Director of Public Prosecutions v Peisley

[2015] VCC 357

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

AT WANGARATTA
CRIMINAL JURISDICTION

CR-12-01395

DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROSECUTIONS

v

JUSTIN PEISLEY

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JUDGE:	HER HONOUR JUDGE HARBISON
WHERE HELD:	Wangaratta
DATE OF HEARING:
DATE OF SENTENCE:	26 March 2015
CASE MAY BE CITED AS:	DPP v Peisley
MEDIUM NEUTRAL CITATION:	[2015] VCC 357

REASONS FOR SENTENCE
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Sentence:

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APPEARANCES:	Counsel	Solicitors
For the Director of Public Prosecutions	Mr A. Moore
For the Accused	Mr G. Clancy

HER HONOUR

1Justin Peisley, you have pleaded guilty before me to one charge of common assault.  The circumstances surrounding that offence were the subject of evidence in a trial before me in March last year. 

2In that trial both you and a co-offender, Joshua Hill, were charged with two charges with two alternatives.  The first charge was a charge of intentionally causing serious injury, the alternative to which was a charge of recklessly causing serious injury.  The second charge was a charge of causing injury intentionally and the alternative to that charge was recklessly causing injury. 

3Each of those charges arose out of an injury occasioned to Mr Gregory Beaton on 18 June 2011 which is almost four years ago.  The jury verdict in that trial last March was inconclusive.  The prosecution case had been that your accused, Joshua Hill, was the principal offender and that he had caused very serious injuries to Mr Beaton, including a fracture of his jaw, plates in his mouth, screws and very, very painful dental surgery and after surgery, significant residual pain. 

4The prosecution case in that trial was that before Mr Beaton was attacked by Mr Hill you hit him once on the head.  It was alleged that that attack was an attack of less consequence by you, an attack which did not cause significant injury and indeed an attack which did not even make him fall down.

5The jury found Mr Hill guilty of intentionally causing injury to Gregory Beaton but found him not guilty of intentionally or recklessly causing serious injury, thus bringing into question the accuracy of the evidence led by the prosecution at the trial. 

6I discharged the jury without a verdict in relation to you because at a very late stage Mr Beaton appeared to have recognised the foreman of the jury and notified the prosecutor of that fact.

7Since that time Mr Hill has been sentenced by me.  I sentenced him to undergo a Community Corrections Order and to complete 300 hours of community work as part of that order. 

8Both the prosecutor and your counsel have agreed before me today and on earlier occasions that it is very difficult to rationalise the jury's verdict in order to understand the part that you played in this altercation with Mr Beaton.  When the matter was last mentioned before me, the first indictment, which was the subject of the trial, was permanently stayed and you pleaded guilty on the indictment which I am to sentence you on today, which is one charge of common assault. 

9So I sentence you on the following facts as far as they can be ascertained from the matters presented at trial and the verdict of the jury in the first trial.

10Firstly, you delivered the first blow to Mr Beaton after getting out of your car and that was the trigger for the events that occurred.  Mr Beaton described, in the trial, you getting out of the car saying you were sick of listening to what was being said and then he described shaking your hand and all of a sudden being hit.  He presumed it was you who hit him and he did not remember much about the hit.  His wife gave evidence that both you and Hill got out of the car and that you walked towards Mr Beaton in an aggressive manner.  She gave evidence that you hit him with a full force punch to the left hand side of the head.  Her evidence was that Mr Beaton then retaliated and, as I have said before, there was no evidence that Mr Beaton was knocked to the ground by your punch and, in fact, no evidence of any significant injury to Mr Beaton by way of your punch. 

11In sentencing you on this indictment I need to disregard the evidence of what occurred subsequently because you were not involved in it except, as have been said this morning, perhaps by way of some wrestling, and therefore to disregard all of the evidence of severe or serious injury to Mr Beaton.

12Therefore, I sentence you today for an unwarranted punch to the head which appears to have had relatively little effect.  It may have smashed Mr Beaton's glasses, it may have caused bruising to the left side of his head but it is not possible to know this conclusively.  Your plea of guilty to this charge of common assault involves your acceptance of the fact that the punch was uncalled for and that it was not inflicted in self-defence, which was the defence which you ran in the trial before me.

13The prosecutor has not filed any victim impact statements on this plea.  This is for the practical reason that it is very difficult to know how much of the injury or consequences set out in the victim impact statements of your victim or his wife were connected with the offending for which I am to sentence you today. 

14Your plea of guilty to this offence has a significant community benefit in that it saves a further trial.  Any further trial would have been extremely difficult to manage given the inconclusive result from the first trial.  It has also saved your victim and his wife the trauma of giving further evidence. 

15You were involved, Mr Peisley, in an ugly incident but I take into account the fact that your victim was drunk on the occasion; it was an unfortunate incident overall.  I have indicated to your counsel that I regard you as having very little in the way of prior history.  I am told that you have some subsequent offending which has now been dealt with by way of a three month suspended sentence and it appears that everything has now been resolved except for one unresolved matter of theft about which I know nothing.

16I was originally, Mr Peisley, inclined to deal with you by way of a Community Corrections Order.  But it is my view now that the most appropriate way to deal with your offending on this occasion is by way of a fine.  I propose on the charge of common assault to convict you and sentence you to pay a fine of $2000.  Mr Peisley, I understand you are not working at the moment.  Your counsel will advise you about the arrangements which will need to be put in place to pay that fine. 

17Mr Peisely, what I have said to you in the course of these sentencing remarks is that you are someone with not a great prior history.  You now have a charge of assault against you as a conviction.  You got involved in this matter, unwisely.  If you become involved in further altercations or other breaches of the criminal law then at some stage you must expect to go to jail.  You are still a young man; you should take advantage of the opportunity that has been given to you in this hearing and the fortunate situation from your point of view in relation to the first trial is you are now facing a much lesser charge than you would have if the first trial had not reached such an inconclusive result.  You should take from this the opportunity to turn your life around, get yourself a decent job and not get in trouble any more.   Do you understand that?

18PRISONER:  I do.

19HER HONOUR:  Yes, thank you, you can come out of the dock, if someone will let you out.  Are there any other matters?

20MR MOORE:  No, Your Honour.

21HER HONOUR:  Very well, thank you.   

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