Director of Public Prosecutions v Skeates (a Pseudonym)
[2022] VCC 692
•17 May 2022
| IN THE COUNTY COURT OF VICTORIA AT MELBOURNE CRIMINAL DIVISION | Revised Not Restricted Suitable for Publication |
| DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROSECUTIONS |
| v |
| ZAC SKEATES (A Pseudonym) |
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JUDGE: | HIS HONOUR JUDGE SMALLWOOD | |
WHERE HELD: | Melbourne | |
DATE OF HEARING: | 13 May 2022 | |
DATE OF SENTENCE: | 17 May 2022 | |
CASE MAY BE CITED AS: | DPP v Skeates (A Pseudonym) | |
MEDIUM NEUTRAL CITATION: | [2022] VCC 692 | |
REASONS FOR SENTENCE
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APPEARANCES: | Counsel | Solicitors |
| For the DPP | Ms B. Goding | Solicitor for the Office of Public Prosecutions |
| For the Accused | Ms T. Skvortsova | SLKQ Lawyers Pty Ltd |
HIS HONOUR:
1 Zac Skeates[1], you have pleaded guilty on two separate indictments. On indictment ending 80A of intentionally cause injury, two charges; common assault, two charges; threat to inflict serious injury, one charge; and rape, one charge. The maximum penalties for each of those crimes, as I understand it, are 10 years for intentionally cause injury; two years for common assault; five years for threat to cause serious injury? It does not matter, I will make it concurrent anyway, but I think that is right, and 25 years for rape.
[1] A Pseudonym.
2 You have also pleaded guilty on indictment ending 80B to three charges of intentionally causing injury; three charges of common assault; one charge of recklessly causing injury; and two charges of persistently contravening a family violence order. The common assault case, reckless injury five, and persistently contravene family violence order, five.
3 You are now 32 years of age and have pleaded after, as I understand it, a committal to most of these charges. The one charge that remained in dispute was the charge of rape and you have pleaded to that and must get the benefit of that plea of guilty.
4 In these circumstances remorse is somewhat problematic but I will give you the benefit of the doubt in relation to that. You obviously get the utilitarian benefit of that plea of guilty. These would have been two very difficult trials to run, and it has least saved your victims the humiliation and stress of having to give evidence.
5 You have now been on remand for some, as I understand it, 978 days, 60 days of which was served on another sentence, therefore you have that period of time as a Renzella concept.
6 I take into account that a significant part of that period on remand has been undergone in COVID conditions and it is anticipated that certainly into the indefinite future that will continue. You also get the benefit of Worboyes, a recent of Court of Appeal decision in that pleas of guilty in these times of COVID should attract a larger discount.
7 You do have a very significant and very disturbing criminal history. Before I go into the actual offending here I think it is important to put the whole of the circumstances into context and accordingly normally I would go through the summary of your actual offending first, but in this situation I think it is important to go through the prior history in a little bit of detail just to set the scenario of what occurred.
8 The name of the first from 2010?
9 MS SKVORTSOVA: Andrea[2].
[2] A Pseudonym.
10 HIS HONOUR: I will just use first names so I do not have to anonymise. Your criminal history certainly in the adult courts - I suspect there probably was some Children's Courts but obviously they are now expunged - starts in August of 2010 when you were given an intensive corrections order of six months in regard to assaults on a female partner. That ICO was ultimately breached and you were ordered to serve a portion of it, being 163 days.
11 On 18 January of 2011 you were again convicted in the Heidelberg Magistrates' Court of assaults, contravene a family violence intervention order, recklessly cause injury and property damage and given 10 months in relation to the same victim. Five months of that 10 months to be served in the balance was suspended.
12 You then have a gap in your offending in this state, and there is a significant amount of offending that takes place in Western Australia and I do not propose to go into that here. Most of that appears to relate to drug matters and driving matters and matters such as that.
13 You, in September of 2017, were again convicted of charges relating to violence against a partner involving aggravated assault of a female; recklessly causing injury and again property matters. In those matters you were put on a community corrections order for a period of two years.
