Director of Public Prosecutions v Pourre
[2016] VCC 816
•14 June, 2016
| IN THE COUNTY COURT OF VICTORIA AT MELBOURNE CRIMINAL DIVISION | Revised (Not) Restricted Suitable for Publication |
Case No. CR-15-01594
| DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROSECUTIONS |
| v |
| MATTHEW GUY POURRE |
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JUDGE: | HER HONOUR JUDGE CHAMBERS | |
WHERE HELD: | Melbourne | |
DATE OF HEARING: | 6 June, 2016 | |
DATE OF SENTENCE: | 14 June, 2016 | |
CASE MAY BE CITED AS: | DPP v Pourre | |
MEDIUM NEUTRAL CITATION: | [2016] VCC 816 | |
REASONS FOR SENTENCE
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APPEARANCES: | Counsel | Solicitors |
| For the DPP | Mr S. Ballek | OPP Victoria |
| For the Accused | Ms C. Woodward | Victoria Legal Aid |
HER HONOUR:
1 Matthew Pourre, you have pleaded guilty to one charge of intentionally causing serious injury, the maximum penalty for which is twenty years’ imprisonment.
2 A summary of the offending is Exhibit A in these plea proceedings. I do not intend to repeat the entirety of that summary.
3 Briefly, on Saturday 13 June 2015, you were present at a house you shared with others, including Tracey Briers in Fenton Avenue, Rosebud. Ms Briers’ friend, Noel Cramp, had travelled from Tasmania to Victoria to visit her. At the house, Mr Cramp began drinking alcohol with you and other male residents before moving inside to watch a movie. Once inside, an argument developed between you and Mr Cramp over seating arrangements. You asked Mr Cramp to move because he was sitting in your chair. Mr Cramp replied with words to the effect “Suck my dick”. You suggested you both “step outside” in response to which Mr Cramp said “Fuck off, I’ll stab you in the eye with a screwdriver”.
4 The violence of your response to this statement was entirely disproportionate to any perceived threat or insult. As Mr Cramp moved to the side door to leave, you approached him without warning and struck him hard to the side of his head with a clenched fist. The force of the hit was such that he fell to the floor. He then stood and walked out the sliding door to the adjoining carport area. Without further provocation, you followed Mr Cramp out to the carport and continued the assault by repeatedly punching and kicking him.
5 The assault was witnessed by some of the residents of the house. One resident, Mr Hayne, says he saw you standing over Mr Cramp punching and kicking into him. He describes you as “out of control” as you “violently bashed him”. He says he was scared you were going to kill Mr Cramp and called the police.
6 Another resident, Mr Wilson, says that each time Mr Cramp “went to ground”, you would stomp on his head or kick him to the face or head really hard. The carport floor was concrete. Mr Wilson describes the incident as “really violent”. He says he saw you take two steps and give Mr Cramp “a huge kick to the right side of his head”. He also says he was scared you were going to kill Mr Cramp.
7 Consistent with Mr Wilson’s observations, another resident, Mr Koglin, says he saw you stomp on Mr Cramp’s head.
8 Ultimately Mr Koglin persuaded you to return to the house. You then went into your bedroom and locked the door. When the police and ambulance arrived some time later, Mr Cramp was found lying on the concrete floor of the carport covered in blood. You remained hiding in your room. Mr Cramp was only able to recall that he was assaulted where he was found lying. He was taken to Dandenong Hospital for treatment.
9 The police spoke to other residents but they were too scared to name you as the offender and provided little assistance to police regarding the circumstances of the assault. You remained hiding and did not speak to police.
10
After the police and ambulance left, you arranged for your partner, Maree Broom, to come over to the house. She saw blood on your neck and face. You told her you had broken your hand and asked her to remove your blood soaked clothes but she refused. You told her that you “used Tracey’s partner as a trampoline” and that you had “almost beat this guy to death”. You asked
Ms Broom if you could go back to her house but she again refused your request.
11 On Monday 15 June 2015, after you argued with Ms Broom, she called police who attended and arrested you. On legal advice you declined to be interviewed.
12 As a result of the assault, Mr Cramp sustained bleeding to his brain and extensive facial bone fractures. He suffered multiple separate fractures to the base and front of his skull, eye sockets, sinuses, jaw, cheekbones and nasal bone. He was found to have separate fractures to his left little finger and bruising to his face and ears. Mr Cramp required surgery for an open reduction internal fixation of his fractured jaw, a procedure that involves realigning the bone fracture using steel rods, screws or plates. Mr Cramp was hospitalised for a week.
13 Forensic Physician Dr Nicole Cunningham later reviewed the injuries sustained by Mr Cramp. In her opinion the injuries resulted from severe blunt trauma and that the degree of force applied was significant enough to result in multiple fractures of the face and head with an associated intracranial bleed.
