Director of Public Prosecutions v Norman

[2017] VCC 498

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

AT MELBOURNE
CRIMINAL JURISDICTION

CR 17-00032

DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROSECUTIONS

v

STEPHEN NORMAN

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JUDGE:	HER HONOUR JUDGE GAYNOR
WHERE HELD:	Melbourne
DATE OF HEARING:
DATE OF SENTENCE:	1 May 2017
CASE MAY BE CITED AS:	DPP v Norman
MEDIUM NEUTRAL CITATION:	[2017] VCC 498

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 J. Henderson
For the Accused	Mr M. Kozowski

HER HONOUR:

1Stephen John Norman, you have pleaded guilty before me to one charge of criminal damage, one charge of obtaining property by deception, one charge of burglary, three charges of theft, five charges of obtaining financial advantage by deception, one charge of aggravated burglary, one charge of making a threat to kill, one charge of attempted theft of motor vehicle, one charge of attempting to obtaining financial advantage by deception, two charges of handling stolen goods and one charge of possessing a drug of dependence.  You have also admitted prior convictions.

2The facts underlying your offending are as follows.  This offending which occurred when you were 20 was committed between 30 August and 9 September 2016 in the city of Wyndham. 

3Charge 1 relates to an incident where, on 31 August, you went to the BP car wash in Truganina and damaged a coin machine using an unknown tool.

4Charge 2 relates to an incident between 1 and 8 September 2016, when after sitting in a car at the side of a road in Werribee, you intercepted a delivery services employee who was walking to a house to deliver a package, telling them that you were in fact the person who had ordered it, signed for the package and took off with the contents which were a set of electronic scales.

5Charges 3 and 4 relate to a burglary committed by you on 2 September 2016 at an address in 64 Huntingfield Drive, Hoppers Crossing.  You gained entry through a rear laundry door and then searched the master bedroom, a child's bedroom, the home office and the lounge room.  You stole two Samsung tablets, a camera, a memory card and numerous items of jewellery worth thousands of dollars and of great sentimental value to the owner.  I will refer to the victim impact statement shortly.  That victim attended Werribee police station and identified a number of items taken from her home which were found in your possession.  Those items accounting for about a third of the items stolen from her home the previous week.  The identification was made by her on
9 September 2016.

6Charges 5 and 6 relate to a second burglary committed by you on that same day, that is, 2 November, when you attended a house at 25 Burnham Drive, Hoppers Crossing, again gaining entry through a rear sliding door.  You searched the kitchen and master bedroom and stole numerous items and again the victim of that burglary attended the Werribee police station on 9 September and identified the items, all of which were apparently recovered apart from a cushion cover.  However I note that the items that you stole are described on the indictment as an Acer laptop, a QANTAS credit card, a GO credit card, two myki cards, a CleanMac robotic vacuum, some tablets and a video camera.

7Charges 7, 8 and 9 relate to the use by you of the credit cards that you stole from the Burnham Street property to purchase food from Hungry Jacks, services from Palace Group and a taxi service.  All in all they added up to about $100.

8Charges 10, 11, 12 and 13 also relate to a third burglary which occurred on
8 September 2016 in which I will regard as the most serious of the offences that you undertook in the period of time I have outlined.  On that date, at about
5 o'clock in the morning, you went to a house at 6 Marlborough Crescent, Hoppers Crossing with another man and turned off the power to that house before forcing entry into the premises.

9At the time you were armed with a wooden baton which you later told police you took with you everywhere for protection and in order to scare people.  The owner of the house, Deepak Suramulu was at home in bed at the time and got up to investigate noises and a torch light in the kitchen.  He was there confronted by you.  You asked him for his car keys and told him to stay in his bedroom.

10Mr Suramulu directed you to a kitchen cupboard containing the keys.  Once you had the car keys and some other electrical and personal items, you directed
Mr Suramulu to the garage and threatened to kill him if he called the police.  Apparently his wife was present at the time as well.  You got into a Toyota 86 which was in the garage and asked for the garage door to open.

