Director of Public Prosecutions v Smith
[2014] VCC 144
•19 February 2014
| IN THE COUNTY COURT OF VICTORIA | Revised Not Restricted Suitable for Publication |
AT MELBOURNE
CRIMINAL DIVISION
Case No. CR-12-02350
| DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROSECUTIONS |
| v |
| NATHAN SMITH |
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JUDGE: | Her Honour Judge Hampel | |
WHERE HELD: | Melbourne | |
DATE OF HEARING: | 11 February 2014 | |
DATE OF SENTENCE: | 19 February 2014 | |
CASE MAY BE CITED AS: | DPP v Smith | |
MEDIUM NEUTRAL CITATION: | [2014] VCC 144 | |
REASONS FOR SENTENCE
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Subject:
Catchwords: Sentence – Incitement to kidnap – Sexual sadism – Weapons – Prior conviction – Offending committed whilst on a CCO – Attributing blame to others – Minimising account of behaviour – Risk of reoffending – Fail to answer bail – Relative youth – Sentencing range (Barbaro and Zirilli)
Legislation Cited:
Cases Cited:
Sentence:
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APPEARANCES: | Counsel | Solicitors |
| For the DPP | Ms S. Flynn | OPP |
| For the Accused | Mr J. Williams | VLA |
HER HONOUR:
1 Nathan Smith, in late 2009 you met and began a relationship with a 16 year old girl, Natalie,[1] who you met through Facebook.
[1] Pseudonym used.
2 You began seeing her in person soon after and a relationship quickly developed. By January 2010 you had moved into her parents' home to live with her and by April 2010 you were engaged. You were then 22.
3 Not long after the relationship began you began to express an interest in having sex with other girls or young women and sought to enlist Natalie’s cooperation in this. You also developed an interest in pornography, with an emphasis on sadomasochistic activities (or perhaps, properly described, sexual sadism, involving the subjecting of women and girls to sexually sadistic practices) and having sex with virgins (or deflowering them as you referred to it). Again Natalie was involved, in that she too viewed the pornography and engaged in discussions with you about it.
4 Natalie met and became friendly with a girl Erica[2] and you expressed an interest in, or an attraction to her, but she made it clear that she was not interested in you.
[2] Pseudonym used.
5 On Friday 12 November 2010, while out driving, you discussed kidnapping a female with Natalie. Later that day you sent Natalie some sadomasochistic images including images of a girl with her vagina stapled and her nipple pierced by a needle.
6 This was the start of a chilling course of conduct involving talk about and planning for the abduction of a young woman which extended over the next four days. It only came to an end when you were asked to leave Natalie’s parents' home after Natalie had told the police about what you had said and done.
7 In various conversations with Natalie over the Saturday and Sunday you spoke to her about abducting an unidentified or random female at knifepoint then raping, torturing and killing her. You said you wanted to hurt a female and detailed some very specific and brutal acts of sexual torture you wanted to perform upon your target. You told Natalie you wanted her to catch the victim, tie her up and hold her as you raped her, that is, as you raped the victim. You told Natalie you planned to use her mother’s van for the purpose, parking it in a parking bay.
8 In a later conversation Natalie asked you if you were serious and you confirmed your intentions. You said you wanted some painfully sharp things to put inside the female and said you would have to make them. You spoke of buying some items to torture the victim with. You wrote out a list of the specific items you would need to buy to use or adapt for use for that purpose and explained to Natalie in graphic detail the way each item was to be used.
9 In another later conversation you spoke of raping and killing a prostitute first. You said a prostitute would be an easier target because you thought you would be able to easily lure a prostitute into the van. You even gloated about recovering the money that you had paid the prostitute once you had her trapped in the back of the van.
10 At a later stage over the weekend you identified Natalie’s friend Erica as the target and told Natalie her role would be to arrange to meet Erica and then force her into the van at knifepoint. You contemplated, it was clear from the discussions, that Natalie was to be present in the van once Erica had been captured, would assist in restraining her and would watch whatever then happened to Erica at your hands.
11 On the Monday you had a meeting with Community Corrections in Geelong. At the time you were subject to a Community Corrections Order for an offence relating to your pursuit of a 12 year old girl with whom you had arranged a sexual assignation. You arranged to meet Natalie straight after the meeting and go shopping for the items that you had listed the previous day as being needed for the torture of your victim. At your direction she brought the list of items with her (transcribed by her from your original list), and she accompanied you as you purchased them.
