Director of Public Prosecutions v Nicholls

[2019] VCC 1747

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

AT MELBOURNE
CRIMINAL JURISDICTION

CR-18-00965

DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROSECUTIONS

v

SHANNON NICHOLLS

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JUDGE:	HER HONOUR JUDGE HAMPEL
WHERE HELD:	Melbourne
DATE OF HEARING:	7 August 2019 and 24 October 2019
DATE OF SENTENCE:	24 October 2019
CASE MAY BE CITED AS:	DPP v Nicholls
MEDIUM NEUTRAL CITATION:	[2019] VCC 1747

REASONS FOR SENTENCE
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Subject:Sentence, sexual assault – victim intoxicated and unconscious – serious deprivation in childhood – need for denunciation and general deterrence moderated – rehabilitation already underway – CCO appropriate disposition

Catchwords:
Legislation Cited:
Cases Cited:
Sentence:

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APPEARANCES:	Counsel	Solicitors
For the Director of Public Prosecutions	Ms E. Johnson	Office of Public Prosecutions
For the Accused	Mr C. Hooper	Richard Revill Lawyers

HER HONOUR: 

1Shannon Nicholls, ­you have pleaded guilty to one charge of sexual assault. 

2The charge is of intentionally sexually touching Anna Curtis[1] without her consent, in circumstances where you did not reasonably believe that she was consenting.    

[1] A pseudonym.

3This happened on the night of 12 March 2017.  You and Ms Curtis were close friends.  You had known each other for approximately five years.  Her boyfriend had been a friend of yours.  Your friendship had been just that, a platonic one, throughout that time.  At the time of the offending behaviour, you were 23 and she was 21 years old.

4You arranged to meet in the city on the night of 12 March and you had parked your car near the Fitzroy Gardens.  You met Ms Curtis at Flinders Street station.  You ended up going to see some of the Moomba Festival activities before going to the Cherry Bar in ACDC Lane.  Each of you had quite a bit to drink and both of you were obviously affected by alcohol when you left the Cherry Bar at approximately 1.40am.

5It would appear from all of the material that Ms Curtis was much more intoxicated than you were.  You were seen on CCTV carrying her over your shoulder as you left the Cherry Bar, although you may not have carried her all the way, the two kilometres to your car.  It was clear that she was significantly impaired by alcohol.  CCTV footage also shows you trying to kiss her at one stage and her rebuffing that attempt.

6When you got back to your car, you ended up driving her home, a considerable distance away.  CCTV and toll records show you still on the road at just before 3 in the morning. 

7When you got to Ms Curtis' home, you parked your car in her driveway.  She recalls waking up, having gone to sleep or passed out in your car, being in a reclined position in the passenger seat of the car, her clothing dishevelled, her underwear down and you touching her intimately.  It took her some time, but as she came back to awareness of her surroundings, she realised that you were the person who was touching her intimately.  You were undressed yourself, you had your shorts off and your penis was exposed. 

8When she did realise that it was you who was touching her intimately, she pushed you away and asked you what was happening.  You moved your erect penis to her face or mouth and told her to suck or kiss it.  She said, 'no', repeatedly, but you kept pushing it closer to her face.  She ultimately kissed the tip of your penis with her closed lips in an attempt to stop you moving it closer to her mouth.  And it is that which constitutes the offence of sexual assault, to which you pleaded guilty. 

9You then said to her, 'Let's fuck', but she said, 'No.'  She told you she did not have protection and that she was menstruating.  You persisted, trying to get her to agree, but eventually gave up and moved back to the driver's seat and dressed yourself.  She got out of your car eventually, but before she did, you told her that, from the first day you had met her, you had thought, 'I need to fuck this girl.'

10When she got home and was undressing inside, she noticed a stain on her underwear.  She did not know how that had happened.  She woke some hours later feeling sick, tired and worried.  She told her brother what had happened.  She asked her brother to promise that he would not tell anyone, but he, concerned about what best to do, told your mother the next day.