11Because you had turned the power off, the garage door did not work, so you told Mr Suramulu to come with you to the metre box to turn the power back on.  This was done.  The two of you went back to the garage and you tried to start the car but without success.

12You then told Mr Suramulu to open the boot of the bonnet of the car and jump start it or swap over the battery as you thought that battery failure might be the problem with starting the car.  The car was unable to be started.  So you then told Mr Suramulu to leave the front gate open so that you could return that night to take the car, then left the premises.

13Charges 14, 15 and 16 relate to use of a credit card which you stole from
Mr Suramulu to access internet pornography to the value of $1.30 and $1.50.  You tried to further access an internet pornography site to the value of $60 but the transaction was declined four times.

14Ultimately in relation to these transactions, police obtained an email address, searched the LEAP database for you and you were then identified.

15Charges 17, 18 and 19 relate to items discovered at the premises where you lived which were at 81 Huntingfield Drive Hoppers Crossing which was searched by police on 9 September 2016.  You were living in a garage which you had turned into a bedroom.

16Upon arrest you showed police the remaining proceeds of the aggravated burglary at Marlborough Crescent, the burglary at 64 Huntingfield Drive and the goods stolen from 57 Huntingfield Drive and you also showed them goods stolen from a burglary in Tarneit on 30 August 2015.   Those charges relate to stolen goods handled by you, ie goods which had been stolen from people elsewhere which you were at the time handling no doubt in order to sell.

17Police also relocated two plastic bags containing a small amount of methamphetamine.

18You participated in a record of interview where you made full and frank admissions to the offences to which you have pleaded guilty.  You told police that you used a gram of ice or two every day.  You also told police that in relation to the aggravated burglary at Marlborough Crescent, you were surprised to come across Mr Suramulu in the premises.  You agreed that he would have been frightened and that you told him that if he told police, "I'd find his family and hurt him."  You have been remanded in custody since your arrest. 

19A victim impact statement was submitted and read out to the court by
Ms Finlayson who is one of the owners of the house at 64 Huntingfield Drive, Hoppers Crossing.

20Ms Finlayson's very eloquent victim impact statement which I hope you listen to closely, Mr Norman, describes the enormous sentimental value of the jewellery stolen by you which belonged to her mother and her grandmother, and belonged to her husband's first wife which was obviously very dear to him and to Ms Finlayson and were to be heirlooms for their children.

21They received a fraction of the value of that jewellery from insurance.  So you have robbed them both of the value of the jewellery and caused immense emotional pain in the fact that you have stolen items which had been handed down for generations and which were extremely important to that family.  You have deprived them of that forever.

22Worse than that was a description made by Ms Finlayson of the emotional harm you inflicted on that family.  The feeling that their home was not safe.  The terror continued to be endured by Ms Finlayson that her youngest child may have come across you, no doubt, with your wooden stake, but may have come across you in the home.  As it is, that child is now perpetually insecure about the safety that is felt in the home and always wants the windows and doors shut before the family goes out.

23Other members of the family who did not even live there, that is Ms Finlayson's older children, have been affected, both in the loss of the items that would have been theirs, but also in facing the emotional suffering of their younger sibling and of their mother and their father.

24This has gone on for months now.  It is the experience of this court that people who suffer from crimes such as that perpetrated by you do suffer in precisely the way Ms Finlayson described.  It is mostly not the loss of the items, although the items that you stole from Ms Finlayson were clearly valuable, and as I have said, valued because of their age.  But the emotional suffering, the lack of security, the feeling of having been invaded.  The feeling of being vulnerable to be invaded, the lack of safety in life generally.  You created that.  There is nothing you can do to fix it.