14 In the magistrate's remarks, certainly as contained within the LEAP report, in regard to that aggravated assault of a female, a woman called Adele[3], the magistrate noted that, 'Core should consider a referral to the problem behaviours clinic for a Forensicare assessment as Mr Skeates has very serious violent offences over time and against at least two people he has had an intimate relationship with, including strangling and pouring chemical substances over'. I am not aware of the details, specific details in relation to all that but certainly back in 2017 the sentencing magistrate was sufficiently concerned to place that on the sentencing remarks.
[3] A Pseudonym.
15 It is a situation that when some of this offending takes place, as I will be going through shortly, you were on two CCOs for violence against women and of violence of a significant nature. Whether a Forensicare assessment was ever done or not I have no idea, and certainly it is not my position to be enquiring into that.
16 But in any event once that had occurred you were then, in October of 2018, sentenced to a period of 88 days in custody and a community corrections order again for violence against another female partner whose surname was Read[4]. That involved threat to inflict serious injury, unlawful assault and again property matters so you were on that CCO, the earlier one.
[4] A Pseudonym.
17 On 17 June of 2019, as I understand it, you were sentenced to another 120 days again for matters relating to Read for contravening a family violence intervention order. You had already served 120 days and that was declared. Accordingly you were released again, as I understand it, around May of 2019.
18 You formed or commenced a relationship with the victim on the first indictment later in that year. I will do this in summary form. You and Ms Warner[5] had first met in 2014 as I read it, and eventually had a child. She then had no contact with you for a period of time. After about 18 months, although these dates might be not quite accurate, she told you that she was pregnant and the two of you got together.
[5] A Pseudonym.
19 You re-established that contact again in April 2019, I think it might have been May, when you were released from custody and the relationship continued from there. You went to various residences or houses and eventually she fell pregnant again. As I understand it that was shortly after resuming the relationship.
20 On 21 June 2019, this was a few days after Ms Warner found out she was pregnant, you had played football and been in a fight and as a result you had sore ribs. Later that night you were lying in bed when she joked, 'You can't even give me a hug because you have sore ribs'. You got angry and punched her hard in the back. That is Charge 1 of common assault. She said that she was in a lot of pain and was scared that you would hit her so soon after you had reconciled.
21 Nine days later she suffered a miscarriage. There is no evidence before me that that was as a result of the punch, but because of something you said later you may think it was. This is accepted, and I am not going into the detail of all of this. There was arguing going on a lot. You were accusing her of sleeping with other people, you would spit on her. You would cover her mouth when you were arguing and essentially say things like, 'How dare you fight me in my parents' house'.
22 At some stage you injured your foot playing football and things got worse. You began using ice. You became more aggressive and violent towards her, telling her that you did not love her and accusing her of cheating on you.
23 Your employment at that time as a motor mechanic ceased. Ms Warner was unwell due to the pregnancy and both of your parents apparently noticed that the tension was growing between you and Ms Warner.
24 Between 29 August and 5 September 2019 she was having a bath and texting her sister. You came in and asked who she was texting. She got out of the bath and tried to pass you. You grabbed her by the elbow and threw her, telling her she knew what was going to happen and that she would lose this baby as well.
25 You grabbed her phone and started going through her messages. You became angry and you then smashed her phone on your knee and backhanded her to the back of her head, causing her to lose consciousness. I am not sure whether the child was in the room at that time or not, and I do not sentence on the basis that she was.
26 She next remembers waking up in a doorway. Apparently your father was there. You had rung up and said you could not get her to wake up. That is Charge 2 of intentionally causing injury.
27 On 9 September 2019 the child was unwell. The mother brought her into the bedroom - this is Tracy[6], which is your child - so she could keep an eye on her. You told her to take the child to her own room. When the child fell asleep you leaned over, pulled Ms Warner's hair and squeezed the back of her neck, telling her to put the child into her own bed. You said you would do it harder if she did not take the child back to her own room. You became angry and breathing heavily, and the victim took her daughter back to her own room before returning to bed with you.
[6] A Pseudonym.
28 You then told her to roll over and cuddle you. She froze. You slapped her on the side of the head and spat in her face and hair. The spitting would appear to be a fairly common occurrence in this situation. She told you she was going to sleep in Tracy's room and you said if she did that the relationship would be over, and if she did not cuddle you, you would get Peter Skeates[7], to kick her out. She went and slept in the bedroom.
