Director of Public Prosecutions v Salau

[2024] VCC 611

IN THE COUNTY COURT OF VICTORIA

Revised

Not Restricted

 Suitable for Publication

AT MELBOURNE

CRIMINAL JURISDICTION

CR-22-01675

DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROSECUTIONS

v

MATT SALAU

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JUDGE:	HIS HONOUR JUDGE MOGLIA
WHERE HELD:	Melbourne
DATE OF HEARING:	6 March 2023
DATE OF SENTENCE:	2 May 2024
CASE MAY BE CITED AS:	DPP v Salau
MEDIUM NEUTRAL CITATION:	[2024] VCC 611

REASONS FOR SENTENCE

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Subject:              Criminal Law – Plea of guilty – Sentence.

Catchwords:       False imprisonment - Common law assault - Commit an indictable      

offence while on bail - Contravene a condition of bail – Offences

committed in company – Early plea of guilty - History of drug abuse -

Childhood deprivation - Relevant criminal history – Good prospects of

rehabilitation.  

Legislation Cited:

Cases Cited:        Bugmy v The Queen [2013] HCA 37.

Sentence:            Total effective sentence of 4 months imprisonment followed by a

community correction order for 8 months.

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APPEARANCES:	Counsel	Solicitors
For the Director of Public Prosecutions	G. Hayward M. Robinson (at sentence)	Office of Public Prosecutions
For the Accused	A. Dixon B. O'Malley (at sentence)	James Dowsley & Associates

HIS HONOUR: 

1Matt Salau, you have pleaded guilty to one charge of false imprisonment, it has a maximum penalty of 10 years' imprisonment; one charge of common law assault with a maximum penalty of five years; and you also pleaded guilty to two summary offences of committing an indictable offence while on bail, maximum penalty three months; and contravening a condition of bail with a maximum of three months.

2The agreed basis for your sentence is contained in a prosecution opening for plea dated 1 March 2023.

3In summary, in June 2021 associates of yours were in dispute with the victim, Michael Mavroudis-Rigbye over $2,000 they had given him to buy drugs.  He claimed he was robbed of the cash before being able to buy the drugs.

4Sometime on Saturday 19 June 2021 the leader of your co-accused, Todd Angwin, having threatened Mr Rigbye, detained him at Angwin's address in Raquel Close, Carrum Downs. He was detained there in a shed in the backyard.

5You arrived at about 2.55 am early the next morning, 20 June 2021, joining others already present detaining Mr Rigbye (Charge 1, false imprisonment).

6You entered the shed with others where he was being held.  You demanded he give an account of where the money was and after he responded, you punched him in the face (Charge 2, assault).

7You left at about 4.20 am and did not return.  You are not criminally responsible for any other acts that occurred while Mr Rigbye was in the shed.

8Mr Rigbye, having escaped later that morning in any case, was then treated at Frankston Hospital for bruising and swelling and lacerations.

9You were arrested some months later, after other matters, on 17 November 2021. 

10Prior to this offending, you had been bailed on 6 January 2021, and then remanded again on 29 July 2021 in relation to other offending unrelated to this case. 

11Then on 1 November 2021 at Frankston, a Magistrate imprisoned you for 50 days already served for offences occurring before this incident.  You remained in custody however on other matters.

12Then on 22 January 2022 for those other matters, you were imprisoned for a further nine months, during pre-sentence detention for which you were charged for this case on 18 August 2021.

13You conducted a contested committal on the case on 28 April 2022 in the Magistrate's Court.  You and your lawyers did not cross-examine the victim, although others involved did.  After various adjournments you were committed for trial on 12 September 2022, and you remained in custody.

14By October 2022 you had resolved the charges in this case and pleaded guilty in this court on 6 February 2023.  Given the way the matter settled, I find the guilty plea was relatively early and demonstrates that you take responsibility for what you did and express some remorse. 

