Director of Public Prosecutions v Riley
[2024] VSC 777
•16 December 2024
| IN THE SUPREME COURT OF VICTORIA | Not Restricted |
AT MELBOURNE
CRIMINAL DIVISION
S ECR 2023 0294
| DPP | Crown |
| v | |
| JORDAN RILEY | Accused |
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JUDGE: | KAYE JA |
WHERE HELD: | Melbourne |
DATE OF HEARING: | 12 December 2024 |
DATE OF SENTENCE: | 16 December 2024 |
CASE MAY BE CITED AS: | DPP v Riley |
MEDIUM NEUTRAL CITATION: | [2024] VSC 777 |
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CRIMINAL LAW – Sentence – Manslaughter – Early plea of guilty – Accused complicit in stabbing of victim in company of another – Victim succumbed to wounds shortly after being driven to hospital by accused – Mental impairment – Accused diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic – Accused reported suffering sporadic episodes of psychosis in years preceding offence – Illness untreated at time of offence – Accused likely suffering from symptoms of psychosis at time of offence – Reduced culpability – Difficult circumstances in custody – Criminal history – Accused previously served term of imprisonment for assault – Lack of insight into offending – Significant utilitarian value of plea.
DPP v Ngoc Nguyen [2024] VSC 99; DPP v Tovey [2023] VSC 530; DPP v Hocking [2022] VSC 324; DPP v Walia [2022] VSC 606; R v Dellamarta [2021] VSC 220; DPP v Devey (No 2) [2021] VSCA 121, considered.
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APPEARANCES: | Counsel | Solicitors |
| For the Crown | Mr J. Dickie and Mr L. McPhie | Office of Public Prosecutions |
| For the Accused | Mr J. Desmond | Emma Turnbull Lawyers Pty Ltd |
HIS HONOUR:
Jordan Riley. You have pleaded guilty to the manslaughter of Daniel Cockerill at Berwick on 26 March 2023. Your plea is made on the basis that you were criminally involved in the commission of an unlawful and dangerous act that caused the death of Daniel Cockerill.
At the time of the offence, you were residing in a rented room in a boarding house in Port Melbourne. Daniel Cockerill also lived at the same address, and he was assisting to manage the property on behalf of its owner. A third person, who was involved in the events that led to the death of Daniel Cockerill, was Ayant Singh. You had known Ayant Singh for almost two years, and he had met Daniel Cockerill on a couple of occasions.
On the evening of 25 March 2023, by a previous arrangement, you met Ayant Singh at the Clyde Village shops. Having purchased some alcohol, you and Ayant Singh then returned to the premises in Port Melbourne, where you both consumed some of the alcohol. At about 1:30 am on Sunday, 26 March 2023, Daniel Cockerill joined you and Mr Singh at the premises. Daniel Cockerill had been at various bars from at least 7:15 pm the previous evening, and he had been drinking alcohol during that time.
Shortly after Daniel Cockerill joined you and Ayant Singh, the three of you left Port Melbourne in a Volvo sedan motor vehicle, which the owner of the property had lent to Daniel Cockerill. In the hours that followed, the Volvo was recorded, by CCTV, in Blackburn, Beaconsfield and Berwick. At 6:02 am, the Volvo was recorded on CCTV footage at the Shell Coles Express Service Station in High Street, Berwick. At the time, you were driving the vehicle, Daniel Cockerill was in the front passenger seat, and Ayant Singh was in the left rear passenger seat. Daniel Cockerill was alive at that time. After purchasing petrol, you returned to the vehicle and drove off towards Pakenham.
The precise circumstances in which Daniel Cockerill was killed are not known. However, some time after 6:02 am, he received a stab wound to the left side of the chest, which penetrated his heart. He also sustained defensive stab wounds to his right hand.
After Daniel Cockerill was stabbed, you drove the Volvo vehicle to Casey Hospital in Berwick, where you arrived at about 7:26 am. At that time, Ayant Singh was in the front passenger seat, and Daniel Cockerill was in the rear seat.
Almost immediately after you arrived at the hospital, you alighted from the Volvo vehicle, went to the rear left passenger door, and opened it. You looked inside it for about 20 seconds. A paramedic, Kathryn Batrouney, approached you. She looked inside, and, at her request, you assisted her to pull Daniel Cockerill’s body out of the vehicle and onto the footpath.
