Director of Public Prosecutions v Rayner
[2024] VCC 222
•19 February 2024
| IN THE COUNTY COURT OF VICTORIA | Revised Not Restricted Suitable for Publication |
AT MELBOURNE
CRIMINAL DIVISION
Case No. CR-23-01356
| DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROSECUTIONS |
| v |
| HAROLD RAYNER |
---
JUDGE: | HIS HONOUR JUDGE S JOHNS | |
WHERE HELD: | Melbourne | |
DATE OF HEARING: | 13 December 2023 | |
DATE OF SENTENCE: | 19 February 2024 | |
CASE MAY BE CITED AS: | DPP v RAYNER | |
MEDIUM NEUTRAL CITATION: | [2024] VCC 222 | |
REASONS FOR SENTENCE
---
Subject: Criminal Law Sentence
Catchwords: Dangerous driving causing death – Plea of guilty – substantially and compelling circumstances that are exceptional and rare made out – offender 88 years of age – wife in nursing home – Verdins hardship in custody – remorse – significant plea
Legislation Cited: Sentencing Act 1991
Cases Cited:DPP v Bowen (2021) 65 VR 385 Farmer v The Queen [2020] VSCA 140 DPP v Kenneison [2023] VSCA 321; DPP v Lombardo 102 MVR 19; Pan v The Queen [2020] VSCA 42
Sentence: Three-year Community Corrections Order
---
APPEARANCES: | Counsel | Solicitors |
| For the Director of Public Prosecutions | Ms A. Moran | Office of Public Prosecutions |
| For the Accused | Mr J. Bareiro | Slater & King |
HIS HONOUR:
1.Harold Rayner, you have pleaded guilty in this court to a charge of dangerous driving causing death, which is a Level 5 offence. The maximum penalty for this offence is 10 years' imprisonment and a maximum fine of 1,200 penalty units.
2.You have no prior convictions. You have absolutely no driving infringement record recorded.
3.You are now 88 years of age.
Circumstances of Offending
4.On Friday 17 March 2023 at around 3.05 in the afternoon you caused a fatal collision by your dangerous driving on the Rushworth Tatura Road, Waranga Shores. Your dangerous driving is constituted by either poor concentration or distraction resulting in your failure to slow at an appropriate rate, and a failure to respond to the slowing vehicle in front of you, leading to a reflex turning action that was dangerous in itself (although momentary) causing your vehicle to cross the line separating your lane from on-coming traffic.
5.Your failure was constituted by more than momentary inattention but nevertheless sits at the low end of moral culpability but not the lowest end.
6.You were not speeding or engaging in risk taking. You were not distracted by shifting your attention elsewhere, such as to a mobile phone.
7.As I have stated, your driving record is exemplary up to 17 March 2023.
8.For whatever reason, notwithstanding you had travelled the road on a regular basis for many years and you were aware of the 30 kilometres an hour zone, you were not paying sufficient attention to what was unfolding ahead of you on this occasion.
9.There is a detailed outline of the circumstances of the offence in Exhibit A which is the summary of prosecution opening. I am not going to repeat that detail, and Exhibit A forms part of these reason for sentence.
10.I have also viewed a video which depicts the roadway you travelled upon and various warning signs along the route.
11.In brief terms, you were driving within the 80 kilometres per hour speed limit in a southerly direction along Rushworth Tatura Road which is a two-way, two lane road with a single lane in each direction.
12.On Friday 17 March you had left your home in Nagambie at around 12.30 in the afternoon to travel to Kyabram which is a roughly 45 minute trip. You stayed in Kyabram for approximately an hour before starting on your return journey.
13.You had been travelling for about 30 to 40 minutes when you approached the single lane bridge over the Waranga Western Channel.
14.On the approach to the bridge, drivers must slow to a 30 kilometre an hour limit. Prior to the 30 kilometre an hour speed signs there is a warning sign that there is a 30 kilometre an hour limit ahead and there is also a ‘Reduce Speed’ sign.
