Director of Public Prosecutions v Page
[2023] VCC 841
•26 May 2023
| IN THE COUNTY COURT OF VICTORIA AT Melbourne CRIMINAL DIVISION | Revised Not Restricted Suitable for Publication |
Case No. CR-22-01554
| DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROSECUTIONS |
| v |
| TONY PAGE |
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JUDGE: | HER HONOUR JUDGE CARLIN | |
WHERE HELD: | Melbourne | |
DATE OF HEARING: | 10 May 2023 | |
DATE OF SENTENCE: | 26 May 2023 | |
CASE MAY BE CITED AS: | DPP v Page | |
MEDIUM NEUTRAL CITATION: | [2023] VCC 841 | |
REASONS FOR SENTENCE
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Subject: Criminal Law
Catchwords: Dangerous driving causing death; mandatory custodial sentence; lower range of moral culpability; lower range of seriousness; early plea of guilty; no prior criminal history; excellent prospects of rehabilitation.
Legislation Cited: Crimes Act 1958 (Vic), Sentencing Act 1991(Vic).
Cases Cited:DPP v Neethling [2009] VSCA 116 at [29], adopting an unreported 1997 NSW case of R v Musumeci; Stephens v the Queen [2016] VSCA 121 at [20]; DPP v Oates (2007) 47 MVR 483; and Stephens v The Queen [2016] VSCA 12; DPP v Lombardo [2022] VSCA 204.
Sentence: 14 months imprisonment with a non-parole period of 7 months.
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APPEARANCES: | Counsel | Solicitors |
| For the DPP | Mr Fraser Cameron | Office of Public Prosecutions |
| For the Accused | Mr Michael Turner | Gallant Law |
HER HONOUR:
Introduction[1]
[1] Summary based on the agreed facts set out in the Summary of Prosecution Opening and marked as Exhibit A.
1 On Sunday 10 April 2022, 75 years old Alan Williams was going for a morning stroll and enjoying life when he was struck and killed by a car that you were driving. Up until that fateful day both you and Mr Williams, had led long and worthwhile contributing lives. His life was tragically cut short, causing untold grief to his family and many friends. At age 70, your life continues but it will never be the same. All this was completely unnecessary.
2 Your driving in the lead up to Mr Williams’ death was captured by three separate CCTV cameras and witnessed by other road users. If not for the fact the events clearly happened, they would be hard to believe.
3 In short, at about 9 am on that Sunday morning you pulled up at a red light on Johnston Street Collingwood at the intersection with Hoddle Street. You were driving west and were the first car to stop at the lights in that direction. After about 13 seconds, when the light facing you was still red and traffic was moving in both directions along Hoddle Street, your car jolted, rolled and commenced moving into the intersection.
4 At that point Hoddle Street consisted of four southbound lanes and five northbound lanes separated by a raised concrete median strip.[2] Astonishingly, through a combination of good luck and some evasive driving by you and others, your car traversed all nine lanes of the intersection without colliding with any other cars. However, just before you reached the other side Mr Williams, who had been walking north along Hoddle Street and faced a green pedestrian light, stepped onto the pedestrian crossing at Johnston Street and into your path. Before doing so he looked over his right shoulder for cars turning left from Hoddle Street, but of course, he was not expecting a car coming from your direction and did not see you.
[2] Statement of Lindon Walker, page 63 of depositions.
5 The front driver’s side of your car struck Mr Williams when he was about 2.6m onto the road throwing him onto the bonnet, then the windscreen and then the road, where he landed between 16 and 18.6m from the point of impact. Expert collision reconstruction put your speed at between 51 and 55 km/h when you struck him.
6 You pulled over further down Johnston Street and returned to the scene. You were shaking and appeared to be in shock. Paramedics and police soon arrived, however Mr Williams had sustained multiple fractures and other injuries which were unsurvivable and he died at the scene.
7 You were spoken to by the attending police before being conveyed to Richmond Police Station where you were formally interviewed. As I said during the plea, I commend the police for the manner in which they dealt with you at the scene given your obvious distress.
