Director of Public Prosecutions v Pualic

SUPREME COURT OF VICTORIA

COURT OF APPEAL

S EAPCR 2025 0015

DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROSECUTIONS	Appellant
v
JAMES WILLIAM PUALIC	Respondent

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JUDGES:	EMERTON P, KENNEDY and ORR JJA
WHERE HELD:	Bendigo
DATE OF HEARING:	13 May 2025
DATE OF JUDGMENT:	6 August 2025
MEDIUM NEUTRAL CITATION:	[2025] VSCA 178
JUDGMENT APPEALED FROM:	[2024] VSC 817 (Incerti J)

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CRIMINAL LAW – Director’s appeal – Sentence – Murder – Offender stabbed former intimate partner to death in her home in front of her young child – Offender subject to intervention order at time of offence – Plea of guilty – Standard sentence for murder 25 years – Whether sentence of 24 years and 6 months’ imprisonment with non-parole period of 19 years manifestly inadequate – Profound childhood disadvantage – Offender intoxicated and suffering from mental impairment at time of offending – Whether murder of intimate partner necessitates sentence higher than standard sentence for murder – Sentence lenient but within range – Appeal dismissed.

Sentencing Act 1991, ss 5A, 5B.

DPP v Karazisis (2010) 31 VR 634; R v Verdins (2007) 16 VR 269; Bugmy v The Queen (2013) 249 CLR 571; Wright v The Queen (2015) 257 A Crim R 261; Brown v The Queen (2019) 59 VR 462; Skeates (a pseudonym) v The King [2023] VSCA 226; Marrah v The Queen [2014] VSCA 119.

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Counsel
Appellant:		Ms DI Piekusis KC with Ms J Poole
Respondent:		Ms GF Connelly SC with Ms I Siriwardana
Solicitors
Appellant:	Ms A Hogan, Solicitor for Public Prosecutions
Respondent:	Victoria Legal Aid

EMERTON P
KENNEDY JA
ORR JA:

On 29 October 2023, the respondent murdered his former partner, Analyn Osias, in her home. The murder was witnessed by Ms Osias’s 8 year old daughter. Ms Osias was 46 years old. She had been in a relationship with the respondent for a number of months before they separated in July 2023. At the time of Ms Osias’s murder, as a result of a violent assault committed by the respondent on Ms Osias in the immediate aftermath of their separation, there was an interim intervention order in place. The order prevented the respondent from contacting or approaching Ms Osias or her two youngest children, with whom she lived.
The respondent pleaded guilty to one charge of murder.[1] The maximum penalty for murder is life imprisonment. The standard sentence is 25 years’ imprisonment.
[1]Contrary to common law.
On 20 December 2024, the respondent was sentenced to 24 years and 6 months’ imprisonment. A non-parole period of 19 years was fixed. The sentencing judge declared pursuant to s 6AAA of the Sentencing Act 1991 that were it not for the respondent’s plea of guilty, she would have sentenced him to 29 years’ imprisonment and fixed a non-parole period of 24 years.
The Director of Public Prosecutions (the ‘appellant’) appeals the respondent’s sentence on the ground that the sentence, including the non-parole period, is manifestly inadequate.

Circumstances of the offending

Ms Osias and the respondent commenced a relationship around October 2022, although they had known each other for some years. The respondent moved into Ms Osias’s home in Kangaroo Flat in late 2022. Ms Osias had four children, the youngest of whom we will refer to as X and Y. X and Y resided with Ms Osias and were aged 8 and 6 years respectively at the time of her murder. X and Y’s father had been killed in a car accident in 2020. The respondent had two children of his own, who resided with his former partner, MP.[2]
[2]With the consent of the parties, the respondent’s former partner has been identified by a pseudonym.
X told police that her mother’s relationship with the respondent started to ‘fizzle out’ when the respondent drank a lot of alcohol, and that her mother and the respondent had many fights. X described their relationship as ‘love, then aggressive, love and then aggressive’, with the respondent being the aggressive one.
In July 2023, eight months into their relationship, Ms Osias asked the respondent to leave, which he did. The following night at around 10:30 pm she was at home with X and Y. The respondent arrived at the house and began banging on the windows and doors. Ms Osias asked him to leave and to respect her position. She did not let him inside. A short time later, the respondent again banged on the windows and asked to talk to her. Ms Osias rang her older daughter, Lexy. While they were on the phone, Lexy heard the respondent saying, ‘if you don’t come out here, I’m going to kill myself’. Lexy drove to her mother’s house and found the respondent in the driveway. She told him to leave or she would call the police, and the respondent walked off.
A few hours later, between 1:00 am and 1:30 am, the respondent returned to Ms Osias’s home. He banged on the windows of the bedroom where Ms Osias was asleep with X and Y. Ms Osias had moved into her daughters’ room to protect them from the respondent. The respondent moved to the front door, where he kicked the screen door and pulled it off its hinges. He then kicked in the front door and entered the house. By this time, Ms Osias was again on the phone to Lexy. The respondent grabbed the phone from her, pulling out some of her hair in the process. He dragged her to the ground, causing her head to hit the floor. Lexy called the police. By the time the police arrived, the respondent had left the premises.
Later that day, the respondent was arrested and taken to the Bendigo Hospital for a Mental Health Assessment. Ms Osias’s mobile phone was located in his possession. The respondent was assessed to have acute suicidal ideation. He reported that before breaking into Ms Osias’s house the previous evening, he had been in her garage, where he consumed 450 ml of vodka and attempted to gas himself with the car exhaust.
The respondent remained at Bendigo Hospital as a voluntary psychiatric patient until he discharged himself on 4 August 2023. An interim Domestic Violence Order was made that day and personally served on the respondent. It prevented the respondent from engaging in various behaviours, including contacting or communicating with Ms Osias, X or Y; approaching within 5 metres of them; or approaching within 200 metres of their home.
Following the assault on her mother in their home, X observed the respondent following them in his car on multiple occasions. She did not tell her mother because she did not want her to get worried. The respondent also made multiple telephone calls to Ms Osias in breach of the intervention order. Between 17 and 28 October 2023, the respondent called Ms Osias 21 times. Ms Osias did not answer most of these calls.
At approximately 4:00 pm on Sunday 29 October 2023, Ms Osias left X and Y at home with a babysitter and went to her job at an aged care facility. Before leaving, Ms Osias told the babysitter to keep the blinds closed and the doors and windows locked. Ms Osias returned home at approximately 9:50 pm and the babysitter left.
That night, the respondent sent Ms Osias a series of text messages, to which she did not respond. He had consumed half a bottle of vodka that morning and consumed the remainder of the bottle in the evening. He also took 12 olanzapine tablets with the vodka he consumed in the evening, apparently to kill himself.
Shortly after 11:00 pm, the respondent arrived at Ms Osias’s house. Ms Osias and her daughters were asleep in the girls’ bedroom. The respondent broke the bedroom window. He then forced his way into the premises through a side sliding door. The respondent dragged Ms Osias out of bed. Much of the detail of what happened next is only known through the retelling by X, who got out of bed after she was awoken by her mother’s screams. The respondent has said that he has no memory of that evening.
X saw blood leading to the kitchen and dining area. She then saw her mother lying on the dining room floor. X saw the respondent strangle her mother and bang her mother’s head on the floor. She saw the respondent grab a large kitchen knife from the kitchen, where he had ‘ripped out’ the top cutlery drawer. Ms Osias had previously told the respondent that this was where she kept her special sharpest knife. The respondent used the knife to stab Ms Osias multiple times and to cut her neck.
X yelled at the respondent to stop. He did not respond. He called Ms Osias a bitch. There was a lot of blood and Ms Osias began to gasp. The respondent then left the premises through the back door, which led into the backyard. X followed him and asked where her mother’s phone was. The respondent told her that it was in the bedroom. X watched the respondent jump over the fence. He was wearing a black T shirt, black underwear and no shoes.
X returned to her bedroom, where she woke her younger sister and located her mother’s phone. She could hear her mother trying to breathe. She called Triple 0. She told the operator that she thought her mother was dead and that there was blood on the ground. She expressed fear that the respondent was still in the house or nearby.
Attending police found Ms Osias lying on her back in a large pool of blood in the living/dining area. X and Y were crying. There was a large pool of blood under Ms Osias’s neck and head, as well as on her face, hair and neck. Her face was swollen and there were lacerations to her face and around her right eye. There was a significant laceration to her neck. A large, straight edged knife, covered in blood, was located in the crook of Ms Osias’s left elbow.
Ms Osias was unresponsive. Paramedics attempted to perform CPR and traumatic cardiac arrest interventions. Ms Osias was conveyed by ambulance to the Bendigo Health Emergency Department for emergency medical treatment but was declared dead shortly after her arrival.
At approximately 2:44 am the following morning, police located the respondent’s car parked on the edge of the Barkers Creek Reservoir, approximately 20 km from Ms Osias’s house. The keys to the car were located on the ground a short distance from the vehicle. There was blood inside the vehicle.
At approximately 4:25 am, police located the respondent lying on his back on the bank of the Barkers Creek Reservoir with his legs submerged in water. He was arrested. He appeared to be incoherent and substance affected. He was transported by ambulance to the Bendigo Hospital, where he was treated for cuts to his left foot, grazes on the back of his right leg and a cut on his left arm. His mobile phone was not located and has never been recovered.
Upon his release from hospital on 31 October 2023, the respondent was interviewed by police. He gave a no comment interview.
An autopsy revealed extensive bruising to Ms Osias’s scalp, fractures to her left cheek and eye socket and to both sides of her jaw. She had two stab wounds in her neck, one of which had cut her carotid artery, along with bruises, abrasions, lacerations and incised wounds to her head, face, neck, collarbone and arms. She had defensive injuries to her hands and severe bruising on her temples. There were also injuries consistent with neck compression from manual strangulation. Ms Osias’s cause of death was determined to be head and neck injuries, including exsanguination from a stab wound to her carotid artery.