15.The distances between these signs are set out in a table within Exhibit A. I was also provided with a copy of the statement and accompanying photographs of Michael Hardiman, which helped me make some sense of the scene and what occurred. I was also referred to the statement of Emily Jones.
16.The video footage was also a great help in assessing the circumstances of the collision.
17.You had passed the 30 kilometre an hour warning sign and the Reduce Speed sign as you came up too fast behind Ms Jones who was travelling in her Toyota RAV4.
18.Ms Jones was slowing from 80 kilometres an hour to 30 kilometres an hour to adhere to the 30 kilometre an hour sign ahead when she noticed a group of motorcyclists approaching, and she pointed them out to her two year old son seated in the back. She saw your vehicle approaching 'way too quick’ behind her, and she concluded that you would hit her vehicle.
19.Her statement reads in part:
There was one reduced speed sign with three little bumps on the road like a rumble strip but not an official one that I had passed. I didn’t get to the 30 kilometre an hour but I had seen the speed sign so I was starting to slow down to the 30. As I was coming close to the bend, I was pointing out all the motorbikes travelling toward Tatura to my two year old son who was sitting in the back seat. This is when I noticed the four-wheel drive, he was coming way too quick and I knew he was going to hit me.[1]
[1] Paragraph 4 statement Emily Jones.
20.To avoid a rear-end collision with Ms Jones’ vehicle you swerved abruptly, breaking at the same time, causing your vehicle to cross the dividing line.
21.Tragically, the deceased, 61 year old Leigh Watson was travelling in that lane and was impacted by your vehicle. He was riding second last in a convoy of twelve motorcycles and was ejected from the Harley Davidson and thrown approximately 10 metres off the road and down a sharp embankment to the west. His motorcycle was pushed 6 metres to the gravel shoulder and partially down an embankment.
22.The photographs attached to Mr Hardiman’s statement provide the best illustration of the damage to the motorbike and to your vehicle as a result of the impact.
23.Mr Watson was enjoying an annual ride for charity. He was at a stage of his life where he was looking forward to enjoying more leisure and the fruits of his life's work.
24.He lived in Tasmania and was visiting NSW, the ACT and Victoria to participate in the charity motorcycle ride.
25.He was riding with a group known as the Green Team which consisted of 12 riders. The team were on an annual ride called ‘Eliza’s Ride’ to raise money for EB disease. They had added a second ride onto the trip called 'Brumby's Run' in honour of a fellow rider who had passed away from cancer.
26.Mr Watson had crossed the bridge over the Waranga Channel in convoy. The speed limit over the bridge was 30 kilometres an hour. Approximately 100 metres prior to the point of impact from the direction Mr Watson was travelling, the speed limit applicable to him became 100 kilometres an hour. It has not been possible to estimate the speed of the motorcycle at the point of impact but there is nothing to suggest he was travelling in excess of 100 kilometres an hour.
27.Your vehicle was travelling at least 48 kilometres per hour prior to you braking and taking evasive action to avoid hitting Ms Jones' vehicle. At the point of impact with the motorcycle you were travelling at least 31 kilometres an hour. When your vehicle came to a stop it was almost entirely in the northbound lane.
28.Your car struck Mr Watson's motorcycle approximately 1 metre into the northbound lane.
Victim Impact Statements
29.I received a victim impact statement in this matter prepared by each of the deceased's sisters, Janelle Shaw and Elizabeth Donahue. They have suffered significant shock, confusion and trauma as a result of your offence. Grief and consequences following the event have been overwhelming, confronting and deeply upsetting. Their statement sets out in eloquent terms the extent of the impact upon them but also the tragedy and impact of a wonderful life cut short. I take those impacts into account.
Objective Gravity of Offending
30.Dangerous driving causing death is an inherently serious offence given that it involves the loss of life. The impact of the outcome of instances of dangerous driving causing death for loved ones, family, friends and the wider community is difficult to express in words.
