Director of Public Prosecutions v Shekhe
[2025] VCC 1376
•26 August 2025
| IN THE COUNTY COURT OF VICTORIA AT MELBOURNE CRIMINAL DIVISION | Revised Not Restricted |
GENERAL LIST
CR-24-01696
| DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROSECUTIONS |
| v |
| SIDI SHEKHE |
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JUDGE: | HER HONOUR JUDGE MANOVA | |
WHERE HELD: | Melbourne | |
DATE OF HEARING: | 28 July 2025 | |
DATE OF SENTENCE: | 26 August 2025 | |
CASE MAY BE CITED AS: | DPP v Shekhe | |
MEDIUM NEUTRAL CITATION: | [2025] VCC 1376 | |
REASONS FOR SENTENCE
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Subject:Plea - sentencing
Catchwords: Discharge firearm at premises with reckless disregard for safety - prohibited person possess firearm – theft - knowingly deal with proceeds of crime
Legislation Cited:
Cases Cited:DPP v Sidi Mohammed Shekhe Sidi [2023] VCC 184,
DPP v Braine [2022] VCC 798, DPP v Doodt [2021] VCC 1584,
DPP v Fiscalini [2021] VCC 1523, Berichon v R [2013] VSCA 319
R v SJK and GAS [2002] VSC 94,
Azzopardi, Baltazis and Gabriel v The Queen [2011] VSCA 372Sentence:4 years and 3 months' imprisonment, new non-parole period 2 years
and 3 months
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APPEARANCES: | Counsel | Solicitors |
| For the DPP at Hearing | Dr J. Harkess Mr S. Marshall | Office of Public Prosecutions |
For the Accused | Mr D. McGlone | Emma Turnbull Lawyers |
HER HONOUR:
Introduction
Sidi Shekhe, you have pleaded guilty to one charge of discharging a firearm at premises with reckless disregard for safety, one charge of prohibited person possess firearm, one charge of theft and one charge of knowingly dealing with proceeds of crime.
-Discharging a firearm with reckless disregard for safety carries a maximum penalty of 15 years' imprisonment.
-Prohibited person possess firearm carries a maximum penalty of 10 years' imprisonment or 1200 penalty units.
-Theft carries a maximum penalty of 10 years' imprisonment.
-Knowingly deal with proceeds of crime carries a maximum penalty of 15 years' imprisonment.
You are currently 25 years of age, having been born in July 2000. At the time of the offending, you were 22 years old and resided between family addresses in Point Cook and Westmeadows.
You have a criminal history and are currently undergoing a sentence imposed by Judge Wischusen on 18 November 2022 for a rolled-up charge of rape, and a second sentence for armed robbery and associated offences imposed by Judge Tiwana on 14 February 2023. Your earliest release date in respect of the minimum non-parole period imposed by Judge Tiwana is 28 September 2025. In imposing that, Judge Tiwana did not interfere with your minimum term as imposed by Judge Wischusen.[1]
[1]DPP v Sidi Mohammed Shekhe Sidi [2023] VCC 184 at [48]
Circumstances of Offending
A detailed background to the offending is set out in the prosecution opening for plea which your counsel accepted was accurate. I will refer to the aspects pertinent to my task.
At around 1.00 am on 11 September 2022, several gunshots were fired from a stolen white Audi at an address in Moonee Ponds. People in their homes heard the gunshots and called police.
On arrival police found bullet holes in the top right window of the home, and that entry of the bullets had been from outside. Five areas of damage were also visible on the front of the house.
The occupant had been asleep at the time the shots were fired and fortunately for both of you he was not injured. He declined to provide a statement to police.
The prosecution alleged that you were complicit in the shooting, as you were a party to an agreement, arrangement or understanding with one or more persons to carry out a drive-by shooting on the address. By your plea, you have accepted your involvement in the offending on a complicity basis.