Ms Batrouney briefly examined Daniel Cockerill. She found that there was no pulse, his pupils were fixed and dilated, and his body felt cold. Ms Batrouney asked you and Ayant Singh what had occurred, and either you or Ayant Singh responded, ‘He’s taken something, he might have injected something’. When Ms Batrouney asked about the man’s name, either you or Ayant Singh said, ‘I don’t know’. At that point, Ms Batrouney had been joined by a paramedic and by a police officer, who commenced to administer CPR to Daniel Cockerill. As they did so, you returned to the vehicle, slowly reversed it, and drove off. Ayant Singh had remained in the vehicle throughout the time in which it was stationary at the hospital.
After you and Ayant Singh departed from the hospital, you drove to the home of an acquaintance, Terry Heath, in Skye. You knocked on the door and started ‘carrying on’ when he did not answer it. You asked Mr Heath for a glass of water. You also remarked that you thought you were being ‘set up’. When Mr Heath told you that you and your friend should leave, you returned to the vehicle, and, after sitting in it for about 20 minutes, you then drove off.
On the same day, 26 March 2023, an autopsy was performed on the body of Daniel Cockerill. The pathologist identified a stab wound to the left sternal edge, which extended directly into the right ventricle of the heart to a depth of 5.3 centimetres. As the wound had grooved the left aspect of the sternum, it was considered to be moderate to severe in severity. By extending into the right ventricle of the heart, it resulted in the formation of blood within the chest cavity. Unsurprisingly, the pathologist concluded that the stab wound was the cause of death of Daniel Cockerill. In addition, Daniel Cockerill had also sustained multiple sharp force injuries to his right hand that were consistent with attempts by him to defend himself.
On 26 March 2023, at about 11:45 am, you were arrested and conveyed to St Kilda Police Station for interview. As a result of your demeanour at that time, you were examined by Dr Joseph Vu, clinical forensic medicine registrar. Dr Vu assessed that you were not fit to be interviewed at that time, and that you had medical care needs that required ongoing management. You were subsequently released on the same evening.
On 28 March 2023, the Volvo was forensically examined. A Pyrex kitchen knife in a sheath was found in the rear of the vehicle on the driver’s side. Blood was identified on the blade of the knife, the DNA of which matched the DNA of Daniel Cockerill. Samples of DNA from the knife’s handle and sheath were compared to your DNA, with a very strong likelihood that you were a contributor.
The prosecution has accepted, and you are to be sentenced on the basis, that the fatal injury, sustained by Daniel Cockerill, might have been caused in the context of a physical altercation, and that the prosecution cannot prove, beyond reasonable doubt, who actually physically inflicted that wound. Further, by accepting your plea to the offence of manslaughter, the prosecution has accepted that it is not in a position to prove, beyond reasonable doubt, that the stab wound was inflicted with the intention to kill, or to cause really serious injury to, Daniel Cockerill.
On 1 June 2023, police arrested Ayant Singh. Initially, he claimed that he was not aware that Daniel Cockerill had been injured. After being interviewed, he denied stabbing Daniel Cockerill, and he signed a statement, adopting what he said in the interview. He was then released.
On the following day, 2 June 2023, you were arrested. You declined to be interviewed, and you were charged with murder. You have remained in custody since your arrest on that date.
Subsequently, on 4 November this year, after a sentence indication hearing, you indicated an intention to plead guilty to the present charge of manslaughter. The prosecution accepted that indication. Accordingly, on 8 November, you were arraigned, and pleaded guilty to the charge of manslaughter.
As is evident from what I have said so far, the precise circumstances in which Daniel Cockerill sustained the fatal wound to his chest are not known. You have pleaded guilty to the charge of manslaughter, and you are to be sentenced, on the basis that you were at least complicit in the offence, by intentionally assisting, encouraging, directing or agreeing to the assault of Daniel Cockerill with a knife, in circumstances in which a reasonable person, in your position, would have realised that that act exposed him to an appreciable risk of serious injury.
The offence of manslaughter, to which you have pleaded guilty, is, of itself, a most serious criminal offence, for which the maximum sentence is 25 years’ imprisonment.
In assessing the seriousness of your offending, it is necessary to take into account, first, that the fatal wound was inflicted with a knife, and, secondly, that it occurred in circumstances in which you were acting in company with another.