25I heard a lot of talk today about the difficulties you and your mother had and I was impressed with your mother.  Again, I am glad she has discussed it with you.  Imagine if this was your mother, how you would feel.  You need to think about what you did to this family and you need to think about the fact that you did it because you were on ice.  You need to think about that because it is going to take you some time before it is sure that you are off ice.  You just have a think about this victim impact statement which is a gift to you in some ways, so that in the future you can think about, if I am on ice, this is the sort of thing I do.

26Again, I am in no way trying to diminish the harm you did to the Finlayson family.  But it must be the case that the personal violence that you perpetrated on the Suramulu family is even worse.  That this man is confronted in his house by a bloke waving a stick who threatens to kill him and who is so arrogant that he makes him leave the garage door open so that he can come back and steal the car and marches him around the house and uses his credit card.  Again, how do you think that would be if that was your mother?  For some reason, Mr Suramulu, possibly because he does not want to ever think about it again, has not compiled a victim impact statement, but I have no doubt that he and his family were traumatised and continue to be traumatised and terrified by what you did.

27Again, this is another family that you have traumatised.  There is nothing you can do to fix it and you need to remember what you did and what you do to people when you are using ice.

28There is probably a third family who have chosen not to put in a victim impact statement and that relates to the other burglary and theft that you committed on
2 September as well.  You have done so much damage and you are so young.  Just so much damage.

29I turn now to your personal circumstances.  You are 21 years of age.  You were 20 at the time of this offending and you are the youngest of seven children.  You are the only member of your family ever to have been in trouble.

30It appears you may have had a more difficult childhood than your older brothers and sisters.  You seem to be the youngest by some years.  Your parents separated when you were five and your father did not keep much contact with you after that separation, particularly that was the case after he re-married when you were about 14.  You were raised by your mother.

31Your mother gave evidence in court and I was impressed by her.  Your counsel tells me that in the years when you were growing up, most of your brothers and sisters had left home.  You became a sort of main prop and support to your mother and it appears there were some difficult times financially, you and she living in a caravan park.

32You attended five schools.  It is to your credit however that you managed to complete Year 11.  You then went on to compile a reasonably solid work history.

33You worked part time while you were at school and then you went on after you had finished school to work in South Australia with your brother-in-law on three occasions.  He is a shipwright there.

34In 2015, you worked for KFC.  In December of that year, you got your tickets for forklift driving and you worked for a distillery.  It was at this point in time however that you resumed drug use.  Now I say resumed drug use because I was informed that you started using ice in about 2013 and 2014 and that takes me directly to your prior convictions.

35Your prior convictions start in about 2013 and for a young man who started offending late, you have made up for lost time.  In 2013, you were put on a good behaviour bond in the Children's Court for driving offences, intentionally causing injury and shoplifting.  Then on 26 November 2013, you were given another opportunity.  You were placed on probation in the Children's Court for trespass, recklessly causing injury, assaulting police, resisting police and being drunk in a public place.

36Neither of those worked.  In 2015, you were sentenced to 15 months to a youth justice centre for an aggravated burglary, intentionally causing injury and theft.  That was a matter that was dealt with in the County Court and you only come to the County Court if the offending is so serious that it cannot be heard in the Magistrates' Court.  On that occasion you were dealt with by the then Chief Judge of the County Court, His Honour Chief Judge Rozenes. 

37It appears that you broke into the victim's unit and beat him up as a sort of revenge for something that he had done and you also stole an item from him.  The charge of intentionally causing injury was another very extremely serious incident in November 2013.  In fact it was the same man that you had assaulted in the unit.  You saw him walking down the street.  You argued with him about the assault.  The two of you threw punches.  You then pulled out a glass bottle and struck the victim over the head with it and then you stood over him and stabbed him in the stomach four times with the broken glass.

38Again it appears that you were using ice.  You were placed in youth justice.  You apparently detoxed.  You came out and one of your brothers who is a prison officer gave you an opportunity and you lived with him and started working as a fork lift driver.  Then you fell of the wagon, started using again.  Your brother threw you out and then this really dreadful offending occurred.

