Director of Public Prosecutions v Sirillas
[2014] VCC 2332
•13 October 2014
| IN THE COUNTY COURT OF VICTORIA AT MELBOURNE CRIMINAL DIVISION | Revised Not Restricted Suitable for Publication |
Case No. CR-14-01185
Presentment No. E11224651
| DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROSECUTIONS |
| v |
| JOHN SIRILLAS |
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JUDGE: | HIS HONOUR JUDGE SACCARDO | |
WHERE HELD: | Melbourne | |
DATE OF HEARING: | 5 September 2014 | |
DATE OF SENTENCE: | 13 October 2014 | |
CASE MAY BE CITED AS: | Director of Public Prosecutions v Sirillas | |
MEDIUM NEUTRAL CITATION: | [2014] VCC 2332 | |
REASONS FOR SENTENCE
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Subject: CRIMINAL LAW
Catchwords: Sentence – armed robbery
Legislation Cited: Sentencing Act 1991; Crimes Act 1958
Cases Cited: …
Sentence: …
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APPEARANCES: | Counsel | Solicitors |
| For the DPP | Ms A Bhai | Craig Hyland Solicitor for Office of Public Prosecutions |
| For the Accused | Mr R Martini | Rainer Martini & Associates |
HIS HONOUR:
1 John Sirillas, you have pleaded guilty to one count of armed robbery which carries a maximum sentence of imprisonment of 25 years.
2 The circumstances of your offending are set out in the Summary of the Prosecution Opening which is exhibit “A” in this matter.
3 There are no issue that arise as to the activities involved in your offending and no point is served in repeating those activities in detail in my sentencing comments.
4 In order to give context to those comments however it is appropriate that I record that on 7 April 2014:
· You entered a pharmacy in Preston wearing a hoodie and dark glasses where you waited approximately 15 minutes whilst other customers of the pharmacy left.
· You then approached the pharmacy counter, produced a large knife which you brandished towards the pharmacy assistant and demanded money from her. As the pharmacy assistant took money out of the till and placed it into a bag you snatched the bag from her hand and began taking money out of the till. In so doing, the hand in which you were holding the knife moved across the counter towards the pharmacy assistant in causing her to recoil in fear.
5 Whilst you initially denied your offending to the police investigating the matter; you subsequently confessed, telling the police that upon entering the pharmacy, you waited for a few people to leave because you did not want to make a scene; that it was not your intention to hurt the shop assistant; that you had no reason for committing the robbery; that you took the $250 to $350 the subject of the robbery and:
“went to the pokies and blew it. I don’t like them but it was something to do.”
6 You have a significant criminal history.
7 You were convicted of armed robbery in December 1997, armed robbery in August 1988, attempted armed robbery in April 2004 and armed robbery in May 2007. Between 1997 and 1986, you have numerous convictions for theft, burglary, theft of motor vehicles and attempted thefts from motor vehicles.
8 Your crime in this instance has had serious consequences upon your victims.
9 Your primary victim, the pharmacy assistant, has described the fear she felt at the time of the robbery, the fact that she remains anxious, jumpy and prone to tears, that she does not sleep well and no longer feels secure in her workplace.
10 The proprietor of the pharmacy describes continuing feelings of anxiety and a feeling of fear for the safety of his family and staff who are employed in the pharmacy.
11 The co-proprietor of the pharmacy describes the flashbacks from which he suffers and the concerns he feels for the safety of his staff.
12 A further member of the pharmacy staff describes suffering from sleepless nights, having to deal with the anxiety of her son, who also witnessed the crime.
13 In the course of your plea, no issue was taken with the fact that your prior offending generally involved soft targets such as the pharmacy in question. Indeed this Pharmacy was the scene of one of your previous armed robberies.
14 As to the offending in this instance, it was put on your behalf that the offending was relatively spontaneous. Whilst I accept, in sentencing you, that the offending involved no sophisticated long-term pre-planning, the fact that you armed yourself with a knife makes it clear that the offending was, to some extent, premeditated and could not be described as being spontaneous.
15 I accept that your purpose in producing a knife on this occasion was to intimidate rather than to harm the shop assistant, given the absence of any threat made by you to the shop assistant who you confronted.
16 In the course of your plea it was put that whilst you initially told the police that you employed the money the subject of the robbery in gambling, it was put on your behalf that the money was employed for the purpose of purchasing methamphetamine.
17 Whilst that history was provided by you to Dr Mashoud, a consulting psychiatrist in the course of his medical assessment of you in August 2014 which was undertaken for the purpose of your plea, I am not satisfied that this is a reliable history given the contemporaneous nature of the contrary history provided by you to the police at the time of your record of interview. Having made that finding , I accept the position put on behalf of the prosecution that the determination of this issue one way or the other should have little impact upon the sentence which is imposed in this instance given the findings I will set out in these sentencing comments.
18 In his report of 27 August 2014, Dr Mashoud sets out your relevant personal history as follows:
19 You were born on 7 December 1968 in Melbourne. You left school at the age of fourteen and undertook factory work.
20 In 1994, you were diagnosed as suffering from paranoid schizophrenia and you have, since that time, been in receipt of a Disability Pension.
21 You have been treated as an inpatient in psychiatric hospitals on numerous occasions , the most recent of these being in 2012 when you were an inpatient at the Thomas Embling Hospital.
22 You are currently prescribed an antipsychotic medication – Seroquel – and a mood stabilising medication – Epilim.
23 You told Dr Mashoud that you had previously used intravenous heroin that , you had been placed on a methadone program which you had discontinued, and that you had been using intravenous methamphetamine in the form of ice for a few years.