Sentencing reasons

After outlining the circumstances of the offending, the sentencing judge addressed the effect of the offending on Ms Osias’s loved ones. She observed that the offending had deprived X and Y of their only parent and robbed Lexy of her young adulthood. At 20 years old, Lexy had become the guardian of her two younger sisters. The judge described Lexy’s victim impact statement as ‘harrowing and incredibly moving’. Lexy described herself as living in her ‘worst nightmare’, engulfed by indescribable pain, heartbreak and numbness. She spoke of the impact her mother’s death had had on X and Y, and of the unfathomable trauma they had endured.[3]
[3]DPP v Pualic [2024] VSC 817, [18]–[19] (‘Reasons’).
The judge observed that X and Y were affected by the offending in ways they were still too young to understand. They were scared to lose the people they love because that loss was all they had known. Y, who was now seven years old, struggled to understand healthy relationship dynamics and assumed that any disagreement between a couple would lead to someone getting hurt. X, who was now nine years old, blamed herself for things beyond her control. As the judge observed, the lives of Ms Osias’s three daughters have been irrevocably changed.[4]
[4]Reasons, [19].
The judge also referred to a victim impact statement provided by Ms Helen Turley, Ms Osias’s sister in law. Ms Turley described Ms Osias as a caring, resilient and hard-working woman, who had already endured more hardship than many others. She described her as an inspiration and said that her heart was broken for Ms Osias, her children, and all that Ms Osias had worked so hard to achieve.[5]
[5]Reasons, [21].
The judge observed that Ms Osias had been born in the Philippines as one of seven children. She had often been beaten and left to sleep in the streets. Despite this, she continued to support and provide for her family back in the Philippines after she migrated to Australia in the early 2000s, in addition to raising her own family in Australia. She had experienced further hardship through the breakdown of two relationships and the tragic death of her former partner. She was incredibly resilient and had worked hard to educate herself and gain employment. She was described as a kind, courageous and loving mother.[6]
[6]Reasons, [22].
The judge then turned to the respondent’s personal circumstances. The respondent was 44 years old at the time of the offending and was now aged 45. He was the eldest of five children. His parents had separated when he was young and he had largely been raised by his maternal grandparents. He had spent a short period in foster care. The respondent had met MP, his former partner, when he was around 24 years old. They had their first child in 2011 and a second child in 2014. They were together for approximately 12 years before their relationship ended in 2020.[7]
[7]Reasons, [24]–[27].
The judge described the respondent’s childhood as traumatic and dysfunctional. He was a witness and a victim of family violence, including physical and sexual abuse. He left school part way through Year 11 and obtained employment in various unskilled roles. He had been exposed to alcoholism through his father and maternal grandfather and began using illicit substances at a young age as a means of self-medicating. As an adolescent, the respondent consumed cannabis daily. He also began using alcohol and consuming excessive amounts of benzodiazepines.[8]
[8]Reasons, [28]–[30].
The judge observed that during adulthood, the respondent’s addiction largely manifested as alcohol dependence and the use of unprescribed sedatives. The respondent had engaged in voluntary and mandatory drug and alcohol rehabilitation, most recently in 2021. His mental instability had been a pervasive factor in his life. Throughout adolescence and into adulthood, he had reported paranoia and depression. He had engaged in self-harm. However, he had also experienced periods of mental and social stability, which largely coincided with his relationship with MP.[9]
[9]Reasons, [31]–[33].
The judge recorded that as early as 1995, when he was 16 years old,[10] the respondent received a provisional diagnosis of prodromal psychosis. In late 1996 or early 1997, he was diagnosed with schizophreniform psychosis. His diagnoses had varied in the subsequent decades, however he had recently been assessed as presenting with complex post-traumatic stress disorder and schizotypal disorder, conditions which were trauma related and genetically based.[11]
[10]The judge incorrectly recorded that the respondent was 19 years old.
[11]Reasons, [34].
The judge referred to the respondent’s prior criminal history, which she described as limited but concerning, involving a history of resorting to violence. In 1999, at the age of 20, the respondent had been found not guilty by reason of mental impairment of one charge of malicious wounding with intent to inflict grievous bodily harm. He had stabbed the victim three times, with one stab wound puncturing the victim’s lung. He was placed in secure psychiatric units between 1999 and 2003. In 2011, the respondent had received a suspended sentence of 4 months’ imprisonment after being convicted of recklessly causing injury. The victim was a male stranger and the offending was connected to the breakdown of the respondent’s relationship with MP.[12]
[12]Reasons, [35]–[37].
At the time of Ms Osias’s murder, the respondent was subject to pending charges in relation to his assault on Ms Osias in July 2023. As the judge observed, there were also instances of family violence during the respondent’s relationship with MP. MP recalled that after their relationship ended, there was ‘a lot of verbal abuse and some stalking’ on the respondent’s part. She reported that the respondent punched her car and the fridge, and threatened violence against her. The police were not involved in any of these incidents. The separation between the respondent and MP was said to be largely amicable, with the respondent continuing to co-parent his two children.[13]
[13]Reasons, [38].
The judge observed that the respondent had previously made limited attempts to engage in specific treatment, including anger management and men’s behaviour change programs.[14]
[14]Reasons, [39].
The judge then turned to specific sentencing considerations, beginning with the objective gravity of the respondent’s offending. The judge was satisfied that at the time of the murder, the respondent had lost his self-control. She was satisfied that this loss of self-control was driven by what Associate Professor Andrew Carroll, a forensic psychiatrist who examined the respondent, described as a ‘strong subjective sense of moral indignation and rage’ towards Ms Osias, who in the respondent’s mind had abruptly and unfairly abandoned, betrayed and deliberately hurt him.[15]
[15]Reasons, [40]–[41].
The judge observed that the ferocity of the physical assault and the number and location of Ms Osias’s stab wounds was indisputable evidence that the respondent could only have intended to kill Ms Osias. The respondent had attended Ms Osias’s home late at night when she was asleep. He knew that no other adult was likely to be present. He knew the layout of the house and that he was not welcome there. He violently forced entry to the home and set upon Ms Osias without hesitation, dragging her from her bed. While describing the attack as one that was not ‘carefully planned’, the judge nevertheless concluded that there was a degree of forethought implicit in the respondent’s behaviour.[16]
[16]Reasons, [41]–[42].
The judge described the respondent as having totally overpowered Ms Osias, who was almost half his weight and more than a foot shorter. She said that Ms Osias would have been completely defenceless against the respondent, whose presence in these circumstances must have been terrifying, as she vainly tried to defend herself. The respondent strangled Ms Osias and repeatedly beat her head against the ground. Having disabled her, he proceeded to arm himself with a knife from the kitchen and continue the attack. Following the infliction of the fatal stab wounds, the respondent left Ms Osias severely wounded and dying. Before leaving, he referred to Ms Osias as a ‘bitch’. The judge described the respondent’s offending as cruel, vicious and entirely merciless.[17]
[17]Reasons, [43]–[44].
The judge referred to a number of matters that aggravated the offending. The assault was an unprovoked attack against the respondent’s former partner. It escalated to the use of a weapon, despite Ms Osias being unarmed, immobilised and utterly defenceless. Ms Osias was killed in the presence of her young daughter, while her youngest daughter lay in bed metres away. The respondent knew full well that he would leave Ms Osias’s four children motherless and, given the death of their father, that X and Y would be orphaned. Ms Osias was killed in her own home, where she and her children were entitled to feel safe. The respondent brazenly flouted the intervention order that had been put in place to protect Ms Osias. He attacked and killed her simply because she had expressed a desire not to speak to him and had made it clear that the relationship was over. The judge stated that ‘objectively, Ms Osias’ murder … was a most serious instance of that offence’.[18]
[18]Reasons, [45]–[48].