31.Whilst acknowledging the enormity of the consequence of dangerous driving that causes death, it remains the task of the sentencing court to assess the driver’s failure to maintain standards of driving, and assess the moral culpability associated with the dangerous driving that caused the loss of a life.
32.The maximum penalty of 10 years is reflective of the objective seriousness of the offence, as is the fact that it is a Category 2 offence. The community is frustrated, dismayed and outraged at times over the loss of life on our roads due to hoon driving, alcohol and drug affected driving, speeding, risk taking, failure to obey traffic signals, and a failure to concentrate and pay full attention to what is happening on the road ahead.
33.Your offending falls into the latter category.
34.You had travelled the road many times. I am not satisfied to the requisite degree that you ‘ignored’ the Reduce Speed sign, and 30 kilometre an hour sign ahead.
35.I am satisfied that for whatever reason you were not paying attention to the slowing vehicle ahead until the last minute, and your reaction was dangerous in and of itself, and devastating.
36.There was evidence on the plea that you were an undiagnosed sufferer of sleep apnoea at the time. There is a possibility that a micro-sleep, or wakeful sleepiness may explain your lack of attention. This medical condition has been explored but it has not been developed as a matter connected to an assessment of your moral culpability.
37.It was advanced on the plea as a matter that may have been developed if the matter proceeded to trial, and your plea of guilty should be viewed as significant in light of potential trial-able issues.
38.There is reference, via your daughter in the psychological report of Jeffrey Cummins that you were dangerously low in iron at the time of the collision.[2] Depending on the extent of the deficiency this may explain your lack of concentration and attention at the time. This was not a matter that was developed before me based upon any medical material but was raised in your Counsel’s outline of submissions.
[2] Jeffrey Cummins report paragraphs [39] and [40].
39.Anaemia and/or sleep apnoea issues may well have formed a basis for a trial in this matter if the medical materials were developed. I accept your plea of guilty is significant in light of that possibility. These issues may also have been relevant to sentence on the issue of moral culpability if developed.
40.Your advanced years, driving considerable distances on country roads at the age of 87, was not the focus of much discussion at the plea in terms of causation. Nevertheless, it is more than worthy of note. I do not need evidence before me to conclude that faculties of sight, awareness, responsivity and concentration diminish with the passing years.
41.I would also expect that the journey you undertook on that day would have been more tiring for you now than in your younger years, in your 60s or 70s.
42.It is likely that wakeful sleepiness, low iron, or declining powers of attention due to your age have contributed to your lack of attention.
43.There was discussion on the plea as to where your culpability should sit in the range. It was common ground that your failure is constituted by more than momentary inattention.
44.Ms Moran for the prosecution referred me to the case of Pan v The Queen [2020] VSCA 42 and drew an analogy with your offending.
45.At paragraph 6 in Pan, the court stated that:
The requisite dangerousness was based on Mr Pan’s inattention to a series of indicators of the impending intersection and stop sign.
46.At [33] the court noted:
There was no suggestion-either at the plea hearing or in this Court-that Mr Pan knew that either the intersection or the stop sign was coming up and that he simply knowingly took a flagrant risk of driving through both. Instead the prosecution case was based upon his inattention in the face of indicators such as rumble strips and road signs well prior to the intersection.
47.The Court of Appeal described Pan’s culpability as being in a low category whilst not in the ‘lowest category' at [94].
48.The faults surrounding the intersection in Pan’s case contributed to that assessment. Notwithstanding that aspect of assessment of gravity in Pan’s case, travelling through a stop sign at speed, after several warnings, constitutes a graver example of dangerous driving causing death, objectively speaking, than the factors that unfolded in your case.
49.The combination of driving circumstances that led to the fatal collision in your case do not strike me to be as grave, objectively speaking, as travelling into an intersection at speed, having failed to notice a stop sign or indeed an intersection.
50.I am unable to find in your case that you either ignored or were unaware of the reduced speed and 30 kilometre per hour signs. The facts do not support that conclusion to the exclusion of others.