12 When you returned home you went to the work shed at the back of the house and immediately set about welding, sharpening and modifying the items so that they would be ready for the uses you had previously identified. As you did so, you explained to Natalie what each one was for. Natalie told you she did not want to be involved anymore and she could not do it. She said that she stayed watching you modify the weapons because she was afraid. When you had finished, at your direction, Natalie took them to the bedroom the two of you shared and you later concealed them.
13 The following day, the Tuesday, you sent text messages to Natalie asking her to arrange to meet her friend Erica the day after that, adding: “Only if you are comfortable doing it all to her though, including in her car with kfe.” It is clear from this context that the word “kfe” at the end of the text message meant, as Natalie understood it to mean, knife.
14 By then you had spelt out the role Natalie was to play. She was to contact Erica, arrange to meet her and then at knifepoint bring her to you, so you could then engage in sexual activity with her. It was clear from your discussions with Natalie that Erica’s consent was not a necessary part of the plan and that there was the potential for you to engage in sexual activity with Erica without her consent and the potential for you to use the weapons which had been purchased, modified or discussed.
15 There the planning stopped because Natalie, although apparently acquiescing in what you were saying and doing, had in fact told her mother and then the police what you were planning and the steps that you had taken to buy and construct the torture instruments. Police arrived at Natalie’s family home on the Tuesday afternoon while you were at work and with a warrant seized the torture implements as well as other items which provided powerful evidence of your plans. They included pornographic and sexually sadistic images (stills and film clips) on your computer and Natalie’s phone, explicit text messages passing between you and Natalie and the shopping list detailing the items which you bought and later modified.
16 The evidence also reveals that the items you listed then bought and modified were all identified by you as having specific uses. Before making the list you had detailed to Natalie the particular acts you wanted to perform and how those items would be used. You had sent her the sadistic images showing some of those items being used in the way you had said you wanted to use them and told her of a sadistic film clip you had seen where one of the items had been used. Another image utilising an item you had purchased was later found on the computer which was seized. Descriptions of the way other items could be used were also found in the drafts folder of Natalie’s phone, apparently entered there during this four day period. Natalie’s evidence is that you wrote and stored those messages in her phone. After doing the modifications to the things that you had purchased you again told Natalie exactly how each item would be used.
17 As I consider it necessary for those who will be responsible for advising you following sentence, for any court which must subsequently deal with you and appreciate what I took into account when sentencing you, and those responsible for your assessment and treatment in custody, and when considering your eligibility for release on parole and the conditions of any such release, to know the detail of the items that you planned to use, I have detailed them in a schedule to my reasons. However I do not consider it necessary or appropriate to go into that level of detail in open court or to have such information in the public domain. I propose to make a non publication order in respect of the schedule.
18 When you came home from work Natalie told you the police had been and seized the weapons. You asked her what she had told the police and she said “the truth”. You began to abuse Natalie and were told by her mother to leave. You took your belongings and left.
19 You were not questioned by the police until the following July. As you acknowledged when interviewed, the police had been in contact with you since the time you had been told to leave Natalie’s family’s home but you had failed to keep a number of promises you had made to voluntarily attend for questioning.
20 When you were finally arrested, cautioned and questioned in July 2011, you denied planning to kidnap, rape or injure Erica or inciting Natalie to do so. You acknowledged purchasing the items to which I have referred and making the weapons. You acknowledged that you had spoken to Natalie and sent her text messages about getting another female, possibly without their consent, for a sexual encounter, but said you were just joking around. You admitted discussing abducting Erica with Natalie but said again you were just joking around. You admitted sending sadomasochistic or sexually sadistic images to Natalie’s phone and speaking to her of what it would be like to fist someone and hear them scream.
21 When taken to the items you had bought and the modifications you had made to them, to sharpen them and convert them to the form in which they were found, you said variously it was Natalie’s idea or you had modified the items under Natalie’s direction, or so far as one item is concerned, what has been described as a “gag ball”, that it was for Natalie’s use. Some items you agreed you had bought to use on someone else, “a lady” as you described her, but you maintained, only if she was willing.
22 You were initially charged with incitement to kidnap, incitement to rape and incitement to intentionally cause serious injury. Following a contested committal you were committed for trial. The matter resolved on the first day of trial when you entered a guilty plea to the charge of incitement to kidnap. Charges of incitement to rape and inflict serious injury were not proceeded with. By your plea of guilty to the charge of incitement to kidnap you are clearly disavowing the account you gave police when interviewed that you were only joking.
