Director of Public Prosecutions v Olsson

[2018] VCC 341

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

AT LATROBE VALLEY
CRIMINAL JURISDICTION

CR 17-01936

DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROSECUTIONS

v

STEPHEN OLSSON

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JUDGE:	HIS HONOUR JUDGE SMALLWOOD
WHERE HELD:	Latrobe Valley
DATE OF HEARING:	22 March 2018
DATE OF SENTENCE:	22 March 2018
CASE MAY BE CITED AS:	DPP v Olsson
MEDIUM NEUTRAL CITATION:	[2018] VCC 341

REASONS FOR SENTENCE
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APPEARANCES:	Counsel	Solicitors
For the Director of Public Prosecutions	Mr D. O'Doherty	Office of Public Prosecutions
For the Accused	Mr G. Davis	Hilton-Woods Solicitors

HIS HONOUR:

1Stephen Olsson, you have pleaded guilty to four charges of committing an indecent act with a child under the age of 16 years.  That crime carries a maximum penalty of ten years imprisonment.

2You are 31 years of age.  You, despite having made a no-comment record of interview, pleaded guilty at an early opportunity and you must get the utilitarian benefit of that plea of guilty.

3The psychologist report tendered on your behalf asserts and I accept that there is a degree of remorse associated with all of this and in any event you do seem to be accepting of responsibility for your actions.

4Unfortunately you have been sentenced to a suspended sentence previously for the very same sort of thing.  That was back in 2009 where you were given four months wholly suspended and a CCO.  In that CCO you did the sex offenders program but this offending occurred after that and as I understand it, there are a number of matters pending in Mildura which also would have occurred after that sex offenders program.

5Even if it wasn't successful in assisting you in restraining your urges it would have clearly made you aware of what the consequences to children are by offending by this.

6Firstly, because of the sentence I am to impose you, you will be sentenced as a serious sexual offender on each of the charges.  I am aware that community protection becomes the principle sentencing purpose and therefore endeavour to achieve that result.

7I am aware that the sentences are to be all cumulative unless otherwise ordered, but in this situation where it is the one incident, totality would demand a degree of concurrency.  The Crown do not seek a disproportionate sentence. Because of the nature of the offending and because you have been on the sex offender's register before.  You are to be placed upon it again and the reporting conditions will be for life.

8A summary of the offending is that the victim was around 12 years of age, now having just turned 13 I think.  You are in your early 30s.

9You, as it would appear to be your modus operandi, had an active profile on the website PlentyOfFish which is a dating website.

10On 23 May 2017 you encountered a woman, the mother of the complainant.  You commenced conversing with her.  After exchanging multiple messages you gave her your mobile phone number.  Between 23 and 26 May 2017 you and her exchanged numerous text messages.

11You gave a false account of your circumstances to her, telling her that you were a tradie working full time and living on 17 acres of bush 20 minutes out of Mildura.  In fact you were unemployed and living with your mother.

12From the outset, you start asking questions about her three young children aged three, nine and 12.  You asked if their fathers were a part of their lives and emphasised that you loved kids and would treat them as your own and let them call you "dad" and that you wanted to include them in your relationship.

13You continued to express in the children particularly the complainant.  You sent multiple messages asking for photos and saying to the mother that you wished you had your own child as you loved kids.  You also said that you were, "After a little family I can call my own".

14You then started to text to give the kids hugs and kisses goodnight and asked if the complainant likes to play Xbox.  You said that you could play against him, "As long as I get a hug hahaha" and stated, "Bet it would not take long for [the Victim] to call me Dad.  I really don't know why but kids love me for some reason".

15The mother said that he would be happy to give you a hug and you said, "Maybe a kiss from all of them if I'm lucky ha ha".  You told the victim’s mother via text message that you were interested in the kids and would still be in their lives even if it didn't work out with her.  You sent her messages saying that you were an easy going bloke, "I can put a smile on a kid's face" and invited for them to call you Dad.

16In any event you repeatedly told her that you loved kids and that her kids called you Dad and she said at one point, "I've never met someone who was so accepting of my kids".  This is, just as a matter of interest, in a three day exchange of text messages.  At that stage she had not met you, and you obviously had not met her or the children.

17On Friday 26 May the two of you made arrangements for you to drive to Wonthaggi from Mildura.  You, on the way, bought a slab of Jack Daniels in the Woolworths supermarket in Wonthaggi and approximately 9.30 arrived at her house.  You came into the house and commenced drinking.  You tickled the complainant while he was watching a movie and made him feel very uncomfortable.

18Around about 10 o'clock to 10.30, the complainant went to bed and fell asleep shortly afterwards leaving you and the mother.  I have got nothing before me as to what occurred after that until the complainant was woken up in the early hours of the morning by you entering his bed.

19He was lying in the supine position with his hand wresting on his stomach.  You took his hand off his stomach and placed it onto your exposed penis and used the hand and holding his wrist, you causing him to masturbate you.  He pretended to be asleep and would continuously move his hand back to his stomach and you continuously put it back onto your penis.

20This went on for a number of occasions, probably between ten and 15 as he estimates it.  You eventually ejaculated.  He felt sperm coming out of your penis onto his hand.  He wiped his hand on his bedsheet.

