Director of Public Prosecutions v Skopilianos

[2018] VCC 256

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

AT MELBOURNE
CRIMINAL JURISDICTION

CR 17-02098

DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROSECUTIONS

v

STEPHEN SKOPILIANOS

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JUDGE:	HIS HONOUR JUDGE GRANT
WHERE HELD:	Melbourne
DATE OF HEARING:	7 March 2018
DATE OF SENTENCE:	8 March 2018
CASE MAY BE CITED AS:	DPP v Skopilianos
MEDIUM NEUTRAL CITATION:	[2018] VCC 256

REASONS FOR SENTENCE
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Subject:
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Cases Cited:
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APPEARANCES:	Counsel	Solicitors
For the Director of Public Prosecutions	Ms B. Goding	OPP
For the Offender	Mr A. Halphen	Stary Norton Halphen

Pages 1 - 7

 

 

HIS HONOUR:

1Stephen Skopilianos, you have pleaded guilty on indictment to offences of aggravated burglary and criminal damage.

2The offence of aggravated burglary has a maximum penalty of 25 years' imprisonment and the offence of criminal damage has a maximum penalty of ten years' imprisonment.

3You have also pleaded guilty to a related summary offence of unlawful assault.

4Your offending can be briefly summarised. At about 12.30 am on 24 April 2016 you attended at the Lygon Street car park to collect your car.  You were with your friend, Mr DeFalco.  You drove poorly in the carpark and the victim, who was the attendant at the carpark, cautioned you about your driving.  There was a discussion between the victim and Mr DeFalco about the loss of the parking ticket and you decided to intervene.  No doubt the alcohol you had consumed explains the offensive nature of your intervention - it does not excuse it.  You were rude and you were abusive towards the victim.  He went to call the police and you leapt through the window of his office, tackling him to the ground.  Mr DeFalco intervened, but the wrestling continued in the carpark.  The victim broke free of your grasp and returned to his office, locking the doors and windows.  He continued his conversation with the 000 operator.  You ripped the window from the front of the office and threw it on the ground.  You then pulled the phone cable from its socket and you remained in the area for about six minutes.

5As a result of your criminal behaviour the victim suffered superficial lacerations to his right shin and face, lower back pain, right shoulder pain and left Achilles tendon pain.  He has also suffered significant emotional distress that resulted in him taking a week off work.

6Mr Skopilianos, this is the sort of drunken loutish behaviour that the community is sick and tired of.  It involved the gratuitous abuse of a man performing his everyday work duties.  Not content with verbally abusing him, you attacked him physically by launching yourself through the window of his office. You continued to wrestle with him in the car park and, after he broke free and returned to the safety of his office, you proceeded to cause $367.20 worth of damage.

7Fortunately, the physical injuries the victim sustained were relatively minor.  The same cannot be said for the emotional distress that you caused him.  With this type of offending appropriate weight must be given to the sentencing principles of deterrence, punishment and denunciation.

8You do have prior court appearances - one is a relevant offence of violence.  In April 2012, you appeared at the Sunshine Magistrates' Court for an offence of affray.  You were fined, without conviction, $1,500.  Whilst the punishment indicates the offending must have been at a relatively modest level, it is still a significant prior matter.  This means that specific deterrence has a role to play in your sentencing.

9Your counsel submitted that even though this is a serious matter I should not imprison you.  He submitted that the appropriate order would be a community corrections order.  I accept the submission, and I do so for the following reasons.  First, you are still a relatively young man.  You were 24 at the time of the offending, you are now 26.  Your age requires me to give appropriate weight to the principle of rehabilitation in sentencing.  Secondly, at the time of the offending you were immature, foolish, and abusing drugs and alcohol.  Your circumstances now are quite different.  In the period of nearly two years that have passed since the commission of these offences you have embarked on an effective course of rehabilitation.  There has been no further offending and you ceased using drugs and alcohol completely on 22 August 2017.  On that date you entered a community residential withdrawal unit run by Western Health.  You then resided at Odyssey House from 28 August for ten days, and then more significantly, from 14 September 2017 until 27 December 2017.  You currently reside with your parents and they provide you strong support.  You have been in casual employment since early January of this year and you are involved in drug and alcohol counselling, and counselling with Relationships Australia.  Thirdly, you have entered an early plea of guilty.  I am satisfied that the plea is indicative of remorse.  It is also of utilitarian benefit.  It has saved the victim from the trauma associated with giving evidence, and it has saved the community the cost and expense associated with a criminal trial.  You will be given credit for all these matters.  Finally, I accept your counsel's submission that the aggravated burglary is at the lower end of the scale for offences of this type.  In addition, the injuries caused to the victim, whilst not insignificant, were not serious injuries, and the amount of criminal damage you caused was relatively modest.