23 The prosecution case is put on the basis that you incited Natalie to pursue a course of conduct that would involve both you and Natalie kidnapping Erica. In particular, the case is put on the basis that you incited Natalie to take part in the kidnapping of Erica by having Natalie contact Erica by SMS and arrange for Erica to collect Natalie in her car, and for Natalie then to produce a knife and compel Erica to drive to meet you so that you could engage in sexual activity with her, possibly without her consent, and potentially use the weapons that you had made during that sexual activity. Whilst maintaining that your instructions were that there was no incitement to or intent to rape or to cause serious injury, your counsel confirmed that the basis of your plea of guilty was that which I have just set out.
24 I must and do sentence you for the charge of incitement to kidnap. But the matters that I have detailed are an essential part of the context in which the offending occurred and so relevant to the assessment of the seriousness of the offence of incitement to kidnap and the seriousness of your offending.
25 In your account to the police and to Dr Sullivan who, at your lawyer’s instigation and with your consent assessed you for the purposes of the plea, you minimised the offending or sought to attribute much of the responsibility to Natalie. Attributing blame, or much of it to Natalie, was also the thrust of Mr Williams’ submissions on the plea, that is despite the guilty plea that was entered and the basis upon which it was entered.
26 The depositional material casts a different complexion on your conduct and on Natalie’s role. On her account, she went along with what you were saying because she was afraid and did not know what to do. Support for that comes from her conduct, in telling her mother on the Sunday that you wanted to rape and kill a female and going to the police station on the Monday when you had gone to work and were out of the way, to report her concerns. It is also supported by her conduct in bringing the modified items in from the shed where you had worked on them and showing them to her mother before putting them in the room the two of you shared, as you had told her to do.
27 On the Tuesday, after you had sent her the text message about arranging to meet Erica the following day and seeking her assurance that she was all right with it, the police arrived. After that message and the police had arrived on the Tuesday, Natalie showed the police the weapons, your list of the items that you wanted to use and the text messages evidencing your plans. This conduct is entirely consistent with her account that she had from the outset, tried to gather evidence of what you were planning by trying to record the initial conversation, keeping the torture images you sent her and asking you to write the list of the items you wanted in her diary. It is also consistent with her account that she went along with you, apparently acquiescent, because she was afraid and did not know what to do, whilst at the same time actively seeking help from her mother and the police and trying to preserve evidence of your activity.
28 This is supported too by the fact that she was only 16 and living at home with her parents, whilst you were 22, had been working for five years, and had been living independently from your parents for some time. Her youth, as well as the age gap and the gap in experience of life is in my view significant. Indeed I regard it as one of the serious features of this offence, that you sought to enlist this 16 year old into this activity.
29 In his report, Dr Sullivan said this:
[34] Mr Smith has provided a minimising history. His statements to police indicate that he harboured ideas of sadistic sexual practices towards others. He sought to attribute these to his girlfriend at the time, but I consider that the bland account he provides does not explain his interest in abducting another person and inflicting pain upon them. I consider it disingenuous for Mr Smith to suggest that having abducted a woman they might then consent to having their nipple pierced or a “spike” inserted in their vagina.
[35] Similarly, Mr Smith has sought to attribute responsibility for such considerations to his then girlfriend [Natalie] and to suggest that these ideas arose from their sex play and her interest in these themes. In the research literature and my clinical experience, such sadistic themes in women are extremely rare and generally arise in a compliant or submissive woman under the persuasion of a dominant male partner in situations of marked coercion or duress, or in significant mental disorder, generally gross personality disorder.
[36] It is concerning that Mr Smith has prepared a list of items and engaged in behavioural preparation for the commission of an offence by generating a range of items associated with sexual sadomasochism. Once more, Mr Smith’s attribution of ideas to [Natalie] and his reportedly benign participation in the manufacture of those items is unconvincing.
30 I am persuaded by and accept these opinions I have cited from Dr Sullivan’s report.
31 Victim Impact Statements have been provided by Erica and Natalie. They understandably speak of their fear and loss of trust. Each continues, all this time after, to feel afraid about what could have been.
32 You have only one previous conviction. It is in the circumstances of concern for a number of reasons. First, the timing. On Thursday 11 November 2010, that is just the day before the start of this offence, you were convicted of and sentenced for stalking. As I have already noted, you arranged to meet Natalie to go shopping for the items that I have detailed upon leaving what must have been your first induction meeting with Community Corrections following the court hearing and imposition of the Community Corrections Order on that Thursday 11 November. It was a condition of the Community Corrections Order that you undergo assessment and intervention as directed by Community Corrections in consultation with the Sex Offender Treatment Program.