8 The explanation you gave at the scene was essentially the same as in your interview. You said that when you were stopped at the lights you noticed that your passenger side mirror which you had pushed in towards your car a few days ago, was still pushed inwards. You decided it was a good time to push it back outwards because you were familiar with the intersection and knew that it was a long wait for the lights to turn green. You lowered your passenger window electronically and thought you put your car in neutral. You then lent over towards the passenger side to adjust the mirror but as you did so your car moved forward. You panicked and thought you put your foot on the brake but it must have been the accelerator. As you moved through the intersection you thought you were going to die. In a panic you mistakenly, applied the accelerator again. You did not see Mr Williams until after you had hit him and then for the first time you looked down and changed your foot to the brake.
9 You were charged with dangerous driving causing death contrary to section 319(1) of the Crimes Act1958, 10 days later, that is, on 20 April 2022. You were committed to this court by way of straight hand up brief on 29 August 2022, at which time you plead not guilty. The matter resolved at the listing of a Sentence Indication Hearing on 23 February 2023. The Sentence Indication Hearing did not proceed, instead you plead guilty to the charge and the matter was adjourned to 10 May 2023 for the hearing of a plea which, proceeded before me.
10 In sensitive and thoughtful submissions on your behalf, your counsel, Mr Turner argued that notwithstanding the inherent seriousness of your charge and the sentencing imperatives, a Community Corrections Order was still appropriate and within range.
11 The prosecutor, Mr Cameron, submitted that a term of imprisonment was warranted.
12 In deciding the appropriate sentence, I am required by law to have regard to a variety of factors which I will outline in these sentencing remarks.[3] Some tend towards leniency, and some point the other way. No one factor automatically prevails over any other. Rather, I must have regard to them all and give each the weight it deserves to arrive at a just sentence.
[3] Section 5(2) of the Sentencing Act 1991.
Circumstances of the offending
13 I have already outlined the circumstances of the offending. The only other thing to note is that your car, a Toyota corolla hatch, was examined after the collision and was determined not to have any defects which could have caused or contributed to the collision.
Your personal circumstances
14 Your personal circumstances were outlined in Defence submissions and two reports. The first was a report of Naomi Cameron, forensic psychologist, dated 2 January 2023, who assessed you, apparently by videoconference, on 21 November 2022. The second was a report of Christine Weber, a counsellor and psychotherapist, dated 7 December 2022. You have had a long, albeit sporadic, therapeutic relationship with Ms Weber. You first saw her in May 2012 when she worked at the Victorian Aids Council and you still see her now in private practice.
15 Briefly, you were born in Victoria, in September 1952 and are now 70 years old. You were raised in a strict catholic household and had four younger siblings. Your father was a travelling salesman. Your childhood was marred by your father’s alcoholism, abuse and absence and your mother’s chronic illness.
16 Your mother’s decline started when you were 8 years old after she suffered a grand mal seizure in front of you. What was initially thought to be epilepsy was later diagnosed as brain cancer. She spent the next 10 years of her life seriously ill and died when you were 17. Her illness and your father’s absence meant that you took on family responsibilities including calling emergency services if your mother had a seizure. You suffered a breakdown at age 17 and unbeknownst to your mother spent 6 weeks in the psychiatric ward of St Vincent’s Hospital at the same time as she was in hospital for her cancer.
17 Although your mother’s death was very painful for you, with the benefit of hindsight you now regard her as somewhat cold and detached. Indeed, you told Ms Cameron you did not feel loved or cared for when you were growing up.
18 Your father died from lung cancer when he was aged 61. You have been estranged from the rest of your family since the mid-1980s. Some of your siblings have had issues with substance abuse, anger and the police. One of your siblings has cerebral palsy and you have assisted her over the years.
19 Despite the difficulties in your home life you excelled at school and received various scholarships. That is not to say school did not have its challenges. You struggled to reconcile your emerging homosexuality with your Christian faith and this was not helped by school staff telling you that your sexuality was a phase which you would grow out of. You felt inferior and ostracised which in turn led you to spend more time studying.
20 Your experience at Melbourne University was liberating as you met likeminded individuals who allowed you to feel secure in your sexuality. You established the first Gay Liberation committee at Melbourne University and stopped regarding your sexuality as a sin. Your father was surprisingly supportive once you came out as gay.