[7] A Pseudonym.
29 The next morning, 10 September, she made plans to meet with her friend. Your father came into the room and you told him that Ms Warner was leaving you and if he did not kick her out of the house you were going to 'bash the fuck out of her'. That gives rise to Charge 4 of make threat to inflict serious injury.
30 In any event she was seen running down the street, and then worked out a plan of action with another female and you sent her at that stage multiple messages asking her to come home and accusing her of 'fucking around'. She did not respond.
31 She returned home at 3.30. There was another argument. She went to have a shower. While she was showering you asked her why she was showering and then picked up her underwear and smelt it.
32 On 11 September 2019 after dropping Tracy off at school, the two of you went to a new premises to pick up the keys. When you got back to the old house you asked her if she had slept with anybody. You cornered her in the kitchen, told her to strip down and that you were going to 'feel her fanny'. You told her to pull down her pants.
33 She was scared that you would hit her if she did not do as you asked and was worried about her pregnancy. She did what you told her to do and pulled down her leggings and underwear a little bit. You put two fingers into her vagina, took them out and smelt them. She was crying and you apologised to her. I am told the charges are based on you having a belief in consent but that belief not being reasonable.
34 It is a situation here where your violence towards her must have been well known to you. She was terrified of you. When she was asked, I think it was at the committal, as to why she had agreed she said that she had a baby in her and she thought that you would bash her if she did not.
35 To hold the belief that a person you had been treating in that way is consenting to do such a degrading act of ownership by a male against a female is fanciful indeed in my view, but that is the way it has been put. Such a belief clearly would not be reasonable, I think I have already said this, but it is concerning that a woman can be bashed into submission and the male actually believing that she is in fact consenting, I will say no more about that.
36 In terms of that offence it is a standard offence, it is a charge of rape obviously. I understand the offence is 10 years' imprisonment. I am well aware of the matters referred to in the Court of Appeal in R v Brown. I am also well aware of the matters referred in the DPP v McPherson.
37 It is a situation here where the overall factors are such that a mid-range offence is almost impossible to determine. Various authorities were given to me by both counsel and I will go through those briefly in a moment. All I simply say is this. To comply with the legislation I will simply say that in all the circumstances here I regard the offending as being lower than the middle range, and I will say no more than that. It is certainly not the lowest I have ever seen, but on the other hand it is not the highest either. I think it is best left at that.
38 The circumstances of it was such that at the time you did it she was pregnant and you knew it. She had lost one child, one foetus, and you knew that. It is, in my view, an act of ownership and degradation, as I have just said, and it is just part and parcel of what you, at that point in time, had been doing to a number of women over a number of years. I am not saying that you had raped them. I am not saying that at all, but you seem to have some sort of - it is hard to avoid the word, hatred of women or something. Total disrespect, that is for sure.
39 In any event the next day you went round to the property where she was and you were banging on the window, yelling at her to let you in. It was put during the course of submissions that you apologised. She was crying and you apologised to her after you had taken your two fingers out of her vagina and smelt them. What occurred on the next day would seem to indicate a total lack of remorse.
40 You eventually got into the house through a window. You wanted to know who was at the house. You threw her, knowing full well that she was pregnant, across the lounge room causing carpet burn to her hip and elbow. As she went to walk out of the room she felt a knee or a kick to her spine. She began screaming and you dragged her by the hair back into the room.
41 She got up and ran from you in a direction away from where the baby was sleeping. You chased after her. As she heard you approaching she dropped to the ground and covered her belly, I suspect because she knew what was coming, and you punched and kicked her all over her body. She was exhausted and went to lay down. You came over, telling her that you wanted to hug her despite her telling you not to touch her. She eventually gave up and went to sleep.
42 Apologies in these circumstances usually, in my view, amount to an attempt at getting validation for what had just taken place. I am not going into the psychology. There is no expert material before me but I have done dozens of these over these years and that sort of behaviour of trying to validate is commonplace.
43 I will not go through the injuries that were caused. They were not serious injuries as such and were never suggested that they were, but there were multiple, obviously multiple bone traumas and that is consistent with the indictment.