51.There was nothing inherently dangerous in your driving in the lead up.
52.I have endeavoured to analyse as much material as there is available to explain or understand your failing. My best assessment is that you failed to pay attention for a brief period, more than momentary, and when you realised you would collide with the car in front you took immediate evasive action, reflex action probably, that was dangerous.
53.Tragically, Mr Watson was approaching at that very moment at a speed in all likelihood close to 100 kilometres an hour.
54.You sought a sentencing indication from me. Consistent with the seriousness with which cases of this nature are concerned, I indicated to you that based on the material before me at that time you would not receive a sentence of greater than six months before becoming eligible for parole if you pleaded guilty.
55.You pleaded guilty in those circumstances.
Personal circumstances.
56.Mr Rayner you are now 88 as I have stated. You were born in 1935. By way of perspective, you were born the same year Qantas made its first international flight. George V was on the throne. Jesse Owens triumphed at the Berlin Olympics a year later winning four gold medals, and you were born four years before the forces of Nazi Germany marched into Poland.
57.You have led a blameless and hardworking life.
58.You have been married for 62 years and raised two hard working, law abiding and productive members of society.
59.You have not had it easy. Your father was a 'jack of all trades' and you relocated frequently which affected your schooling. You have three sisters and two brothers. An older sister, and a younger brother have passed away.
60.You left school having only completed Year 6. You commenced school by correspondence. You struggled at school and were bullied by other students due to your difficulties.
61.It was quite moving reading of your spontaneous distress when you recalled in examination with Mr Cummins that you had contemplated, and taken some steps towards, taking your life as a child of 14 due to the bullying.
62.You worked in various occupations as a 14 to 16 year old, including as a grocery boy, hay picker, spud digger, bracken fern cutter, and in a dairy milking cows.
63.Somewhere along the way you did two years' National Service at Puckapunyal.
64.You began share farming at Tongala, and met your wife Jessica not long thereafter and married. You bought a small farm at Tongala and ran that from 1966 to 1973. You supplemented your income by carting hay and you had bought two trucks eventually for that purpose. That part of your business involved driving heavy and long vehicles considerable distances.
65.In 1973 you and your wife purchased an 86 acre dairy farm in Nathalia.
66.You had 89 head of cattle that you milked twice daily. You also carted hay, grew crops, and supplemented the farm income by working nights at a cannery.
67.You were diagnosed with bowel cancer in 2000. You had surgery to remove a significant portion of your bowel, and chemotherapy, which you described as 'nearly killing' you.
68.Due substantially to that experience and the effects of chemotherapy you sold the farm and effectively retired in 2002. You and your wife purchased and renovated your current residential property in Nagambie in the same year.
69.Your wife Jessica worked as a teacher. It was teaching that brought her to Tongala in 1960. Jessica has provided a detailed reference for this proceeding. It contains a lot of useful detail about your life that I will not reproduce in these remarks. Of note is your volunteer work, using your skills and equipment in times of flood, as well as 25 years involvement in Apex and the Nathalia Golf Club.
70.Your wife is now 85 or so. You were her carer until you were unable to assist her physically anymore. Your wife needs full-time care and has been in a nursing home at Nagambie as a permanent resident since last year.
71.You both worry about each other. As I have said, you have two children, Neville and Jillian, who help as much as they can. Jillian lives and works in Melbourne, two hours away. Neville lives an hour away in a small community called Marraweeny. Jillian writes, 'We now take turns in taking a day off work almost weekly to travel over to pick up either Mum or Dad to take them to appointments in Shepparton, Seymour or Melbourne'. For Neville, taking a day off means loss of income, for Jillian it involves taking personal leave.
72.Your wife has high needs physically but is mentally alert. Sadly her fellow residents are not so alert and many are non-verbal.
73.You have been visiting your wife almost daily. You are her main social and emotional support and she is yours. You ride her mobility scooter to visit her. You bring back washing to do. You take her the bills and the mail to sort. You are both very reliant upon each other.