21 You obtained a Bachelor of Arts from Melbourne University and a Diploma of Education from the State College of Victoria as well as a Master of Arts from Deakin University.
22 You have had a long and fulfilling career. You have worked as a journalist and sub/editor and as a teacher in Australia, Portugal, Malaysia, Thailand and Cambodia. You have taught English, Literature, History, and Drama and at one stage were the Head of Performing Arts at an international school in Bangkok. You have also appeared at international literary events and writing workshops and have published six books between 1986 and 2020.
23 You lived in Malaysia and Thailand between 1992 to 2012. In 2007 you retired from paid employment and later became a volunteer teacher for disadvantaged hill tribes in Thailand.
24 Since your return to Melbourne in 2012 you have taught at the university of the third age.
25 You have had 4 long term romantic relationships which have all been positive, but there has been nothing serious for the last 10 years. You have a relatively socially isolated lifestyle with your close friends mainly being older women who have acted like mother figures to you. A close male friend of 25 years ended his life in 2014 and his death continues to affect you.
26 I received four-character references from friends of yours, Nelly Zola, Colin Pettigrew, Cheryl Mantello and Alex Skovron. They describe you as a wonderful friend with a stellar work ethic and a selfless and kind demeanour. They all acknowledged the tremendous grief and shame you feel from causing the death of Alan Williams.
27 Physically, you do not suffer from any major medical problems, only taking medication to treat cholesterol, borderline hypertension, and acid reflux.
28 As far as your mental health is concerned, I have already alluded to the fact you suffered depression and anxiety as a teenager. Your psychiatric admission at age 17 was traumatic. You were, apparently, made to watch other patients receiving Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT) as an incentive for you to “snap out” of your depression, which you pretended to do. After your discharge you were prescribed Stelazine, an antipsychotic, for a year.Thereafter, you self-medicated with cannabis, which you first took as an adolescent, before taking the antidepressant Fluoxetine in your 30s with good effect.
29 You have had no significant issues with illicit drugs or alcohol. You ceased cannabis use after several attempts in 2000, albeit returning to it in 2021 when you started vaping and using edible marijuana. Your alcohol intake does not appear to have been problematic and you were not under the influence of either drugs or alcohol at the time of the collision. That said Ms Cameron noted your use of substances as a form of self-medication during times of stress or isolation and recommended ongoing monitoring to avoid you developing any substance abuse disorders.
30 You had 35 years of mental health stability until the collision whereupon your low mood and depression returned. You were previously an avid reader, reading up to 80 books a year, however, post offence you have ceased reading. You are not engaging in any meaningful leisure or community activities and have become a social hermit. It is not clear whether you ever ceased your antidepressant medication, but if you did, you are now taking it again and you regularly see Ms Weber. Your life has essentially been on hold since the offence waiting for the outcome of this matter.
31 Ms Cameron diagnosed you as suffering extremely severe levels of depression, anxiety, and stress as well as clinically significant Post Traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). She believed the instability grief and trauma you experienced in your childhood likely predisposed you to these conditions, which appear to have existed prior to the collision. However, significantly she noted that you were not experiencing any acute mental health symptoms at the time of your offending. Rather, the collision caused a relapse of your depression and anxiety and an exacerbation and different manifestation of your PTSD.
32 Ms Weber, who I note is not a psychologist, similarly described symptoms consistent with PTSD after the collision.
Objective Gravity of your offending and moral culpability
33 Two factors of central importance in determining any sentence are the objective gravity of the offending and the moral culpability of the offender.
34 Causing the death of another person by driving dangerously is inherently serious. The sentencing mandates applicable to the offence make that perfectly clear as does its maximum penalty of 10 years. I will return to the legislation shortly.
35 The offence covers a wide range of conduct from momentary inattention to intentional risk-taking behaviour, but always involving a serious breach of the proper management or control of a vehicle so as to be in reality – not just speculatively – potentially dangerous to others. The essence of the offence is not just the dangerousness of the driving but that dangerousness in association with the taking of human life.[4]
[4] DPP v Neethling [2009] VSCA 116 at [29], adopting an unreported 1997 NSW case of R v Musumeci.