39Now I have gone into your priors in some detail.  I hope you are having a listen.  It is getting worse and worse.  Now I do not know, are you a young man who is enjoying gaol?  I mean, do you want to stay there?  Do you want to be one those blokes who is, you know, cock of the walk in gaol and he walks up and down with the other blokes with his hands behind his back, like a tiger in his cage and you all work out where you fit in the pecking order?  Is that what you want to do?  Do you want to go back and work your way up the pecking order in gaol?  Is that your aim?

40OFFENDER:  No, Your Honour.

41HER HONOUR:  Yes.  About the only buzz those blokes get in life is who is standing over who and going to the gym all day.  They last on the outside about two minutes.  The more you are in gaol the more difficult it is going to be for you to reform and behave yourself and stay out of gaol.  Let me tell you, after this outing in the County Court, you will have a prior on your record that will mean no court is going to consider anything other than gaol for you.  You have done your dash as far as any other disposition is concerned.  Is that very, very clear?

42OFFENDER:  Yes, Your Honour.

43HER HONOUR:  All right.  Turning back to your prior convictions.  You had been fined for assaults.  You got further youth detention for driving offences, and again then in August 2016 you were fined $1000 for assault.  You have got a really bad record for violence.

44It was submitted to me that because of your youth and because of what was conceded by the prosecution to be the earliest possible plea of guilty, I should consider a disposition which involved a community corrections order combined with gaol.  Your mother gave evidence on the plea that she is now living in Echuca with her partner of about four years.  She is employed as is her partner and apparently you get on well with him.  She is obviously a devoted mother.  She sees you whenever she can, making the long trip down to the MRC and speaks to you on the phone and she offers you a home when you are finally released and has very sensibly explored drug rehab, residential drug rehab options for when you are released from gaol.

45I should mention the maximum sentences which are applicable for each of these charges and they are as follows.

46The maximum penalty for criminal damage is 10 years imprisonment and it is the maximum penalty for obtaining property by deception, burglary, theft, obtaining financial advantage by deception and making threats to kill.  The maximum penalty for aggravated burglary is 25 years' imprisonment.  The maximum penalty for attempted theft of a motor vehicle is 5 years' imprisonment.  The maximum penalty for attempting to obtain financial advantage by deception is 5 years' imprisonment.  The maximum penalty of handling stolen goods is 15 years' imprisonment and the maximum penalty for possessing a drug of dependence is 1 year or 30 penalty units or both.

47It is my view that the only way I should deal with you is by way of a term of imprisonment to be immediately served.  I am impressed by your support network when you get out of gaol.  I accept that whilst in gaol you have behaved yourself.  I have received the result of a urinalysis dated 27 April 2017 which is clear for all drug use.  I know it is perfectly possible, not terribly hard to gain drugs in gaol.  So that is to your credit that you have remained off drugs in that time and it certainly means that my assessment of your prospects of rehabilitation are better than they would otherwise be.

48I also accept that you have, whilst you have been in prison at the MRC, in somewhat difficult conditions, taken on roles as a billet which is a trusted role and only given to well-behaved prisoners.  So you seem to be showing early signs of reformation.

49It is almost impossible for me to regard your prospects of rehabilitation given the opportunities you have had and the way you have behaved in the past as anything other than guarded.  You have got a lot of proving to do before anyone is going to find you to be a person who is back on the rails again.

50Important to the considerations of this court in sentencing you is your youth.  You are still termed as a youthful offender or a young offender and that means rehabilitation has a more important role to play than would otherwise be the case.  By rehabilitation, it is recognised that it is important to keep young offenders out of gaol or if they are in gaol, for periods of not such a length of time that those persons become hardened and more dangerous by the time they get out of gaol than they are now.