14 Mr Cramp, who is 48 years of age, was assisted in making a victim impact statement due to his difficulties with reading and writing. He describes being homeless and living on the foreshore. He says he is afraid to move into a boarding house as he fears being attacked again. He was clearly traumatised by the attack, describing nightmares in which he relived the assault. He says his relationship with Tracey Briers ended because he could not stop talking about it. He increased his drinking and smoking and did not attend medical and dental appointments as recommended because he now lacks motivation and says “it all gets too hard for me”. He says he has no one to help him.
15 Fortunately, he says the significant pain he suffered after the attack has abated but he suffers a residual numbness to the top of his teeth and trouble with speech that causes him embarrassment.
16 The statement of Mr Cramp is a powerful reminder of the effect of violent crime on the victims of such crime, particularly the vulnerable and I have taken his victim impact statement into account in determining the sentence I should impose on you.
17 This is a serious example of violent offending. The incident began with a trivial argument over seating arrangements. Certainly, Mr Cramp responded in a way that was offensive to you and was, to a degree, inflammatory. He had however, stood up and made to leave the house. At this point, he posed no threat to you. The incident could and should have ended there. Whilst I accept the assault on Mr Cramp was unplanned, it was a prolonged and unrelenting violent attack on him, particularly after he fell to ground. Defenceless, you repeatedly punched him, kicked him to the face and head and, in an extreme act of violence, stomped on his head. The degree of violence was such that observers feared you would kill Mr Cramp. In the event, he was seriously injured necessitating hospitalisation for multiple fractures to the head and major surgery to repair his fractured jaw.
18 It must be understood by you and others in the community that such conduct results in significant punishment.
19 I turn now to your personal circumstances.
20 Mr Pourre, you are 38 years old. You are the eldest of three siblings, born to parents who remain married. You attended three different high schools, and left school after a failed attempt at Year 11. You describe your father as a strict disciplinarian and you clashed with your mother. At 16 years of age you were asked to leave home. You worked in various jobs, including welding, security and recently as a labourer. At the age of 21 you married your girlfriend of three years when she became pregnant with your first child. After 12 years and two children, that marriage broke down and you no longer have any contact with your children.
21 It appears you did not cope well with the marriage breakdown. You had your first psychiatric admission following a suicide attempt in your early 30s and were subsequently diagnosed with depression and an adjustment disorder. You have had other brief admissions to psychiatric hospitals. You are now in receipt of a Disability Support Pension.
22 You have been in a relationship with your current partner, Maree Broom, for over one year and you formed a close bond with her three year-old son.
23 As to your medical history, you were born with agenesis of the Corpus Callosum, which has contributed to significant learning difficulties. Cognitive testing undertaken by Dr Rachel O’Meara, Clinical Neuropsychologist, in January 2015, revealed an overall cognitive functioning in the upper limit of the extremely low range, with a score of 70.
24 You have a history of significant alcohol abuse between 2007-2010 but report that you now consume alcohol rarely. I do note that you had however, been drinking on the day of this incident, although clearly that is no excuse for your conduct.
25 You have a prior criminal history dating back to April, 1996. Your priors for violent offending are however, limited to two matters. Relevantly, you were convicted and fined for recklessly causing injury in December 2013. The offence of recklessly causing injury arose when you head-butted the victim. Both you and the victim were heavily intoxicated at the time. In April, 2015 you were sentenced to one month's imprisonment for the offences of stalking, contravening a family violence intervention order and making a threat to kill. This offending arose in circumstances where you sent multiple text messages to your former partner, including the threatening one, in contravention of an intervention order.
26 I now turn to the matters submitted on your behalf in mitigation of sentence.
27 First, the matter resolved to a plea of guilty at an early stage. You will be given credit for the early plea, particularly as it has saved the victim from having to endure the trauma of giving evidence and you have saved the community the cost and expense associated with a criminal trial.
28 Although your initial response to the assault was to hide and avoid to responsibility for your conduct, I accept that by your plea and over time you have come to express genuine remorse for your offending. In particular, I have given weight to the statement you made to Dr Nina Zimmerman, Forensic Psychiatrist, when assessed by her in March 2016 that you “regret what [you] did every day” and that you “wish [you] had left the house…rather than resorting to violence”.
29 On your behalf, it was also submitted that your moral culpability for the assault is reduced due to the depressive symptoms you were suffering at the time.
30 Dr Zimmerman’s report, dated 6 March, 2016 forms part of Exhibit 1 in these plea proceedings. In that report she notes that you have experienced “episodes of major depression over the last decade associated with suicidal ideation and attempts to end his life, particularly at times of crisis”. Dr Zimmerman concludes that it is likely you were experiencing symptoms of depression at the time of the offending. She notes you were not taking antidepressants at the time; that you were experiencing difficulties in your relationship and reported problems sleeping.