The stolen white Audi was tracked by police automatic licence plate detection which revealed it was affixed with registration plates stolen from another vehicle. The Audi activated speed and red-light cameras in Pascoe Vale South.
10.Coburg Lake reserve is in that area. The prosecution alleged that the firearm was disposed of in the lake at that reserve immediately after the shooting. This conclusion is drawn from mobile phone communications later discovered on your telephone which state that you 'threw the piece' into the lake straight away.
11.Citylink cameras detected your silver Hyundai to be travelling together with the stolen Audi. During this time, your mobile phone was switched off but it was reactivated at 1.44 am that night.
12.Text messages later discovered on your phone between you and an unidentified person suggest you confirmed ‘Algood’, ‘Done’, ‘Went well’. Reference is made by the unidentified person to providing you 'paper tomorrow', which the prosecution suggests is monetary payment for the drive-by shooting.
13.Less than 24 hours after the shooting, police attended the car park of the Excelsior Hotel in a marked police car. Police observed two vehicles, a white Jeep and a dark Ford Falcon. A male was standing between the vehicles leaning into one of them, which appeared to police to be drug-related activity. As police approached, several males exited the vehicles and went into the hotel. You were one of them.
14.Police searched the male near the vehicle and found cannabis. They searched the vehicles and discovered $19,600 in cash in the driver's side door of the white Jeep. The prosecution alleges that this was the 'paper' which you received for the shooting.
15.When you heard that police had seized the cash you said to your friend: 'How am I going to get this money back, I'm fucked'.
16.That same day you offered the stolen Audi for sale to your friend, and you boasted that it had been used in a drive-by shooting involving a .38 revolver.
17.The Audi was sold to an unknown buyer. Photos of the vehicle were ultimately found by police on your phone, but the vehicle was never recovered.
18.Text messages on your phone also revealed that on discovering that police had seized the money, the person who made the payment to you reimbursed you. The text message read in part:
‘… We are all family he is going to send you guys 20k out of love to get you back on your feet - he doesn’t expect it to be paid back Its from the love of his heart’, … ‘In future there will be more jobs coming once this heat dies off, please be safe …’
19.At approximately 1.30 pm on 19 September 2022, you attended the Broadmeadows police station where you were arrested. Your mobile phone was seized by police for analysis. You were not charged with these offences until 28 February 2024.
20.I was informed by your counsel that you voluntarily handed yourself into police. At that time you had two outstanding warrants. You have been in custody undergoing two sentences of imprisonment since then.
21.The basic purposes for which a court may impose a sentence are punishment, general and specific deterrence, rehabilitation, denunciation and protection of the community. In sentencing I must have regard to a range of matters, such as the seriousness of the offending, your culpability for it, its context, your personal circumstances and those of the victim. I am required to balance the interests of the community in denouncing criminal conduct with the interests of the community in seeking to ensure that as far as possible offenders are rehabilitated and reintegrated into society.
Personal Circumstances
22.As I noted earlier, you are now 25 and were 22 at the time of the offending. Your family escaped the war in Somalia. You were born here. You have five siblings born in Australia and a half-brother born in Kenya.
23.You have been exposed to family violence and police being called to your home due to your father's behavior. Your parents are now divorced.
24.You have a close and loving relationship with your mother. You also have a long-term partner, who is supportive of you. You two were married while you have been in custody.
25.You attended three primary schools and two high schools. You attended with poor academic performance, behavioral issues and suspensions for fighting. You were home-schooled for a time as you were in a motor vehicle accident. You left school in Year 10, according to Ms Cidoni's report[2] 'to deal drugs'. You were bullied at school and your experience was not positive.
[2]Report dated 31 October 2022 at p 3
26.In 2018 you commenced a pre-apprenticeship at Victoria University, which you have been unable to complete because you were remanded in custody. You expressed interest to Ms Cidoni in completing the course.
27.You have had brief periods of employment with Kmart and DHL.
