Director of Public Prosecutions v Scerri

[2019] VCC 731

IN THE COUNTY COURT OF VICTORIA Revised
Not Restricted
Suitable for Publication

AT MELBOURNE
CRIMINAL JURISDICTION

CR 18-02451

DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROSECUTIONS

v

CAMERON SCERRI

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JUDGE:	HIS HONOUR JUDGE LACAVA
WHERE HELD:	Melbourne
DATE OF HEARING:	5 April 2019
DATE OF SENTENCE:	23 May 2019
CASE MAY BE CITED AS:	DPP v Scerri
MEDIUM NEUTRAL CITATION:	[2019] VCC

REASONS FOR SENTENCE
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Subject:. Recklessly causing serious injury

Sentence:  5 years imprisonment.  3 years non parole.

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APPEARANCES:	Counsel	Solicitors
For the Director of Public Prosecutions	Mr P. Raimondo
For the Accused	Ms P. Smith

HIS HONOUR:

1.Cameron Scerri, you have pleaded guilty to one charge of recklessly causing serious injury, for which the maximum penalty is imprisonment for 15 years. 

2.In order to commit this offence, an accused must have been reckless about causing serious injury, that is, the accused must have been aware, when committing the relevant conduct that caused the serious injury, that it would probably cause serious injury or that such a consequence was 'probable' or 'likely' to occur.  It is important to understand that this offence occurs where there is an unintended consequence.

3.In cases where an offender intentionally causes a serious injury, the law provides for a higher maximum penalty.  That is because the culpability of an offender who intends to inflict serious injury is much higher.

4.The circumstances of your offending are contained in a summary of prosecution opening dated the 7 March 2019.  That document was tendered in evidence and read to the court by the prosecutor, Mr Raimondo.  Your counsel, Ms Smith, accepted that the prosecution opening was accurate and forms a proper factual basis upon which I can proceed to pass sentence upon you.  In those circumstances, it is not necessary that I here set out the full circumstances except in an abbreviated way.

5.A short time after 10 pm on Friday 16 February 2018, the victim referred to in the charge was at the Royal Melbourne Hotel in Bourke Street.  A dance party was being held at the venue.  The victim had consumed some drugs.  At about 3 am the following morning, the victim and some friends left the hotel and went to Crown Casino but returned to the hotel around four to 4.30 am.

6.At around 5.10 am on Saturday 17 February, you entered the rear of the hotel after scaling a gate and metal fence.  You soon after approached the victim and offered him drugs which he declined.  The victim told you he had to go to the toilet and you said you did also.  The victim followed you into the toilet.  As the victim left the toilet you followed him and caught up to him and then walked past him.  As you did so you raised your right arm in the air and swung it backwards, striking the victim once to his face.  You immediately fled the scene towards Southern Cross station.

7.The victim went to his friends, apparently suffering a nose bleed and he complained he could not see out of his right eye.  He went to the Alfred Hospital where he was admitted and examined.  A CT scan showed blood around the base of his brain and further examination revealed that because of the blow from you, he sustained a ruptured optical nerve behind his right eye and bilateral fractures of his nose.  The ruptured optical nerve was inoperable.  The victim has permanently lost total vision in his right eye.

8.This is obviously serious offending and a serious example of this kind of offending.  Although you only imparted one blow from the side and clearly did not intend the consequences that followed, you probably knew that what you did would cause serious injury.  There was no weapon involved.  Here, the injury is most serious, some might say catastrophic for the victim with obvious consequences for him for the rest of his life.

9.Your offending was cowardly, violent and unprovoked, in a public place.  The victim was simply minding his own business, oblivious as to the fact you would strike him as you did.  I was told and accept that you were affected by a significant amount of alcohol that you had consumed.  That explains but does not excuse your offending.

10.You were arrested on 6 May 2018 and have been remanded in custody since that time, a total of 382 days.  When arrested, you were deemed unfit for interview, having suffered a seizure upon arrest, attributed to the fact you had not taken your prescribed medication.  Whilst on remand, you have been attending meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous and you have completed a course in traffic management which might assist you gain employment when released.  You have received few visits whilst in custody, and I accept that as a young man your time in custody on remand must be more burdensome for you.

11.I admitted into evidence a victim impact statement from the victim, a young man aged 19.  He asks appropriately, 'Why me', and, 'What did I do to have you hit me and render me blind in one eye?'  He speaks of all the difficulties he is now having in his life.  Even pouring milk into a cup is difficult for him.  He is an apprentice mechanical plumber but his injury has made this occupation more difficult and he questions whether he will be able to continue in his chosen career.  The effect of this injury for the victim and his family is both profound and far reaching.  In passing sentence I have taken the victim impact statement into account as I must.

12.You are a young man aged 23.  You were 22 at the time of offending.  When you pleaded guilty, you also admitted several prior convictions including for violence.  This offending in fact occurred within a few days after you were released from prison, having served a 30 month sentence for armed robbery and affray and intentionally causing injury.  You have other prior convictions for armed robbery and intentionally and recklessly causing injury.  Up until 2014, your prior convictions were in the Children's Court.  This matter aside you have had three appearances in adult courts since 2014.