33 I was provided without objection with the summary relied on at the sentencing hearing. It reveals the account you gave through your counsel on the plea, here, and to Dr Sullivan, again minimises your responsibility and seeks to attribute responsibility to the victim. The stalking charge relates to your repeated attempts to arrange to meet a 12 year old girl in a lockable room, a baby change room, at a shopping centre in March 2010. You had asked her to meet you to show you her underwear, that is, while she was wearing it. You used a false name and although you were 22 at the time, you told her you were 16 and a student at her school. Although you claimed to have met her through Facebook, the police summary notes that the first contact with her was by text message sent by you to her phone. Her phone number was not available through her Facebook page. How you got her phone number and how she came to your attention is unknown.
34 The third concern is that the offence occurred during the time of your relationship with Natalie, at a time you were already living with her at her parents' home, and in the month before you became engaged.
35 And the last concern is that according to the information provided by your lawyers to Dr Sullivan, and by you, you did not respond to a range of interventions under the Community Corrections Order and were eventually dealt with for breach of its conditions.
36 In that regard Dr Sullivan said:
His prior conviction, the degree of sexualised preoccupation and the nature of these charges raises significant concerns about a diagnosis of paraphilia. Mr Smith is minimising and permits no frank discussion of his motivations or interests. The past charge raises concerns about diagnoses of paedophilic disorder, although on the materials available to me I would regard this as a provisional rather than established diagnosis. However the current charge strongly suggests an underlying sexual sadism disorder. Interests in related pornography, preparation of materials for sexual purposes and a willingness to abduct a person would meet the criteria for the latter diagnosis, notwithstanding Mr Smith’s suggestion that he would seek consent for the infliction of sexualised pain.
37 Again, I accept Dr Sullivan's opinion, in the paragraph that I have just quoted.
38 Dealing then with your background and personal circumstances. You were 22 at the time of the offending and are now just weeks short of your 26th birthday. You were born and brought up in country Victoria. You come from a stable family background. Your parents were at court and although ignorant of the circumstances of the offending, came to court prepared to assure you, and the court, of their continued support. I am told that that support has not wavered after hearing the circumstances of the offending, as detailed in the summary read out in court on the plea hearing. This was the first they knew of the circumstances. Understanding you are facing a term of imprisonment they plan to keep close contact with you, and to offer you a home with them on your release.
39 Since the relationship with Natalie came to an end following the revelation she had reported you to the police, you have met and formed a relationship with another young woman. She is now established in Sydney, having followed you when you relocated there in September, in circumstances I will come to shortly. She too promises her continued support. It is not clear what she knows of this offending.
40 You are of at least average intelligence, you completed your VCE with a good TER of 85 and you have a very good work history. You started an apprenticeship in refrigeration and air conditioning. In your third year you witnessed the death of a colleague in a workplace accident and decided that you did not want to pursue a future in that field. Despite that obviously traumatic experience Dr Sullivan notes that you do not report the core features of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. He observes that you appear to have dealt with this event appropriately.
41 Having decided not to continue your apprenticeship you obtained a truck driver’s licence and have worked as a truck driver ever since. You have had no trouble obtaining or maintaining employment.
42 In Dr Sullivan’s opinion you do not appear to have any overt mental disorder. He said there is no indication of psychosis, mood disorder, cognitive impairment or other mental illness. There is no indication, in his opinion, that any mental disorder is associated with the offending. There is no evidence of any problems with drugs or alcohol.
43 All these matters, stability of family background, good and continued family support, a good history of employment, good educational attainment, an absence of overt mental disorder and absence of history of substance abuse all count in your favour when considering your prospects for rehabilitation.
44 Weighed against that is what I have already referred to from Dr Sullivan, and his reservation that there is insufficient information about your personality, to further describe it, and his concern that the nature of the offences and your presentation raises concerns about whether you have an abnormal personality structure. He recommends that you be assessed for the Sex Offender Program. He said:
In the absence of offence specific treatment I would hold significant concerns about the risk of future offending. Although his guardedness is understandable at this stage of proceedings, if he continues to minimise his offences after sentencing and on engagement in treatment, I would be concerned that treatment would have little impact upon future offending risk.
