Director of Public Prosecutions v Savannah
[2024] VCC 184
•27 February 2024
| IN THE COUNTY COURT OF VICTORIA | Revised Not Restricted Suitable for Publication |
AT MELBOURNE
CRIMINAL JURISDICTION
| DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROSECUTIONS |
| v |
| JULIAN SAVANNAH |
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JUDGE: | HIS HONOUR JUDGE SMALLWOOD |
WHERE HELD: | Melbourne |
DATE OF HEARING: | 27 February 2024 |
DATE OF SENTENCE: | 27 February 2024 |
CASE MAY BE CITED AS: | DPP v Savannah |
MEDIUM NEUTRAL CITATION: | [2024] VCC 184 |
REASONS FOR SENTENCE
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APPEARANCES: | Counsel | Solicitors |
| For the Director of Public Prosecutions | Ms S. Pillai | Office of Public Prosecutions |
For the Accused | Ms A. Wong | Victoria Legal Aid |
HIS HONOUR:
1Julian Savannah, you have pleaded guilty on an indictment to one charge of intentionally causing injury. That crime carries a maximum penalty of 10 years' imprisonment.
2You have also acknowledged and admitted a breach of a Community Corrections Order which I imposed upon you back in 2021.
3On the charge of breach you are convicted and discharged.
4The sentence I set at that time is otherwise set aside and I propose to re–sentence in the next few minutes.
5You have pleaded guilty to a settled indictment and must get the benefit of that. I accept in your situation you expressed appropriate remorse during the course of your interview and made very significant admissions.
6You must also, of course, get the utilitarian benefit of the plea of guilty. In a situation such as this where your version of events, as well as that of the witness Hardy, differ from that of the victim, it is of real significance that he was not put through the process of effectively being called a liar. That is of real significance and something that I do take into account.
7You, as I understand it, have been through significant periods of lockdown whilst in custody and it may well be that the sentence I impose will be reduced by the gaol administratively. That has got nothing to do with me.
8This plea of guilty comes still in the time of Worboyes and I am well aware of the principles in relation to that.
9The offending must be regarded as serious, and in the normal course of events the application of general and specific deterrence is relevant. In your particular situation, for reasons discussed with counsel, limbs 3 and 5 of Verdins apply and I think also the general aspects of Bugmy apply as well. I take them into account.
10I am not going to go into great detail about your background, I will just simply refer to it in very brief terms.
11Unfortunately, you do have prior convictions and findings of guilt of significance. There is the recklessly cause serious injury for which I sentenced you on some two and a half or three years ago. There is also a reckless endangerment and assault going back to the Magistrates' Court, albeit roughly a decade or so ago. My recollection is that involved a stabbing as well which is of concern. It plays no real part in this situation. It is a matter of some antiquity but simply remains a matter of concern.
12The situation here is that there has been a delay of some two years from you originally being charged and the matter finally coming on for plea. I am told from the Bar table there was a six month delay while your fitness to plead was assessed and I in no way, shape or form attribute the delay to yourself or to the Crown. It is simply there and delay is an important factor in sentencing, as the Court of Appeal has pointed out in many situations.
13You have now been on remand for 735 days which is a very significant period of time.
14As I have indicated, limbs 3 and 5 of Verdins, as well as Bugmy, do apply. Because of the need to re–sentence you on the matter for which I dealt with you back in 2020, I also have to apply principles of totality.
15At 30 years of age, you are still a relatively young man and it is around that age that people are sometimes able to turn their lives around. You have been examined by psychiatrists and psychologists on a number of occasions and it is clear that you have disposition towards schizophrenia. You also had long term drug abuse which may well have resulted in psychosis and the like. Tihs is certainly of a fragility insofar as your mental health is concerned, as clearly indicated by the need that was felt by your counsel to have you assessed for whether you were fit to be tried.
16In this particular situation, it is agreed that any form of community disposition is out of the question. The only disposition available to me is that of a head sentence and a minimum term and I will proceed to do that.
17Firstly, I do not propose to go through all the matters relating to the matter for which I gave you the CCO. What I will simply do is I will tender my sentencing remarks from back in 2021 which explain all that. Little has changed, other than the fact that you have spent a year at liberty in COVID circumstances under difficulties where your drug use escalated. I accept that it would have been a difficult period of time for you where realistically nothing was achieved in your rehabilitation.
18As I indicated to counsel, I am not being unpleasant when I say this, at the time I gave you the CCO I personally had some reservations. You indicated to people at that stage that you would prefer to be in gaol than to do it and, effectively, here we are. I am going to give you an opportunity for parole. It is to be hoped that you try and apply for parole. I have got doubts that you will. It is entirely up to the authorities whether they do it or not but I would be really concerned if you were released back into the community without some sort of support. These remarks will be sent to the Parole Board but it is really going to be a matter between you and them.
19The offending occurred on the 22 February 2022 at around about 3 o'clock in the afternoon. There are differing versions. Your version and the version ultimately given by a witness, Hardy, is that the victim came in aggressively and had a box cutter. The witness says he pointed it towards her and was yelling abuse, that you then appeared and a fight ensued where she did not really see what happened other than punches thrown. Your version of events was that the victim, Mr Cicala, had a silver box cutter. You got it off him and then proceeded to attack him with it. His version of events was that you had the box cutter at all times. I am not buying into that. I will simply say it is conceded, and sensibly by the Crown, in these circumstances that the offending is fleeting and spontaneous and obviously has to be regarded with a certain level – I am careful about this – of provocation.