74.Due to your limited schooling and difficulties there, reading and writing has been a barrier for you in life. You are not computer literate. You and your wife share a mobile phone.
75.Your health is not perfect, which is hardly surprising at 88. You have suffered diabetes for 10 years, you have low iron, and severe sleep apnoea.
76.A number of testimonials spoke of your character. I am satisfied that throughout your life you have been a kind and caring, hardworking and community spirited man. You are a practical person who is at his best using a bit of resourcefulness to help out and solve a problem.
77.Unfortunately, many cases of dangerous driving involve drivers of exemplary prior character. General deterrence remains very important in order to emphasise to all drivers, that care must be taken at all times when behind the wheel.
78.Leigh Watson was robbed of many of the things you have enjoyed and taken for granted over the past 30 years, and as a community that needs to be noted and the conduct that led to that tragedy denounced.
79.I have read testimonials from your daughter Jillian, from Geoff Ward, Charles and Naomi Howes, and Iris Hicks, and of course your wife’s letter. All of these testimonials have given me valuable insight into you as an individual.
80.They have also served as evidence of your remorse.
81.I am satisfied that you have deep and genuine remorse for the impact of your offence.
82.The report of Jeffrey Cummins dated 27 November last, notes that you worry 24 hours a day about having caused Mr Watson’s death. You stated to Mr Cummins, ‘I feel depleted. There’s nothing worse than killing someone and knowing it's all my fault. I feel sorry for him.’
83.You went on to say, ‘If I have to go to jail, I’ll go to jail …’.
84.Mr Cummins writes, ‘As a result of interviewing Mr Rayner I was left in no doubt that he feels guilty and is remorseful concerning his offending behaviour. At interview he acknowledged the impact the motorcyclist’s death would have on his family and friends.’
85.You are also deeply distressed about your inability to help your wife in her current circumstances and how her health may deteriorate if you were incarcerated. Your daughter shares those concerns for both of you.
86.Mr Cummins highlights your memory difficulties, which one would expect someone of your years to experience, but which have probably been exacerbated by the trauma associated with this offence, and the isolation you have experienced since your wife went into residential care and due to your commission of this offence, as referred to by your daughter.
87.Mr Cummins writes:
Based upon my assessment of Mr Rayner, I would anticipate his mental health would deteriorate if he was incarcerated and in turn this could impact negatively on his longevity. I formed the further opinion that he remains very much in love with his wife and that his frequent and often daily face-to-face interactions with his wife played a role in stabilising his mental health. At interview he stated he was concerned that his wife may die if he was incarcerated.
88.In contrast you were typically stoic, and in my view overly optimistic on what the impacts of incarceration may mean for you.
89.Mr Cummins diagnosed you with reactive depression.
90.I am satisfied that you have experienced some cognitive decline in terms of sharpness and memory recall since the collision.
Mitigation
91.Your Counsel relied upon a number of matters in mitigation, some of which I have already touched upon such as your plea, your remorse, previous character, and the circumstances of the offence and my assessment of objective gravity and subjective culpability.
92.He also relied upon age, citing the well-established principle that I must have regard to the fact that any custodial sentence will represent a greater proportion of your remaining years than it would for a younger individual.
93.He relied upon the hardship associated with custody, based upon the opinion of Mr Cummins, and the wider issue of stress and anxiety surrounding your concern for your wife.
94.Ms Moran on behalf of the prosecution accepted the relevance of age in the sentencing process however submitted that advanced age does not put you in a special category. Ms Moran took issue with the capacity for your age alone to constitute substantial and compelling reasons that are exceptional and rare.
95.I agree. Like most assessments in relation to sentencing factors, age is but one factor to consider, which gathers in significance when the relationship between age and other factors are considered. The weight attached to advancing years, where relevant, increases exponentially at a certain point.
