Director of Public Prosecutions v Nolan
[2013] VCC 767
•7 June 2013
| IN THE COUNTY COURT OF VICTORIA | Revised Suitable for Publication |
AT MELBOURNE
CRIMINAL DIVISION
Case No. CR-13-00189
CR-13-00912
| DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROSECUTIONS |
| v |
| TRAVIS MICHAEL NOLAN |
---
JUDGE: | HIS HONOUR JUDGE SMALLWOOD | |
WHERE HELD: | Melbourne | |
DATE OF HEARING: | ||
DATE OF SENTENCE: | 7 June 2013 | |
CASE MAY BE CITED AS: | DPP v Nolan | |
MEDIUM NEUTRAL CITATION: | [2019] VCC 767 | |
REASONS FOR SENTENCE
---
Catchwords:
---
APPEARANCES: | Counsel | Solicitors |
| For the Crown | Ms C. Foot | |
| For the Accused | Mr C. McLennan |
HIS HONOUR:
1 Travis Michael Nolan, you have pleaded guilty to four charges of armed robbery, one charge of attempted armed robbery and one charge of criminal damage.
2 You have also pleaded guilty to one charge of possessing a controlled weapon and one state false name and address which were uplifted from the Magistrates' Court.
3 The possess a controlled weapon involved a box cutter and I simply sentence you to seven days imprisonment on that.
4 The state false name and address only carries a monetary penalty and in your particular circumstances I, therefore, convict and discharge.
5 You pleaded guilty at an early date.
6 I accept that, as in the past, you have shown remorse and a degree of victim empathy.
7 You are now in your 30s.
8 You must also get the utilitarian benefit of those pleas of guilty. It is a traumatic thing indeed for victims in matters such as this to have to give evidence. All those matters go in your favour.
9 Unfortunately and for fairly obvious reasons when one reads all the material, you have a very extensive criminal history. You have something in the order of a dozen prior convictions for armed robbery alone.
10 You have been in institutions for 95 per cent of your life, since you were about five years of age. I think it is obvious that you are significantly institutionalised and, obviously, I have to take those matters into account.
11 The armed robberies all followed a similar pattern. I annex the prosecution openings in respect of them and can then deal with them in short compass.
12 There are two indictments before me, one involving three armed robberies and an attempt and the other indictment involving one armed robbery and a criminal damage. They all occurred in the same period of time, between 26 September 2012 and around about 1 October 2012. They are clearly a series but, as the Court of Appeal has indicated, there are separate victims in each and there must be accumulation for each, even though it will be very moderate.
13 What you did in that period of time was essentially enter milk bars, 7‑Elevens, armed with a knife and demand money. In one of them you did not get any and in the others you did. In the one on 26 September, for example, you got in excess of $1,000. In the one on 30 September you jumped the counter. Sometimes there was gratuitous violence, sometimes not.
14 What you are to be sentenced for, realistically, is that you are a person with 13 priors for armed robbery who knows the consequence and over this relatively short period of time, I will concede, committed a number of them.
15 A significant custodial sentence is inevitable.
16 In this particular situation the Crown has given a range, which your counsel thinks is appropriate and I certainly do.
17 In determining the length of the sentence, I look at matters personal to you.
18 Tendered on your behalf were reports or references from Dr Lois Achimovich, a psychiatrist, who has known you for a long time; also Dr Aaron Cunningham, who is well known to me; and also Margaret Hayes, who is also known to myself. I have also had the benefit of reading the sentencing remarks of Judge Parsons when he sentenced you back in November 2008 to four years with a minimum term of two and a half for armed robberies.
19 In this particular matter, you went into the witness box and talked about how you feel and what has happened to you and what your hopes were. It was clear, talking to you in that way, that you were pinning a lot of your hopes on your relationship. I am told from the bar table that relationship has now foundered. That is very unfortunate. It certainly does not aggravate the situation, but from your point of view I think it is going to have ‑ and has had, I accept ‑ a significant psychological effect.