28.You have a prior criminal history, which is concerning as the level of your offending is escalating in seriousness. You appeared in the Children's Court at the age of 17 for dishonesty offences and committing offences on bail.
29.Your first appearance in an adult court was in the Magistrates Court at the age of 19 when you were fined $500 without conviction for theft. Two months later you appeared in this court and were ordered to be detained in a Youth Justice Centre for 18 months for home invasion, armed robbery and attempted armed robbery.
30.Much more seriously, in November 2022 you were sentenced to four years and six months' imprisonment for a single rolled-up charge of rape, which sentence you are still serving. In February 2023 you were sentenced to 16 months' imprisonment for armed robbery, obtain financial advantage by deception and a number of other offences. A new head sentence of five years with a non-parole period of three years was imposed.
31.You have been diagnosed in custody with Type 1 diabetes and your counsel submitted this has an impact on how you are experiencing custody and has caused you to re-evaluate your circumstances.
Plea of guilty
32.You indicated a preparedness to plead guilty at a sentence indication hearing on 24 July 2025. By your plea you have facilitated the course of justice and saved the community the cost of a trial. Your plea is also evidence of remorse. You have received a discount in your sentence on account of the plea.
The nature and gravity of the offence
33.Discharging a firearm at premises with reckless disregard for safety is a serious offence and carries a maximum penalty of 15 years' imprisonment. The offence was committed in the early hours of the morning in a suburban street, and luckily here no-one was injured. The use of encrypted phone messaging, the disposal of the firearm, your reporting of the success of the job after its completion, the use of a stolen vehicle and contract payment all elevate the seriousness of the offence and place your criminality at the higher end of the scale for this type of offending. I consider this to be extremely serious conduct.
34.I reject the submissions made by your counsel that you were recruited for a purpose and are not part of the overall organized crime situation in which the victim found himself when you committed this offence against him. The person paying you held you in such high esteem that he was prepared to make the payment twice and offer you further work. Your preparedness to enter into a contract arrangement makes you, and people like you, an integral part of organized crime which uses mechanisms like drive-by shootings as a way to exert power and control over others.
35.General deterrence and denunciation play a significant role in sentencing for offences of this type. The sentence to be imposed on you in respect of the discharging of a firearm must signal to anyone minded to commit this type of offending that stern punishment will be meted out by the courts. The community must be protected and conduct of this kind condemned by the courts.
36.No victim impact statement was provided. Your counsel submitted you were 'a lesser sort of player' in the crime world than the victim in this matter. Bullets discharged at residential homes do not discriminate between people in the way submitted. I take into account that this kind of shooting can cause fear in any person.
Current sentencing practice
37.I have had regard to current sentencing practice. This type of offending is very serious and ordinarily attracts a significant term of imprisonment. When a prohibited person is using a firearm in circumstances such as these, the seriousness of the offending is elevated as it is placed in the context of an ongoing criminal purpose.
38.I have taken into account the sentences imposed for similar offending which were referred to by your counsel and by the prosecutor.[3] However, no two cases are exactly alike, there are always differences in the offending behaviour, the motivations for it and the personal circumstances of the offender. This sentencing task is to sentence you for the crime you have committed in your unique circumstances.
[3]DPP v Braine [2022] VCC 798, DPP v Doodt [2021] VCC 1584, DPP v Fiscalini [2021] VCC 1523, Berichon v R [2013] VSCA 319
Your age and the need for rehabilitation
39.Your counsel submitted that given your age the court's focus in the sentencing task must include a significant component for rehabilitation.