The judge then turned to an assessment of the respondent’s moral culpability. She considered Professor Carroll’s evidence and the respondent’s background and personal circumstances. The judge recorded that Professor Carroll had assessed and diagnosed the respondent with complex post-traumatic stress disorder and schizotypal disorder, conditions which he believed had their genesis in the respondent’s adolescence. She referred to Professor Carroll’s opinion that the respondent’s complex post-traumatic stress disorder largely manifested through severe problems with affect and emotional regulation, particularly in the context of intimate partners. The respondent had often resorted to heavy alcohol use, violence or suicidal actions as a means of emotional regulation during times of stress.[19]
[19]Reasons, [49]–[51], [58].
The judge observed that the respondent’s mental state at the time of the killing was characterised by an intense rage directed towards Ms Osias. He was severely emotionally dysregulated and may have been experiencing a degree of psychosis. The judge found it difficult to be satisfied as to whether the respondent was in an actively suicidal state so that his offending could be classified as a ‘murder-failed suicide’, as Professor Carroll had opined. She said that in any event, this would have been neither a mitigating nor aggravating factor.[20]
[20]Reasons, [52].
The judge then said the following:
53.In his evidence, Dr Carroll expressed the view that an individual without [the respondent’s] mental health profile would be unlikely to have reacted in the same disproportionate manner. Further, [the respondent’s] extreme reaction was influenced by [his] intoxication with alcohol and sedatives.
54.Crucially, Dr Carroll’s evidence is that it was the tandem effects of [the respondent’s] Complex PTSD and [his] intoxication which led [him] to behave in the way that [he] did. Put another way, either of those factors on their own would not have been sufficient to enliven the ‘rage’ which led [the respondent] to murder Ms Osias. Had [the respondent] not used alcohol that day, it is unlikely Ms Osias would have been killed.
55.Accepting Dr Carroll’s evidence as I do, there is a degree of causal connection between [the respondent’s] Complex PTSD and [his] offending. However, the degree of mitigation requires consideration of the nature and severity of both the impairment and the offending behaviour.[21] Through [the respondent’s] plea of guilty, [the respondent] accept[ed] that [he] intended to kill Ms Osias. I accept that [the respondent’s] mental impairment had a bearing on the magnitude of rage [he] felt towards her, and possibly on [his] capacity for self-control. However, it does not impact [his] understanding of what [he was] doing, the seriousness of [his] conduct, and its consequences. I am prepared to accept that [the respondent’s] Complex PTSD compromised [his] capacity to control [his] temper, and to that limited extent, played some role in [his] offending.[22]
[21]The judge cited R v Verdins (2007) 16 VR 269, 275 [25]–[26] (Maxwell P, Buchanan and Vincent JJA); [2007] VSCA 102 (‘Verdins’).
[22]Citations to evidence of Professor Carroll omitted.
The judge rejected a submission that general deterrence should have no role to play in determining the appropriate sentence. She said that there was nothing to indicate that the respondent did not have a full appreciation of the wrongfulness of his conduct. She observed that submissions on specific deterrence ‘did not assume much significance’.[23]
[23]Reasons, [56].
The judge said that she had had regard to the respondent’s significant history of trauma, including his unstable and unsettled childhood and adolescence. In light of this, the respondent’s moral culpability could not be equated with that of a person who had the advantage of a normal, stable and regular upbringing.[24] The judge said that she was prepared to accept that the respondent’s mental impairment and disturbed childhood were relevant factors that mitigated his moral culpability for Ms Osias’s murder. But she said that ‘the extent to which they do so must be limited’. The judge concluded that, taking these matters into account, the respondent’s moral culpability could ‘only be characterised as high’.[25]
[24]Citing Bugmy v The Queen (2013) 249 CLR 571; [2013] HCA 37 (‘Bugmy’).
[25]Reasons, [57]–[58].
The judge then turned to the respondent’s plea of guilty and remorse. She accepted that the respondent had offered to plead guilty at the earliest possible opportunity and that the plea was of great utilitarian value. She was satisfied that the plea was reflective of genuine remorse, manifested at an early stage.[26]
[26]Reasons, [59].
As to the respondent’s prospects of rehabilitation, the judge described consideration of this factor as a ‘somewhat vexed exercise, noting that the inevitable consequence of [the respondent’s] offending is the imposition of a lengthy head sentence and non-parole period’. She accepted that the respondent had attempted to use his time in custody productively and had remained a model prisoner. She referred to the respondent’s compliance with treatment in custody and to his encouraging response to that treatment. His schizotypal disorder was now under control with prescribed medication, however the long-term psychotherapy required to manage his complex post-traumatic stress disorder had not been readily available in custody. The respondent was also on the waitlist for drug and alcohol treatment programs. His rehabilitation was said to rely on his receipt of this treatment. Ultimately, the judge concluded that, provided the respondent had access to appropriate mental health care and remained abstinent from substances, his prospects of rehabilitation were reasonable.[27]
[27]Reasons, [60]–[65].
Before passing sentence, the judge referred to a number of other factors she was required to take into account in determining the appropriate sentence. These were the principle of parsimony, the application of the standard sentence scheme, and the need for the sentence to adequately express condemnation of the respondent’s offending and to vindicate the value of each individual life. As to the standard sentence scheme, the judge said that she had ‘had regard to the standard sentence of 25 years in determining the appropriate sentence’, which was ‘to be treated as a legislative guidepost and is only one factor that must be considered as part of the instinctive synthesis’.[28]
[28]Reasons, [66]–[68], citing Brown v The Queen (2019) 59 VR 462; [2019] VSCA 286 (‘Brown’).
The judge referred to the need for the sentence to send a clear message to all men, in circumstances where the murder of women at the hands of an enraged male partner was ‘a type of crime that had become distressingly familiar’, that serious violence in a domestic setting and taking the life of another would be met with extraordinarily strong punishment.[29]
[29]Reasons, [70]–[71]. The judge referred to the fact that in the two months prior, the Supreme Court had sentenced three other men for murder in the context of family violence, in DPP v Barbaro [2024] VSC 667, DPP v Lo Bianco [2024] VSC 681 and DPP v Kurera [2024] VSC 809.

