Director of Public Prosecutions v Sissii
[2025] VCC 994
•14 JULY 2025
| IN THE COUNTY COURT OF VICTORIA AT LATROBE VALLEY CRIMINAL DIVISION | Revised Not Restricted Suitable for Publication |
Case No. CR-25-00686
| DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROSECUTIONS |
| v |
| MOSES SIISII |
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JUDGE: | MURPHY | |
WHERE HELD: | Latrobe Valley | |
DATE OF HEARING: | 14 JULY 2025 | |
DATE OF SENTENCE: | 14 JULY 2025 | |
CASE MAY BE CITED AS: | DPP V SISSII | |
MEDIUM NEUTRAL CITATION: | [2025] VCC 994 | |
REASONS FOR SENTENCE
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Subject:Recklessly causing injury, Assaulting a prison officer, young offender
Catchwords: Mandatory minimum sentence
Legislation Cited:
Cases Cited:
Sentence: 6 months imprisonment
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APPEARANCES: | Counsel | Solicitors |
| For the DPP | Mr P. D'Arcy | Office of Public Prosecutions |
| For the Accused | Ms K. Ballard |
HIS HONOUR:
1Moses Siisii, you have pleaded guilty to one charge of recklessly causing injury. The complainant in the matter was a prison officer, Mr Lukey, and the circumstances of the offence were set out in the prosecution opening which was read in open Court earlier, and is not disputed by your counsel.
2At the time you were serving a sentence of imprisonment that had been imposed for a very serious offence of home invasion. You were approaching the end of that sentence; you had not been able to get parole for various reasons.
3The intervening matter that was raised by your counsel was that a month or so before December 2024, you had been advised that because of your status or lack thereof of being an Australian citizen, and the fact that earlier you had been sentenced to a period of more than 12 months' imprisonment, then your right to stay in Australia under the relevant New Zealand citizen visa had been revoked and you were facing deportation upon the completion of your sentence.
4This, for a young man at that time, at that point you were only just 21 and you are still 21, was causing significant personal anxiety to you. Further, at the time for other reasons you had been placed in a management unit of Fulham prison. Fulham prison is known as a good prison. People like to go there, but you unfortunately had been placed in the management section of it, which is a strict regime with 23 hour lockdown and really the only interaction with the outside world is through visits or phone calls, and you had been scheduled to have a Zoom visit with your family who live in the suburbs of Melbourne, that day but it had been cancelled due to technical problems, which obviously happens all the time.
5You were attempting to have that revived the next day. You were walking back to your cell. You then spoke to another inmate through the trap door in the cell. This apparently was prohibited. Your counsel asserts that you did not know that it was prohibited under the regime applying in that management unit. In any event, you sought to have the officer who, in a sense, checked you for that misdemeanour, to apologise. He declined to do so and then in a very short interaction you punched or slapped him twice to the head.
6I have seen the video. It is clear that you just snapped, and he fell to the ground and had two or so minutes of unconsciousness. So it was an impulsive action on your part, and it appears that there is no victim impact statement. It appears that the complainant was transported to the local hospital where he remained for two to three days under observation. It could have been serious, in that any fall in a concrete environment, like a prison, can cause all sorts of problems. You are both lucky that all he had was this short period of unconsciousness and some sort of scratch to his head, a haematoma and a small graze, and double vision for a short time.
7So there is no long-term sequelae. There is no victim impact statement. But it certainly would have had an impact, a psychological impact on him that here he is, goes to work as an officer, 41-year-old officer and gets punched or slapped seriously by you, an inmate, on the job.
8And so in sentencing you for this offence it was unpremeditated, it was impulsive, but it calls for denunciation because prison officers, and indeed prisoners, have got to know prison officers have got to be respected in their role. When they give you directions as a prisoner, you know, you have been in prison now for two and a bit years, you know you have got to obey the prison officers and if you do not, the whole system would break down. And so that is why denunciation is of critical issue in sentencing for these offences, offences against prison officers, or/and offences against law enforcement officers, whether they be police officers, ambulance officers, prison officers. They are entitled to be respected. The community demands that when prison officers and others, law enforcement officers, custodial officers are assaulted or whether it be recklessly causing injury, which is the offence you are charged here that carries a five year maximum penalty, there is a mandatory sentence, no matter how lacking in planning the offending is and how relatively low on the scale of injury it is. So that is how seriously the Parliament has placed this offence in the criminal calendar, save in exceptional circumstances, and your counsel has not sought to raise exceptional circumstances to try and get you out of the six month's mandatory minimum sentence.
9So your counsel has put to me that that should be the sentence.
10The learned prosecutor has not disputed that, and the crucial matters that were raised by your counsel in a very comprehensive plea that she has given this morning, are as follows: you are only 21 at this stage, and I have taken into account first of all your relative youth. You will turn 22 in November of this year. So you are a young offender and that is a very significant matter.
11At the same time you are a young offender with quite a significant criminal record behind you at your age, including a number of assault-type offences, a number of offences involving assault of emergency workers on duty. And so you have got a number of assault type offences. Some of them have been dealt with in the Children's Court, but your most serious offences involved disposition by this Court in July of 2023 involving an offence that occurred in about March of 2023, where on a charge of home invasion, intentionally or recklessly causing injury, and theft, you were given a 32 month sentence for that, with a total effective sentence of three years with a non-parole period of 18 months, and nearly 483 days were declared already served.