On the other hand, there is no evidence that the assault was planned or premeditated, and it is accepted that it occurred spontaneously in the course of a disagreement or altercation involving Daniel Cockerill. The act, which resulted in Daniel Cockerill’s death, was limited to one single blow. It is also relevant that, after Daniel Cockerill was wounded, you drove him to hospital, with a view to obtaining appropriate medical treatment for him.
As a result of the offence in which you were thus complicit, Daniel Cockerill lost his life. At the time of his death, Daniel Cockerill was 45 years of age. I have read the moving victim impact statements of Daniel Cockerill’s uncle, Bill Chalker, and of his cousins, Amandalee McIver, Rosemary Hale, Paul Chalker and Kimba Millar. It is clear that Daniel was a much valued family member. He was close to his uncle, and to each of his cousins, who regarded him as more than just a cousin, and more like a brother. While Daniel Cockerill was the principal victim of your crime, nevertheless they, and other members of his family, are also real victims of it.
The victim impact statements are relevant, because they are a salutary reminder of the grief and suffering that have been, and will continue to be, the consequence of the offence in which you were criminally complicit. While your sentence is to be based on a rational analysis of the facts of the case, and on the application of relevant sentencing principles, it is important to keep in mind the serious effects of the offence that you have committed, and the deep and lasting sorrow and pain that has been, and will continue to be, a direct consequence of it.
In respect of your antecedents, you have some relevant previous convictions. In 2007, you were fined by the Dandenong Magistrates’ Court on a number of charges, including resist police, and traffic charges. More relevantly, in March 2016, you came before the Melbourne County Court on one charge of intentionally causing injury. You were sentenced to a Community Corrections Order for two years, which contained conditions, including that you perform 50 hours unpaid community work, and that you undergo assessment and treatment as directed.
On 2 December 2021, you were before the Dandenong Magistrates’ Court on two charges of assaulting a police officer, and one charge of intentionally causing injury. You were sentenced to a total effective sentence of 6 months’ imprisonment, together with a Community Correction Order for 18 months, which contained conditions that included that you undergo mental health assessment and treatment as directed.
At the time at which you committed the offence in the present case, you were subject to that Community Correction Order, which had commenced on 4 March 2022, which was the date of your release from prison.
I turn, then, to your personal circumstances that are relevant to the determination of your sentence.
You were born in England in September 1982, and are now 42 years of age. You have a younger brother and a younger sister. When you were four years of age, your parents migrated to Australia. Your parents separated two years later, when you were six years of age. You remained living with, and were raised, by your mother, and you had fortnightly contact with your father.
You were raised in Frankston, and attended two local primary schools and three secondary schools, completing your secondary education in Year 10. After you left school, you successfully completed TAFE certificates in electronics and information technology. You have been employed in a number of capacities, including in construction, manufacturing works and forklift driving. Your last employment was in the tiling industry, in which you were engaged until January 2023.
You left Frankston in your early 20s, and then lived in a number of different suburbs, principally in rooms that you rented in boarding houses. In 2017, you moved to Queensland for three years, and you then returned to Victoria.
You have a longstanding history of drug use. You commenced using cannabis when you were 16 years of age. You used cannabis, mainly for recreational purposes, but for some periods you used it daily. Over the last few years, you used it approximately fortnightly. You have also tried other drugs, including ecstasy and methamphetamine. You first used methamphetamine when you were 24 years of age. In more recent years, you used it about once per month.
In addition, you have an established history of alcohol consumption, commencing at the age of 14 years. Over the last few years before the offence in the present case, you consumed six to eight cans of beer, four days each week. On occasions, you became intoxicated to such an extent that you ‘blacked out’.
The most relevant feature of your background is that you have a longstanding history of mental ill-health. You first had contact with the Mental Health Services at the age of 28 years, when you were admitted to the Dandenong Hospital Psychiatric Inpatient Unit. You have subsequently been involuntarily admitted to psychiatric inpatient units on three occasions; to the Monash Hospital, to Casey Hospital, and to a hospital in Queensland.
In 2014, you suffered your first episode of psychosis, and you were managed by Alfred Health. Dr Andrew Carroll assessed you and diagnosed you to suffer paranoid schizophrenia.
Your Justice Health file records that, at the time of your previous offending in 2016, you then suffered longstanding and systematised delusions of being drugged and sexually assaulted. The file records that you were treated with antipsychotic depot medications, aripiprazole and risperidone.