11A complaint was made to the police and, by 4 April 2017, you had been arrested and interviewed.  You gave an account that was by and large consistent with the account given by Ms Curtis.  You admitted touching her in a sexual way by rubbing her vagina.  When it was put to you that you put your penis towards her face, you said, 'Did I? I don't know.'  You admitted being on top of her and having your penis exposed.  You said that she was playing with it. 

12You were ultimately charged and there was a contested committal proceeding, where Ms Curtis was cross-examined.  You were committed for trial to this court and it was on the day that your trial was listed to commence, on 1 April this year, that you ultimately pleaded guilty to this charge.

13An application was made on your behalf, having regard to the fact that this matter resolved to a single charge of sexual assault, that the matter be remitted to the Magistrates' Court, but the presiding judge refused.

14Your plea was initially listed for hearing before me on 7 August. At the commencement of the plea, your counsel sought, without prior notice to the prosecution or the court, to contest aspects of what had been understood to be an agreed prosecution summary of the resolved matter. 

15That was difficult for Ms Curtis and her family who were here for what they understood was a plea hearing on a resolved matter and it caused some considerable delay.  Ultimately, the application to dispute aspects of the opening was withdrawn and you acknowledged the opening in the form that it had been filed and in a manner, I might say, which was consistent with what had been the defence response, that is, an acknowledgment that Ms Curtis was asleep or passed out, that she came to realise that you were touching her and, in those circumstances, there could be no proper basis for saying you had a reasonable belief that she was consenting.  She was asleep and severely intoxicated. 

16This is serious offending and the impact of it on Ms Curtis was outlined in detail by her in that very powerful and blatantly honest victim impact statement.  In her words, she has been left battling anxiety, depression and stress.  She is afraid when she is out in public, wary of strangers and frightened that she might come face-to-face with you.  She has recurrent dreams or nightmares involving you that cause her deep upset and anger.  She trusted you because you had been a friend for so long and a platonic friend.  She feels deeply this betrayal of trust. 

17It has affected her social life and her relationships with her friends and family.  She herself understands how she has changed and is also distressed because she realises the struggles she has had in coping with what has happened has made  her very hard to live with, to work with and to communicate with.  She has had physical manifestations of her stress, including alopecia and fluctuating weight. She has attempted counselling, but so far she has not been able to engage in counselling that has done anything other than make her feel worse.  She has upsetting flashbacks after talking about you and, at times, she has felt her life has not been worth living. 

18At the end, she said that even writing her victim impact statement was something she did not want to do, because she was aware that, by having to go back and to talk about what had happened and the impact of it on her, it would put her in a dark place.  She showed great insight in her victim impact statement, sayings she nonetheless understood how important it was that she had a voice and explained to the court, and to you, the effect that your offending has had on her.  She said she also wanted to do this so that you would not ever do to anyone else what you had done to her.

19Ms Curtis' family, her parents and her brother, have also submitted victim impact statements. Although a highly technical and, in my view, and as
I ultimately ruled, legally erroneous submission was made that her family were not victims, they clearly are also victims of your offending. 

20Whilst, of course, lay opinions about medical conditions are not the same as a clinical diagnosis, they are all consistent in describing the distress that
Ms Curtis has felt and the distress they feel as powerless people around her, who love her but cannot make her feel better. 

21Ms Curtis' father described how he froze when he found out what had happened to her, that he thinks she has become a shell of her former self and how that was soul-destroying for him.  He, as he acknowledges, wrongly wanted to physically take reprisal against you and it was his daughter's insistence that this was handled the right way, that is, resorting to legal process, that ultimately brought him to his senses.  But it added immeasurably to Ms Curtis' distress that she was managing, not only the pain and the fallout from what you had done to her, but also her father's reaction.

22He mother describes in detail the changes to her since this.  Her capable,
hard-working, caring, fearless and trusting daughter, now a child full of anxiety, fear and distress and someone who has been incredibly difficult to live with. 