51At the same time, the court in sentencing you for this very serious offending (and it was conceded that only a sentence of imprisonment was appropriate in the end), sends out a message to the community that this offending will not be tolerated, marks the seriousness of this offending, acts as some sort of punishment, and acts as some sort of deterrent to you personally.  It is called specific deterrence, where you understand you cannot go around breaking into people's homes, behaving in this monstrous fashion and get away with it.

52So in the end I have decided that as I have said throughout this plea, only a term of imprisonment is appropriate in these cases, but it will be a little less than would be the case had you been older and there will be a greater than normal period of time between maximum term and minimum term.  What that means is minimum term is the term that must be served before you become eligible, it does not mean that you get it because you have got to apply for it, before you become eligible for parole.

53It means that when you are eventually released from gaol, you had better watch it, because people who breach parole not only have to serve the time that they have been let off, they get charged with breaching parole, so they get more for that, and if they breach parole by offending, they get more for that as well.  All right?  So breaching parole is a really stupid idea.

54I therefore sentence you as follows:

55Charge 1, you are sentenced to 1 month imprisonment;

56Charge 2, you are sentenced to 1 months' imprisonment;

57Charge 3, you are sentenced to 18 months' imprisonment;

58Charge 4, you are sentenced to 18 months' imprisonment;

59Charge 5, you are sentenced to 18 months' imprisonment;

60Charge 6, you are sentenced to 18 months' imprisonment;

61On Charges 7, 8 and 9, you are sentenced to 1 month imprisonment;

62On Charge 10, you are sentenced to 2 years imprisonment;

63Charge 11, you are sentenced to 9 months' imprisonment;

64On Charge 12, you are sentenced to 12 months' imprisonment;

65On Charge 13, you are sentenced to 9 months' imprisonment;

66On Charges 14 and 15, you are sentenced to 1 month imprisonment;

67On Charge 16, you are sentenced to 2 months' imprisonment;

68On Charges 17 and 18, you are sentenced to 6 months' imprisonment;

69On Charge 19, you are sentenced to 3 months' imprisonment.

70The base sentence will be the sentence imposed on Charge 10; that is 2 years' imprisonment.  I order that six months of each of the sentences imposed on Charges 3, 4, 5 and 6 be served cumulatively to the sentence imposed on Charge 10 and to each other.  I order that two months of the sentences imposed on Charges 11, 12 and 13 be served cumulatively to the sentence imposed on Charge 10 and to each other; which gives a total effective sentence of 4 and a half years.

71I order that you serve a minimum term of 2 years and 3 months before becoming eligible for parole.  What is the pre-sentence detention?

72MR HENDERSON:  It is 234.

73HER HONOUR:  Does that include today?

74MR HENDERSON:  Not including today.

75HER HONOUR:  I declare that 235 days of this sentence have already been served by way of pre-sentence detention.  All right.

76Now as a result of being sentenced you will come out of the MRC and you will be placed in a unit.  You might want to have a go at trying to get into the youth unit.  You never know, all right?  You seem to have done well enough that Ms Hooker will have a look at it.  Otherwise you have got plenty of opportunity in gaol.  It is up to you to access what you can in terms of - I mean you have been through this before.

77But you have got to understand, that two years and three months is actually not a lot, really in the circumstances given what you did.  It is only because you are young.  When you get out you're going to owe the parole board, if you get parole at the time, you are going to owe them two years and three months.  All right.  That is going to be hanging over your head until you finish parole.  You understand?  You have got a lot to lose if you do not turn around this time.  Like I said to you, your priors are so bad now that only gaol is going to be option for any court sentencing you.  Do you get that?

78OFFENDER:  Yes, Your Honour.