96.As I observed during the hearing, what should not be lost or under-emphasised is the significance of the age you have reached. You are a statistical outlier in this Court in respect of any offences that come before the Court.
97.In respect of dangerous driving causing death cases you are perhaps unique where age is concerned, and by some years.
98.You have absolutely no driving record. You have lived all of your life driving regularly on country roads, at times as part of your living.
99.To still be driving at 87 is statistically extremely unlikely in my view. To be driving the distances you were, on 100 kilometre an hour country roads, rarer still I expect.
100.To my mind, as I have stated, it is a very significant matter that you have not infringed the road rules at all up to the age of 87, up until March last year.
101.Your case raises a challenging issue that society has not yet grappled with in a satisfactory way.
102.When is one too old to drive? Should there be compulsory assessments at a particular age? Should there be restrictions on the circumstances in which someone of advanced years can drive?
103.At the risk of sounding ageist and perhaps upsetting drivers in our community who are of advanced years, many of whom would be careful, competent drivers, I am of the view that I can take judicial notice of the fact that faculties decline with advanced years, and in your case those declines were likely to have contributed to your lack of attention.
104.General practitioners and families often bear the responsibility of the difficult task of trying to interfere with the independence of our ageing citizens by persuading them not to drive. It may be time that the authorities better regulate this process.
105.Your advanced age is relevant to another significant consideration. You have been married 62 years. Your wife requires residential care now that you are unable to do so. You visit her in the care facility daily. If you were incarcerated you would not be able to do so. The weight attaching to this issue is great given your respective ages.
Section 5 2H
106.Dangerous driving causing death is a Category 2 offence as I have stated.
107.In sentencing an offender for a Category 2 offence, I must sentence you to a term of imprisonment, other than a sentence of imprisonment imposed in addition to a community correction order, unless, there are substantial and compelling circumstances that are exceptional and rare and that justify not making such an order.
108.When making the evaluative assessment of whether there are substantial and compelling circumstances that are exceptional and rare in this case, it is necessary to have regard to the sentencing considerations applicable to cases of dangerous driving causing death, since in order to justify not imposing imprisonment, the circumstances would need to surmount those principles. Typically, it is only in cases involving low moral culpability that the test can be met.
109.In determining whether there are substantial and compelling circumstances under sub-s(2H)(e), I must regard general deterrence and denunciation of your conduct as having greater importance than the other purposes set out in s5(1) of the Sentencing Act 1991.
110.I must give less weight to your personal circumstances than to other matters such as the nature and gravity of the offence; and I must not have regard to an early guilty plea, prospects of rehabilitation; or parity with other sentences.
111.In determining whether there are substantial and compelling circumstances under sub-s(2H)(e), I must have regard to the intention of Parliament that a sentence of imprisonment should ordinarily be made, and whether the cumulative impact of the circumstances of the case would justify a departure from such a sentence.
112.The Court of Appeal in Lombardo outlined the application of s5(2H) and the exception contained in s5(2H)(e). The Court considered the statutory language and identified two key steps in the enquiry as to whether the exception was satisfied:
First, the court must identify whether there are substantial and compelling circumstances. This has been interpreted as circumstances that are weighty and forceful or powerful. The issue is whether the circumstances are substantial and compelling so as to justify not imposing a custodial sentence. That is the criterion by which the substance and compulsive force of the circumstances are to be assessed.
The second critical step, if the circumstances are substantial and compelling in the sense described above, asks whether they are also, "exceptional and rare". In our view [that's the Court stating], this is to be regarded as a composite phrase imposing a single test, rather than as two discrete tests. That is because the meaning of the words overlap; in particular, "exceptional" means "out of the ordinary course, unusual, special", which includes that which is "rare" … the two words operate together and each influences the meaning of the overall phrase.
113.Also in DPP v Lombardo[3] the Court stated that exceptional and rare 'refers to circumstances that are wholly outside the ordinary factors typical of the relevant offence'.