44 When you were arrested you made admissions in relation to violent offences and perhaps made more admissions than had already been reported. I accept that. You denied digitally raping her and said no such incident took place. As I understand it at the committal, the cross-examination of her at the contested committal was along the lines of it was consensual so you did not persist with that denial for a particularly long period of time. That is indictment A.
45 Indictment B raised three former partners, a Ms Boyse[8], a Ms Read, and a Ms May[9]. I have already mentioned Ms Read once. You have obviously been incarcerated twice, as I understand it, for assaulting her previously.
[8] A Pseudonym.
[9] A Pseudonym.
46 Ms Boyce and you were in a relationship from January 2016 to August 2017, and again these dates may not be correct. You have a daughter with her and she met you - Ms Read, sorry, I take that back. Ms Boyce was January 2016 to 2017. Ms Read, who you had been convicted of assaulting previously, was in a relationship with you from late 2016 to 9 October 2018, and a Ms May started seeing you in August of 2017. You moved into a house together in September and the relationship ended in February of 2018.
47 The circumstances of the offending against Ms Boyce are that about one month into that relationship while you were living in Perth you became violent towards her. You would kick her on occasion. You would burn her with a flame of a meth pipe. They are uncharged acts. You would also call her fat and ugly and a dog.
48 Once you came to Victoria with her your controlling behaviour escalated. She says you broke her phone, kept her SIM card and used that in your own phone to send messages. You were keeping track on her and logged into and kept checks on her social media account. That just goes to the control levels of it. There are no charges involved in that.
49 On 7 August of 2016 she told you that she wanted to go home to Perth. You became angry and punched her to the mouth, causing her lip to split and bleed and causing swelling to both her lips. Both of you returned to Perth for a few days and then came back to Victoria.
50 You went out for the night with a group of friends. You wanted to have sex with her one night. The night she apparently had consensual sex there was a belt used around her neck and apparently she lost consciousness. There is no charge in relation to that; it just simply gives rise to why a confrontation took place.
51 She confronted you about pain in her anus and you became angry. She began to cry. You covered her mouth, telling her to be quiet, and punched and kicked her numerous times. She could not keep count of how many times you struck her. She was naked during the assault, which lasted about five minutes. Again times like that I am wary of. They are the two charges in regards to Ms May.
52 So far as Ms Read is concerned, Charges 3 and 4. She had apparently got drugs, which pleased you. You were together at her house. You had consensual sex. During that sex you hit her with an open hand to the right side of her head and told her to give you the drugs. She was in shock that you had hit her, stopped having sex and gave you the drugs.
53 You then shifted away for a few months. In early 2017 you moved back to Wangaratta and stayed with Ms Read for a week or two before you had an argument because you believed she was seeing another man. You became angry, pushed her onto the floor. When she stood up you came at her again and threw her into the dining room door. She hit the back of her arm, causing a lot of pain and a bruise formed immediately. She told you to 'get the fuck out'. That is the charge of intentionally cause injury. You left, leaving your belongings behind, and she did not hear from you for some time.
54 In July of 2018 an intervention order was made in respect of you, and you were remanded in custody on 13 July 2018. You apparently were able to organise, and she agreed apparently, to put her name on your contact list as a false name and she did that because she needed support following the DHHS taking her son off her.
55 You were released from custody and you called her while you were in custody. Once out, you went to the same house as her and there was arguments and the like. All of that gives rise to the breach of the intervention order proceedings, and I am going to make that sentence concurrent in any event in these circumstances.
56 In regard to Ms May, you started a relationship. On 21 November 2017 you hit her in the chest, leaving a red mark. After that she sent you a message saying, 'You touched me'. That is Charge 6 of common assault. On New Year's Day you had a fight. During the fight you spat on her and hit her on the leg, leaving bruises. She left, and you sent her a message asking where she went to and 'just chill the fuck out', telling her that she was she overreacting. That is Charge 7, of intentionally cause injury.
57 On January of 2018 you again spat on her, which she found disgusting and degrading. You hit her numerous times to the face, causing red marks and swelling to her nose and lips and swelling around her eyes. After that incident you sent her messages including, 'You deserve more than what I done'. Clearly a total lack of insight and understanding in terms of what you were doing to these women.