21Throughout this period of time you touched his upper leg as you tried to put your hand up his shorts and then tried to pull his shorts down but you were unable to as he stiffened up.  Eventually you got your hand down the front of his shorts and put your hand onto his penis on top of his underwear and touched his penis.  You tried to touch his penis about five times both over and underneath his shorts.

22Again during this time you started repeating the complainant's name saying, "[the Victim], [the Victim], [the Victim]".  You kissed him on his neck on his right side as he lay flat on his bed.  You then called his name again.

23You further tried to flip him over onto his side and put your knee under his leg trying to push him over but he held onto the bedsheet and made his body firm on the bed.  He could feel you pushing your penis into his right hip.  He estimated that the whole attack took place over a period of about an hour.

24At around six in the morning he went to get up.  You told him to go back to bed.  In any event, the mother got up at some stage and realised that something was not right with the complainant and he told her in the bedroom what had happened.  You then got up and told the mother that you were leaving to get some petrol and then just drove away.

25Police obviously arrested you and you made a no-comment record of interview which of course you are entitled to do.

26The victim impact statements are from the mother and from the child.  It is clear that the offending has caused a great deal of distress to each of them.  Each of them is paranoid, does not want to leave the house, anxious and has created according to the mother a degree of social isolation.  The boy does not even ride his bike to school anymore.

27As I said before, you have done the sex offenders program.  You would have been told the consequences of that sort of offending on families and upon children.

28In the decision of The Queen v Sposito, J Hedigan said:            

"A society which fails to protect its children from sexual abuse by adults, particularly those entrusted with their care, is degenerate".

29A worse example of moral culpability is hard to imagine.  I am sure there would be but you pre-meditated this, you planned it, you put your plan to effect over a period of days and on the very first night that you got there, I do not know where the mother was, but you sexually abused this child, knowing what the consequences were and having been given a suspended gaol sentence for it before.

30It calls obviously for the application of general deterrence.  In your situation specific deterrence will probably be a waste of time and I am sure the authorities, as time goes by, will take the necessary steps to protect the community from you in a very long term way.  Thus of course denunciation applies and there has to be appropriate punishment.

31Gaol is clearly the only sentencing option open and it has to be a significant gaol sentence in such circumstances.

32Your personal situation is that you have now been in custody for 295 days.  You have got other matters pending which I understand to be of a similar nature with this with a similar modus operandi and some other judge will sentence you in the future.

33However in simple terms, you left school around Year 9.  You completed an apprenticeship as a cabinet maker.  You worked up until a few years ago.  Since then it has become more sporadic.  You ultimately went and lived with your mother who is in her late 40s, early 50s in Mildura.

34She has been visiting you in prison.  You understand that you are currently at Ararat and you will remain there and it is clear that you understand that ultimately you may well be the subject of a supervision order.  They are not matters for me to deal with at the present time.

35There is a report on file from the psychologist Mr McKinnon who goes through your background.  He accepts that you were sexually assaulted as a child by a great uncle and he goes through the matters that I have already been through.

36He essentially says that you are a paedophile, Mr Olsson, and that you have a depressed mood disorder.  You have told your own counsel openly I accept, that you have a compulsion.  Compulsions are one thing.  Planning them and executing them over a period of days is another.

37It is clear that the opinion of Mr McKinnon is that you are at high risk of offending and will, he says,

"…likely to forever pose a significant risk of reoffending against children".

38He says as I have accepted, that you did present with genuine distress and remorse but he says without ongoing supervision in the wider community and that is not a matter for you, you will pose a high risk of reoffending.

39The situation is that I have to be bound by current sentencing practice to a certain degree, but in a matter such as this I think it takes it out of what would normally be the sentence for a charge such as this.

40The community and children have to be protected but I am well aware of the maximum penalty for this particular crime had you succeeded in what was obviously an attempt to penetrate him; this sentence would have been far greater, let me assure you.

41The prospects of your rehabilitation I think are bleak.  The risk of you reoffending is high. 

42Charge 1, four years;

43Charge 2, three years;

44Charge 3, six months;

45Charge 4, 12 months.

46The sentences on Charges 3 and 4 are to be served concurrently with the sentence on Charge 1 and one year of the sentence on Charge 2 is to be served cumulatively upon the sentence on Charge 1.

47This gives a total effective sentence of five years.  I direct that you serve a minimum term of three years and four months before becoming eligible for parole.  That concurrency is (1) for totality and; (2) recognition that the offending occurred in the one, albeit over an hour incident.

48I direct that 295 days be reckoned as having been served under this sentence.

49Pursuant to s.6AAA of the Sentencing Act I say that but for your plea of guilty, you would have been sentenced to be imprisoned for a period of seven years with a minimum term of five.

50Are there any other orders I have to make?

51MR O'DOHERTY:  No, Your Honour.

52HIS HONOUR:  No.  You can remove him now, thank you.

53MR DAVIS:  Your Honour, I am not sure if you are able to, but given his instructions, is Your Honour able to make a note that he requires protection on the warrant?

54HIS HONOUR:  That is a matter for Corrections, not me.

55MR DAVIS:  Thank you, Your Honour.

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