Appellant’s submissions

The appellant submitted that the respondent’s sentence of 24 years and 6 months’ imprisonment, with a non-parole period of 19 years, compelled the conclusion that undue weight had been given to the extent to which the first and third limbs of the Verdins principles[30] operated in mitigation, and that inadequate weight had been given to general and specific deterrence, denunciation, just punishment, community protection, the maximum penalty for murder and the standard sentence for murder of 25 years’ imprisonment. The appellant submitted that the matters that the respondent could rely upon in mitigation were limited, and were not such as to mitigate the sentence to the extent that it fell below the standard sentence.
[30]Verdins (2007) 16 VR 269, 276 [32] (Maxwell P, Buchanan and Vincent JJA); [2007] VSCA 102. The first limb of Verdins is the principle that impaired mental functioning may reduce the moral culpability of the offending conduct. The third limb is the principle that impaired mental functioning may require general deterrence to be moderated or eliminated as a sentencing consideration, depending upon the nature and severity of the offender’s symptoms and the effect of the condition on the offender’s mental capacity, whether at the time of the offending or the date of the sentence or both.
The appellant emphasised that the respondent had violently murdered his former intimate partner in the presence of her young children, and in circumstances where the full force of the law, expressed through the intervention order, had not been enough to protect Ms Osias from the respondent. His offending undermined the community’s confidence in the ability of the law to protect women and children. The sentence failed to reflect the judge’s findings that the objective gravity of the offending was ‘most serious’ and that his moral culpability was high.
The appellant identified the following as features of particular moment in assessing the objective gravity of the offending:
(a)the offending breached the intervention order served on the respondent less than three months prior to the offending;
(b)the respondent had already breached the intervention order prior to the murder of Ms Osias, including by contacting her by telephone on numerous occasions;
(c)the attack occurred late at night in Ms Osias’s own home, where she and her children were entitled to feel safe;
(d)there was a degree of forethought implicit in the respondent’s behaviour — he was familiar with Ms Osias’s home, expected her to be at home and attacked her immediately upon entry, demonstrating that this was not spontaneous or acutely reactive conduct;
(e)the attack was ‘cruel, vicious and entirely merciless’, involving strangulation, beating Ms Osias’s head upon the ground, stabbing her twice in the neck with a knife obtained from the kitchen, and causing other incised wounds to her face and body;
(f)Ms Osias was much smaller than the respondent, was in bed when he entered her home, and was ‘completely defenceless’ against his unexpected and unprovoked attack;
(g)the ferocity of the assault and the number and location of the stab wounds was such that the respondent ‘could only have intended to kill the deceased’;
(h)the attack occurred in the presence of Ms Osias’s 8 year old daughter, with her 6 year old daughter in bed close by; and
(i)the respondent left immediately after the attack, leaving Ms Osias severely injured and dying in the company of her two young children.
Further, the appellant submitted, the impact of the offending on the deceased’s family was profound and lifelong. The totality of the circumstances was such that the judge assessed the offending, objectively, as a ‘most serious instance’ of the offence of murder. The appellant submitted that the objective gravity of the offending was therefore ‘above mid-range’.
As to the respondent’s moral culpability and the application of the principles articulated in R v Verdins[31] and Bugmy v The Queen,[32] the appellant accepted that the judge had found that the respondent’s mental health conditions had some causal connection to the offending, in that they had a bearing on the magnitude of the rage he felt towards Ms Osias and possibly on his capacity for self-control. However, the appellant submitted that the degree of causal connection must be understood in the context of the judge’s findings that those conditions did not impact the respondent’s understanding of what he was doing, the seriousness of his conduct or its consequences, and that it was unlikely that Ms Osias would have been killed had the respondent not used alcohol on the day. The appellant emphasised that the respondent had chosen to use alcohol that day in circumstances where he knew the impact that intoxication had upon him.
[31](2007) 16 VR 269; [2007] VSCA 102.
[32](2013) 249 CLR 571; [2013] HCA 37.
Although the judge found that the respondent’s significant history of trauma enlivened the principles in Bugmy, the appellant submitted that the judge found that those principles were also only enlivened to some degree. While the respondent’s mental impairment and disturbed childhood mitigated his moral culpability (the first limb of the Verdins principles), the extent to which they did so was described by the judge as ‘limited’. Ultimately, the judge had concluded that the respondent’s moral culpability was high. And while the judge considered that there may be a limited reduction in the relevance of general deterrence in the calculus of considerations (the third limb of the Verdins principles), she found that there was no reason that general deterrence should have no role to play. No express allowance was made for the second, fourth, fifth or sixth limbs of the Verdins principles.
The appellant also made submissions about current sentencing practices, acknowledging that such practices are not determinative and do not ‘cap and collar’ the appropriate sentencing range.[33] The appellant provided the Court with a table of 16 cases involving the murder of current or former intimate partners in which an offender has been sentenced since the introduction of the standard sentence regime.[34]
[33]Citing DPP v Dalgliesh (a pseudonym) (2017) 262 CLR 428, 434 [9] (Kiefel CJ, Bell and Keane JJ), 453–4 [82]–[83] (Gageler and Gordon JJ); [2017] HCA 41.