36 The extent of the risk and the potential harm if the risk were to materialise are both relevant to the dangerousness of the driving.[5]
[5] Stephens v the Queen [2016] VSCA 121 at [20].
37 As I discussed with your counsel, I have some difficulty in understanding how you came to drive across all lanes of Hoddle Street even allowing for Ms Cameron’s reference to ‘pedal error’ in older drivers or your claimed unfamiliarity with automatic cars despite having driven the Toyota for 10 years.
38 Whilst ‘pedal error’ might explain your initial pressing of the accelerator instead of the brake, it less easily accounts for what happened thereafter. I note that Ms Cameron records you as telling her that you ‘felt some momentary relief when the car came to another stop’ until you accidentally accelerated again before hitting Mr Williams. However, the CCTV footage does not appear consistent with a scenario of separate accidental pressings of the accelerator. It shows you steering to avoid other cars without any apparent slowing down or stopping.
39 Mr Turner urged me to find that your explanation was your honest belief of what happened, even if it did not accord precisely with the evidence. He denied the suggestion that upon finding yourself in a dangerous situation you decided to extricate yourself from it as quickly as possible by accelerating through the intersection.
40 To the extent your explanation of repeated accidental pressings of the accelerator may be mitigatory I am not persuaded on the balance of probabilities that it is true, whatever you may believe. To the extent the alternative scenario of deliberately accelerating out of the intersection may be aggravating, I am not satisfied BRD that that occurred either. I simply do not know what happened.
41 In any case, as the prosecutor submitted the real gravamen of your offending was your incredibly reckless and, as you have readily admitted, foolhardy, decision to adjust your passenger side mirror whilst stopped at the lights of a busy intersection. Whatever the explanation for your subsequent dangerous driving across the intersection, it was conduct borne out of panic because of the hazardous situation that you alone had created.
42 I do not consider that your driving could be categorised as momentary inattention as Mr Turner submitted. Your attempt to adjust the passenger mirror was not a simple failure to maintain driving vigilance or a miscalculation whilst driving, it was a deliberate act which necessarily involved some loss of control of your vehicle and an obvious risk that serious harm might eventuate. It was a significant departure from the standards that society expects from drivers of motor vehicles.
43 As Mr Turner conceded, there was no urgency to you adjusting your mirror, and even if you thought there was, you could easily have pulled over once you got through the intersection. You chose that moment to do it only because of convenience. On the other hand, and in your favour, your conduct can be contrasted with a driver who uses their mobile phone, knowing it to be both illegal and dangerous. Whilst what you did was inherently dangerous, it was at least and somewhat ironically, motivated by a safety concern in that you were attempting to ensure you had good rear vision. You made a serious error of judgement but there was nothing else aggravating about your driving.
44 All up, as serious as it was, I agree with Mr Turner and Mr Cameron that your driving falls somewhere towards the lower end of the spectrum of seriousness for dangerous driving causing death and that your moral culpability is likewise. It is not, however, at the bottom end of the spectrum. To put it another way, it is not among the least serious examples that this court sees.
Impact of your offending
45 I am required to take into account the impact of your offending on your victims and their personal circumstances.[6]
[6] Section 5(2)(daa), (da) and (db).
46 A total of eleven victim impact statements were tendered at the plea and they were all read out in court by the prosecutor. There were statements from Mr Williams’ wife, Dianne Williams, his daughter Sindi Lefort, her husband Jeremy Lefort and their three young daughters, Matilda, Hollie and Jemimah, who also included photographs in their statements. There were statements from Mr Williams’ siblings, Helen Popplewell and Brian Williams and from Mr Williams’ friends, Shane Young, Amanda Young and Gerard Masters.
47 Mr Williams was clearly much loved and admired amongst those who knew him. It is important to make clear at this point that you do not get punished more just because you happened to kill someone held in such high regard. However, it is obvious that the repercussions of Mr Williams’ death have been, and will continue to be, far reaching and it is in that sense, namely the impact on his victims, that his good character is relevant.
