Director of Public Prosecutions v Reiri
[2023] VCC 1232
•17 July 2023
| IN THE COUNTY COURT OF VICTORIA | Revised Suitable for Publication | |
AT Melbourne
CRIMINAL JURISDICTION
CR 22-01712
| DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROSECUTIONS |
| v |
| WILSON REIRI |
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JUDGE: | HIS HONOUR JUDGE SMALLWOOD | |
WHERE HELD: | Melbourne | |
DATE OF HEARING: | 6 June 2023 | |
DATE OF SENTENCE: | 17 July 2023 | |
CASE MAY BE CITED AS: | DPP v Reiri | |
MEDIUM NEUTRAL CITATION: | [2023] VCC 1232 | |
REASONS FOR SENTENCE
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Catchwords:
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APPEARANCES: | Counsel | Solicitors |
| For the Director of Public Prosecutions | Mr Pirrie | Office of the Public Prosecutions |
| For the Accused | Ms Jayasuriya | Victoria Legal Aid |
HIS HONOUR:
1 Wilson Reiri, you have pleaded guilty to one charge of aggravated burglary and two charges of causing injury recklessly. Those crimes carry maximum penalties of 25 years and five years respectively. You are now 23 years of age and were 22 years of age at the time of the offending. Clearly, you were still a young person.
2 You have pleaded guilty at an early opportunity and I give you the benefit of that. I find that your plea of guilty indicates a degree of remorse and I again give you the benefit of that. You have clearly saved the victims in this matter from a very distressing trial had you pleaded not guilty and you, of course, get the utilitarian benefit of it. It seems to me that had you pleaded not guilty you would have run a real risk of ending up on a custodial supervision order which would have been a disaster for you. I could simply say that, clearly, your lawyers have been - they have done a good job advising you not to go down that path. It is also a situation where your plea of guilty obviously brings into play the decision of Worboyes and I must take it into account in a noticeable way.
3 Even at the age of 22 when this occurred, you have concerning prior convictions. On 9 April of 2021 on a Community Corrections Order that had been first made in October of 2020 on a charge of aggravated burglary, and various others, including threat to kill. You were given - what is on the LEAP does not accord with what is in Her Honour's ruling. On the LEAP report it says you got six months with an 18-month CCO and this offending occurred within a month or so, or a couple of months at least, of that CCO ceasing. Your counsel points out to me that you did not offend during the course of that CCO.
4 Back in December 2018 you, in the Magistrates' Court, received an aggregate sentence of 71 days for charges including, inter alia, recklessly cause injury, make threat to kill and drunk in a public place.
5 Back in March 2018 you received a without conviction disposition for assault by kicking. This is the third time that you have been given a custodial sentence for crimes of violence and it is very concerning indeed. You have strong mitigating material and I will go through that again in a moment.
6 The offending that I will describe has to be regarded as serious. It calls for the application of general and specific deterrence, as well as denunciation and appropriate punishment. In your particular situation, bearing in mind the nature of this and also the nature of the offending for which Judge Todd sentenced you back in 2020, community protection has got to play a very significant part.
7 The offending can be described in fairly simple terms. You at the time were 22 years of age. At approximately 4 pm on 20 July 2022 you went to speak to a friend who you believed owed you $20 relating to the purchase of cannabis. He was not present but his mother, father and younger brother were. There must have been some sort of disputation because police were called and attended and spoke to all parties. You then left the address. Some - what would appear to have been an hour later, you went back to the address having armed yourself with a hammer.
8 On arrival you simply walked into the house via the unlocked front door, into the kitchen, where the lady, one April Berry, was standing near the stove. You were holding the hammer above your head with your right hand and saying, 'You dogs'. You approached her and used the hammer to hit the left side of her body near her ribs. I am not sure what her age is, but it is a very cowardly in the normal course of events crime to commit. That is Charge 2 of reckless injury.
9
Her son then came in and tried to assist her. You then hit him in the face with the hammer giving rise to Charge 3 of injury. The two of them were able to wrestle you to the floor and shout for Mr Berry who was in another room.
He came in and assisted.
10 A number of police arrived. The hammer was found. You were arrested and taken to hospital. You were cleared from there and taken to the Portland police station where you were interviewed. You told police you went to the address to get your money back. You agreed that you had the hammer with you. You agreed that you hit Ms Berry and you agreed that you had hit Maverick Berry in the face with the hammer. Ms Berry suffered bruising to her left chest wall. Maverick Berry suffered a wound to his lip, fractured his right and left nasal bones that required sutures, and bruising to his face. He had ongoing problems with that as has been described in the victim impact statement of his mother.