45 Again, I accept these opinions of Dr Sullivan.
46 It is over three years since this offending. The delay, over and above that occasioned by the time taken for a contested matter to work its way through from initial charge to trial, is occasioned by your conduct, first, in promising to present for interview and failing to attend over the initial period of seven months after Natalie’s report to the police, and secondly, in failing to appear in answer to your bail when the matter was finally listed for plea. I should note, the gap of four months from resolution of the trial to plea hearing was to allow for the obtaining of the report from Dr Sullivan to which I have made such extensive reference. I do not count that delay as attributable to your conduct. It is an unfortunate consequence of the size of court lists and the waiting lists of forensic psychiatrists of the calibre of Dr Sullivan that without the delay caused by your conduct, it still took over two years from offence to sentence hearing.
47 I take into account in your favour the fact there are, I am told, no further offences, apart from having been dealt with for breaching your Community Corrections Order by non-compliance in the intervening time.
48 You have also pleaded guilty to an uplifted summary charge of failing to answer bail. I accept what Mr Williams told me, namely that he conferred with you days before the plea was originally listed for hearing in September of last year and that you were then ready, or at least resigned to facing court, but on impulse, ran away at the last moment. It does not appear that you took any sophisticated steps to hide yourself, simply going to Sydney, obtaining work and accommodation there, but neither did you take steps to return. You simply waited until you were found and extradited.
49 This is consistent in my view with your earlier conduct in failing to keep your appointments with the police to attend for interview, failing to engage with Corrections over your Community Corrections Order and providing a minimising account of your behaviour to the police, Dr Sullivan and your counsel. Such conduct can no longer be explained away by immaturity. You are now 26, or nearly. It demonstrates the need for you to be assessed for suitability for a Sex Offender Treatment Program, in accordance with Dr Sullivan’s recommendations. You may also benefit from other programs to assist you to confront your offending, the need to take responsibility for it and to protect the community against it. Until you have shown signs of taking responsibility for your offending your prospects for rehabilitation must always be seen as guarded, despite the positive matters that I have detailed.
50 It was a condition of the Community Corrections Order that you were placed on the day before this offending began, that you undergo assessment and intervention as directed by Community Corrections in consultation with the Sex Offender Treatment Program. You would have had to have consented before the magistrate, to the making of that order, and to the imposition of that condition for the CCO with that condition to be made. You did not cooperate with Corrections and so, no treatment plan or assessment by the Sex Offender Program took place whilst your Community Corrections Order was current. You now express a preparedness to participate in such a program. It is to be hoped that you maintain that preparedness to participate for longer than the day of sentence. If you do, then you will be presented with an opportunity to enhance your prospects for rehabilitation and to demonstrate that the risk to the community that you pose can be managed. It is up to you. I am structuring the sentence in a way that will allow for such a program, if you are suitable and prepared to participate in it, to be delivered if Corrections considers it appropriate wholly or partially on parole.
51 It is clear that denunciation and deterrence, both general and specific, are important sentencing considerations. So, too, is protection of the community.
52 As Ms Flynn submitted, the seriousness of this offence can be measured not only by the maximum penalty of 25 years' imprisonment, the same for incitement as for the substantive offence of kidnapping, but by the circumstances of the offending. You sought to inveigle a 16 year old girl, who you professed to love and want to marry, into kidnapping a young woman, a friend of hers, at knifepoint, to deliver her to you in circumstances where you had told her you wanted to engage in sexual acts with the victim in her presence. You had shown her and told her of violent, sexually sadistic images you had sourced. You told her of the weapons you wanted to use on her friend, your chosen victim, and the pain that you wanted to inflict on her. You had sought to make her complicit in it, by having her accompany you when you bought the items necessary to make the weapons you had told her about, and watching you while you fashioned them in her family’s shed and hiding them in the bedroom that you shared. Whether you would have carried out these violent acts you had prepared the weapons and items for, or whether you would have raped Erica, we will never know. But they are the context in which the incitement of Natalie to kidnap her friend must be viewed. And that explains why those considerations of denunciation and deterrence, both general and specific, and protection of the community, are such important sentencing considerations.
53 Between the time I heard the plea and today, the High Court has delivered its decision in Barbaro and Zirilli.[3] As a result, the prosecution advised that it would not make any submissions as to sentencing range. In those circumstances I do not consider it necessary or appropriate to seek submissions about range either from Mr Williams.
[3] Barbaro v R; Zirilli v R [2014] HCA 2
54 Nathan Smith, on the charge of incitement to kidnap, to which you have pleaded guilty, you are convicted and sentenced to be imprisoned for a period of 7 years.