48 Diane Williams describes a man who was dedicated to supporting his family, including caring for her when she was diagnosed in May 2021 with a rare and incurable blood disease and caring for their eldest daughter who suffers from severe mental illness. She worries about how she will cope having to care for that daughter on her own as well as managing her financial affairs, especially given her illness. She has overwhelming sadness, difficulty sleeping and visions of his death.
49 Sindi Lefort is also haunted by visions of her father’s death. After unintentionally seeing the footage on the nightly news she has pervasive images of your car striking her father. She is haunted by the fact that immediately prior to the impact he was obviously in a jolly mood and enjoying exploring the new surrounds into which he and his wife had just moved. The violent and senseless manner of her father’s death has caused her profound grief and indescribable pain as well as significant anxiety. She said her father was remarkable and selfless and described his many accomplishments, both career wise and afterwards. She said he literally had 100s of friends and ‘people loved him so much because he was smart, kind and interested in others.’ She misses everything about her father but especially the sense of security he gave her.
50 Jeremy Lefort likewise described the profound impact on him of Mr Williams’ sudden and traumatic death. He said Mr Williams was like a surrogate father as he was not close to his own and he misses his guidance and wisdom. He is plagued by memories, both when he visits Dianne Williams’ home and when he drives down the road where he took the call advising of Mr Williams’ death.
51 Helen Popplewell and Brian Williams both detail how they miss their kind and humble brother who worked hard so he could enjoy his retirement which was short-lived. Helen is also plagued by visions of him being struck by your car. Brian stated that his brother was his best friend and someone he could confide in. He was looking forward to getting older together with his brother.
52 The statements of Mr Williams’s granddaughters, Holly, Matilda and Jemimah portray a kind-hearted grandfather who will be greatly missed and who was deprived of seeing them grow up.
53 Shane Young, a former employee of Mr Williams, described a man who exemplified humility, pragmatism, empathy, and warmth and expressed anger at the senseless and pointless act that robbed him of a dear friend. Amanda Young remembers being in awe of Mr Williams’ because of the love he had for his wife and family and says his death has caused a significant void which is impossible to fill.
54 Gerard Masters, the best fiend of Mr Williams for over 35 years detailed his struggle to come to terms with the tragic passing of someone who had been important in his life since his twenties. He described Mr Williams’ morality and his loyalty and friendship. He said ‘the world lost a gentle soul and a very decent human being.’
Current Sentencing Practices
55 One of the matters to which I must have regard in arriving at an appropriate sentence for you is current sentencing practices which may be gleaned from statistics or sentences imposed in other cases or both. The rationale for this is to promote consistency of approach in sentencing; particularly, the application of relevant sentencing principles.
56 Since the offence of dangerous driving causing death was introduced into the Crimes Act in 2004 its penalty has changed several times reflecting Parliament’s view of its seriousness. First, in March 2008 the maximum penalty was increased from five to ten years. Then, on 28 October 2018 it became subject to a form of mandatory sentencing whereby offenders had to receive custodial sentences, not in combination with corrections orders, unless certain exceptions existed.
57 Significantly, to constitute an exception any mental impairment must have a ‘substantial and material’ effect on either an offender’s moral culpability or the burden or risks of imprisonment and any special circumstances relied upon to constitute an exception must not only be ‘substantial and compelling’, they must justify the imposition of a non-custodial sentence and be ‘exceptional and rare’. A court is also constrained in how it determines the question of whether such circumstances exist in that it must regard general deterrence and denunciation as having paramount importance, give less weight to an offender’s personal circumstances, disregard certain other mitigating factors and consider parliament’s intention that the offence should ordinarily attract a custodial term. Needless to say, this is a high bar.
58 Even before parliament applied the mandatory sentencing scheme to the offence of dangerous driving causing death, our Court of Appeal had made it clear that except in cases of low moral culpability the offence should attract a custodial sentence and usually a significant term.[7] In 2016, the same court determined that courts were, in essence, sentencing too leniently for this offence.[8] Thus, even if one of the exceptions to the mandatory sentencing scheme is established, it may still be appropriate to impose a term of imprisonment according to ordinary sentencing principles.
[7] DPP v Oates (2007) 47 MVR 483; and Stephens v The Queen [2016] VSCA 12.
[8] Stephens (n 6), although dealing with mid-range offences.
