13You have pleaded guilty to what has been alleged by the Crown, and that is to your credit. 

14There was no victim impact statement before me. 

15Offences such as this have to be regarded as serious, and in the normal course of events, call for the application of general and specific deterrence as well as denunciation and appropriate punishment. 

16In your situation, I am satisfied on the evidence before me that you have a mild to moderate acquired brain injury.  It does not appear to go to moral culpability, but I think it certainly enables me to moderate general deterrence to a certain extent. 

17So far as specific deterrence is concerned, I think that your present situation is such that a community corrections order is ample for those purposes, bearing in mind what you have been able to achieve with your life since this offending took place.

18I have before me reports from Arbias which, as I have indicated, says that you have the mild to moderate acquired brain injury.  It says: 

"The aetiology of this is likely multifactorial, and a combination of past polysubstance abuse, drug overdose, seizure and head injury with loss of conscious". 

19I do not think I need to go much further into that report. 

20There is also a CISP report of the Court Integrated Services Program and I will refer to that again in a moment. 

21I also have a letter or reference from the Lakes Entrance RSL which confirms that you have employment and are performing well at it. 

22After your arrest, you were detained in custody for a period of three days.  That, as I understand it, is the first time that you have been in custody, and I am sure it would have had a significant effect upon you in terms of specific deterrence and just the seriousness of the circumstances in which you found yourself. 

23Your history was outlined to me by counsel and is, to a certain extent, confirmed in the Arbias report and also in the CISP report.  In circumstances such as this, it is important to understand where a person has come from when they behave in this way.  You were born in Dandenong.  Your father left when you were about three months old.  You had a number of stepfathers.  You now have effectively no contact with your mother or your father.  You have a brother who you have some contact with. 

24At the age of ten or 11 you ran away.  You are unwilling to disclose why.  By the age of 12 you had been made a ward of the state and remained such until you were 16.  You had commenced the use of illicit substances and alcohol by that age.  Your brother David was in care as well.  You were placed in homes that you are now unable to recall the names of. 

25You went back to your mother at the age of 16.  At around that age of 15 and 16 you had employment.  You worked in the IGA on Phillip Island and also did asparagus picking around, I would imagine, Koo Wee Rup.  You have now had no work from the age of 17 until the present time, and that is very much to your credit as to what has occurred since. 

26You, at the age of 17, were in a violent relationship and became pregnant to a man known as Scott.  That child died very shortly after birth and you commenced using heroin.  You have a second son, Aaron, with whom you now have no contact.  I am told that he was taken by his father when he was young, and you first saw him again as an adult a few years ago. 

27You have been in a number of relationships, including one with a man called Robert which went for some 14 or 15 years.  There was domestic violence involved in that relationship.  You have two children, one 19 and one 14 from it, with whom you have very little, if any, contact. 

28Some years ago, in 2008, Robert's father died and he, as a consequence of that, committed suicide with a heroin overdose.  You had been addicted to heroin all the way up until that period of time.  From that death, you have no longer used heroin, but unfortunately from that time on, became essentially homeless or itinerant, and began to drink very heavily.  You have been referred to in the CISP report as being homeless.  You were ultimately able to obtain the accommodation in Wonthaggi where all of this occurred.  At around this period of time you were drinking very heavily, and using it as a crutch. 

29I then take into account the Arbias report about the brain injury that you have suffered from a number of causes and it was in those rather hopeless circumstances, without being unfair to you, that this very unfortunate incident took place.  You were unable, of course, to go back to that address, and you were placed on the CISP program in April of last year. 

30That report was very helpful.  You obviously did your best to comply with that.  You were in accommodation in Morwell for around about four months in a boarding house and that proved difficult.  You would appear to have, for the first time, been able to deal with counsellors and spoke to a psychologist and began to understand and deal with all the problems that you had had.  You committed yourself to certainly reducing your alcohol intake, and I accept that that is what has occurred.  You have not now used heroin for a very significant period of time.

31Most importantly, you were able to obtain accommodation for yourself in Lakes Entrance and you were able to obtain employment as a cleaner for the motel and for the local RSL.  As I have indicated, I have the reference from them. 

32You are now living in those circumstances with the reduced alcoholic intake, you have nothing pending, and it would appear that for the first time in nearly a quarter of a century you have gainful and substantial employment. 

33The risks of you reoffending are dependent upon your rehabilitation.  I had you assessed for a community corrections order.  The assessment says that you are, on their testing, a low risk of reoffending, and that gives me comfort in terms of the disposition I am to impose. 

34That report also suggested treatment for alcohol and mental health and the like, but I think the circumstances are that you are now 42 years of age.  You know what your problems are, you have been able to reduce your alcohol intake very significantly indeed, and I am told that you no longer use illicit substances such as heroin.  You have now got a better understanding of your psychological difficulties, and you did well with a psychologist by the name of David Pyman during the course of your CISP program.  That program finished about a year ago. 

35I think that you have sufficient insight that if problems start to arise, you will use available services to ensure that something along these lines never happens again. 

36This sort of offending frequently ends up with an active custodial sentence, but in your particular situation, bearing particularly in mind the very difficult circumstances under which you were brought up, and your now obvious determination to get yourself on track, I do not think that is necessary. 

37I consider a community corrections order is sufficient.  It will be with conviction, which is a significant punishment in itself.  As I have said, I do not think at this point in time the treatment conditions are necessary, but there must be an element of punishment.  I am aware that this is all taking place in Lakes Entrance, so opportunities might be limited, but the only condition will be one of 200 hours of community service work, and the CCO will be over a period of two years. 

38What you must understand is that if you breach this CCO by reoffending or indeed by non-compliance with the work hours for no genuine reason, you will fall to be resentenced, and in a crime of this significance, having been given the opportunity, which you have so far availed yourself of well, you would almost certainly not get a second opportunity. 

39MS BURNNARD:  Your Honour, may I approach Ms Mead?

40HIS HONOUR:  Yes, please. 

41Well that order is made.  You explained she has got to turn up at Bairnsdale?  She could do it on the way back, probably.

42MS BURNNARD:  Your Honour, an appointment has been made at 2 o'clock on Tuesday.

43HIS HONOUR:  All right, yes, that is fine.

44MS BURNNARD:  I have the card here.

45HIS HONOUR:  All right.  Well that is made, Ms Mead.  Do not breach it, all right?

46OFFENDER:  No.

47HIS HONOUR:  It is how people usually go in, so if you get brought back, I am not going to have a lot of choice.  All right?

48OFFENDER:  No, I'm not coming back.

49HIS HONOUR:  All right, good on you.  All right, Monday.

50MR O'DOHERTY:  Monday, 11 o'clock.

51HIS HONOUR:  11 o'clock, yes.  See how we go.

52MS BURNNARD:  As Your Honour pleases. 

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