[34]This table was also provided to the sentencing judge. The cases listed in the table were as follows, in order from the longest sentence imposed to the shortest: R v Basham [2023] VSC 79; DPP v Kurera [2024] VSC 809; DPP v Lindemann [2024] VSC 220 (‘Lindemann’); R v Cameron [2020] VSC 334; DPP v Tan [2023] VSC 416; DPP v Barbaro [2024] VSC 667; DPP v Coman [2023] VSC 159; DPP v Fairhall [2022] VSC 444; R v Robertson [2019] VSC 145; DPP v Lo Bianco [2024] VSC 681; DPP v Brown [2023] VSC 311; DPP v Gonzalez [2022] VSC 331, DPP v Pandilovski [2023] VSC 514; R v Margolis [2021] VSC 341; DPP v Kingdon [2021] VSC 858; DPP v Bell [2020] VSC 664.
The appellant submitted that the two cases involving the highest sentences in the table, R v Basham[35] and Director of Public Prosecutions v Kurera,[36] were distinguishable. Basham had been sentenced to life imprisonment with a non-parole period of 30 years and Kurera had been sentenced to 37 years’ imprisonment with a non-parole period of 30 years. Each of these offenders had pleaded not guilty and there was evidence of other aggravating features, such as considerable premeditation or planning. The appellant submitted that these two cases demonstrated the ‘outer range of current sentencing practices for domestic violence killings’.
[35][2023] VSC 79.
[36][2024] VSC 809.
The most comparable case was, the appellant submitted, Director of Public Prosecutions v Lindemann,[37] which also involved an early plea of guilty to a brutal domestic murder. Lindemann had killed his intimate partner in the presence of her two young children, as well as her frail mother. He had punched and stabbed the victim with six knives, inflicting 17 wounds, and injured her daughter when she came to her mother’s defence. He was motivated by jealousy, rage and a sense of entitlement. Unlike the respondent, Lindemann had no prior convictions and there was no indication of premeditation or planning. However, the need for Lindemann to serve his sentence in protective custody was a relevant factor. There was no evidence that Lindemann suffered from any mental impairment or cognitive deficit, and he was found to have no remorse and to hold problematic gender-based beliefs. The Court imposed a total effective sentence of 31 years’ imprisonment, 1 year of which was attributable to the offence of recklessly causing injury to the victim’s daughter while she was trying to defend her mother. A non-parole period of 25 years was fixed.
[37][2024] VSC 220.
The appellant identified three cases in the table involving similar sentences to that imposed in the present case.[38] The appellant sought to distinguish each of those cases on the basis that the offenders were able to call in aid some combination of the following mitigatory features: prior good character; the provision of assistance; findings of genuine remorse; positive prospects of rehabilitation; and the application of Verdins principles.
[38]R v Robertson [2019] VSC 145 (24 years’ imprisonment with a non-parole period of 19 years); DPP v Lo Bianco [2024] VSC 681 (24 years’ imprisonment with a non-parole period of 18 years and 6 months); DPP v Brown [2023] VSC 311 (24 years’ imprisonment with a non-parole period of 17 years and 6 months).
The appellant acknowledged that there were cases in the table where lower sentences had been imposed than in the present case, and submitted that the offenders in those cases, by and large, had a number of matters in mitigation that were not available to the respondent. These included different personal circumstances, the applicability of the Worboyes principle, and different Verdins or Bugmy-type considerations.
As to the application of Worboyes,[39] the appellant noted that a large number of the cases in the table involved the application of this principle, which had the effect of compressing the sentences imposed. While acknowledging that it was hard to quantify the effect of the application of this principle in each case, the appellant submitted that its impact meant that there needed to be a correction when considering the range of sentences as a whole.
[39]Worboyes v The Queen (2021) 96 MVR 344; [2021] VSCA 169.
Ultimately, the appellant submitted that the present case needs to be looked at on its own and that current sentencing practices were but one factor to consider.
The appellant submitted that the murder of an intimate partner was an inherently serious form of murder, which warranted a higher sentence than the standard sentence. The murder of a female domestic partner by an ‘angry and embittered’ male was a type of crime that had become ‘distressingly familiar’.[40] It was an extreme form of family violence that was to be denounced in the strongest terms.[41] General deterrence necessarily assumed significance, and it might, the appellant submitted, be necessary to regard the killing of women in intimate relationships as a separate category of murders for the purposes of general deterrence.
[40]Citing DPP v Coman [2023] VSC 159, [168] (Tinney J).
[41]Citing Felicite v The Queen (2011) 37 VR 329, 333 [20] (Redlich JA, Harper JA agreeing at 338 [44]); [2011] VSCA 274.
Finally, the appellant submitted that the judge did not expressly comply with the statutory requirement to ‘refer to the standard sentence for the offence and explain how the sentence imposed … relates to that standard sentence’.[42] While it was not contended that this constituted a specific error, the appellant submitted that the judge’s failure to explain how the sentence imposed related to the standard sentence bespeaks ‘implied error’, in circumstances where the judge considered the objective gravity of the offending to be ‘most serious’, there were limited matters in mitigation, and yet the sentence imposed was less than the standard sentence.
[42]Sentencing Act 1991, s 5B(5).

Respondent’s submissions

The respondent submitted that this Court should reject the appellant’s invitation to regard the murder of an intimate partner as a category of the offence that necessarily warrants a sentence greater than the standard sentence of 25 years’ imprisonment. This would, the respondent submitted, result in an impermissible use of the standard sentence, which is no more than a legislative guidepost. To take a single objective feature of an offence, such as the fact that it involved the killing of an intimate partner, and to use that feature to determine where the offence should sit relative to the standard sentence, would impermissibly amount to two-stage sentencing.[43] Instead, the respondent submitted, the Court should approach the appeal by taking the orthodox approach of considering whether the sentence imposed was wholly outside the range of sentences that was open to the sentencing judge to impose.
[43]Citing Brown (2019) 59 VR 462, 474 [42] (Maxwell P, Priest, Kaye, T Forrest and Emerton JJA); [2019] VSCA 286.