13.Your counsel, Ms Smith, provided to the court a helpful submission in which I marked as Exhibit 1 on the plea.  At the outset, she conceded that your offending was serious and that I must impose a term of imprisonment.  She asked that I impose a combination of a term of imprisonment and a community corrections order.  On the plea, I told her that such a disposition would not meet the purposes of sentencing in this case. 

14.Alternatively, Ms Smith asked that I impose a sentence that permits you a lengthy period on parole to assist your prospects for rehabilitation.  The sentence I will impose acts on this alternative submission made by Ms Smith as to disposition.

15.Those purposes of sentencing are general deterrence and denunciation in this case.  In your case, specific deterrence must have some application because of your prior criminal convictions and the fact you offended so soon after release from prison.  I also must have regard for the need to protect the community.  Also I must impart just punishment and have regards to your prospects for rehabilitation, especially having regard to the fact that you are still a young man. 

16.I must have full regard to your tragic background and I must have regard to the fact that you are still young but you have spent so much of your young life in prison.  Totality in sentencing is a principle I must have regard to in order to avoid you becoming institutionalised.

17.I must take into account the fact you have pleaded guilty to the charge and you did so at the earliest opportunity.  For that, you are entitled to receive , and will receive, a reduction in sentence.  By your plea of guilty, you have saved the time and costs of a committal and trial and you have saved the victim from having to give evidence.  You have advanced the interest of justice.  I treat your plea as an acceptance by you of responsibility for this offending and as evidence of remorse.

18.I must take into account you background.  Yours is truly a tragic one where you yourself been exposed to violence from a young age.  I admitted into evidence as Exhibit 2 on the plea several reports prepared about you for the purposes of sentencing you and protection orders relating to you in the Children's Court.  They set out a very sad picture of your life and, in sentencing you, I have had full regard to them.

19.You are an only child and you have two half-siblings.  Both your parents are drug addicts.  You have been involved with DHS Child Protection from an early age.  At age six months, you were a victim of family violence and you sustained a fractured arm in the course of a violent incident between your parents.  Between 1997 and 2000 you were placed in foster care due to your parents being unable to provide you with a safe and secure home.  Your mother spent time in custody also during this period.  At the time of the plea, I was told she was in fact in custody at that time.

20.From 2002 you were in the care of your father, who lived with his parents.  You had little or no contact with your mother during this time.  Your father was both controlling of you and physical with his discipline.

21.In 2010 you again spent time in foster homes and briefly went back into your mother's care.  This did not work out and by aged 15 you were living in a residential unit where you remained under a court ordered protection order until aged 17.  You apparently regularly absconded from residential care and abused drugs. 

22.You met a young woman with whom you soon had a child, a son, Charlie.  You were both parents at the age of 16.  Your son in turn is cared for by his maternal grandparents and you have little contact with him presumably because for most of his young life you have been in prison.

23.In this tragic background it is not surprising that you began abusing drugs and alcohol from approximately 14 years of age and your drug use in fact increased when you were placed into residential care.

24.You left school during Year 10.  Your secondary education was both troublesome and disruptive.  You suffer from a bad speech impediment and stutter, making it more difficult for you at school, both academically and socially.  You have no other education or training.

25.In this court, Judge Pullen sentenced you to a term of imprisonment of 30 months on the 3 June 2015.  Her Honour fixed a non-parole period but you did not apply for parole and served the 30 month sentence.  That is a concern that you would appear at that time to have preferred to remain in prison.  There is little more need be said about your background. 

26.You appear to have no one in your life whom you can look up to for guidance and leadership through the mess of a life that you unfortunately find yourself in, probably at the hands of your drug affected parents and especially your violent father.  Until that person who might assist you through all of this comes into your life, I can only opine that your prospects for rehabilitation would appear bleak.  I sincerely hope that you can find that person absent family assistance. 

27.At the time of your plea a young couple came to the court and I was told that you can live with them when released.  Perhaps they might eventually guide you in the right direction when you are released after the sentence I will now impose upon you.

28.On the charge of recklessly causing serious injury, you are convicted and sentenced to a term of imprisonment of five years. 

29.I direct you serve a minimum term of three years' imprisonment before being eligible for release on parole.

30.I declare that there has been 382 days pre-sentence detention and I direct that 382 days be reckoned as having been already served under the sentences passed this day, be entered into the records of the court and be deducted administratively.

31.For the purposes of s.6AAA of the Sentencing Act 1991, I state that had it not been for your plea of guilty I would have imposed a total effective sentence of six and a half years with a non-parole period of five years.

32.The prosecution has sought the making of a forfeiture order and that order was no opposed and I will sign it. 

33.MS SMITH:  No, Your Honour.

34.HIS HONOUR:  Are there any questions arising out of that?

35.MS EDWARDS:  No, Your Honour.

36.MS SMITH:  No.

37.HIS HONOUR:  Thank you.  Would you take Mr Scerri back into custody please? 

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