23They all talked about the impact on them in the broader sense, because not only are they a family, they work in the family business together and she has struggled to work in the same way she did, to fulfil the duties she had apparently so capably fulfilled before, and that has caused increased tension for everybody.  It strained relationships with everybody. 

24She has been hospitalised as a result of this.  She has suffered bouts of depression and migraines.  Her mother has needed counselling sessions to help cope.  They all feel guilty because, although it was not their fault, they were not there to protect their daughter and sister.  

25Ms Curtis' brother talks about how, as an older brother, he always thought he would be able to protect his sister and, again, his sense of powerlessness and his sense of guilt that he failed to protect her. 

26None of them are responsible, of course, for what you did and Ms Curtis herself is not, in any way, responsible for what happened.  You and you alone are responsible.  They intellectually understand that, but emotionally, Ms Curtis’ family found that difficult to understand.  But I want to reiterate again how important it is that they all understand, as well as you, that it is your conduct and your conduct alone that has brought about all of their suffering. 

27In submissions on the last time your matter was before me, Ms Johnson properly characterised the seriousness of the offending in this way.  She said:

'This is a young woman who has been his friend for five years, who was entitled to think the she would be safe in his company, that she could get drunk in his company and not have to be on edge or wondering, as you might with someone you barely know, that you might put yourself at risk of their behaviour.' 

28Ms Curtis felt very comfortable drinking to excess in your presence and you have totally broken that trust with your behaviour and it has had horrendous consequences for Ms Curtis and her family. 

29Those are proper and accurate characterisations of the seriousness of the offending and the impact on Ms Curtis, your victim, and it is clear that, subject to considerations personal to you, denunciation, deterrence and just punishment are important sentencing considerations.

30Ms Curtis, from all accounts, was a happy, confident young woman and she is now a vulnerable, frightened and distressed one.  However, she is not the only vulnerable young person in this.  You too, for very different reasons, are a vulnerable young person. 

31Dealing now with your personal circumstances and why this sentencing exercise is such a difficult one.

32You have no previous involvement with the criminal justice system, as a young man in your early-20s.  For many young men of that age, that is not remarkable.  It is to be expected and, in fact, surprising if they do.  However, given your background and circumstances, the fact that you have had no previous involvement with the criminal justice system can properly be described as an achievement that is against the odds.

33I was provided with a number of contemporaneous reports from a range of experts, assessors and treaters who had contact with you throughout your childhood and adolescence.  They consistently reveal that, for the first three and a half years of your life, you were physically, emotionally, socially and mentally neglected and rejected by your mother.  She was only 14 when you were born and, throughout her pregnancy and those formative years of a baby's life, she had serious substance abuse and associated problems, which played out terribly for you.   

34At three and a half, you were placed in the care of your maternal grandmother and you remained in her care thereafter. 

35At the age of four, you were first referred to Austin Health Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS).  At that age, you were diagnosed with severe disorders, including reactive attachment disorder, a communication disorder and developmental delay.  They were clearly attributable to the neglect and abuse that you had suffered in those early formative years.

36Your behavioural disturbances worsened.  By 2003, Austin CAMHS had reported major and worsening anti-social difficulties and ongoing severe learning difficulties.  They included aggressive and violent behaviour towards others, homicidal thoughts, destructive behaviour without remorse, lying, stealing, unusual behaviours, developmental regressions and extreme academic deficits. The consequences of those behaviours included marked social isolation from your family and peers and disorganised patterns of relating which often lead to rejection. The 2003 diagnoses were consistent with those original 1998 diagnoses. So by 2003, you had been identified as a very disturbed boy with severe delays in social, language and academic skills.

37Despite the severity of these behavioural disorders, none of those who assessed you in those years considered that you suffered from a pervasive developmental disorder, an intellectual disability or that you were anywhere on the autism spectrum.  Indeed, the reports indicate that your IQ had been found to be within the normal range and autism or autism spectrum disorder had been ruled out as a diagnosis.

