Director of Public Prosecutions v Nicoll

[2016] VCC 272

Pages 1 - 5   IN THE COUNTY COURT OF VICTORIA

Revised (Not) Restricted Suitable for Publication

AT GEELONG
CRIMINAL JURISDICTION

CR 16-00368

DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROSECUTIONS

v

CLAIRE NICOLL

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JUDGE:	HIS HONOUR JUDGE MULLALY
WHERE HELD:	Geelong
DATE OF HEARING:
DATE OF SENTENCE:	10 March 2016
CASE MAY BE CITED AS:	DPP v Nicoll
MEDIUM NEUTRAL CITATION:	[2016] VCC 272

REASONS FOR SENTENCE
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Subject:
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Cases Cited:
Sentence:

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APPEARANCES:	Counsel	Solicitors
For the Director of Public Prosecutions	Miss M.A. Mahady	Office of Public Prosecutions
For the Accused	Mr A. Paull	Michael Brugman

HIS HONOUR:

1Claire Nicoll, you can remain seated.  In the early hours of 13 December 2015 you and your co-accused, Jaymi Parsons, were together in Corio.  You called a taxi with the intent to rob the driver.

2You got into the front seat while Ms Parsons got into the back seat behind the driver.  As soon as you were in the taxi Ms Parsons grabbed the driver around the neck, holding a knife to his throat.  Ms Parsons demanded the driver's wallet and money.  You grabbed the driver's wallet and sunglasses from the console.

3The driver fought back, grabbing and biting Ms Parsons' arm, causing her to drop the knife.  You, seeing this, jumped out of the taxi, as did Ms Parsons.  Both of you ran to a nearby car that had no number plates on it.  You two drove the car, or Ms Parsons drove the car with the brave taxi driver following.  He was informing his base where you were driving.

4The car drove a considerable distance from Corio to Herne Hill.  At the intersection of McCurdy Road and Autumn Street Ms Parsons lost control of the car and hit a pole.  You both got out of the car, leaving.  The driver of the taxi approached your car, demanding his money and property.  You threw the money at him.  He retrieved all his stolen property.

5The police arrived shortly after.  You were arrested and conveyed to hospital for treatment.  Ultimately, when interviewed, you confessed the crimes to the police and explained, as I have set out here, to called a taxi for the purpose of robbery.  This brief description of the facts reveals the dangers of this whole escapade.

6The driver had the knife to his neck.  The struggle he put up in those circumstances could have caused any manner of serious injury.  The collision with the pole reveals that serious injury or even death was avoided more by luck than anything else. This is a serious example of armed robbery.  The taxi driver was a vulnerable victim.  The courts must stand firm in protecting those such as taxi drivers who must necessarily have cash on them.  The courts must protect them from knife wielding armed robbers seeking money for drugs.

7Both you and Ms Parsons were at the time heavy users of that dreadful drug, ice.  Your addiction to drugs is no excuse but it gives an explanation of the depths that you had got to.  The armed robbery was violent with the knife held to the driver's throat.  The fear engendered can only be imagined.  Additionally, you acted in company with Parsons.  The call to the taxi in the early hours in circumstances where you had a getaway car at the ready and the fact that the attack commenced immediately, makes it plain you had planned this armed robbery.

8Ms Nicolls, you are only 19 years old and have, except for one blemish when you were just about 14 or so, not been in trouble before.  The Children's Court in that instance put you on probation without conviction.  Thus you are a young, effectively, first offender, but your short life thus far has not been an easy one.  Your mother, a practicing lawyer at the time, was injured in a motor vehicle accident when you were just eight.  This has had a significant effect on you and, of course, her.  You struggled with all the bullying that was directed at you at school but you are an intelligent young woman.

9You became involved in a relationship which was no doubt important to you when you were about 16.  The young man was prone to violence and it was in November 2015 that you went to Queensland to escape domestic violence.  During this period of time your father, who was also a lawyer, much older than your mother, died.  Missing getting back to say goodbye affected you greatly.  You are in grief.  This trauma saw you, it seems to me, lose any semblance of stability.  You were at the time homeless and, as I have said, you were heavily using ice.  As I say, you had taken to this drug at an early age, 16 or thereabouts.  Prior to this you used cannabis, thus with your use of drugs fits all the too familiar pattern of early use of cannabis followed by methylamphetamines and a significant deterioration thereafter.

