Director of Public Prosecutions v Mohammadi
[2025] VCC 1068
•28 July 2025
| IN THE COUNTY COURT OF VICTORIA AT MELBOURNE CRIMINAL JURISDICTION | Revised Not Restricted Suitable for Publication |
CR-24-01794
| DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROSECUTIONS |
| v |
| MADHI MOHAMMADI |
| JUDGE: | HIS HONOUR JUDGE JOHNS |
| WHERE HELD: | Melbourne |
| DATE OF HEARING: | 25 June 2025 |
| DATE OF SENTENCE: | 28 July 2025 |
| CASE MAY BE CITED AS: | DPP v Mohammadi |
| MEDIUM NEUTRAL CITATION: | [2025] VCC 1068 |
REASONS FOR SENTENCE
Subject: CRIMINAL LAW – Sentencing
Catchwords: Plea of guilty – stalking - common law kidnapping – common assault – intentionally causing injury - prohibited person possessing a firearm – possessing ammunition – Category 2 offence – young offender – threat to kill - substance abuse --
Legislation Cited:
Cases Cited:Bugmy v The Queen [2013] HCA 37; 249 CLR 571; 1 R v Verdins (2007) VR 16 269.
Sentence:Total Effective Sentence: Two years and four months imprisonment, non-parole period 17 months.
APPEARANCES: | Counsel | Solicitors |
| For the Director of Public Prosecutions | Mr R. Casey | Office of Public Prosecutions |
| For the Accused | Mr C. Grant | Giorgianni & Liang Lawyers |
HIS HONOUR:
1Madhi Mohammadi, you have pleaded guilty before me to five charges on indictment.
· Stalking, which carries a maximum penalty of 10 years' imprisonment.
· Common law kidnapping, which carries a maximum penalty of 25 years' imprisonment.
· Common assault, which carries a maximum of five years' imprisonment.
· Intentionally causing injury which carries a maximum penalty of 10 years' imprisonment.
· Prohibited person possessing a firearm, which carries a maximum of
10 years' imprisonment.· And the relevant summary offence of possessing ammunition, which carries a maximum of 40 penalty units.
Circumstances of Offending
2You were 18 at the time of the commission of these offences. You have no prior convictions. You had been remanded in custody on these charges for 418 days at the time of your plea. You have now served 450 days on remand.
3You are now 19 and will turn 20 next week.
4The circumstances of your offending are set out in Exhibit A of the Summary of Prosecution Opening for plea dated 25 June 2025, which sets out the pertinent circumstances of your offending in detail which I am not going to recite herein. Exhibit A forms part of these reasons for sentence.
5In brief terms, you were involved in a planned kidnapping, which had some very serious aspects to it. It is a very serious offence, kidnapping, it is a Category 2 offence. Your commission of it is very serious given the planning involved and the conduct you and others engaged in during the imprisonment of your unfortunate victim.
6The stalking of your victim was constituted by you and your co-offenders conducting surveillance and tracking the victim over 3 and 4 May 2024. You and your co-offenders were in a group utilising a white van to follow the victim.
7You were waiting for an opportunity to seize him.
8You found your opportunity at 4:20 pm when you and your co-offenders forced your victim, who unbeknown to you at that point in time was not your intended victim, into the back of the white van.
9You were directly involved in seizing your victim, tying him up and gagging him with duct tape.
10Your victim was held down in the back of the white van and driven to an address in Doncaster Road, Doncaster. You and your co-offenders held him there. You were getting instructions via a Signal chat group. At one stage an image was sent of the victim's head, and it was only then that you and your co-offenders realised that you had kidnapped the wrong person.
11The victim was terrorised, assaulted and tormented in a most appalling way during his captivity. He was tied to a chair, his head was shaved, and this was recorded on film and sent to the remote instructors.
12Your co-offender placed a sawn-off or cut-down firearm in the victim’s mouth. This was also filmed. I was shown footage of this episode. It was terrifying.
13The victim was punched during his ordeal, and he received bruising, cuts and scratches during the abduction and assaults.