59 Obviously, any consideration of past sentencing practice needs to take into account these Court of Appeal pronouncements and legislative changes.
60 The most recent Sentencing Advisory Council Statistics indicate that approximately 55% of people sentenced for the offence of dangerous driving causing death over the five years between 1 July 2016 and 30 June 2021 received an immediate term of imprisonment ranging in length from several months to 6.25 years with two to three years being the most common term. The next most common sentence, at approximately 40%, was a Community Corrections Order.
61 Of more use than statistics are sentences imposed in comparable cases. Whilst such sentences are not binding precedents to be applied or distinguished, they are a guide or yardstick against which to measure any sentence I propose in this case. There is never only one single correct sentence.
62 I have considered the cases of dangerous driving causing death to which I was referred by your counsel, seven county court sentences and three court of appeal decisions. They were all cases in which Community Corrections Orders were imposed or affirmed. There is no need to recite the facts in any detail. Suffice to say the cases are of limited assistance in a comparative sense. Many were categorised by the sentencing court as involving momentary inattention and not surprisingly, none of the driving even vaguely resembled yours. Further, only two of the cases were subject to the mandatory sentencing provisions and of those, one was held on appeal to have involved a misapplication of the exceptions to the mandatory scheme, although the court of appeal declined to re-sentence in the exercise of its discretion.[9]
[9] DPP v Lombardo [2022] VSCA 204.
63 What those cases do serve to do is highlight the fact that ultimately my duty is to impose a just and appropriate sentence on you in the unique circumstances of this case.
Plea of Guilty, co-operation and remorse
64 You are entitled to a significant discount in your sentence for your immediate co-operation with the police and your plea of guilty. Occurring at a listed sentence indication hearing, your plea of guilty was not at the earliest stage, but it was reasonably early in the proceedings. In pleading guilty you facilitated the course of justice and took legal responsibility for your crime. You also spared witnesses the trauma of coming to court to give evidence and Mr William’s family and friends the anguish of further delay. Our Court of Appeal has repeatedly emphasised the high value of pleas of guilty entered during the pandemic and its aftermath and the need for sentences to reflect this.[10]
[10] For example Worboyes v The Queen [2021] VSCA 169 at [39].
65 I also accept that your plea of guilty was accompanied by genuine remorse. You are remorseful for the fact your driving caused the death of an innocent person and also that you have caused so much pain and suffering to Mr Williams’ family and friends.
Your character and risk of reoffending
66 Until this offending you had an unblemished record. More than that you were, as I have mentioned, a worthwhile contributing member of society. You are entitled to be sentenced as a person of good character apart from this offence and I regard your prospects of rehabilitation as excellent.
The burden of imprisonment
67 In determining the type of sentence or the length of any prison term, it is always necessary to consider how imprisonment would be likely to impact an offender.
68 In your case Mr Turner contended that the burdens you would face were such as to relieve me of the otherwise mandatory obligation to impose a term of imprisonment for your offence.
69 First he argued that your impaired mental functioning would result in you being subject to ‘substantially and materially greater than the ordinary burden or risks of imprisonment’ and secondly, he argued there were ‘substantial and compelling circumstances that are exceptional and rare’ justifying a non-custodial term. Unfortunately, I am not satisfied that either exception is made out.
70 As to the first, whilst I accept that you do have impaired mental functioning in the manner outlined by Ms Cameron and that prison will likely be harder for you than someone not suffering with those conditions, I am not satisfied on the balance of probabilities that you will be subject to ‘substantially and materially greater than the ordinary burden or risks of imprisonment’. I must act on the basis of evidence, and I note that Ms Cameron’s report at [90] uses words such as ‘could’ and ‘may’ to describe the effect of prison on your mental state. Further, other than her bald assertion there is no evidence that your mental health will not be adequately treated in the custodial environment which has now largely returned to normal post covid.
71 As to the second exception Mr Turner argued that your mental health, sexuality, age and small stature meant that prison would be particularly difficult for you. He also relied on your low moral culpability and the low objective gravity of your conduct. I am not satisfied that any of those matters on their own or in combination amount to ‘substantial and compelling circumstances that are exceptional and rare’ so as to justify a non-custodial sentence, especially given the manner in which parliament has prescribed that I determine that question.[11]
[11] See s 5(2HC) of the Sentencing Act 1991.