38You remained under intensive treatment at Austin CAMHS from May 2002 until April 2010, that is from the age of seven until you were 14 and a half.

39During that time you had commenced weekly psychoanalytic psychotherapy with Ms Ann Jeffs and you continued in weekly therapy with her until 2012, at the age of 18.  You spent a total of nine years in weekly psychotherapy with her, having only one six month period out of psychotherapy for the whole of that period.  That is an extraordinarily long time and particularly so for a child and adolescent.

40Ms Jeffs, in her report, observed that children with the diagnoses that you had, at the age at which you had them and the level of disturbance that you were manifesting, frequently end up in State care and then the juvenile justice system.  She did not say, but from my experience, I would say they then often progress to the adult justice system.  The treatment that was provided to you and the supports that were put around you, your very caring grandmother and extended family, were all given in an attempt to interrupt what Ms Jeffs described as a 'tragic trajectory'.

41Over time, with that treatment, you showed a marked capacity and maturity in containing your thinking and your aggressive drives, rather than connecting with them. From mid-secondary school onwards, there were no behavioural concerns in your home or school setting.  That, in itself, was remarkable.   

42As a result of the intensive care and support provided by your grandmother, her other children, Austin CAMHS, Ms Jeffs, teaching aides provided during your primary schooling and committed personnel at your secondary school, you managed to complete your schooling and finish Year 12, although without a scored ATAR.  Ms Jeffs noted that continuation of school, despite your learning difficulties, had been recommended, because school provided you with social support, containment and ongoing pro-social contact with peers.  Completing school enabled you to go on to TAFE, where you completed training certificates.  Again, remarkably, given this background, you have been in almost continuous employment since then.

43Your first two work placements after doing your certificate courses were in disability supported placements but, since then, you have obtained employment in the mainstream market and, it would appear, been able to maintain it without difficulty.  All of this is remarkable against that extraordinarily deprived beginning and against the knowledge of how marked the effect that can be on a person for the rest of their life. 

44Although, in your early 20s, you are in the outer range of those who are properly to be regarded as young offenders, those early years of intense emotional deprivation, the very serious developmental delay you experienced as a result, the behavioural disturbances that you displayed as a child and adolescent as a result and the remarkable success of the intensive interventions during those years, put you in a category where, in my view, encouraging rehabilitation and reducing the weight that would be otherwise have to be given to general deterrence, are warranted.

45I am satisfied that, despite your history of developmental delay and the intense behavioural disturbances you suffered as an adolescent, by the time that you committed this offence, you were capable of understanding right from wrong and capable of regulating your emotions and behaviour.

46Although the psychologist, Mr Crewdson, who assessed you for the purposes of the plea, expressed the view that you had had a degree of intellectual disability and a low level of deficit on the autism spectrum, I prefer the diagnoses and opinions of Ms Jeffs, Ms Cooper and Mr Martin, the authors of the reports that were prepared during your childhood through Austin CHAMS and which had been provided to me on the plea.  Each of them had extensive contact with you as a child and adolescent and, in my view, the better diagnoses for you are reactive attachment disorder, communication disorder and developmental delay, against a background of extreme neglect and rejection in your early formative years.

47Of course, as the Court of Appeal made clear in Verdins[2] and subsequent cases, it is not so much the label to attach to your behaviour or your conditions that is important, it is what those conditions are and the impact that they have on your offending and on sentencing principles that is important.  As they said, a label is the start not the end of the enquiry. 

[2]R v Verdins; Buckley; Vo (2007) 16 VR 269.

48Behaviour, if it can be explained by reason of a mental illness or a serious psychological condition, which is not a behavioural disorder, is important in considering whether moral culpability is reduced and therefore whether the weight to be given to general deterrence is reduced.