[3] [2022] VSCA 204
114.And more recently in the case of DPP v Kenneison, the Court of Appeal considered the test with regard to dangerous driving cases.[4]
[4] DPP v Kenneison [2023] VSCA 321
115.At [37], following on from considerations, the passage of Lombardo I have just referred to, the Court stated:
Acknowledging both that s5(2H)(e) establishes "a very high hurdle that will not often be surmounted",[5] a "requirement [that] is — no doubt quite deliberately — almost impossible to satisfy’[6] and that such observations "must not be treated as a substitute for the statutory language",[7] it is plain that the words "substantial and compelling circumstances that are exceptional and rare" have real work to do. The circumstances must be both sufficiently weighty and powerful to justify not imposing a custodial sentence[8] and "wholly outside the ordinary factors typical of the relevant offence".[9]
[5] Farmer v The Queen [2020] VSCA 140, [51] (Maxwell P, Kaye and Niall JJA).
[6] DPP v Bowen (2021) 65 VR 385, 388 [11] (Maxwell P, Priest, McLeish, T Forrest and Walker JJA); [2021] VSCA 355.
[7] DPP v Lombardo (2022) DPP v Kenneison, 37 [64] (McLeish, Niall and Kennedy JJA).
[8] Ibid, 37 [66] (McLeish, Niall and Kennedy JJA).
[9] Ibid, 38 [71] (McLeish, Niall and Kennedy JJA).
116.In your particular case I have found that due to a combination of circumstances the test is met and that those circumstances are wholly outside the ordinary factors typical of the relevant offence and they are sufficiently weighty and powerful to justify not imposing a custodial sentence.
117.First, the overall assessment of the combination of circumstances involves my assessment of the objective gravity and moral culpability of your driving as low, not the lowest category, but low.
118.Were your moral culpability higher, the test would likely not be met in your case.
119.Second, I find your age in combination with the absence of a driving record to be significant, and in particular your advanced years in relation to the circumstances involving your wife’s situation and the impact that that has upon each of you.
120.Third the hardship in custody you would experience for the reasons set out by Mr Cummins as compared to a person not of your age, or of your circumstances.
121.Fourth, the fact that any period of imprisonment would represent a greater portion of your remaining years than it otherwise would.
122.Fifth, the significance of your plea of guilty, given all the relevant matters pertaining to a plea, save for the early nature of the plea, but in particular the fact that in my view a trial-able issue could have been explored, and you have pleaded guilty following an indication of jail.
123.Sixth, your remorse.
124.Seventh, some application of mercy given your advanced years and your exemplary life up to the fatal collision.
125.I have given considerable weight to general deterrence and denunciation. I have determined that at your age a significant CCO involving punitive conditions in combination with a fine and order against your licence can adequately meet the requirements for general deterrence and denunciation. Anyone in your circumstances, contemplating your case, would be deterred from driving with anything other than the utmost care and attention considering a man of your years and background has had one foot in a gaol cell for some time now, and now will have the ignominy and imposition of an onerous corrections order ahead of him.
Sentence
126.Mr Rayner, on the charge of dangerous driving causing death you are sentenced to a community corrections order of 3 years' duration with conviction. You are to perform 250 hours of unpaid community work as a special condition of that order.
127.In addition to that community corrections order you are fined $5,000.
128.I will also make an order against your licence. It was remarkable to me that you, together with at least one health professional, were contemplating a future where you will be re-licensed pending medical clearance. I was also surprised it was agitated to some degree on the plea.
129.Your licence is cancelled and you are disqualified from attaining another for four years. I accept that this is a significant restriction on you given your circumstances and the lack of support and services where you reside.
130.Pursuant to s6AAA, were it not for your plea of guilty I would have sentenced you to 18 months' gaol with a non-parole period of seven months.
131.Now Ms Moran are there any other orders that I have overlooked making?
132.MS MORAN: No, Your Honour.
133.HIS HONOUR: There's nothing, thank you. Thank you everyone for your attendance.
- - -
0
6
0