14You are complicit in the intentionally causing of injury, possession of firearm and possession of ammunition.
15Your role and criminality is appreciably less than that of Mr Elmarkaz. Elmarkaz threatened the victim, struck him with the firearm, terrorised him and placed a bullet in his mouth.
16You were present throughout and replaced the pillowcase on the victim’s head once all of this was done.
17You were involved in the ultimate release of your victim.
18You were arrested along with Hadairi not long after releasing the victim. You made some admissions. A number of recordings of the episode were found on your phone. You have been on remand since arrest.
Objective Gravity
19It is very serious offending, and no doubt has had longstanding and significant impacts upon your victim who was too overwhelmed by the experience and the ongoing sequelae of the offending to make a victim impact statement, as I understand it, but I take into account that it was a terrifying, impactful and traumatic experience for him.
20Your role was central to the events, although not as active as Elmarkaz. Some of the acts Elmarkaz was involved in made his commission of the offences objectively more grave than yours.
Personal Circumstances
21You were born in Kabul, Afghanistan in August 2005.
22You are of Hazara ethnicity, and I accept that this fact subjected you and your family to discrimination, violence and instability during your formative years.
23I have had regard to the helpful letters from your father and brother as to the circumstances of your childhood. You were 10 when you first left Kabul.
24I accept the matters set out in your Counsel’s outline as to the traumas you witnessed and experienced and the general poverty and disadvantage you experienced as a child. I accept the matters raised in the psychological report as to your background.
25Your father fled to Australia in search for a better life for him and his family.
26During this period of time, you and your siblings lived with extended family who physically and verbally abused and humiliated you. You experienced the brunt of this and you tried to shield your younger siblings from harm.
27Upon arrival to Australia in 2016, aged 11 or so, you continued to struggle with trauma and cultural displacement, however, you also flourished in some respects, captaining a soccer team for example.
28You also appreciated the significant change in physical security and safety.
29In Afghanistan you attended school six days per week. You experienced physical discipline at school from teachers which led to some truancy.
30Upon arriving in Australia, you were enrolled in Year 5 at Doveton College and also attended a language school to develop your English skills.
31You experienced racism and bullying but as your English skills improved so too did your academic performance and social relationships.
32In high school you were informed that you would need to repeat Year 11 and you chose to discontinue your secondary education and seek employment at that point.
33You began working in manual labour jobs, including plumbing, bricklaying and rendering. However, you were required to undergo shoulder surgery and spent a year in recovery. That put a temporary end to physical employment opportunities.
Drugs and Alcohol
34You started smoking cannabis at age 14 and benzodiazepines by 16. For around 12 months prior to the offending, you were a regular user of cocaine.
35I accept the opinion of psychologist Mr Simmons that your experiences in Afghanistan left you vulnerable to substance misuse. You were drawn to illicit drugs as a means of self-medicating your mental health issues, principally untreated PTSD.
Mental Health
36I accept the diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder, and cannabis, cocaine and Benzodiazepine use disorders. Your experiences in your homeland as a child, witnessing and suffering traumatic events, have contributed to nightmares, flashbacks, panic attacks during sleep, emotional numbing and suicidal thoughts. Your trauma stems from cumulative and extreme early life exposure to violence.
Relevant Considerations
Plea of Guilty
37Your plea of guilty has substantial utilitarian value, it has reduced the expense of a criminal trial. It avoided the inconvenience to witnesses and facilitates the course of justice. I accept the plea also demonstrates an acceptance of responsibility and some contrition and remorse.
38Your matter proceeded by way of straight hand-up brief on 16 October 2024. I accept it was always going to be a resolved plea, however, there were some delays accepting one of the charges.
39It is unfortunate in your case that there was delay in resolving the matter as you have spent a significant period on remand in circumstances where you would, in all likelihood, have been suitable for a Youth Justice Centre order had this matter been resolved at an earlier time.