40.Ms Cidoni's report provides an opinion that in young people the part of the brain associated with impulse control continues to develop into adulthood. This impacts on the sense of identity and the ability to resist peer influence.[4]
[4]Exhibit 2, report dated 31 October 2022 at p 7
41.Courts recognize the potential for young people to be redeemed and rehabilitated. Incarceration in an adult prison can have a negative effect on their prospects of rehabilitation. Young offenders may lack the degree of insight, judgement and self- control that are possessed by an adult, they may not fully appreciate the nature, seriousness and consequences of their criminal conduct. As Vincent JA explained in
R v SJK and GAS[5]:[5] R v SJK and GAS [2002] VSC 94
“In the case of young people, to some extent the law incorporates an acknowledgment of aspects of immaturity. By reason of the stage of development that an offender may have reached, he or she may not fully appreciate the seriousness and real consequences of the offending actions. However, it does not follow that this is always the situation, or that as teenagers, offenders cannot be held appropriately accountable for their conduct in engaging in serious criminal activity.”[6]
[6]Cited with approval in Azzopardi, Baltazis and Gabriel v The Queen [2011] VSCA 372 at [34]
42.Where the offending is serious, however, youth and rehabilitation must give way to other considerations, particularly where the offender has been given opportunities to rehabilitate.
43.The Court of Appeal has said:
“Where the degree of criminality or the offences require the sentencing objectives of deterrence, denunciation, just punishment and protection of the community to become more prominent in the sentencing calculus, the weight to be attached to youth is correspondingly reduced. As the level of seriousness of the criminality increases there will be a corresponding reduction in the mitigating effects of the offender's youth. But only in the circumstances of the gravest criminal offending and where there is no realistic prospect of rehabilitation may the mitigatory consideration of youth be viewed as all but extinguished.”[7]
[7]Ibid at [44]
44.This offending does not have the characteristics of impulsive, opportunistic or heat- of- the-moment offending. You were part of a well-planned offence for money in circumstances where more such 'contracts' might become available to you. There would have been an opportunity for you to reflect on what you were about to embark upon. You had not long since been released from a custodial sentence for serious offending, and would have known where you might end up if you were caught.
45.I have read the previous sentencing remarks of Judge Lyon, Judge Wischusen and Judge Tiwana. In 2019 you were considered impressionable, immature and likely to be subject to negative influence. Judge Lyon sentenced you to 18 months in a Youth Justice Centre for home invasion, armed robbery and attempted armed robbery. Not long after you were released from serving that sentence, in a short space of time you managed to commit the attempted armed robbery and dishonesty offences for which you were sentenced by Judge Tiwana, and within months you committed the offences for which you are now being sentenced. While Judge Wischusen was optimistic about your prospects of rehabilitation, Judge Tiwana considered them to be 'guarded'.
46.I have reservations about your prospects of rehabilitation, but I do not consider they have been completely obliterated. The mitigating consideration of your youth continues to operate, albeit reduced in your case.
Moral Culpability
47.Your counsel submitted that Ms Cidoni's report suggests that you have a low IQ and are open to being used by certain people. Ms Cidoni assessed verbal reasoning abilities in the extremely low range and verbal IQ in the very low range with dependent personality traits. In 2022 she diagnosed major depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress. She linked these to your worry about the term of imprisonment that you were going to serve on account of the rape charge. It is not clear whether these conditions were linked in a causative way to the offending for which you are being sentenced today. A modest reduction in your penalty has been made on account of your low IQ. However, I consider general deterrence and specific deterrence must inform the sentencing task in your case, despite these matters.
Delay and Totality
48.Your counsel submitted, and I accept, that in this case there has been a significant delay which also raises totality issues. These offences were committed on 11 September 2022. You handed yourself into police on 19 September 2022 and have been in custody continuously since that time, undergoing two sentences.
49.At the time you handed yourself in, police took possession of your mobile telephone and were in a position to find the evidence which supported these charges, including the encrypted messages and the photographs of the solen Audi.
50.No explanation has been provided for why it took police until 28 February 2024 to lay these charges.
51.I accept that had the charges been laid and resolved at a time closer to 19 September 2022, you would have had the opportunity of a new non-parole period relevant to all of the offending for which you are undergoing sentence, including this offending. This means you would have started serving your sentence on this offending much sooner. You have received a significant discount in your penalty on account of this delay.