10It is these matters, in combination, that have persuaded me that a community corrections order is the appropriate order to make in this case.  In determining the appropriate period of the order I have taken into account the time you spent in residence at Odyssey House.

11You are convicted and released on a community corrections order for a period of 15 months.

12You are required, under the terms of this order, to attend an induction appointment at the Sunshine Community Corrections service, and I understand a time has been made at 2 pm tomorrow.  The order has the following special conditions:

·you are to perform 150 hours of community work;

·you will be under supervision for the period of the order;

·you are to undergo treatment and rehabilitation for drug abuse and dependency, treatment and rehabilitation for alcohol abuse and dependency; and

·you are to undergo treatment and rehabilitation in relation to your mental health.

13I make an order that you undergo a forensic procedure for the taking of a scraping from your mouth.  For that purpose you are to report to the Sunshine Police Station within 28 days of the making of this order.  I am obliged to explain to you that if you do not cooperate with the police in the taking of the forensic sample the police can use reasonable force to obtain it.

14We will print up the order, Mr Skopilianos, and get you to sign it.  So just take a seat there for the moment.

15MR HALPHEN:  May I approach?

16HIS HONOUR:  Yes, certainly, Mr Halphen.

17MR HALPHEN:  Thank you, Your Honour.

18HIS HONOUR:  Now, Mr Skopilianos, you can now step down and come and stand behind your counsel.  Do you understand what's happened?

19OFFENDER:  Ah, yes.

20HIS HONOUR:  One important thing to understand about the community corrections order is that you cannot commit any further offences, okay?  So there can be no more trouble.  Now, you've managed to stay out of trouble for nearly two years, it shouldn't be a problem for you, but I'm obliged to explain to you that you can't reoffend.  If you do reoffend it'll breach the order.

21Conditions on the order have to be complied with.  If you don't comply with the conditions then Corrections bring you back to court on a breach.  They're administering my order.  You don't comply they'll bring you back, and I'll deal with you again on a breach, and it's most likely you'll go to gaol.  So it's important you understand the opportunity you've been given today.  You need to seize it, you need to make the most of it.

22So under this order you will be under supervision. I am told that you'll have regular fortnightly appointments with Corrections.  You miss an appointment, that's a breach.  So you make sure you attend every supervision appointment.

23You'll have to perform 150 hours of community work over a period of 15 months.  That's about ten hours a month.  Not onerous but you have got to do it

24The other conditions are designed to try and assist your ongoing rehabilitation; so participation in drug and alcohol treatment and mental health treatment.  The report indicates that you'll probably be engaged with your current psychologist.

25Just remember this, you've got to do everything that Corrections asks of you.  They want you to go that appointment, you go to that appointment.  They want you to see that person, you go.  No excuses.  It's an order of the court, and if you can't comply with the order then they'll bring you back and they'll say, "Well, Your Honour, the order hasn't worked.  You have to make some other order", and now without suspended sentences courts don't have many other options.  CCOs or gaol; they're really the options.  So I can't stress enough how important it is for you to obey the order and for you to continue in the future in the way that you've been going over the last 21 months or so.  You understand all of that?

26OFFENDER:  Ah, yes, Your Honour.

27HIS HONOUR:  Okay, good.  Anything else?

28MR HALPHEN:  No, Your Honour.

29MS GODING:  No, Your Honour.  I have draft forensic sample orders, if they are required?

30HIS HONOUR:  I'll sign that.

31MS GODING:  They are to the Keilor Downs Police Station, based in ‑ ‑ ‑ 

32HIS HONOUR:  Keilor Downs.  Would that be your closest station, not Sunshine?

33OFFENDER:  Yeah.

34HIS HONOUR:  It would?  Okay.  I'll amend my order to make it Keilor Downs Police Station.

35MS GODING:  Thank you, Your Honour.  I'll hand those up.

36HIS HONOUR:  Now, Mr Skopilianos - if you can stand again. What I've just done is signed an order for a forensic procedure, and as I said to you earlier, that requires you to report to the Keilor Downs Police, and what they'll do is take what we call a "buccal swab"; so it's just a cotton tip which is used to take a sample from inside your cheek, and that's preserved by the police as a record of your DNA, and if there is further offending then that data can be used to assist the police.

37I'm obliged to say to you that if you don't attend at the police station, or cooperate with the police in the taking of that sample, then the police can use reasonable force, and indeed the sample may not be a scraping, it may be a blood sample.  So it's important that you attend at the Keilor Downs Police Station within the timeframe to get this done - it's not an onerous procedure - and I make this order because of the seriousness of the offending, your prior conviction, the orders by consent, and the granting of the order is in the public interest.  Anything else?

38MS GODING:  No, Your Honour.

39MR HALPHEN:  No, Your Honour.

40HIS HONOUR:  All right.  Yes, thank you.  Ten-thirty tomorrow.

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