In response to the appellant’s submission that the matters in mitigation did not support a sentence that was less than the standard sentence, the respondent submitted that the appellant’s equation — ‘most serious [offending] minus limited mitigation does not equal a number less than the standard sentence’ — was a rudimentary calculation that did not do justice to the process of instinctive synthesis. The judge’s finding that the offending was ‘most serious’ was an assessment of the objective gravity of the offending that preceded the judge’s evaluation of the respondent’s moral culpability for the offending and synthesis of other sentencing considerations. Therefore, the finding that the offending was ‘most serious’ was not inconsistent with a decision to impose a sentence that was lower than the standard sentence.
As to the appellant’s reliance on the judge’s finding that the respondent’s moral culpability was high, the respondent submitted that despite describing the mitigatory force of his mental impairments and childhood disadvantage as ‘limited’, the judge should not be taken to have meant that their mitigatory effect was only ‘minor or insignificant’. It could be inferred from her reasons that the judge found the respondent’s moral culpability to be high because his mental impairments and childhood disadvantage did not impact his understanding of the wrongfulness of his conduct. However, that did not mean that those matters were considered to be of little weight.
The respondent observed that the judge was satisfied of Professor Carroll’s explanation that the respondent had lost his self-control at the time of the offending, driven by a strong subjective sense of moral indignation and rage towards Ms Osias.[44] Professor Carroll had given evidence over the course of two days, and the judge’s statement that she ‘accept[ed]’ his evidence was said to be the ‘critical aspect’ of the sentence imposed.[45] The respondent submitted that the judge must be understood to have accepted Professor Carroll’s evidence regarding the respondent’s mental impairments and his related childhood disadvantage. In particular, the respondent submitted that the judge had incorporated Professor Carroll’s opinion that, at the time of the offending, the respondent was severely emotionally dysregulated as a manifestation of his complex post-traumatic stress disorder, a condition which had a close causal relationship with the murder; and he was self-soothing with alcohol, which further impaired his affect and disinhibited him.
[44]Referring to Reasons, [41].
[45]Referring to Reasons, [55].
The respondent submitted that although the judge had referred to ‘a degree’ of causal connection between the respondent’s complex post-traumatic stress disorder and his offending, the ‘degree’ of connection necessarily was causative. Once the judge accepted that there was a causal relationship between the respondent’s mental impairments and the offending, then the aggravating features of the offending that would have otherwise warranted a higher sentence being imposed had to be moderated, because those very features were borne of the respondent’s mental impairments. In these circumstances, it was proper for the judge to moderate the sentence considerably, as she did.
The respondent submitted that the judge also allowed some mitigation of the respondent’s moral culpability on account of his childhood disadvantage for the same reasons. Although the judge only addressed the matters relevant to the respondent’s childhood and to the application of the Bugmy principles in a few brief paragraphs,[46] the respondent submitted that this did not mean that the judge gave those matters little weight in mitigation. In accepting Professor Carroll’s evidence, the judge must have accepted that the respondent’s childhood trauma was closely linked to the development of his complex post-traumatic stress disorder, which had a close causal connection with the offending.
[46]Referring to Reasons, [28]–[30].
Further, the respondent submitted that the appellant had ultimately conceded at the plea hearing that there was a causal nexus at least between the respondent’s complex post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic upbringing and the offending, and that principles 1, 3 and 4 of Verdins were engaged.[47] The appellant had submitted that, as a corollary, community protection needed to be emphasised and was the principal sentencing consideration. Correctly, the judge had not acted on this submission, finding that the respondent had reasonable prospects of rehabilitation.
[47]We have described the first and third limbs of the Verdins principles in n 30 above. The fourth limb is the principle that impaired mental functioning may require a moderation or elimination of specific deterrence as a sentencing consideration, depending upon the nature and severity of the offender’s symptoms and the effect of the condition on the offender’s mental capacity, whether at the time of the offending or the date of the sentence or both.
The respondent submitted that the judge should be taken to have moderated general deterrence on account of his continuing mental impairments. As moderation is guided not only by the presence of mental impairment at the time of the offence, but also its enduring existence at the time of sentence and beyond, there was a proper basis for a significant moderation of general deterrence.
While the respondent accepted that general deterrence ordinarily had considerable work to do in cases involving family violence, he submitted that general deterrence should not be viewed as having a special category of work to do in intimate partner murders, as opposed to other categories of murder. Nor should it be viewed as warranting a sentence in such cases that is always greater than the standard sentence. In any event, the judge’s remarks at the end of her reasons[48] demonstrated that she acutely and fully appreciated the need to give general deterrence a greater rather than lesser weight in relation to offending of this nature.
[48]See [47] above.
As to specific deterrence, the respondent submitted that while the judge did not make explicit reference to moderating specific deterrence, that did not mean she had given it great weight or that it required great weight. The respondent pointed to: the fact that he inevitably faced a long sentence; the finding that he was remorseful; his limited criminal history; and the finding that his prospects of rehabilitation were reasonable. In these circumstances, in the array of sentencing considerations, specific deterrence did not arise as a matter of great significance.
In terms of current sentencing practices, the respondent submitted that the table of cases provided by the appellant did not support the contention that the sentence imposed was outside the range of sentences open to the judge. A review of the cases in the table revealed the following about offending involving the murder of intimate partners:
(a)an intention to kill was not a strongly distinguishing feature;
(b)it was not uncommon for this type of offending to be committed in the presence of children;
(c)all of the sentences imposed that were above the standard sentence involved a finding of a lack of remorse;
(d)a history of family violence was not a particularly distinguishing feature, especially if family violence is not limited to physical violence; and
(e)a finding of a causal connection between the offender’s mental impairment and the offending was not a particularly common feature.
The respondent submitted that the appellant’s reliance on the case of Lindemann was undue for two reasons. First, a comparison with a single case such as Lindemann does not illuminate current sentencing practices and proceeds on the incorrect assumption that the sentence imposed in that case is ‘the’ correct sentence, in that case and for all cases like it. Second, there were features of the offending in Lindemann that made it a much worse example of the murder of an intimate partner than the present case. These included the offender’s lack of remorse and insight, problematic gender-based beliefs and victim-blaming mentality. Within one minute of killing his victim, Lindemann had taken the ‘coldly calculated’ step of transferring $71,000 to a bank account that would be inaccessible to those connected with the victim. And although Lindemann did not have any prior convictions and there was no evidence that he had been violent to the victim before killing her, there was evidence of coercive and controlling behaviours in the lead up to the offending.
Finally, while accepting that the judge had omitted to explain how the sentence imposed related to the standard sentence, the respondent submitted that this was not a specific error and that it was apparent from the sentencing reasons how the judge had arrived at her sentence.