In your previous term of imprisonment, between October 2021 and March 2022, you were treated in hospital with antipsychotic medication. When you were released from custody in March 2022, it was intended that you would voluntarily receive treatment with Monash Community Mental Health Services. However, unfortunately, you failed to engage in that treatment, and your psychiatric condition was therefore untreated between March 2022 and the offence in March 2023.
Since you have been remanded in custody, you have been held at the Melbourne Assessment Prison. You have had a number of attendances with the prison psychiatrist, psychiatric registrar and psychiatric nurse. The notations in the Justice Health File record that you report themes that include feelings of persecution, persecutory ideation, and feelings of injustice. The file contains a note of 20 July 2023 that you had suffered a psychotic relapse of your schizophrenic condition in the context of you not adhering to medication, the death of your father, and possible substance use. On 24 July 2023, you were admitted to the Aire Unit in Ravenhall Correctional Centre in an acute bed-based mental health unit.
On 2 November 2023, you were examined by Dr Adam Deacon, a consultant psychiatrist, for the purpose of the present proceedings. At that time, you had recently been discharged from Thomas Embling Hospital following a six week admission.
The report of Dr Deacon, dated 3 November 2023, was tendered on the plea. In the report, Dr Deacon set out, in some detail, your personal and psychiatric history, to which I have referred. Dr Deacon concluded that you have an established diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia. He noted that after you were released from custody in March 2022, it was intended that you should voluntarily receive treatment with Monash Community Mental Health Services, but you failed to engage in that treatment. As a consequence, you were untreated between the time of your release in March 2022, and the offence in March 2023.
Dr Deacon noted that you were most unwilling to discuss the circumstances in which Daniel Cockerill sustained the fatal injury. You insisted that Mr Cockerill had, in fact, died from a drug overdose, and you said that you mistrusted the medical evidence, that he died from the fatal wound to his heart. Dr Deacon concluded that it was not possible to determine whether you were mentally ill at the time of the offence, but he considered that it is very likely that you were actively psychotic at that time. Dr Deacon could not, however, from an expert psychiatric point of view, express an opinion as to whether there was a clearly definable connection between your psychotic illness and the offence. Dr Deacon further noted that you have lacked insight into your mental illness.
Based on the evidence, and as the prosecution has correctly accepted, I am persuaded, on the balance of probabilities, that, despite that qualification in Dr Deacon’s report, there was a relevant link between your psychiatric disorder and your involvement in the death of Daniel Cockerill.
It is apparent from your history that you have a longstanding background of serious psychiatric illness, consisting primarily of paranoid schizophrenia. As I have noted, during your previous term of imprisonment, you were treated in hospital with antipsychotic medication for that condition. However, following your release from prison, during the period of twelve months that immediately preceded the offence in the present case, you did not receive any treatment for your condition. In that context, it is relevant that, upon your initial arrest in the present case on 26 March 2023, you were then assessed to be not fit to be interviewed, and that you had medical care needs that required ongoing management. Subsequently, after your arrest on 2 June 2023, and while you have been in custody, your condition has been active, and you have been required to undergo treatment for a relapse of your schizophrenic condition.
Those circumstances reinforce the view expressed by Dr Deacon that it is probable that, at the time of the offending, you were actively psychotic. As such, you did not have the capacity, that an ordinary person would have had, to think calmly and rationally, and to exercise appropriate control and judgment at the time at which the fatal blow was inflicted on Daniel Cockerill. To that extent, I am satisfied that your moral culpability — that is, your personal responsibility — for the offence to which you have pleaded guilty, was materially less than that which would be attributed to a person who did not suffer the same psychological problems that have affected you.
In that respect, I note that, at the time of the offending, you were not taking your prescribed medication. However, your failure to do so was directly connected with your lack of insight into the nature and extent of your condition, which, I also accept, was very much part and parcel of that condition. Accordingly, the fact that you were not taking your medication does not qualify or affect the extent to which your moral culpability for the offending was reduced, due to its connection with your psychological condition.
I also accept that, as a result of your entrenched psychiatric disorder, your time in prison has been, and will continue to be, more difficult for you than it is for other prisoners.
In mitigation, I also take into account your plea of guilty. In the context in which you were initially charged with murder, I accept that your guilty plea should be regarded as, and given the credit of, the equivalent of an early plea.