15Your plea was entered before the trial date was set and it had the added benefit of having been entered during the time when the Court’s trial list had a backlog due to COVID.  This requires a noticeable and greater reduction in your sentence.

16Following your plea on 6 March 2023, I released you on bail supported by the CISP program – you were released on 22 May 2024 to live with your sister.

Personal Circumstances

17You were 27 years old at the time of the offending and you are now about 30.  Your parents separated when you were very young, about 8 years old, and you have two older sisters. You were all split up when your parents split.  You were put into residential care when you were about 14, and in those years you had started to use drugs and acting out.

18Over the next few years, you moved between various residential facilities, punctuated by a time in youth detention, where your parents visited separately every week or so. 

19You had a hard time at school.  You found it difficult, you were bullied, and you left school in Year 9. You later completed Years 10 and 11 when you were in Youth Justice Centres.

20While you were detained when you were about 14 or 15 you were abused by a staff member and you, looking back now, see that as a reason why you offended during the time that followed.

21Medically, when you were very young at age six, you were diagnosed with epilepsy and medicated to treat convulsions.  At age 10 you were prescribed dexamphetamine for ADHD, but after a couple of years that ceased because it was causing anger and other outbursts.

22In the community you have had a handful of jobs in concreting, bricklaying and demolition.  Whilst they lasted for a short time, they show that you were not going to allow your circumstances get on top of you. 

23As I mentioned, you had started smoking cannabis by age 14 and then MDMA and smoking methamphetamines by 16 years old.  By 18 or 19 you were also using GHB.  Your drug habits were very significant both in quantity and in the effects they had on your ability to develop an adult life.  That has been an added challenge for you.

24By the time of this offending in 2021 you were using a mix of methamphetamines, heroin and Xanax.  In your words, that night “was a blur”.

25In 2021 you suffered also from episodic and disturbing violent delusions.  You were not taking your anti-psychotic medication at the time, rather using methamphetamines and other drugs.  In fact, that year you were admitted to the Monash and Frankston Hospitals, including under intensive care following an incident of harm.

26In custody you met with psychiatric staff monthly and they put you on methadone and you responded well to it.  You are currently prescribed medication, including anti-psychotic medication, and despite some side effects, you have been compliant with that and you now receive depot injections.

27During your plea hearing you relied on the reports of Dr Owens dated
22 February 2023 (Exhibit 1) and for background purposes Dr Simon Kennedy dated 9 September 2010 (Exhibit 3). 

28I accept Dr Owens opinion that you have symptoms of schizophrenia, that you are likely to have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and that you have a Substance Use Disorder.  It has been suggested that you may have what is called a borderline personality disorder, but I cannot be satisfied of that unless it is investigated further.

29You have a relevant criminal history.  As a teenager you were sentenced for burglaries and theft and in 2013 for similar.  In 2014 you were put on a CCO for similar, which was breached, and this pattern repeated. It all reflects the drug related offending that I have referred to.

30For offending in 2019 and since, you were sentenced as I described before.

31In custody you have engaged in various courses, although the availability of courses was limited because of COVID.  You worked hard in custody and have since your release on CISP, and that is a very positive start towards your ultimate success in changing things in your life.

32As you have said, you have already spent a good deal of your life locked up.  For this reason, the opportunity to get support while on bail with CISP was an important one last year. 

33In her letter to the court dated 2 March 2023, your sister Shamona (Exhibit 2) confirms the account that I have given about your early life, and the challenges you had to face, and she says that it undoubtedly had an impact on the way you have lived so far.  She was an important support for you when you first were given bail.

Sentencing matters

34False imprisonment is serious, as is reflected in the maximum penalty of 10 years. As you admitted, you went to the house because you wanted to use drugs with friends. So, I find there was no premeditation or planning on your part about this offending. However, you actively participated in it once you arrived.  The victim was totally unknown to you.