Analysis

Success on a Crown appeal against sentence on the ground of manifest inadequacy requires the appellant to show that it was not reasonably open to the sentencing judge to arrive at the sentence imposed had proper weight been given to all the relevant circumstances of the offending and the offender. As with the ground of manifest excess, the ground of manifest inadequacy is a stringent one, which is difficult to make good. The sentence imposed must be ‘wholly outside’ the range of available sentencing options.[49]
[49]DPP v Karazisis (2010) 31 VR 634, 662–3 [127] (Ashley, Redlich and Weinberg JJA, Warren CJ and Maxwell P agreeing at 637 [1]) (citations omitted); [2010] VSCA 350.
We consider that the sentence and non-parole period imposed on the respondent are within the range of appropriate sentences, given the respondent’s early plea of guilty, his genuine remorse, and the judge’s findings about the respondent’s profound childhood disadvantage and mental impairment. A moderation in sentence necessarily flowed from those matters.
Viewed objectively, this was, as the judge recognised, a most serious instance of murder. We accept the appellant’s submission that the objective gravity of the offending was above mid-range. In a ferocious attack upon Ms Osias in her own home, the respondent beat, strangled and stabbed Ms Osias in the presence of her young daughter. The respondent’s attack on Ms Osias was driven by moral indignation and rage as a result of Ms Osias’s decision to end her relationship with him. He forced his way into Ms Osias’s home late at night, dragged her from the bedroom in which she was sleeping with her two young daughters, and violently assaulted her, including with a weapon. Ms Osias attempted to defend herself, but the respondent was stronger and larger and quickly overpowered her. While Ms Osias lay bleeding and dying on the floor, the respondent called her a ‘bitch’. We agree with the judge’s assessment that the offending was cruel, vicious and merciless. We accept that it has had profound and lifelong effects on Ms Osias’s family.
One of the (many) things that made this a serious instance of murder was the fact that it involved the murder of a former intimate partner, against the backdrop of a history of family violence. Indeed, at the time of the offending, the respondent was facing charges in relation to his assault on Ms Osias some three months earlier and remained subject to an intervention order, which he repeatedly breached during the period leading up to the murder and breached again on the night of the murder. As the appellant submitted, the respondent’s offending has served to undermine the community’s confidence in the ability of the law to protect women and children. The full force of the law, expressed through the intervention order, was not enough to protect Ms Osias from him.
As this Court has previously stated, family violence is contemptible.[50] It warrants both condemnation and appropriate punishment.[51] Where an offence is committed in the context of family violence, it is necessary to consider the surrounding behaviours of the offender in order to assess the true gravity of the offending and for the sentence to vindicate the dignity of the victim.[52] Thus, the gravity of family violence offending will be aggravated if the offending breaches an intervention order or is committed in front of children.[53] Both of these features are present in this case.
[50]Skeates (a pseudonym) v The King [2023] VSCA 226, [59] (Emerton P, Niall and Taylor JJA) (‘Skeates’).
[51]Skeates [2023] VSCA 226, [59] (Emerton P, Niall and Taylor JJA).
[52]Marrah v The Queen [2014] VSCA 119, [16] (Redlich and Tate JJA) (‘Marrah’).
[53]Skeates [2023] VSCA 226, [60] (Emerton P, Niall and Taylor JJA), citing Marrah [2014] VSCA 119, [25] (Redlich and Tate JJA), Filiz v The Queen [2014] VSCA 212, [21] (Maxwell P and Redlich JA), Nolan v The Queen [2017] VSCA 240, [31] (Beach, Ferguson and Coghlan JJA), Laa v The Queen [2020] VSCA 136, [52] (Maxwell P, Kaye and Niall JJA).
The respondent was, as the judge recognised, a person with a concerning history of resorting to violence. In addition to the family violence he had perpetrated in the context of his relationships, he had been charged with offences of violence towards others on two previous occasions prior to commencing his relationship with Ms Osias.
In these circumstances, and bearing in mind the fundamental importance of general deterrence in sentencing for family violence offending (including extreme family violence offending resulting in the death of a former intimate partner), had the respondent not been able to call in aid any mitigatory matters, the offending would have warranted a sentence at the upper end of the range indicated by the comparative cases to which we have been referred.
However, there were a number of mitigatory matters that affected the assessment of an appropriate sentence. Significantly, the respondent had pleaded guilty at the earliest opportunity and had fully acknowledged responsibility for his actions not long after he was taken into custody. This had spared the witnesses to the offending, including Ms Osias’s young daughters, from giving evidence at a trial. The judge was satisfied that the respondent’s plea was indicative of genuine remorse, manifested from an early stage. Further, the judge assessed the respondent’s prospects of rehabilitation, provided he had access to appropriate mental health care and remained abstinent from substances, as reasonable.
The other key matters in mitigation concerned the respondent’s significant history of trauma and his diagnosed mental impairments, one of which the judge accepted was causally connected with the offending. The judge correctly treated these matters as mitigating the respondent’s moral culpability for Ms Osias’s murder. The respondent’s moral culpability, which might otherwise have warranted a label such as ‘very high’ or even ‘extreme’, was therefore assessed as ‘high’.
We accept the respondent’s submission that the judge’s characterisation of the respondent’s moral culpability as ‘high’ does not mean that the judge regarded the respondent’s history of trauma and his mental impairments (and the causal link between one of those impairments and his offending) to have only minor or insignificant mitigatory force in the sentencing exercise. Through Professor Carroll, there was evidence of the severe deprivation and trauma that marked the respondent’s childhood and adolescence. The respondent was subjected to protracted periods of sexual abuse, including on a weekly basis between the ages of around 8 and 12. He was exposed to serious instances of family violence perpetrated by his father and his grandfather. He spent time in foster care and lacked stable attachment figures throughout his childhood. A number of his relatives were diagnosed with schizophrenia. Professor Carroll described the respondent’s history as having the consequence that he failed ‘to establish anything even approaching a stable, confident sense of self’. By his adolescence, there was ‘serious post-traumatic psychopathology’, stemming from the respondent’s abuse. His ‘very disturbed attachment history in childhood, allied to his very significant trauma history … rendered him profoundly insecure in the context of intimate relationships’.
It is clear from her reasons that the judge accepted Professor Carroll’s evidence about the respondent’s background. The judge found that the respondent’s unstable and unsettled childhood amounted to a ‘significant history of trauma’.[54] As her Honour recognised, in those circumstances the law required that the respondent’s moral culpability not be equated with that of a person who had the advantage of a normal, stable and regular upbringing.[55]
[54]Reasons, [57].
[55]Bugmy (2013) 249 CLR 571; [2013] HCA 37.
Further, it is clear that the judge accepted Professor Carroll’s evidence that:
(a)at the time of the offending, the respondent was suffering from two distinct mental impairments — complex post-traumatic stress disorder and schizotypal disorder;[56]
(b)the respondent’s complex post-traumatic stress disorder largely manifested through severe problems with affect and emotional regulation, especially in the context of intimate partners, leading him to resort to heavy alcohol use, violence or suicidal actions as a means of emotional regulation during times of stress;
(c)at the time of the offending, the respondent was experiencing an intense rage directed towards Ms Osias, was severely emotionally dysregulated and may have been experiencing a degree of psychosis;
(d)the respondent’s complex post-traumatic stress disorder had a bearing on the magnitude of rage that he felt towards Ms Osias, compromised his capacity to control his temper and possibly affected his capacity for self-control; and
(e)there was therefore a causal connection between the respondent’s complex post-traumatic stress disorder and the offending.
[56]Professor Carroll’s evidence was that the schizotypal disorder was essentially genetically based and the complex post-traumatic stress disorder was trauma related. He opined that these conditions interacted with each other in complex ways.
As the respondent contended, in light of this evidence it could not be said that the matters relied on in mitigation were limited. To the contrary, they were significant.
However, the mitigatory effect of these matters must be assessed in light of other features of this case. In particular, the role of the respondent’s heavy consumption of alcohol on the day of the offending requires further consideration. The judge accepted Professor Carroll’s evidence that the respondent’s extreme reaction in killing Ms Osias was influenced by his intoxication with alcohol and sedatives,[57] and that it was the tandem effects of his complex post-traumatic stress disorder and intoxication that led the respondent to behave in the way that he did. In other words, the respondent’s offending could not be untethered from his abuse of alcohol and sedatives. But for his intoxication, he would not have engaged in the offending conduct.
[57]Professor Carroll opined that the killing of Ms Osias ‘likely occurred in a state of severe alcohol intoxication, complicated by the effects of an olanzapine overdose’.
On the day of the murder, before breaking into Ms Osias’s home and brutally killing her, the respondent consumed an entire bottle of vodka. He apparently did so in order to get very drunk, despite knowing that there was a relationship between his excessive alcohol consumption and his violent behaviour. He had a history of engaging in alcohol fuelled violence, which included the assault on Ms Osias that had resulted in the intervention order. It also included other instances referred to by Professor Carroll, such as an incident in 2005 where the respondent was reported by his brother to have ‘put three blokes down’ while affected by alcohol. The respondent had sought treatment for his drinking on numerous occasions, as he knew it to be a problem for him. The respondent’s insight into the effect that alcohol had on his behaviour was a matter the judge expressly raised with his counsel at the plea hearing. In response, counsel for the respondent described the respondent’s alcohol abuse as an ‘ongoing long term problem’ and said that the respondent ‘had made some efforts in the course of his life to address it’ but he had ‘clearly’ not been successful.