58 In any event the breach of an intervention order with her also involves sending phone messages or text messages and the like, and again in that situation where it is for reasons of totality principally that will simply be a suspended sentence. I do not need to go through the detail of it.
59 The offending is serious. I have already said what I said about standard sentencing of course, the application of general and specific deterrence, denunciation and appropriate punishment. It has reached a stage now where, on this calculation, you have got something like six victims in a decade and you have now been gaoled for each one of them for committing violence upon them.
60 It is a situation where public protection has clearly become a very significant aspect of any sentencing in regards to you. I will be going through you counsel's submissions in a few moments, but in my view a custodial sentence obviously is the only available sentence and it must be one of sufficient weight to deter you and like minded men from treating women in this degrading way.
61 I have before me two victim impact statements. One was read by the victim herself, and the other one was read by the learned prosecutor. Those victim impact statements eloquently, if angrily, outlined the damage that you did to these people.
62 She said that she was, the first one was from Ms Boyce, that even though she was hundreds of kilometres away she was scared of you. She pointed out that she had spent her entire pregnancy with you feeling sad and not being able to enjoy herself. Parts of it were not allowed in so I will not be repeating those or take them into account.
63 She said, 'So many years I spent asking myself why me and what did I do to deserve such horrific acts of violence committed against me. The answer is nothing. I did nothing to deserve it, and if wasn't me it would have been someone else', and I think that end quote seems to be true. She said that her life has picked up greatly since she found a new partner who has been, she said, picking up the pieces of damage that you caused. She still has triggers and still has anxiety and says at times she would not be able to work because of your controlling behaviour.
64 The other victim was Ms Warner, who said in her victim impact statement that she has repeated flashbacks of what you did to her, triggers that would take her back to the horrible experience, causing her to break down into panic attacks. She cannot sleep without having nightmares. She said she cannot handle yelling or angry men, which affects her work greatly because 90 per cent of her customers are men.
65 She has trouble experiencing and processing feelings. She said that it has made her emotionally almost impossible to trust and that her relationship with you and the way in which you treated her has caused her great difficulties and ongoing difficulties in her life. She then talks about Tracy, her daughter, and the effect on her.
66 Again you are not charged with anything in relation to Tracy, but what has to be taken into account is it is quite clear that you had hurt and spat upon your partner and the child had seen it. She said that the child continually brings up how much she hates you. She said, 'Our scars and the mental pain you caused will stay with us forever'. Those victim impact statements bring home the seriousness of what occurred.
67 In terms of what the Crown say, that is the Crown case.
68 I then turn to matters personal to you and a number of matters were raised and a number of matters put in submissions. I accept from the Bar table that you have apparently proactively sought out therapeutic treatment. I am not so sure about an understanding of exactly the level of what you have done has been. There seems to be an underlying self justification still going on with all this. Your counsel is bound obviously to put her instructions, but there is no psychological report, no psychiatric report, and no medical opinion or psychiatric opinion put before me.
69 I accept that you have now exposed matters that occurred when you were in Grade 2, and you have spoken to three different people about those, and I say no more about it. I simply indicate that that was at a very young age. It would appear to me that there is no link that I could find between that and what you have done to women apparently since your late teens, it would appear.
70 You were born and grew up in the Wangaratta area. Apparently you were a happy and intelligent young boy. Your parents separated when you were 12, and you said that your mother simply left the family home and moved away. Your father has told your counsel that you fell apart within six months of that event. The aftermath of the separation was tumultuous for you. You disengaged from secondary schooling and starting spending time with others and got into an environment of drugs and alcohol.
71 You became involved in football through Auskick and you played with the under 15s and received a Best and Fairest award insofar as one of those teams is concerned. You played football and it was something that you clearly enjoyed. You enrolled around that time with the Centre for Continuing Education in Wangaratta and completed Year 10. You then moved away from Wangaratta to Melbourne and pursued an apprenticeship as a mechanic working in an automotive business place in Hughesdale around about 2009.