31 However, Dr Zimmerman does not draw a clear link between the diagnosis of depression and the offending. At highest, Dr Zimmerman draws a generalised conclusion about the effects of depression, which, “particularly in males, can be associated with an increase in irritability”. It is in this context she expresses the view that depression “may have” contributed to your violent behaviour. In the absence of a clear nexus between the mental illness and your offending behaviour, I do not consider that your moral culpability for this offence is lessened by reason of your symptoms of depression at the time.
32
Similarly, whilst Dr Zimmerman noted your significant learning difficulties and assessment in the upper limit of the extremely low range of cognitive functioning, she does not conclude this contributed to your offending behaviour other than “the general limitation on [your] slow information processing speed which may have meant that [you] were less able to take all information into account before making an informed decision about a course of action”.
Dr Zimmerman’s assessment prevents a conclusion that your cognitive limitations directly contributed to your offending so as to reduce your moral culpability on that basis.
33 Your counsel also submits that your diagnosis of depression will make the burden of any imprisonment term harsher. Ms Elle Gianvanni, Forensic Psychologist, assessed you on 12 November 2015 and gave evidence in these plea proceedings. She expressed the view that in the context of your diagnosis of depression, your previous suicidal ideation and cognitive and intellectual deficits, an imprisonment term would be highly detrimental to your mental health “and possibly fatal”.
34 However, Ms Gianvanni’s assessment, undertaken on 12 November 2015, must be considered in light of the subsequent assessment of Dr Zimmerman in March 2016 where she diagnosed you with “depression, currently in remission”. Dr Zimmerman says you have re-commenced anti-depressants with good effect. Dr Zimmerman does, however, concur with Ms Gianvanni that you would be “uniquely vulnerable in a custodial setting as a result of your depressive illness as it would place [you] at increased risk of relapse”. I have taken this assessment into account in sentencing you, giving weight to Dr Zimmerman’s assessment of an increased risk of relapse notwithstanding your improved mental health on antidepressants.
35 Your counsel urged me to consider the imposition of an imprisonment term followed by a community correction order. However, the objective gravity of the offending and the need to impose a sentence that reflects the relevant sentencing objectives of just punishment, denunciation and general deterrence, make such a disposition inappropriate.
36 Further, intentionally causing serious injury is a serious violent offence and under the relevant provisions of the Sentencing Act1991 you are to be sentenced as a serious violent offender on this charge. I direct that this be entered into the record of the Court.
37 Accordingly, I am required to have regard to the provisions of Part 2A of the Sentencing Act which requires that, in determining the length of your sentence, I must regard protection of the community as the principal purpose for which sentence is imposed.
38 The prosecution has not sought, and I do not intend to impose a disproportionate sentence to meet that objective.
39 In light of your prior convictions, particularly for recklessly causing injury and making a threat to kill for which you were sentenced to one month’s imprisonment just two months prior to this offence, a sentence that operates as a specific deterrent to you must also be achieved.
40 Following your arrest, you were remanded in custody for 59 days and were then bailed, subject to compliance with the Court Integrated Support Program (CISP), on 12 August 2015. You have remained on bail to this day. You have not committed any further offences. Whilst on CISP you have been assisted with housing and referrals to a general practitioner. You have remained on anti-depressant medication. You have continued on your community correction order and have been undertaking work as a carpenter with your father, Guy Pourre, to whom you have become closer. I have had regard to the assessment of Ms Gianvanni that you pose a moderate-low risk of reoffending, including violent offending. These factors, combined, lead me to conclude that with continuing treatment and a willingness to comply, your future prospects of a life without further offending are moderately good.
41 Mr Pourre, on the charge of intentionally causing serious injury, you are convicted and sentenced to five years’ imprisonment. I fix a minimum term of three years before you will be eligible for parole.
42 I declare that you have served 59 days of pre-sentence detention.
43 Pursuant to s6AAA of the Sentencing Act I indicate that I would have imposed an effective sentence of seven years' imprisonment with a non-parole period of five years had you not pleaded guilty to the offence.
44 I also order that you undergo a forensic procedure for the taking of a scraping from your mouth. You must co-operate with authorities in the taking of the mouth scraping. If you do not cooperate, reasonable force may be used to obtain a blood sample from you. I make this order because of the seriousness of the offending, your prior convictions warrant the making of the order, the making of the order is in the public interest, and for the reason that you consented to the order being made.
45 Are there any other matters?
46 MS BALLEK: No, Your Honour.
47 MS WOODWARD: No.
48 HER HONOUR: All right, good.
49 (Section 464ZF order signed and acknowledged.)
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