11 Her victim impact statement outlines pretty clearly the consequences this has had on her family. It is always comforting in one bizarre sense to note that she holds no feelings of vengeance against you and she said at the end:
'I sincerely hope he gets the help he needs. The boy I met a few times was a nice kid and I'm sad he's ended up in this situation. I'm also sad for myself and my family that we now carry the weight of his actions'.
12 That is the sign of a pretty good human being, in my view, and I expect her family is the same, but prior to that she had said that the crime had taken a huge toll on her and her family. The family suffered shock and anger and disbelief that it occurred that lasted for weeks. Her daughter was not sleeping, was constantly checking the front door. Also, her son who has had ongoing health issues with the broken nose and the associated injuries, and has been referred to see a specialist and is awaiting further intervention. She suffered unsightly bruising. It turned into a haematoma and took weeks to resolve.
13
Her children or certainly her daughter appears to still be frightened of you.
I understand upon your ultimate release it would be your intention to go back at least to Heywood, if not to Portland, where this offending occurred.
In very clear terms she describes the criminality of what you did. I make it clear from the outset that if you did not have the mental conditions that you do have, I would have regarded this crime as a very serious example of aggravated burglary indeed.
14
Your counsel put that a gaol sentence with a CCO was within range. The Crown submit that the appropriate sentence is a head sentence with a minimum term. Having considered the material overnight - and I am thankful to counsel for their very helpful submissions - and considered again today,
I think that the Crown submission has to be correct. Community protection has got to play a significant part in all this. You went armed with a hammer. You hit a defenceless woman with a hammer. You hit a young man, who was simply trying - a young boy who was simply trying to protect his mother, in the face. The risks involved were dreadful and, in some sense, it is very fortunate for you that they were not far more serious than actually occurred.
15 The only other matter I should raise at this stage is that I have now had the opportunity of reading the sentencing remarks of Judge Todd and I will not go into her findings as to mental capacity as I make those findings in a different way myself. Though it is pretty clear that the circumstances of that offending were frighteningly similar to this.
16
With that offending in April 2020, a Graham and Michelle Prentice were at home sleeping and you entered their house. You arrived at the house carrying a backpack, walked down their driveway, knocked on the door.
Mrs Prentice opened the door. You were wearing a top with the hood pulled over your head, but she recognised you. You began to yell at her. She told you to leave or she would call the police. Mr Prentice then woke up. They both watched while you opened the wire security door and looked through the glass door. You were abusing them. You called them 'cunts, dog cunts and inbred cunts'.
17 You banged on the back door. You were told to go away. You picked up a wooden deck chair, opened the wire security door and attempted to break into their house by hitting the glass door with the chair about 10 times. The chair broke in that process and it gives rise to attempted aggravated burglary. They were able to ring the police. You were unable to break the glass door with the deck chair. You took a knife from your backpack, wielded it, threatened to kill them. You said to them, 'I'll cut you, you cunts. Come out here and I'll fucking cut you. I'll kill all you cunts'. That gives rise to making a threat to kill.
18 You then broke a pot plant. I will not have to go into the detail of that. It is hard to know what would have happened if you had got through the door on that occasion, but, as with this matter, that must have been an extremely frightening scenario. I am not into mandatory sentencing or preventative sentencing in those matters, but this offending occurred not even, as I understand it - sorry - just on two years - the offending for which you are now before me is just two years after this, and you some time earlier had been given 71 days for reckless injury and some sort of violence. It has got to be put that you are - there is no other way of describing it - dangerous when you are mentally unwell and I will come back to that in a moment.
19
I have before me - very helpful as I have indicated - submissions from your counsel. I also have a report from Dr Cidoni and a report from
Pamela Matthews dating back to 2018. It is clear - I do not think there is any dispute about this - that you are very unfortunate in that you have been diagnosed with schizophrenia when you were about 15. You have a history of drug use that have hallucinatory properties. They probably have exacerbated your existing symptoms rather than caused them directly and you have been experiencing visual hallucinations since your childhood.
20
You have apparently on one earlier occasion threatened your mother with a hammer, but insofar as the family is concerned there is no signs of abuse. You have had several voluntary/involuntary treatment regimes between October 2014 and November 2014, May 2015, August 2015, January 2016, February 2016, August 2018. As I understand it, they have all been for schizophrenia-based difficulties. You also have been found to have a disability - to have a mild intellectual disability and I am well aware the word 'mild' does not go anywhere near the level of disability that you have.
A statement of intellectual disability has been filed and I certainly take that into account.