Parity
40I have had to have regard to the principle of parity, of course, given the disparate sentences I imposed upon Mr Hadairi and Mr Elmarkaz. The breadth of your offending is more in line with the circumstances of Mr Elmarkaz’s offending, however, weighing up your role and personal circumstances places you closer to Mr Hadairi in terms of parity.
41Mr Hadairi was 20 at the time of sentence and found suitable for a youth detention order. He had prior matters, unlike yourself, he was slightly older than you at the time of the offending.
42As noted, your offending stretches beyond Mr Hadairi’s. Mr Hadairi had the risk of deportation as a sentencing factor. Other than that matter, your personal circumstances are roughly similar.
43I have weighed up the similarities and dissimilarities across all relevant considerations in respect of Mr Hadairi and Mr Elmarkaz in applying the principle of parity.
Bugmy
44I accept that your traumatic background gives rise to significant mitigation by way of application of the Bugmy principle. I assess your moral culpability through this lens.
Verdins
45I also accept that due to your PTSD your experience in custody has been, and will be, more difficult than for another who does not suffer from PTSD.
Youth
46You are entitled to significant mitigation due to the factor of youth and all that that entails. As I have stated, you were only 18 at the time of the commission of the offence. You will turn 20 next week, as I understand it.
Prospects of rehabilitation
47You have a strong and supportive family standing by you. You have no prior convictions. You have a work history. At your young age I regard your prospects of rehabilitation as good with some reservations given some of the matters raised in the Suitability for Youth Justice Centre Order pre-sentence report.
48I had you assessed for suitability for a YJC order. Given your young age and lack of criminal history, this appeared to be a suitable disposition. I had some reservations given the length of time you had spent on remand. The reason for reservation was, having regard to parity, any YJC sentence I imposed would see you eligible for youth parole immediately upon entry. A period of time, probably months, would be required, nonetheless, for parole planning.
49The pre-sentence report recommendation is that you are not suitable for a Youth Justice Centre order, and I have heard Mr Casey address me in relation to some aspects of that report. I am not going to summarise the reasons for your unsuitability. In all of the circumstances, I would still have considered a Youth Justice Centre disposition despite the adverse recommendation if you had not been on remand for so long, and a longer period of time in Youth Justice Centre was available for you to work with Youth Justice.
50In circumstances where you have already served some 15 months, or thereabouts, of the sentence I am about to impose, and in light of the recommendation from Youth Justice, I have decided that a jail term is the appropriate sentence in your case.
51I have weighed up the importance of imposing a sentence that adequately reflects the importance of general deterrence, denunciation and specific deterrence, and has due regard to your youth and prospects of rehabilitation.
Sentence
52I sentence you as follows, Mr Mohammadi:
53In relation to Charge 1, the charge of stalking, you are sentenced to four months' imprisonment.
54In relation to Charge 2, kidnapping, you are sentenced to 20 months' imprisonment.
55In relation to Charge 3, you are sentenced to six months' imprisonment.
56In relation to Charge 4, intentionally causing injury, you are sentenced to four months' imprisonment.
57In relation to Charge 5, a prohibited person possessing a firearm, you are sentenced to nine months' imprisonment.
58In relation to the relevant summary offence of possess ammunition, you are fined $600.
59The sentence imposed in relation to Charge 2 is the base sentence.
60I direct that two months of each of the sentences imposed on each of Charges 1,3, 4 and 5 be served cumulatively upon the base sentence. The sentences are otherwise to be served concurrently.
61That makes a total effective sentence of two years and four months' imprisonment.
62I set a non-parole period of 17 months.
63I declare that pursuant to s18 of the Sentencing Act you have served 450 days as pre-sentence detention.
64Pursuant to s6AAA, were it not for your pleas of guilty, I would have sentenced you to a period of three and a half years' imprisonment with a non-parole period of two years and three months.
65Mr Mohammadi, on my calculations you will be eligible for parole within a couple of months, so you need to start giving thought to how you prepare for that and how you apply for that.
66Any other orders were sought.
67MR CASEY: No, Your Honour.
68HIS HONOUR: Thank you, Mr Casey, and thank you Mr Grant.
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