35Your threatening behaviour and assault occurred while he was very vulnerable, locked in a shed, surrounded by others.  Your behaviour added to the terror he must have experienced.

36You remained in the shed for about an hour and a half, that is by no means brief, but during that time you saw your friends brandishing weapons and threatening Mr Rigbye.  When you did leave, you did so knowing that he would likely be assaulted further and that keeping him in the shed would facilitate the assaults that were to follow.  Although, you did not know how much longer Mr Rigbye would remain in the shed.

37More generally, your offending is made more serious by you being on bail at the time.  I must take that into account in measuring your overall responsibility and in arriving at an appropriate sentence. 

38Your counsel submitted that your mental ill health means that I should not punish you more harshly than I need to, in order to deter others.  I find that it is too hard to disentangle the combined effect of your drug use from the effects of your illness, and I find that you were not taking your medication.  But you are now on depot injections, which is a positive thing, and it is good that you are keeping this up.

39Your counsel, Ms Dixon, submitted, and I accept, that prison was harder on you as a result of your mental health needs.  As Dr Owens observed, your childhood comprised instability, abuse and dysfunction and also has had an effect on your adult life. It will have an effect on your sentence in accordance with the principles in the case of Bugmy.

40I have had regard to your other sentences that you have already served since this offence in 2021 and the effect of that is that because you have served time in custody on other offences, I need impose a lower sentence in your case, so as not to arrive at a total time in prison that is disproportionate to what you did in total.

41You have achieved, over the past months at least, some progress in your rehabilitation and even though there is a way to go for you in that, you have done good work and you should feel proud of that.

42By your plea and the way you have conducted the case, you have recognised the impact of what you did on Mr Rigbye and I accept that this shows a good attitude and some remorse.

43I accept that your drug habits have contributed to your offending and that without your drug use you may well not have chosen to do what you did. This bears on the question of how much focus I have on your rehabilitation, rather than on your punishment.

44I accept that you will require significant psycho-social support in the community and that may include ongoing counselling about your drug use.

45You are still relatively young, and I find, in all the circumstances, that there is a strong incentive to focus on rehabilitating you, as you have progressed so far, in preparing for the rest of your life. So, I will make a CCO to advance the progress that you have already started on CISP.

46Counsel have referred me to a number of cases for guidance about sentencing in like scenarios, and I have considered them when arriving at your sentence. 

47It was very fairly conceded at your plea that a sentence of imprisonment following by a community corrections order is appropriate. 

48I sentence you as follows:

On Charge 1, false imprisonment, (aggregate with Charge 2) – 4 months imprisonment and a CCO.

On Charge 2, assault (aggregate) – 4 Months and a CCO.

On the summary offences, Charges 5, 7 and 8, all relating to your bail – convicted and discharged.

49I declare that you have served the four months that I have imposed and so you do not need to go back to prison. 

50The CCO is with conviction, and it will go for eight further months.  The conditions are that:

You are to be assessed and treated, if needs be, for drug abuse, for alcohol abuse, for your mental health, and for programs.  Each of those conditions means that you must attend an assessment session and there may be nothing more to do than that, but if the assessor decides that you can be supported, or that you do need further treatment in relation to any of those, then you must attend.

You will be subject of supervision, so you will have to have meetings, no doubt at first weekly with Corrections, so that they can monitor how you are progressing. 

For at least for the first month and a half I am going to continue judicial monitoring, which means on 13 June at 2.15 in the afternoon you are to return here to court, and I will hear an update and talk with you about how things have gone over this transition.

51If you had not pleaded guilty, I indicate that I would have imposed eight months' imprisonment combined with a longer CCO. 

52I have the order printed out and that is in relation to the two charges, the eight-month CCO that starts today, and your first obligation of course in the next two days is to go and attend Corrections. Ms O'Malley will help you understand and advise you where to go and how.  It includes the supervision and the assessment and treatment, and it includes the details of the date when you must come back.

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