21
Obviously, the circumstances of your schizophrenia - the reports are on file.
I do not need to go into the detail, essentially humiliating you by going through each and every adaption of it. It is clear you have that condition. It is clear that the principles in Verdins relating to moral culpability, specific and general deterrence play a part. Denunciation and appropriate punishment also have to play a part in all this and you also get the benefit of the decision of Muldrock and, again, the same sort of principles, general deterrence and specific deterrence and just difficulty in interpreting what occurs around you, but it has to be said that this has just unfortunately gone too far.
22 Of interest to me - and I know Ms Matthews well - in her - she says - written and supervised by her - that back in 2018, when I assume she was assessing you for the 71 days, whatever that was - she said:
'Mr Reiri presents as a high risk of violent reoffending in a similar manner. In the writer's view he requires management in an involuntary supervised treatment environment until such time as he's stabilised. This will be best managed by a dual diagnosis treatment team'.
23 So essentially back in 2018 she was recommending that you be involuntarily detained. When it came forward to this matter reports were - again another report was received from Mr Cidoni who it appears, from what I am reading here, had given a report prior to this. He clearly seems to have - if I assume it was him and not Ms Cidoni - a report for Judge Todd which I have not seen, but be that as it may. The report that he essentially provided for me goes through the previous offending to a limited degree. It goes through this offending, but at the end of the day - he refers to your diagnosis, said it was unchanged from previously. He said:
'In my opinion he suffers from schizophrenia, polysubstance abuse, abuse particularly from methylamphetamine and cannabis, and a mild intellectual disability. I believe all those diagnoses interacted in terms of the offending.'
24 And he goes on to say that you had delusional beliefs in relation to the victims in this matter, which is concerning because it seems to bear no relationship to what you told him at least insofar as why you committed this offending, but at the end of the day it simply brings home all the matters that are referred to or most of the matters that are referred to in Verdins and most of the matters that are referred to in Muldrock.
25 You remain a young person. Hopefully this can be turned around. I note in Judge Todd's sentencing remarks of you that at that stage - she sentenced you to seven months in gaol so I do not know where the six comes from, but she said that she was trying to give you a sentence that enabled you to be rehabilitated so you did not go around frightening and assaulting people. She says that in the seven months that you had done in gaol at that time you had improved - that your mental health had improved in the custodial system and that she was going to give you the chance to be on a community corrections order. She was also doing that in circumstances where you were to be sentenced as a serious violent offender. She said:
'It's clear on the basis of your improvement during your time in custody that you can emerge from a crisis in your mental health and as a consequence avoid circumstances like the ones we are dealing with in court today.'
26 Unfortunately, that did not turn out to be true. I am very reluctant to give significant sentences or very significant sentences to people as young as yourself and particularly where they have matters over which when they are unwell, they have very little control, but I think in your circumstance the prospects of your rehabilitation are very guarded and the risk of your reoffending has got to be regarded as high. Pamela Matthews back in 2018 said it was and I do not think anything has changed.
27
However, I have to balance that against your youth and, as indicated about five times now, the matters personal to you which are included in your counsel's submissions. I am not going to go through your personal history,
I do not think there is any point in that, and the other sentencing principles.
28 Accordingly, taking into account all those matters as best I can, on the charge of aggravated burglary four years.
29 Charge 2 of reckless injury 12 months;
30 Charge 3 of reckless injury 12 months.
31 I direct that two months of the sentence imposed on Charge 2 and four months of the sentence imposed on Charge 3 be served cumulatively upon the sentence imposed on Charge 1.
32 For reasons of totality, and for reasons of double punishment, I give very little cumulation in that situation, but just to explain that that is why - Charge 3 in particular is, in my view, a very serious example of recklessly causing injury. That gives an effective total sentence of four and a half years.
33 Because of your potential for rehabilitation, I want to give the Parole Board as much opportunity as they can to assist you. I will therefore give you a minimum term of three years before becoming eligible for parole.
34 I direct that 362 days be reckoned as having been served under this sentence.
35 Pursuant to s6AAA of the Sentencing Act, which is a bit meaningless here because of your mental health issues, but in that scenario, I would have given you - but for your plea of guilty I would have given you six with a four.
36 I have made the other orders. Is there anything else I need to do?
37 MR PIRRIE: No, Your Honour.
38 MS JAYASURIYA: Nothing further, Your Honour.
39
HIS HONOUR: No. All right. Well, I will let you have a yarn to him.
Ms (indistinct) can organise that. We're right for 1.30?
40 MR PIRRIE: I think so, Your Honour.
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