49I do not consider that your offending is explicable or your culpability is reduced by an inability to read social cues, a product of an autism spectrum disorder.  As your own defence response acknowledged, Ms Curtis was highly intoxicated and had passed out at the start of the activity.  So I do not consider that your moral culpability is reduced by reason of an inability to read social cues.  That just does not apply when somebody has passed out.  However, I do consider that, by reason of your extraordinary deprivation in your very early years, the consequences of that on your psychosocial development and the remarkably positive benefits of the intensive interventions during your childhood and adolescence, that the weight to be given to general deterrence should be moderated.

50I also accept that, having regard to that background, imprisonment would weigh more heavily on you than it would on somebody who had not been subjected to what you were as a baby and who had not developed the developmental and behavioural disorders that you did as a result.

51I accept the evidence that imprisonment would likely set back the progress that you have made and make highly likely the risk that you would revert to the angry, aggressive and anti-social child you were.

52I consider in these circumstances that the principles in the cases of Bugmy[3] and Marrah[4] in relation to the understanding of behaviour and the moderating of the severity of a sentence apply.  If a person is still suffering the long-term and enduring effect of childhood abuse, as you are, and have made such progress as you have since then, you are entitled to have that properly taken into account and weighed in your favour. 

[3]Bugmy v The Queen (2013) 249 CLR 571

[4]Marrah v The Queen [2014] VSCA 119

53That said, it is clear, nonetheless, that your behaviour must be denounced.  It was disgraceful, unacceptable and, by your plea of guilty, you admit, criminally wrong and inexcusable.  It must be very clear to anybody that, in the circumstances, they cannot take advantage of an intoxicated person, particularly when they are a trusted and platonic friend and they cannot treat them in the way you did without their behaviour being seriously and roundly denounced.  So the sentence to be imposed on you must not only reflect denunciation, but it also must act as a deterrent, even though, as I have noted, the weight to be given to general deterrence should be moderated by reason of your most unusual circumstances.

54In the circumstances, I do not consider that specific deterrence need be given disproportionate weight, nor do I consider that protection of the community is a factor that needs to be given disproportionate weight.

55You are in a category, however, where encouragement of rehabilitation, rehabilitation which has already been underway, carries more weight than it may with other offenders.

56When your plea was first heard, I was concerned about the absence of engagement in more recent times with any mental health professionals.  I was also concerned, by reason of the evidence that was then before me as to your deficits, about your capacity to participate in a mainstream sex offender treatment program of the sort that is generally administered by the Office of Corrections, whether in custody or in the community.  I was also very concerned about the absence of evidence of your progress between the end of primary, start of secondary school and the forensic assessment done for the purpose of the plea by Mr Crewdson.

57The plea was adjourned and Ms Jeffs, who had been your long-term psychotherapist, indicated that she was not only prepared to provide a report setting out your progress over those adolescent years, but also in relation to your current engagement with her and your prognosis.  A very helpful report has been provided by her and helpful evidence given by her today.    

58You have, since the plea was adjourned in August of this year, re-engaged with Ms Jeffs.  In fact, what came out this morning, was that you had been to see her shortly after being charged, that she had provided an assessment of you and a report to your legal advisors and that you had made, what can properly be characterised as, conscious efforts to not re-engage with her at that stage. 

59However, since August of this year, after the matter was adjourned, you have re-engaged and re-engaged in a very serious and committed way with Ms Jeffs.  You have seen her in weekly or fortnightly psychotherapy sessions since August of this year and you have also participated, at her suggestion, in weekly adult psychotherapy group treatment with the psychotherapist, Dr Christine Hill, to whom Ms Jeffs referred you.

60In the time this matter has been adjourned, you have shown that you have been committed to attending both the one-on-one psychotherapy and the group sessions and you have indicated that you are prepared to continue to engage with both of them and would do so as part of a condition of a community correction order.

61This, in my view, is of particular importance because it is clear that if you were to engage in this type of psychotherapy and if you were to engage in it with
Ms Jeffs, your long-term psychotherapist who knows so much about you and has been so much a part of your progress, that that is going to need to be privately funded. It cannot be funded either through Medicare or a mental health program.  You have indicated your preparedness to engage in that and to fund that.