24 When preparing his report, Dr Mashoud was given access to the records of the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medical Health which involved 58 volumes of your past psychiatric history, including your most recent Discharge Summary from the Thomas Embling Hospital in 2012, which documented:
· That you presented with a less than average intellectual function.
· That you suffered from paranoid schizophrenia
· That you had undergone previously some 24 admissions to forensic inpatient psychiatric units.
When you were assessed by Dr Mashoud, you presented with no evidence of formal thought disorder or evidence of delusions. You were alert, orientated to, day, time and month, and to place and person.
25 You displayed reasonable insight as to the presence of your mental illness and the past ill effect of illicit substance use on your mental state. You told Dr Mashoud that you were, at that time, adherent to your prescribed medications. Dr Mashoud diagnosed you as presenting with established schizophrenia and a substance use disorder.
26 At the time of your presentation to Dr Mashoud, he commented that you were benefitting adequately from your prescribed treatment and that, in the presence of a custodial disposition, you were likely to continue to benefit from assertive follow up by prison mental health services.
27 In a further report dated 21 September 2014, Dr Mashoud responded to specific questions put to him as to the way in which your intellect and history of mental illness may have impacted upon your offending in this instance and may be affected by the any sentence of imprisonment which I impose. The responses by Dr Mashoud to those questions are set out in that report and I have carefully considered each of them.
28 Given the nebulous nature of the history obtained by Dr Mashoud as to whether you were complying with your requirement to take antipsychotic medication at the time of your offending, the exact relationship if any between your mental illness and your offending is difficult to chart.
29 I am satisfied, however, that I should accept the statement made by Dr Mashoud that your low control of your cognitive faculties and emotional restraints give rise to a degree of inability to make reasoned and ordered judgments on your part and that these factors, when combined with your less than average intellectual function, operate so as to reduce your moral culpability for offending in this instance.
30 You have a complex medical history involving treatment for the significant mental illness from which you suffer, the symptoms associated with which appear to wax and wane depending to some extent upon whether you are taking your prescribed medication and not making use of illicit substances.
31 In re- sentencing you on 19 April 2004 in respect to two counts of attempted armed robbery, the Court of Appeal commented:
“I agree with the view of his Honour in the Court below that, by reason of the presence of the various disorders under which the appellant has laboured over his life, the principle of general deterrence can have no real part to play in the determination of the appropriate sentence in this case. The existence of a relationship between the various disabilities from which the appellant suffered over the years and his history of offending can, I think, be safely assumed. Nevertheless, he is to be regarded as responsible under the criminal law for his actions and whilst his level of moral culpability must in the circumstances be treated as reduced, it is not to be forgotten that the appellant has been engaging in serious criminal behaviour involving violence for approximately 15 years before the commission of the offences with which we are concerned. I also accept his Honour’s assessment that the protection of the public and the specific deterrence of the appellant, however, assume considerable significance in a case such as this.”
32 I find myself unable to express the sentencing issues which arise for me in this instance with more precision or eloquence than the words used in the passage above.
33 In this instance
· I am satisfied that your mental illness played some part in your offending, that your moral culpability for that offending is reduced to such extent that it should influence the sentence which I should impose in this instance influence.
· I am not satisfied however that you did not appreciate the nature of your offending or its potential seriousness in that your offending involved an attempt to prevent you being identified and some methodology in that you waited for other customers to leave before you acted.
34 Given your extensive history of offending I am satisfied that I should categorise your behaviour in this instance as part of a continuing pattern of similar offending which requires a degree of punishment to be imposed which deters you and others like you from committing similar offending.
35 Further, I am not satisfied that I should accept the opinion by Dr Mashoud that your confinement in prison would be likely to have a significant adverse effect upon your ongoing mental health, having regard to the fact that you have been detained in prison since your offending and there is no suggestion that your mental health has been compromised to date.
36 Your plea of guilty in this instance, having regard to its timing, justifies a discount in the sentence of imprisonment which would have been imposed but for that plea given the social utility associated with that plea.
37 In sentencing you I must impose a sentence which is just in all the circumstances. I must have regard to the seriousness of your offences, your culpability for the commission of the offence, and the effect of your offending upon your victims. I am required to take into account the need to denounce your behaviour as being totally unacceptable in our community , the need to punish you for your offending and to fix a sentence which is just in the circumstances given the matters personal to you which I have mentioned. I must also consider issues of specific deterrence, and most importantly in this instance the need to protect the community. I must take into account the interest of the community which is served by ensuring the rehabilitation of offenders. In this instance however given your history, I regard your prospect of being successfully rehabilitated as being extremely uncertain.
38 I am satisfied that your long history of similar offending operates to make the imposition of a sentence of imprisonment the only appropriate sentencing option in this instance, no position to the contrary being taken by Mr Martini in his eloquent plea on your behalf.
39 It was put on your behalf by Mr Martini that when sentencing you I should impose a significant parole period in this instance having regard to the recommendation made by Dr Mashoud that upon your release into the community you are likely to benefit from a significant period of supervision in coordinating the health care inputs that you require. I largely accept this position.
40 Would you please stand Mr Sirillas.
41 For the reasons set out above, I am satisfied that I should impose in this instance a sentence of imprisonment of 5 years in respect of which I will fix a non-parole period of 3 .
42 I declare the period of 189 days as being time served in this instance.
43 But for your plea of guilty, I would have imposed a period of imprisonment of 6 years a in respect of which I would have fixed a non-parole period of 4years .
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