Your plea of guilty has particular significance in the circumstances of this case. In particular, the prosecution case was based, substantially, on the evidence of Ayant Singh. It is apparent that his credibility and reliability would have been vulnerable to attack in cross-examination, if the case had proceeded to trial. Accordingly, and as the prosecution has properly accepted, your plea has significant utilitarian benefit. It has facilitated the course of justice, and, in addition, it demonstrates a willingness, by you, to accept responsibility for your conduct in being criminally involved in the death of Daniel Cockerill.
In determining your sentence, I am required to take into account current sentencing practices. For any criminal offence, the range of factors, relating to the offending itself, and the circumstances of the particular offender, may vary significantly, so that it is never a simple task to identify the appropriate range of sentence. That is particularly so in cases involving the offence of manslaughter, which, it is the experience of the courts, can and do occur in an almost infinite variety of circumstances.
Nevertheless, and subject to those qualifications, I do take into account the sentences imposed in the comparable cases, which counsel for the prosecution have helpfully referred me to. In particular, I have had reference to the sentencing decisions in DPP v Ngoc Nguyen,[1] DPP v Tovey,[2] DPP v Seymour,[3] DPP v Hocking,[4] DPP v Walia,[5] The Queen v Dellamarta,[6] and DPP v Devey (No 2).[7] Although those cases are not particularly similar to, or comparable with, the present case, nevertheless, a review of them has given me some assistance in identifying the appropriate sentencing range for the offending in which you engaged in the present case. In that respect it is, of course, important to bear in mind that current sentencing practices are just one of a number of factors, which must be taken into account in determining the sentence to be imposed upon you.
[1][2024] VSC 99.
[2][2023] VSC 530.
[3][2023] VSC 324.
[4][2022] VSC 606.
[5][2022] VSC 12.
[6][2021] VSC 220.
[7][2021] VSCA 121.
The principles, that apply to the determination of your sentence, are well-established. It is necessary that the sentence, which I impose, be such as to appropriately express the condemnation by this Court, and the community, of your wrongdoing, and to uphold the value, which our society properly places on each human life.
It is also important that the sentence be of sufficient severity so as to act as a general deterrent, by making it clear that any person, who is minded to engage in the kind of violence that occurred in the present case, will lose his or her right to remain at liberty in society for a substantial period of time.
In addition, I consider it important that the sentence be sufficient to ensure that you personally are deterred from any further such wrongdoing. While you have accepted responsibility for the death of Daniel Cockerill, your insight into your wrongdoing is quite limited. In addition, you have previous convictions for offences involving violence. Although it is clear that those offences were committed by you in the context of your mental health issues, they are relevant to an assessment of your prospects of rehabilitation. In those circumstances, those prospects could only be assessed as guarded.
In conclusion, the offence of manslaughter, to which you have pleaded guilty, is a serious criminal offence. As I have discussed, there were some serious aspects of the offending in the present case, including that it involved the use of a knife, and the offence was participated in by you in company with another. On the other hand, as I have noted, the fatal assault on Daniel Cockerill comprised one blow, and there is no evidence that the assault was premeditated or prolonged. It is also to your credit that, after Daniel Cockerill was wounded, you drove him to hospital.
As I have outlined, there are a number of important mitigating circumstances, which I take into account in your favour. They include your plea of guilty, and its important utilitarian value. In addition, due to your psychiatric condition, your moral culpability for the offending was materially reduced from that which would have been attributed to a person who did not suffer from that condition. I also take into account that, as a result of your psychiatric disorder, a sentence of imprisonment has been, and will be, more burdensome for you than would otherwise be the case.
Taking those matters into account, I sentence you as follows. On the charge of manslaughter of Daniel Cockerill, I sentence you to 8 years and 6 months’ imprisonment. I fix a minimum non-parole period of 5 years and 3 months’ imprisonment. Pursuant to s 18(4) of the Sentencing Act 1991, I declare that 533 days (not including today’s date) be reckoned as served under the sentence, and I shall cause that declaration to be noted in the records of the Court.
As I have discussed I have taken into account, in your favour, the fact that you have pleaded guilty. For the purposes of s 6AAA of the Sentencing Act, but for your plea of guilty, I would have imposed a sentence of 10 years and 6 months’ imprisonment with a non-parole period of 7 years and 6 months.
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