55 On the uplifted charge of failing to appear on bail, you are convicted and sentenced to be imprisoned for a period of 3 months. I direct that the whole of that sentence be served cumulatively upon the sentence on Charge 1. That makes a total effective sentence of 7 years and three months imprisonment.
56 I fix a period of five years as the time that you must serve before being eligible for parole. I declare that you have spent 42 days in pre-sentence detention and direct that that be counted and reckoned as part of the sentence already served.
57 Pursuant to s.6AAA of the Sentencing Act I declare that but for your pleas of guilty I would have sentenced you to a total effective term of 10 years' imprisonment and I would have fixed a non-parole period of 8 years.
58 I have been asked to make a disposal order in respect of the items that were seized pursuant to the search warrant and I make that order. Are there any further orders that are required to be made and to the orders that I pronounce reflect what I said I intended to do.
59 MS FLYNN: Your Honour, I understood I made application on the last occasion for an order to pursuant to s.464ZF for an intimate sample.
60 HER HONOUR: Sorry that had slipped my noting.
61 MS FLYNN: Thank you Your Honour.
62 HER HONOUR: And that's the taking of a sample or the retention?
63 MS FLYNN: A taking of a sample Your Honour.
64 HER HONOUR: Did you tell me that was consented to or not Mr Williams I can't remember?
65 MR WILLIAMS: I did Your Honour, yes.
66 HER HONOUR: Thank you. Could you stand for a moment again please Mr Smith. I've been asked to make an order for the taking of an intimate sample from you for the placing on the DNA database. I propose to make that order having regard to the seriousness of the offending, your previous conviction and noting that it is by consent. I'm going to direct that that sample be taken by way of the provision of a buccal sample that requires you to rub a swab like a cotton bud on the inside of your mouth until a sufficient sample has been obtained. I must tell you, if you do not co-operate in the provision of that sample, the police are authorised to use reasonable force to obtain that sample and it is at least likely that they will use the more invasive method available, namely the taking of a blood sample. Do you understand that?
67 OFFENDER: Yes Your Honour.
68 HER HONOUR: Thank you. I found the disposal order. I haven't got the 464ZF order printed out.
69 MS FLYNN: I believe I have a copy here Your Honour I'll just double check. Pardon me Your Honour.
70 HER HONOUR: You can take a seat again Mr Smith while I sign that order.
71 MS FLYNN: Thank you Your Honour. There's multiple copies.
72 HER HONOUR: I think I only need to sign three don't I Ms Flynn?
73 MS FLYNN: Yes thank you Your Honour.
74 HER HONOUR: Good I'll have the other two back to you unsigned. I understand that after the plea hearing last week there was a discussion about my assigning pseudonyms to both Natalie and Erica as I'm now calling them.
75 MS FLYNN: Yes.
76 HER HONOUR: And that Mr Butcher who was present in court understood that would happen and undertook not to publish the names of the real names of Erica or Natalie.
77 MS FLYNN: Yes.
78 HER HONOUR: It's come to my attention the copy of - I think the prosecution's summary had been provided either to Mr Butcher or to members of the press.
79 MS FLYNN: Your Honour it had been provided to Mr Butcher and it had transferred electronically prior to Your Honour making that order and so I wanted to make it clear to all of the parties that that had occurred. I spoke with Mr Butcher and he assured me that he understood not to publish the names and that Your Honour would be using a pseudonym or anonymising those names today in your sentence.
80 HER HONOUR: Yes thank you, I just wanted to make sure that was on public record and I have great confidence that when Mr Butcher gives his word that he will not publish something he won't.
81 MS FLYNN: Indeed Your Honour.
82 HER HONOUR: And that if he wants to apply for any variation of what I've said he knows how he's - he knows he can make that application will do so. I understand there's another member of the press here today, I don't know whether she received a copy of the original summary. I've used the pseudonyms today and so there's not a problem with you publishing anything I've said in open court.
83 HER HONOUR: And if the prosecution is going to provide another copy of the summary can that be done in redacted form with names of Natalie and Erica redacted and a notation that - of the pseudonyms that have been assigned to them.
84 MS FLYNN: Certainly Your Honour.
85 HER HONOUR: Thank you. My reasons are available in draft form and I’m prepared to release them if you want them for the purpose of accurate reporting but - there's the odd little word variation. You can also get the recording if you wanted to check anything I've said. Thank you. Remove Mr Smith please.
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