20 Before Judge Parsons ‑ and indeed my understanding of it ‑ you described your history, which is contained in the report of Dr Cunningham in any event. At that time, back in 2008, you were endeavouring to reconnect with your mob. Judge Parsons was hopeful that you would be able to do so in custody and that the Koorie Heritage Trust could assist you. Again, in talking to me, it is clear that you have a desire to do all those things, but because of your post‑traumatic condition, which I will mention in a moment, and just the general chaotic upbringing that you were subjected to, you find that extremely difficult.
21 Also of real significance here is that this offending has breached a parole order. You have done eight months on a breached parole order. The sentence that I impose will commence today and I have to work on the basis that after the expiration of my sentence you will have another one year and nine months approximately to serve on that breached parole. The totality, of course, then becomes a very important matter in this sentencing process.
22 The reports of Dr Cunningham and Dr Lois Achimovich will remain on the court file by direction so that any person with a genuine interest in the matter may view them.
23 Your circumstances are that now you are 34. You are of Koori descent. You were taken into care at five. You had a good relationship with your father. Your mother was a heroin addict and so have you been.
24 You were abused sexually in care. You have subsequently received a very significant amount of money in compensation for that abuse, but that's obviously gone.
25 You were in care until you were 16 and you then began significant periods of incarceration in West Australia. You started off in Youth Justice and you have spent a long period of time in adult custody since then.
26 You have at times lived on the streets and have abused substances. Your father, with whom you long had a desire to connect, was imprisoned for endeavouring to raise money by way of armed robbery to take you and your brother to England. He killed a man who had sexually abused, certainly, your brother. That caused great trauma. He was sentenced to be imprisoned for life with a minimum term of ten years. In 2005 he was released. You yourself were in custody for armed robbery. He was deported to England. As I understand it, your brother, from the money that he had received, was able to get to England to see him. You had no such opportunity. In 2007 he died of cancer.
27 In 2008 you were sentenced again, as I have indicated, by Judge Parsons.
28 You are clearly, in my view, an intelligent and articulate man. You have studied in gaol and you have done well. You are a qualified welder and have worked in that capacity in the prison system.
29 If somehow you could escape the shackles of institutionalisation, I have no doubt that you could lead a very worthwhile life and be a valuable member of the community, particularly the Koori community, bearing in mind your experiences and what you would be able to teach young Kooris if that situation arose.
30 However, we are dealing here with serious offending, albeit over a short period of time, where we have got somebody who has done it regularly before.
31 I am not going to lecture you in any way, shape or form. I think you have got a dreadful background and you have heard it all before. In the end I suppose it comes down to you with as much assistance as can be given by the Parole Board if you are granted parole. In the past you would appear to have been somewhat in disagreement with them, but that may be your only hope.
32 In any event, taking all those matters into account and bearing very much in mind totality:
On indictment ending 277 ‑ on charge 1, four years; on charge 2, four years; on charge 3, four years; and on charge 4, three years. I direct that six months of the sentence imposed on charge 2, three months of the sentence imposed on charge 3 and three months of the sentence imposed on charge 4 be served cumulatively upon each other and upon the sentence imposed on charge 1. On that indictment that gives a head sentence of five years.
On indictment ending 838 ‑ on charge 1, four years; on charge 2, three months. That gives a head sentence on that indictment of four years. I direct that six months of that head sentence be served cumulatively on the head sentence imposed on Indictment No. 277.
That gives a total overall effective head sentence of five years and six months. I direct that you serve three years and six months before becoming eligible for parole and I direct that four days be reckoned as presentence detention.
33 In so far as s.6AAA is concerned, I say but for your plea of guilty, bearing in mind your criminal history, you would have been sentenced to imprisonment for a period of nine years with a minimum term of six.
Are there any other orders I have got to make?
COUNSEL: No, Your Honour.
‑‑‑
0