72 I have already discussed your mental health. As far as the other matters are concerned, I accept that you are genuinely worried about how you would cope in prison given these characteristics, but none of them are exceptional or rare and there is no evidence that they could not be catered for in the prison environment. As I indicated during the plea Ms Cameron’s reference to one article from Boston in 2009 relating to discrimination and victimisation of members of the LGBTQIA+ community in prison is hardly compelling. Further, the objective gravity of your offending and your culpability are not so low as to justify a non-custodial disposition. Indeed, that would be the case even without the mandatory provisions.
73 Although I am not satisfied the exceptions are made out, that is not to say your mental health and personal characteristics are not relevant and I take them into account in fixing the term of the sentence. Facing a term of imprisonment for the first time is difficult for anyone, let alone someone of your age and sensitivities who has absolutely no prior involvement in the criminal justice system.
74 I also take into account that you are being sentenced during the COVID – 19 pandemic. Although the restrictions imposed in prisons to prevent the spread of the virus have now largely been removed, I accept that you are being imprisoned in a time of uncertainty and that those restrictions may well be reimposed with the consequence that prison would once again be more onerous.
Purposes of Sentencing
75 Under the Sentencing Act1991 the only purposes for which a sentence may be imposed are just punishment, deterrence, rehabilitation, denunciation and protection of the community.
76 Generally, a court must not impose a more severe sentence than is necessary to achieve those sentencing purposes and a custodial sentence must only be imposed as a last resort and then must be the absolute minimum required. In the case of the offence of dangerous driving causing death those principles – being the principles of proportionality and parsimony - are qualified by the terms of the mandatory sentencing scheme.
77 The importance of general deterrence and denunciation in sentencing for dangerous driving causing death have been repeatedly emphasised by the courts and are now also enshrined in the Sentencing Act, by virtue of the provisions prescribing the manner of determining whether there are substantial and compelling circumstances justifying a non-custodial or combination sentence.[12]
[12] That is, in making that determination general deterrence and denunciation must be regarded as of paramount importance, less weight given to personal circumstances, other mitigating factors disregarded, and Parliament’s intention be considered.
78 Members of the community must understand that if they drive dangerously, especially intentionally, with consequent loss of life or serious injury, significant punishment will follow.
79 Further, the sentence must manifest the community's disapproval of dangerous conduct, which results in the loss of human life. Such conduct not only harms the innocent victims; it harms the community as a whole.
80 I do not consider there is a need for my sentence to specifically deter you from doing anything similar again or to protect the community from you. My sentence must promote your rehabilitation, which I will do by setting a non-parole period as low as possible consonant with the seriousness of the offence.
81 Of course, my sentence must also be just and accommodate the mitigating factors I have already outlined in detail.
82 Nothing I say or do can bring back Mr Williams or alleviate the pain and suffering of his family and friends. I cannot undo what happened that day. The sentence I impose is not to be taken as a measure of Mr Williams‘ life, it is not. His life was precious and no value can be placed on it.
83 Rather, my duty is to impose an appropriate and just sentence at law taking into account all relevant matters and the applicable sentencing principles. That is what I now proceed to do.
Sentence
84 Mr Page can you please stand?
85 On the charge of dangerous driving causing death I convict and sentence you to a term of imprisonment of 14 months. In respect of that sentence I set a non-parole period of 7 months. That is the earliest time at which you can be released from prison. It does not necessarily mean you will be released at that time. It is up to the Adult Parole Board when you are released.
Mandatory Licence Disqualification
86 As you have pleaded guilty to a serious motor vehicle offence, as defined in the Sentencing Act, I am obliged to cancel your licence and disqualify you from driving for a least 18 months on that offence. I see no reason to exceed the minimum period and will not do so. So, your drivers licence is cancelled for 18 months effective from today.
Pre-Sentence Detention
87 I declare you have served no days in custody.
S 6AAA
88 If you had not pleaded guilty to these charges and been found guilty by a jury, I would have sentenced you to 26 months imprisonment with a non-parole period of 14 months.
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