79HER HONOUR:  That may not apply to the matters that you have still got - I know you have still got to do - I should have added that I note that you committed offences in August 2016 which are still to be dealt with.  But this spree of offending is done now.  If you want to have any sort of life- and you are a young man- you have got a long life ahead of you, and you do not want to spend it in gaol.  You have got a good family, you have got a good mum.  You should be coming back to the fold and you should be doing whatever drug and alcohol courses you can in gaol, not that there are that many, and you should certainly, it is a matter for you, but you should certainly be going into drug rehab as soon as you get out of gaol, if it can be organised.  All right, thank you very much.  Have a seat.

80Pursuant to s.6AAA, I declare that had you not pleaded guilty, I would have sentenced you to a term of imprisonment of 6 years and 4 months and ordered that you serve a minimum term of 4 years and 3 months.

81MR HENDERSON:  Your Honour, in relation to Charge 13, theft of a motor vehicle, Your Honour needs to ‑ ‑ ‑

82HER HONOUR:  I need to deal with his licence.

83MR HENDERSON: ‑ ‑ ‑ the licence for as long as you think fit.

84HER HONOUR:  What is the minimum?

85MR HENDERSON:  Three months.

86HER HONOUR:  Well in relation to Charge 13, I am going to order that any licence you hold is cancelled and you are disqualified any further licence for a period of six months.  It means you will be able to apply for your licence when you get out again, Mr Norman.  The only reason I am doing that is I imagine the sort of employment you will need, you are going to need your licence.  Am I right?

87OFFENDER:  Yes.

88HER HONOUR:  Is there anything else that I need to attend to?

89MR HENDERSON:  Yes, Your Honour.  Disposal in relation to the methylamphetamine.

90HER HONOUR:  Yes.  Have we got the forms for that please?

91MR HENDERSON:  They are coming your way now, Your Honour.  Also orders for compensation for the victims of the burglaries and thefts.

92HER HONOUR:  Thank you.  So I order that BP Leaks is to be paid compensation of $652.60.  I am ordering that Deepak Suramulu is paid compensation of $647.15.  I am ordering that Veronica Finlayson be paid compensation - is that you Ms Finlayson?  Are any of the victims from that family here today?

93MR HENDERSON:  No, Your Honour, there is a lady in attendance who relates to one of the handling stolen goods.  So she had items stolen from her house which turned up in the garage of Mr Norman.

94HER HONOUR:  All right.  Which lady is that.

95MR HENDERSON:  Ms Broughton, Your Honour.

96HER HONOUR:  All right.  I did not have a victim impact statement from you, but may I speak to this lady, thank you.  I congratulate you on coming to court.  It is not an easy thing to do.  It is very traumatic to have - with the items taken from the burglary.  I am sure everything I said had absolute application to you and I think it is extremely courageous to come to this court.  But I also think it is a really sensible thing to do because you actually realise that it is not some - I imagine the feeling is that some sort of monster from Mars has come in.  At least it is given some shape and form to who in fact did this, so I do hope coming to court has been of some assistance to you.  All right.  Thank you very much.

97MR HENDERSON:  Thank you, Your Honour.

98HER HONOUR:  I am sorry, I did not know you were here.  I would have acknowledged this.  Thank you.  Is there a s.464ZF or is there a retention?

99MR HENDERSON:  No, Your Honour, already profiled.

100HER HONOUR:  Already profiled, all right.  Thank you.  Is that everything that I need to sign?

101MR HENDERSON:  Yes, Your Honour, thank you.

102HER HONOUR:  Yes, thank you.  I reserve the right to edit the appalling grammar which inevitably accompanies my ex tempore sentencing.  I thank counsel for their assistance in this matter.  Good luck sir, but you know, you have got a long road back.

103OFFENDER:  Thank you, Your Honour.

104HER HONOUR:  Look, I just hope you have really listened to what you have done to people, all right?  You are a young man.  It is a tragic thing that you are here.  You really have to take responsibility for what you did.

105OFFENDER:  Yes, Your Honour.

106HER HONOUR:  All right.  All the best to the future.  Thank you very much.  Yes, thank you.

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