10I have had the benefit of a report from your treating psychologist as well as from medico-legal psychologist, Dr Cunningham.  You have a solid relationship with your treating psychologist, Ms Vanderschu.  She describes your deep anxiety.  I am sure that we in the courts still poorly understand the problems of anxiety, but what I have witnessed today makes it plain to me that you are a troubled young woman.  Of real importance, of course, is your plea of guilty, your remorse and the quick time that your plea of guilty has been heard in this court.  Very few cases move as quickly as this one but it is very much in your interests and that of the community that this case is finalised within days of your committal to this court and within four months since the armed robbery.  Your lawyers are to be credited very much for bringing this matter to the court so speedily.

11You are now in an adult gaol.  You were remanded there initially on arrest.  However, you were granted bail on 15 January 2016.  Your time on bail did not go well and you were returned to custody on 1 March.  You have done
42 days in an adult gaol.  At your age and with your very limited criminal history it is in the interests of the community if you are kept out of an adult gaol.  This has been said many times before in these courts.  All that can be done should be done so as to avoid a young person being contaminated by the influences of hardened adult criminals in an adult gaol.

12However, you want to stay where you are.  Sometimes the young and the anxious need to be protected from themselves.  Thus even though this is a serious crime the principles articulated in Azzopardi and Mills as to sentencing young offenders must be applied.  So I will give greater weight to your rehabilitation and less to denunciation and general deterrence.  That said though, these sentencing considerations are not eliminated.  I think there is potential for you to be rehabilitated.  I think that you can make it.  It will be a struggle and to someone like me and others, judicial officers who perhaps do not understand the intensity of anxiety, all I can say is I think you can get through it, and if you are able to, then there is much to be said for our potential, as you are clearly an intelligent young woman.

13I had you assessed for whether you are a suitable for a youth training centre, and you are suitable.  I heard from the Youth Justice worker, Ms Miller, who told me that you would be vulnerable in an adult gaol.  In fact your desire to remain there might expose your vulnerability more than anything else.

14I heard from your mother.  She will work with you when you are released.  You will benefit from the dedicated case management that comes with youth parole, which I expect will come much quicker than you think it probably will, but the seriousness of the offending and your own personal circumstances lead to the conclusion that a term of youth detention is the just and appropriate outcome, hard as it will be for you to adjust.

15For committing the crime of armed robbery you are sentenced to a Youth Justice Centre detention for eight months.  I declare that you have served
42 days in custody and this declaration will be as part of the sentence that I have just imposed.  In other words, I will ensure it is what is entered into the records is that you have done 42 days of the sentence I have just imposed and the Youth Justice people will be left in no doubt that you have already done 42 days.

16Had you not pleaded guilty to these offences and been found guilty of them, I would have imposed a Youth Justice Centre detention for 20 months.

17There is an order that is sought relating to the disposal of items and I will make that order.  Is that the only orders that are - or was there a 464?  I cannot remember.

18MISS MAHADY:  (Indistinct) for a moment, Your Honour.  No, that is it, Your Honour.  There was a sample taken during the interview, I am reminded by my instructor, which means there will be an automatic retention.

19HIS HONOUR:  Thank you.  Is there anything else required in this matter?

20MISS MAHADY:  No, Your Honour.

21HIS HONOUR:  Ms Nicoll, you will be now taken by the prison authorities back to the Parkville Centre where there is a dozen or so other young women.  Shortly they will assess you and you will settle and hopefully be granted youth parole as soon as possible.  Ms Nicoll can be removed.  There needs to be a female prison officer.

22Thank you, Mr Paull, for your very considerable assistance in what turned out to be an even more difficult case than I thought you probably thought it would be.

23MR PAULL:  Yes, Your Honour.

24HIS HONOUR:  Thank you, Miss Mahady and Ms Miller.

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