52.You have been in custody since 19 September 2022. By the time you are eligible for release in November 2027, you will have served three sentences of imprisonment for three separate sets of serious offending.
53.I have considered the sentence I am to impose on you in light of the sentences previously imposed by the other two judges which you are currently undergoing. These sentences are for separate and distinct offences. Judge Tiwana did not interfere with your eligibility for parole as set down by Judge Wischusen. The main reason for this was totality. It seems the two matters should have been heard together and there was no explanation provided for why Judge Wischusen was not made aware of the other matters.[8]
[8]DPP v Sidi Mohamed Shekhe Sidi [2023] VCC 184 at [38]
54.I have considered whether the sentence I am about to impose is just and appropriate for the totality of your criminal behaviour. I have lowered the sentence I would have otherwise imposed on you on account of the totality principle.
55.You will be 27 years old when you become eligible for release. I take into account that you will have been separated from your family and your new wife for a significant period of time. However, at 27 you still have your whole life ahead of you. If you choose, this can be the last time you are in prison, or indeed, in a courtroom at all.
56.You have said to Ms Cidoni, and it has been put on your behalf on this plea and other pleas, that you wish to pursue a trade on your release from prison. You do not have to wait until your release. Five years is not an insignificant period of time for people who wish to avail themselves of rehabilitation and training opportunities to do so in prison.
57.Mr Shekhe, I will now pass sentence upon you. You may remain seated.
58.On Charge 1 of discharging a firearm at a premises with reckless disregard for safety, you are convicted and sentenced to three years' imprisonment. This is the base sentence.
59.On Charge 2 of prohibited person use firearm, you are convicted and sentenced to 12 months' imprisonment.
60.On Charge 3 of theft, you are convicted and sentenced to six months' imprisonment.
61.On Charge 4 of knowingly dealing with proceeds of crime, you are convicted and sentenced to 12 months' imprisonment.
62.I direct that six months of the sentence on Charge 2, three months of the sentence on Charge 3 and six months of the sentence on Charge 4 be served cumulatively on each other and on the base sentence.
63.The total effective sentence is four years and three months' imprisonment, to run concurrently with other State sentences presently being served.
64.I order that you serve a minimum of two years and three months before being eligible for parole. The new non-parole period commences today.
65.Pursuant to s6AAA of the Sentencing Act, but for your plea of guilty the total effective sentence that would have been imposed over all charges is six years' imprisonment, with a minimum of four years to be served before eligibility for parole.
66.I note that Charge 3 involves theft of motor vehicle and this has enlivened s89(4) of the Sentencing Act, pursuant to which I am required to cancel any licence and disqualify you from obtaining a further one for a period of my determination. Pursuant to that section, on Charge 3 I further order that any driver's licence that you hold is cancelled and that you are disqualified from obtaining any such licence for a period of three years, effective from today.
67.What that means, Mr Shekhe, is if you qualify for parole within the minimum non-parole period, you will not be permitted to drive for the first three months of your parole.
68.At the plea hearing the crown sought orders for forfeiture - - -
69.UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: No.
70.HER HONOUR: No, there are no orders for forfeiture.
71.MR MARSHALL: No, there aren't, Your Honour.
72.HER HONOUR: I'm not sure that's right. What about the cash.
73.MR MARSHALL: Yes, we've had some issues contacting the informant about this issue.
74.HER HONOUR: Okay.
75.MR MARSHALL: Yes, there may be an order to follow in due course.
76.HER HONOUR: I see. So, no orders for forfeiture will be made today, but I note that an order for forfeiture may be applied for in due course. All right, that concludes my sentencing remarks. Are there any matters from either end of the bar table.
77.MR McGLONE: Not from defence, Your Honour.
78.HER HONOOUR: All right, thank you very much. Adjourn the court please.
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