72 Your first custodial sentence was at the age of 20. I do not know whether that was the one I referred to, but I am assuming that it is. You re-established a relationship with your mother and over the next few years where there is a significant gap in your Victorian prior history, as I read it in any event, you did accrue quite a significant number of matters in Western Australia, but as I have indicated they are not of real concern here.
73 While you were in custody in Western Australia you worked in the kitchen and you said you met your partner, Bess Boyce, within that environment. You have a daughter with Ms Boyce. She was born in April of 2017. Also it was put strongly on your behalf that within that period you were also exposed to trauma which has stayed with you to date, and one of your childhood friends committed suicide. That was a woman named Adele.
74 You apparently were the one who found her after she had suicided and I accept from the Bar table that that would have caused significant psychological trauma. It has to be borne in mind of course that you had already been before a court and convicted of assaulting her, so whatever the true story is there I do not know, but whatever that may be I accept that such a discovery - and there is no reason to doubt that you did - would have had a marked effect upon you.
75 It is then said that that put you into a spiral of grief and you resorted to self-medication with illicit drugs. It is then submitted that you embarked on unhealthy romantic relationships in an endeavour to move on from grief over her suicide. I simply point out in that respect that, as I understand it, within that period of time you had already been incarcerated for hitting, or belting one woman and placed on a community corrections order for another.
76 It is also put that in September of 2019, the date is a bit uncertain, you were injured during a football game and that your behaviour became worse from there. I accept that it did become worse, but that is right at the end of all this offending. You had offended against the five other victims before any of that occurred. As I said, the rape and the subsequent extremely violent, in my view, assault on Ms Warner the day immediately following that speak for themselves.
77 You have been remanded. You have been restrained by the limitations of COVID, and I take that into account. You have indicated that you have been in counselling and I have seen reports. I accept them on their face value. You have been transferred to Hodgkins, and I accept that you have only had one negative drug screen which is of no real concern to me.
78 You claim to feel shame and embarrassment about your actions. Whether or not that is true - as I said I have grave doubts but I certainly am not making a finding that there is no remorse. You wish to stay drug free when you are released, and you wish to pursue residential rehabilitation. That will be a subsequent matter for the Parole Board. You have made arrangements with your mother apparently about residential rehabilitation in Western Australia. Again that will be a matter for the Victorian Parole Board and it has nothing to do with me.
79 It is put that you do not wish to resume contact with any of the complainants, despite Ms Warner's attempt to pursue contact with you in custody, and there has been a letter annexed in respect of that. You say that you have removed yourself from the lives of your daughters and removed any likelihood of contact with their respective mothers. Inherent in that is a sense in my view - I have sat here for a long time, there is a sense of self-justification.
80 The letter that was sent by Ms Warner to you in gaol, in my view, says that she is just trying to get your credit card because she has got nothing to support her and she says in that letter that the fridge is empty. I do not think that is a genuine attempt to get back together with you, and your desire not to resume contact with them is somewhat higher, but in any event they are the submissions that have been put.
81 I also accept that you do have qualifications as a mechanic, a forklift licence, first aid, and warehouse and labouring certificates. I accept that you have been doing what courses you could do in gaol, which is a somewhat encouraging sign. Again insofar as the rape is concerned it was a rape that was the culmination of protracted violence over an extended period of time, the act of total ownership and degradation on a helpless and pregnant woman. I am not accusing you of having raped anybody previously, but you have been violent to women for a decade and this is simply a culmination of it and I take it no further than that.
82 The prospects of your rehabilitation are totally up to you. The prospect of you reoffending, bearing in mind your extensive criminal history of belting women is, I think, high. There is no expert opinion before me to disagree with that.
83 I have looked at the comparative cases that were given by both counsel. I am not going to go into a protracted examination of each of those. Every rape has to be looked at in its own circumstances. In one of those, a non-sexual rape, and I will refer to that again in a moment, there is one of two years and there is one reduced from eight and a half down to three years. There is also one that was shown to me by the Crown which ended up with a Bugmy, and probably in some ways a disabled Aboriginal person doing the same sort of thing, getting eight and a half years, but his was in fact after a trial, yours is after a plea.