The appellant submits that the respondent’s intoxication on the day in question (in the context of his history of alcohol and drug abuse) explains the judge’s finding that there was only ‘a degree of causal connection’ between the respondent’s complex post-traumatic stress disorder and the offending.[58] Likewise, her Honour’s statement that the respondent’s complex post-traumatic stress disorder played ‘some role’ in the offending to the ‘limited extent’ that it compromised his capacity to control his temper.[59] The judge did not in fact find that there was a close causative connection between the respondent’s impairment (the complex post-traumatic stress disorder) and the offending.
[58]Reasons, [55]. The appellant also points to the judge’s finding that the respondent understood what he was doing, the seriousness of his conduct, and its consequences.
[59]Reasons, [55].
We accept this submission. The judge’s application of Verdins in respect of the respondent’s complex post-traumatic stress disorder was — correctly — tempered by the fact that he deliberately abused alcohol and sedatives on the day in question, in circumstances where he must have known of the likely effects of such abuse.[60] The respondent did not obtain the full benefit of the relevant Verdins considerations, and nor was he entitled to.
[60]See Wright v The Queen (2015) 257 A Crim R 261, 272–3 [44]–[46] (Maxwell P, Redlich and Osborn JJA); [2015] VSCA 333; DPP v Davis [2017] VSCA 341, [63]–[65] (Maxwell P, Tate JA and Beale AJA).
However, the impact of the respondent’s severely dysfunctional and damaging childhood remained an important sentencing consideration. Professor Carroll gave detailed and cogent evidence about the ongoing effects of the physical and sexual abuse suffered by the respondent as a child. He did so based on extensive records produced in the course of the respondent’s many engagements with mental health services and the justice system. As the judge found, the respondent’s personal history meant that his moral culpability was to be assessed on the basis that he could not be judged in the same way as a person who had had the benefit of a normal, stable and regular upbringing. His moral culpability for the murder of Ms Osias had to be moderated.
Further, the accepted evidence of Professor Carroll, together with the respondent’s genuine remorse and prospects of rehabilitation, necessarily affected not only the assessment of the respondent’s moral culpability, but also the extent to which his sentence needed to reflect the principles of general and specific deterrence. As we have said, general deterrence assumes significance in sentencing for family violence offences, including the most extreme examples of such offences. However, the particular circumstances of an offender may moderate the extent to which their sentence usefully presents as a deterrent to others and the extent to which, from an ethical or moral point of view, they are an appropriate vehicle for such deterrence. That is the case here. The respondent’s extreme childhood deprivation, together with the fact that he suffers from a mental impairment that was causally connected to his offending, moderated general deterrence as a sentencing consideration. These matters also moderated specific deterrence as a sentencing consideration, particularly in light of the judge’s assessment of the respondent’s prospects of rehabilitation.
Finally, both on the plea and before us, community protection was raised as an important sentencing consideration. Senior counsel for the appellant quite graphically outlined the respondent’s history of violence, stalking and obsessing over girlfriends to submit that community protection required ‘some weight’ in the sentencing exercise.
Based on Professor Carroll’s evidence, the judge considered the respondent’s prospects of rehabilitation to be ‘reasonable’, providing he has access to appropriate mental health care and remains abstinent from substances. Although we consider the proviso to raise considerable uncertainty, we are not in a position to ‘second guess’ the judge’s finding. Her Honour’s finding, along with the length of the sentence actually imposed, combine to render community protection a less important factor in the sentencing exercise in this case, notwithstanding the respondent’s history.
As to current sentencing practices, we have considered the sentences imposed in the cases listed in the table provided by the appellant. The sentences identified in the table that have been imposed following a plea of guilty range from 21 years to 30 years. Each case involves a combination of features that present some similarities and some dissimilarities to the respondent’s case. To the extent that those cases can be said to demonstrate a range of sentences for intimate partner murders following the introduction of a standard sentence for murder, we are not satisfied that the sentence imposed on the respondent is wholly outside that range.
Finally, we reject the appellant’s submission that intimate partner murders should be understood as a category of murder that will always necessitate a higher sentence than the standard sentence. Rather, the plain legislative intention is that the standard sentence for all murders is 25 years’ imprisonment. That means that 25 years is the sentence for a murder that, taking into account only the objective factors affecting the relative seriousness of that offence, is in the middle range of seriousness.[61]
[61]Sentencing Act 1991, s 5A(1)(b).
The standard sentence, like the maximum penalty, is a legislative guidepost that must be taken into account as one of the factors relevant to sentencing.[62] However, the requirement to take the standard sentence for an offence into account does not require or permit ‘two-stage sentencing’, by which a starting sentence or range of sentences is determined and then adjusted up or down by reference to particular features of the case, including matters personal to the offender.[63]
[62]Sentencing Act 1991, s 5B(2)(a); Brown (2019) 59 VR 462, 464–5 [4], 479 [55] (Maxwell P, Priest, Kaye, T Forrest and Emerton JJA); [2019] VSCA 286.
[63]Brown (2019) 59 VR 462, 465 [4], 468 [17] (Maxwell P, Priest, Kaye, T Forrest and Emerton JJA); [2019] VSCA 286.
We accept the respondent’s submission that treating the murder of an intimate partner as a category of the offence of murder that always requires a sentence above the standard sentence would be an impermissible two-stage approach to the sentencing task. It would also be antithetical to individualised justice.
We accept that pursuant to s 5B(5) of the Sentencing Act 1991, a court that sentences an offender for a standard sentence offence must explain how the sentence imposed relates to the standard sentence. While it was unfortunate that the judge did not provide such an explanation, we are not persuaded that this omission was indicative of any broader error in her approach to the sentencing task.

Conclusion

The task of sentencing the respondent required a difficult synthesis of conflicting sentencing factors. On the one hand, it was important to arrive at a sentence that reflected the objective gravity of the offending, punished the respondent and denounced his abhorrent behaviour. On the other hand, it was necessary to ensure the sentence was moderated to reflect the respondent’s plea of guilty, his genuine remorse, his prospects of rehabilitation, his profound childhood deprivation and the fact that he suffered from a mental impairment that was causally related to his offending. While we consider the sentence that resulted from the judge’s instinctive synthesis of these factors to be lenient, we are not satisfied that it was wholly outside the range of available sentences.
We would therefore dismiss the appeal.

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[2025] VSCA 178

6 August 2025