62Ms Jeffs is prepared to resume psychotherapy with you and, in my view, the importance of maintaining that long-term psychotherapeutic relationship with someone who is so familiar with you and your progress is of significant importance.   

63Ms Jeffs has some expertise in dealing with sexual offenders and has
up-to-date knowledge in relation to the sex offender treatment programs generally administered through Corrections in this State and, in my view, she has a particular and most unusual expertise to be able to deliver a sex offender treatment program that is tailored to your specific needs and deficits.  She is prepared to administer that and you have indicated you are prepared to undertake that.

64The fact that Ms Jeffs is prepared to undertake a program that could be tailored to your needs gives significant weight to her opinion that a long-term program, with two years of psychotherapy altogether, would be of significant benefit to you and, therefore, to the community in addressing the risk of you committing further offending of this nature or any other nature. 

65I place great weight on Ms Jeff's opinion.  She concluded her report in this way:

'Shannon has been candid, open and vulnerable during treatment sessions.  He has been able to draw on our previous long treatment history and trusts his therapist's capacity, not only to accept and empathise with him, but also to challenge him.'

66If I can interpolate, that is really important.  She continued:

'My long and intricate therapeutic knowledge of Shannon's early life, developmental trajectory, family, social group and inner world, has enabled us to go into and explore deep issues fast.  The current stress of the pending sentencing hearings and uncertainty about his future, understandably preoccupies Shannon, although there are already thoughts on how to strengthen pro-social and developmentally appropriate goals and attitudes beyond the hearing.  In my opinion, there is a very high likelihood Shannon's engagement in therapy, both in individual and group, will continue on its positive, non-offending pro-social life trajectory.'

67She recommends, as treatment, the following: 

·ongoing fortnightly psychotherapy with her, building on the long treatment history, with its attendant trust and rapport, to continue assisting with your psychosexual development;

·sex offender treatment;

·addressing intimacy issues and setting and working towards pro-social life goals (she estimates two years as a minimum for that);

·ongoing weekly group therapy, exploring pro-social skills and increasing your capacity in pragmatics and theory of mind; and

·reconnection with pro-social mentors and elders to assist with role-modelling, advice and practical assistance.          

68She spoke glowingly of the progress that you have made in the last few months and of the empathy that you have described towards your victim, particularly since hearing Ms Curtis' victim impact statements and those of her family.  She said that was significant because it paralleled the way you developed empathy when you were an angry young child and was so important in turning you around. I consider that the remorse that you have expressed to Ms Jeffs is heartfelt and genuine and I accept that it is informed by having heard the very powerful victim impact statements of Ms Curtis and her family at the original sentencing hearing.  I also accept the evidence of Ms Jeffs, given her experience of you in the past, that this is evidence of your having, or coming to develop, appropriate empathy. That is a strength that can be built on in administering a sex offender treatment program in light of her evidence of the progress you made as a child as you learnt to control your anger and aggression and to develop empathy for others.  So this is more than a fond hope, there is a clinical history to support it. 

69You are also entitled to have taken into account in your favour your plea of guilty.  Although it was not entered at an early stage, having regard to your history and deficits as I have outlined them and what appears to be now a heartfelt appreciation of the significance of your misconduct after hearing the victim impact statements, I consider that that should be given weight and that you should not be significantly disadvantaged by reason of the fact that it was a late entered guilty plea.

70In these most unusual circumstances, in my view, the sentencing needs of denunciation, deterrence and just punishment do not require the imposition of a term of imprisonment.  This is in no way to devalue what happened to you, Ms Curtis, or from what I said about the need to denounce such behaviour and to ensure that others who offend in such a way understand that, when detected and charged, they will be dealt with in a way that should deter them and others from like offending.

71In my view, in these most unusual circumstances, the needs of sentencing can be properly addressed by first of all imposing a conviction against your name.  Second by placing you on a lengthy community correction order, with conditions that you engage in mental health assessment and treatment as directed and a sex offender treatment program or such other programs designed to reduce re-offending, as I have directed.  It is my hope and anticipation that you will be directed to continue treatment with Ms Jeffs and Dr Hill under those program conditions.