20In any event, the victim went to the ground outside and suffered injuries of real significance. I almost said the word 'serious' then, Ms Pillai. They included a 20 centimetre oblique penetrating open wound from the bridge of his nose to the angle of his jaw, three centimetre laceration on his left hand, a nasal bone fracture and scattered abrasions. Mr Cicala also said, in his victim impact statement, there was nerve damage which I would assume would be the case with an injury such as that.
21In any event, the victim impact statement eloquently describes the physical aspects of it, the psychological damage it did and the ongoing effects that the assault was going to have upon him. I do not know much about him so I am always a little bit careful in those regards, but to go through life with a 15 to 20 centimetre wound right across his face is going to cause him difficulties whenever he looks in a mirror and whenever people query him about it. He has got that for life and that has to play a part in this sentencing.
22As I have already indicated, I think the actual offence itself as a physical action was at the lower end and the basis I have to sentence is that he provided the box cutter, not you, but the injuries are certainly at the upper end of the word 'injury'.
23A number of reports have been tendered on your behalf and I have read them before and I do not propose to go through all that again. It is clear from those reports and from the earlier sentencing remarks, which went through your early childhood and the difficulties that you had insofar as alcoholism and your father and all sorts of things, were concerned. They are all present on the court file. The Crown concede Bugmy in the general sense, although not the specific and I do not think I need to go into those in detail here.
24Dr Zimmerman in the latest report from November of last year said that;
'Given the presence of some preoccupation with religious beliefs mirroring past symptoms when psychotic, I believe Mr Savannah is best formulated as suffering from schizophrenia currently in partial remission in the context of no antipsychotic treatment and reportedly no substance use…
Mr Savannah is predisposed to psychosis, has a long history now of taking substances known to precipitate psychosis in vulnerable individuals and has experienced a range of symptoms including paranoid and religious delusions, hallucinations and social withdrawal and decline in functioning.'
25They are all the matters that go to Verdins and also to Bugmy in terms of the difficulties of the childhood. Again, I fail to see the reason, where it is all on file and available to any person with a genuine interest, to outline all those difficulties and humiliate you anymore than you already probably have been throughout your life.
26Prospects of your rehabilitation I think are very guarded. The risk of you reoffending if you use drugs again is going to be high, there is simply no questions about that now. As I have indicated in relation to Verdins and Bugmy, the question of community protection in this particular situation does become very important. There will come a time if you keep doing this that it will become extremely important, but I have to protect the community from this sort of violence, albeit violence coming from a source that has been as damaged as you have been.
27I do not think in these circumstances I need to say much more than that. I have read the victim impact statement and the victim can rest assured that I understand completely his dilemma and totally understand what he now faces.
28I can only sentence according to law and on the materials that have been put forward.
29I have also got to be careful here with the pre–sentence detention with the Community Corrections Order that was on top of the 328 day sentence. There is all sorts of difficulties with orders of serving sentences and the like so I am going to do this in a particular way.
30On the charge of recklessly cause serious injury you are re–sentenced to be imprisoned for a period of two years.
31On the charge of intentionally cause injury, two years.
32I direct that nine months of the sentence imposed on the recklessly cause serious injury be served cumulatively on the sentence imposed on the intentionally cause injury which gives a total effective sentence of two years and nine months.
33I direct that you serve a minimum term of two years and three months before becoming eligible for parole. That may alter administratively, that has got nothing to do with me.
34That allows for a time, if it can be organised, of six months on parole if that can be achieved. That is not a long time but I am not going to inflate a head sentence in circumstances where there is very little hope that it will be of any assistance.
35So they are the matters I take into account and I direct that 735 days be reckoned as having been served under this sentence. That is the way to do it I am sure, ladies. If anyone disagrees with that, say so. On the basis of Lu and those decisions.
36MS WONG: Your Honour, he served 735 days for the cause injury. Separately for the serious injury he served an additional 328.
37HIS HONOUR: No, I understand that but he doesn't get 1000 I can tell you. I have given him – that is why I have done it the way I have done it. I have made the 15 months of the recklessly cause serious injury is to be served concurrently with this sentence. I have now declared 735 days. So his total effective sentence is two years, nine months with 735 days served.
38MS WONG: I see, thank you, Your Honour.
39HIS HONOUR: That is what I am saying to you, you have got to be really careful with this. I cannot go giving different PSDs for different charges on the one indictment, it does not work. I have tried that before. This way – and I can always amend it if something goes wrong with this, I can amend it under 104A, that is no problem - but the way I see it is this; both those sentences now commence again today, right. Of that total effective sentence of two years and nine months, 735 days has been served and I will put on transcript, if need be, and it is not because I think it causes problems, I would declare the 328 if that became necessary.
40MS WONG: As Your Honour pleases.
41HIS HONOUR: All right.
42MS WONG: For the sake of completeness, I don't think I formally tendered any reports. Would it be of assistance if I did that?
43HIS HONOUR: Sorry, I thought I did. No. Yes, what we will do – – –
44#EXHIBIT D - Crown submissions
45#EXHIBIT 1 - Latest report of Dr Zimmerman.
46#EXHIBIT 2 - Defence submissions.
47MS WONG: As Your Honour pleases.
48HIS HONOUR: Are there any other documents I was given that need to be individually tendered?
49MS WONG: There were other materials filed but they're the main materials relied upon. There was also a psychiatric report by Dr Zimmerman from August and then an earlier one from 2020 but that was really by way of background.
50HIS HONOUR: But I had that at the time, did I not?
51MS WONG: Yes. In 2020, yes, yes.
52HIS HONOUR: That is in the package, that is why I have tried to do the package as one big lump. The first reports of Dr Zimmerman are included in the original file.
53MS WONG: Okay, Your Honour, thank you. I don't seek to formally tender anything else.
54MS PILLAI: Thank you, Your Honour.
55MS WONG: As the court pleases.
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