12So you have got a significant prior record for causing injury offences and also as I have indicated, assaulting emergency workers, a charge of resisting emergency worker on duty, and four charges of unlawful assault that you were dealt with in the Children's Court back in December 2020. And then you have even got a Youth Justice Order in July 2021 for assaulting emergency worker and unlawful assault. So your youth is a very significant sentencing consideration.
13The next matter that she raised was that of extra-curial punishment. You were in a management unit at the time of this offending, which obviously carries significant additional burden. That was for other reasons; some differences with other prisoners. But then once this offending occurred you were then transferred to the Metropolitan Assessment Prison where you were classified as a long-term management prisoner, which apparently is supposed to be reviewed every month, but even if it was there is a debate about whether it was reviewed. You stayed in this unit that involved for the first few days or weeks you had to be shackled all the time as you moved around, and then later on it moved to just wearing handcuffs when you were dealing with things. Finally, you were then earlier this year moved in April of this year to Barwon, again it is a management unit which at that stage it was 22 hours in the cell and only two hours in some sort of recreation facility or a yard where you could actually see other people. So this is a very onerous period that you have been involved in the eight months since this offending. And so what has been put to me by your counsel is that this is extra-curial punishment which well and truly justifies that any sentence of imprisonment that I impose should not exceed the mandatory minimum.
14The third matter that she has put to me is that you face this risk of deportation when you are released. It is likely that you will be, when you are released, sent to an immigration facility while you prosecute your application to the Minister to have the deportation order that has been placed on you as a consequence of the earlier sentence imposed in 2023, try to have that revoked. That is a matter that you will need to get on the job, and hope that, given that you have got no ties at all in New Zealand, and that you have got a supportive family in Australia, that you might be able to have the Minister revoke the deportation order.
15So clearly the period on remand has been more onerous on you since you committed this offence. You had your position at Fulham revoked, sent down to the MAP, and then finally moved to Barwon, all under restrictive regimes, more than another offender, so another sentenced prison. So that is more onerous than all other prisoners. So that really means that any day in effect you served on remand in these conditions, is worth, in my assessment more than a day of a sentence, significantly more.
16There are some flickers of hope in your future. You have been appointed to work as a billet in Barwon, in the unit you are currently in. You have been trying to get into relevant courses, but of course all these courses take time to access, and it is a real shame that given the period that you have spent in custody, where you left school at Year 10, you have had work before you committed offending and then ended up in prison, so there is some hope for you. And you are hoping to reassess your education when you leave prison, but that is your best opportunity to get out of prison, get out of this criminal coterie that you are obviously in, that led to all this offending commencing in the Children's Court when you were aged 13. So you have got a terrible track record but for the last eight months or so since this offending, you have obviously suffered very heavily as a result of your classification under the prison system, which is a matter that I am entitled to take into account on the authorities, and I do take that into account.
17As I indicated in discussion with your counsel, I have also taken into account in fixing a term of imprisonment that you do face a risk of institutionalisation given for a young man of your age, being in custody, prison, and on remand for a period of over two years, is a long time. Two years and four months is a long time for a person of your age in terms of your adult life, and so that is a factor that would reduce any sentence of imprisonment that otherwise might need to be imposed for this type of offending.
18General deterrence is a factor. All prisoners and people who engage in offending against custodial officers of any type must expect a message to be sent to all members of the community that when the police or other people are there trying to assist them, or arrest them, they are not to resist them and if they do resist them and cause injury, they get six months' imprisonment which is exactly what you are going to get. So general deterrence is a factor.
19Specific deterrence is also a factor given your prior history. And rehabilitation is a factor as well. Really a young person of your age, as articulated by your counsel, there is still hope and you have got to get out into the community if you can, if you can lift this deportation order, and use some maturity that you have obviously got as you are getting older, and make a productive contribution to this community.
20I have taken into account all the matters put on your behalf. You have pleaded guilty; you have pleaded guilty early. You have obviated the need for a committal proceeding, and saved the system from running a trial and so that is a factor to take into account.
21It is not clear whether there is any remorse in your attitude to all this. Though I will not hold that against you.
22You have had family problems with your father suffering from a significant illness or disability over the years. Your mother tried to discipline the house and keep supporting the other three younger siblings that you have got, so obviously your upbringing has been difficult. It was not fully explored in a recent report but explored partially in the earlier psychological report. So you do face a number of longer-term issues psychologically and it is clear that you need some psychological support when you are released from custody, but that is a matter that only you, can address.
23So for all those reasons, and after discussion with counsel, both the learned prosecutor and defence counsel, I have determined that the appropriate sentence in this matter is six months' imprisonment.
24I declare that you have served 166 days, not including today.
25I declare that had you not pleaded guilty, I would have imposed a period of nine months' imprisonment upon you.
26Are there any other matters, Mr D'Arcy?
27MR D'ARCY: No, Your Honour.
28HIS HONOUR: Right. Ms Ballard, from your point of view?
29MS BALLARD: No, Your Honour. No, thank you.
30HIS HONOUR: Mr Siisii, you have heard my sentencing remarks. They will be reduced to writing in due course. And I wish you all the best in this application to lift the deportation order of the Minister and in the rest of your life, and you can put all these matters behind you when you do get out of custody. It has obviously been difficult. And see if you can live in the best county in the world, if not the second best across the Ditch.
31MS BALLARD: As Your Honour pleases.
32HIS HONOUR: I thank counsel for their assistance.
33Adjourn the court.
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