72You have been assessed by Corrections today for suitability for a community correction order and they have found you suitable for an order with those conditions and that is what I propose to do.

73Would you now please stand.

74Shannon Nicholls, on the charge of sexual assault, to which you have pleaded guilty, you are convicted. You are ordered to serve a community correction order for a period of four years.  That order will commence today, 24 October 2019 and will end on 23 October 2023.

75There are mandatory terms that apply to all community correction orders.  They are: 

·First, that you must not commit another offence for which you could be imprisoned during the time this order is in force.  That means just about anything, including unlicensed driving and what might otherwise be regarded as minor street offences, as well as what you might think of as more serious offences. 

·You must comply with any obligation or requirement prescribed by Regulation 17 of the Sentencing Regulations.  That means you must not be impaired by drugs or alcohol when you attend for any visits to Corrections or any visits to your therapist, as directed by them, and you must submit to drug or alcohol testing, if directed to do so.

·You must report to and receive visits from the Secretary or delegate. 

·You must report to the Broadmeadows Community Correctional Services at 25 to 27 Dimboola Road, Broadmeadows, within two clear working days after the commencement of this order.  Today is Thursday, that means by Monday of next week.

·You must let a Community Corrections officer know within two clear working days if you change your address or your job.

·You must not leave Victoria without first getting permission to do so from the Secretary or delegate.

·You must obey all lawful instructions from and direction of the Secretary or delegate. 

76In additions to the mandatory terms, I impose these treatment and rehabilitation conditions:

·You must undergo any mental health assessment and treatment and that may include psychological, neuropsychological, psychiatric treatment or treatment at a hospital or residential facility, as directed by the Regional Manager; and 

·You must participate in programs and/or courses that address factors relating to the offending, as directed by the Regional Manager.

77Do you understand the effect and conditions of this order?

78OFFENDER:  Yes.

79HER HONOUR:  And do you consent to it being made?

80OFFENDER:  Yes.

81HER HONOUR:  Thank you.  Mr Hooper, can you please ‑ ‑ ‑ 

82MR HOOPER:  I will do that, your Honour, thank you.

83HER HONOUR:  ‑ ‑ ‑ take that down to your client.  And once you are satisfied that he understands those conditions, sign it as an acknowledgement. 

84MR HOOPER:  I will, your Honour, thanks.  Thank you, your Honour.   

85HER HONOUR:  I declare, pursuant to s 6AAA of the Sentencing Act that, but for your plea of guilty, I would have sentenced you to a term of imprisonment.  It would have been a term of three years and I would have fixed the period that you would have had to have served before being eligible for parole at 18 months. 

86Now, were there any ancillary orders that were required to be made,
Ms Johnson?

87MS JOHNSON:  No, your Honour.

88HER HONOUR:  All right, thank you.  You can take a seat again for a moment, Mr Nicholls and when I have left the court and a copy of the order has been made and provided to you, you will be free to leave.

89Ms Curtis, I just want to say to you in closing.  You are a courageous young woman.  It takes a lot of courage to face up to what has happened to you and to go to the police and to see this through and to write the victim impact statement that you did.  You have shown great insight and understanding in what you have said in explaining your feelings and the rollercoaster of emotions that you have been on.

90I hope you feel some pride in the fact that you have been courageous and that, by doing this, you have taken back control over your life and your future and that you will be able to turn yourself again into that confident, bubbly, lovely young person that you were and that your family saw you were.

91Sometimes terrible things happen to good people.  It does not have to mark and define them for the rest of their lives and I hope that you can now look forward to being an older, wiser person, but somebody who is going to be able to regain that joy of life and that appreciation of the friends and family who clearly mean so much to you and who care so much for you.

92COMPLAINANT:  Thank you.

93HER HONOUR:  Thank you.  Thank you family.  All right, thank you, adjourn.       

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