84 It cannot be, in my view, said that the rape is at the lower end. It came after a significant history of violence towards the victim. It was a circumstance where there was the all-important threat of violence being inflicted upon her and indeed the very next day with her being pregnant, you, while she was lying on the ground, gave her a kicking. Her fears were very well founded. As I say I am not going to - those decisions speak for themselves.
85 I notice that the man who received the two year sentence after a Crown appeal was in his 40s with no priors and seems to have been totally situational. That is the matter of Elfata. The matter of Clarke (A Pseudonym), which I have just been given in the last couple of days and I have read previously in any event, is a situation where a man, once the relationship had broken up he inserted a vibrator into his former partner's vagina while she was giving someone a haircut. That clearly was not for a sexual nature and that, on one view, was done as some sort of ridiculous and grossly offensive joke.
86 Yours involves a degree of malice and underlying threat that takes it way out of that league, in my view, and I think the same thing as far as the man with no priors in the matter of Elfata who was in his 40s with no criminal history.
87 You are in a very different situation to that. I do not think in this overall situation there is much more I can say about all this. You are either going to come to understand why you cannot belt women the hard way, or you are never going to understand it at all, and it is a fair description to say that you are, on the material before me and your prior criminal history and the comments made by the magistrate, a serial woman basher.
88 You do not get sentenced for your lifestyle. You do not get sentenced in any way for preventative detention or anything like that, but you have to come to understand that this sort of behaviour just cannot continue and it causes great damage. Domestic violence is something that the community abhors and it is only in recent times that people are becoming aware of the full extent of it. You are a classic example of a perpetrator.
89 However, taking into account the matters put powerfully, if I might say so on your behalf, I can only sentence according to law and according to what you have done here. I should also point out in this sentencing that I am very aware of the principles of totality and I am very aware, if possible, not to impose a crushing sentence. In one sentence a number of these sentences could be rearranging deckchairs, if I can use the vernacular, but that is the only way I can go about it.
90 I am not going to try and cumulate little amounts between every sentence and fall into error, as undoubtedly I would, so it is to be understood that these sentences are imposed on a totality basis. I have reduced them because of your plea obviously, and for reasons of totality it is a circumstance where you have spent too long in gaol because I think you become institutionalised.
91 The sentence is as follows. On Indictment A, Charge 1, 12 months concurrent. Charge 2, 30 months. Charge 3, 24 months. Charge 4, six months concurrent. Charge 5, 66 months. Charge 6, 36 months. I direct that 12 months of the sentence imposed on Charge 2, six months of the sentence imposed on Charge 3, and 12 months of the sentence imposed on Charge 6 be served cumulatively upon each other and - sorry, I think I have missed this out. It says, and upon the sentence imposed on Charge 5, so 18 months is cumulated which in my calculation is a total effective sentence of eight years.
92 On Indictment B, and again totality is playing a part here obviously, Charge 1, 12 months. Charge 2, 24 months, which will be the base sentence. Charge 3, 12 months concurrent. Charge 4, 18 months. Charge 5, 12 months concurrent. Charge 6, 12 months concurrent. Charge 7, 24 months. Charge 8, 24 months, and Charge 9, 12 months concurrent. I direct that three months of the sentence imposed on Charge 1, six months of the sentence imposed on Charge 4; six months of the sentence imposed on Charge 7, nine months of the sentence imposed on Charge 8 be served cumulatively upon each other and upon the sentence imposed on Charge 2. That gives a total effective sentence of four years on this indictment.
93 I direct that two years of the sentence imposed on this indictment be served cumulatively upon the sentence imposed on Indictment A, which on my calculation gives a total effective sentence today of 10 years. I direct that seven years be served before becoming eligible for parole. I direct that 918 days be reckoned as having been served under this sentence, and on an overall sense I say that but for your plea of guilty, which is a bit meaningless here because there would have been all sorts of different charges, but for your plea of guilty which apparently had only been on the rape anyway, it is almost incalculable, but I will say 14 within a limit.
94 I do not think there is any other orders I need to make?
95 MS SKVORTSOVA: No, there are no further orders, Your Honour.
96 HIS HONOUR: Yes. Thanks, ladies.
97 MS SKVORTSOVA: If Your Honour pleases.
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