Director of Public Prosecutions v Speedie
[2014] VCC 903
•10 June 2014
| IN THE COUNTY COURT OF VICTORIA | Revised Not Restricted Suitable for Publication |
AT MELBOURNE
CRIMINAL DIVISION
Case No. CR-14-00374
| DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROSECUTIONS |
| v |
| DEAN SPEEDIE |
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JUDGE: | HER HONOUR JUDGE GAYNOR | |
WHERE HELD: | Melbourne | |
DATE OF HEARING: | ||
DATE OF SENTENCE: | 10 June 2104 | |
CASE MAY BE CITED AS: | DPP v Speedie | |
MEDIUM NEUTRAL CITATION: | [2014] VCC 903 | |
REASONS FOR SENTENCE
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APPEARANCES: | Counsel | Solicitors |
| For the Crown | Ms T. Bolton | |
| For the Accused | Mr D. McGlone |
HER HONOUR:
1 Mr Speedie, you can remain seated until I tell you to stand, all right. Dean Stewart Speedie, you have pleaded guilty to one charge of recklessly causing serious injury. The facts underlying this offending are as follows: it took place on July 5 2006, at which time you were involved in a relationship with the victim, Cyvina McGennisken, who was then aged 24, and with whom you had been in a relationship for about seven years. You had two children who at that time were in the care of the Department of Human Services as both of you were heroin users. The relationship finished in 2005 when you moved to Darwin to live but you returned in early 2006 to Ballarat to live with your parents, and you and Ms McGennisken resumed your relationship without living together.
2 On July 5, you picked the victim up from her home address and took her to your parents’ house at about lunchtime, your parents being away on holidays. Two identified friends of yours also attended. The victim cooked dinner for you all that evening and then told police she drank about three scotch and Cokes throughout the night. You and your friends were taking drugs throughout the day which Ms McGinniskin denied in participating in, although later testing revealed she had also been using those drugs. Her next recollection was waking up in your bed with a swollen black left eye, a ruptured left eardrum, extensive cuts and bruising to her head and face, bruising to her upper arms and torso, and she saw a large pool of blood on the carpet next to the double bed.
3 When she asked you what had happened you admitted you had assaulted her. She was taken to Ballarat Base Hospital by your brother’s partner, you having in a panic rung your brother, and it was established she was three months pregnant at the time, although not, it appears, by you. Police who attended your parents’ home found a shower screen in the bathroom had been ripped off and smashed with blood in the shower and around the bathroom, blood on the carpet, as I said, next to your bed and the door to your bedroom smashed off its hinges.
4 You immediately left Victoria in the wake of a huge argument with your parents and headed interstate eventually taking up residence in Darwin, and police were unable to locate you for several years. In 2013, they tracked you down to the Geelong area where you were living with your then partner. You became aware police were looking for you and again avoided apprehension. Then on 31 July 2013, attended the Ballarat CIU where you were interviewed by detectives. You told them you remembered the night of July 5 and the morning of July 6, but that memory was clouded because of your consumption of beer, scotch and Xanax tablets.
5 You had admitted assaulting the victim by punching her more than once in the head and face but were unsure where this took place and admitted you probably wrestled with her throughout the house. You were unable to remember a number of aspects of the incident or why, indeed, you assaulted her. Although you said you could recall stomping on her head, you could not recall what actually took place in the bathroom. It was an extremely vicious attack.
6 I now turn to your personal circumstances. You are 34 years old and were 26 at the time of this offending. You are the middle of three sons born to your parents who raised you in Ballarat, your father working as a teacher. Your older brother is a manager of a supermarket, and your younger brother a baker. You completed year 11 at Mount Clear Secondary College where you apparently had many friends and played sport and, indeed, were a skilled sportsman, particularly in the area of cricket where you represented the state at junior level. However, by the time you left school you had begun drinking alcohol and smoking cannabis which became a problem for you.
7 You began an apprenticeship as a carpet and vinyl layer which you did not complete but continued to work with that company for three years, learning the trade in that time. You also worked in other country towns and parts of Melbourne. As I have said, you were a successful sportsman from the ages of 12 to 18 playing cricket, football and baseball and playing A-level cricket in Ballarat between the ages of 16 and 18, also played with the Carlton Cricket Club and representing state at junior level.
8 Your difficulties with drug and alcohol increased significantly once you left school, began working and earned money. In particular, you fell into heroin use, and this remained really an addictive problem for you for years. In the context of that drug use, you began offending from about 2001 when you were placed on an intensive corrections order for burglary and theft charges in June of that year. You received a second intensive corrections order in 2003 for burglary, intentionally damaging property and driving charges. In 2004, you were fined $500 for possession of heroin at which time you were dealt with for breach of the intensive corrections order you were on and ordered to serve an unexpired portion of 141 days.
9 On release from prison you decided to get away and went to Darwin where you worked at a service station and remained for six months apparently drug-free. However, you missed Ballarat, your family and friends and returned. Your relationship with the victim was apparently a dysfunctional one according to psychologist, Ian Joblin, whose reported dated 24 January 2014 was tendered on the plea. It was essentially based on shared drug use.
10 You had remained drug free in jail and, subsequently, in Darwin but immediately fell back into drug use when you returned to Ballarat and, also, resumed drinking heavily. As is often the case with drug users, you compensated for heroin, when you could not get it, with prescription pills and it would appear, on this occasion, using the particularly damaging mood altering drug, Xanax.
11 The offending was committed in that context. I accept that you have a patchy memory of that offending and that, serious as it was, this violence was very much out of character for you, you never having been dealt with previously for any crime of violence.
12 Unsurprisingly, this offending involving as it did significant damage to the family home, destroyed your relationship with your family at that time and you panicked and returned to the Northern Territory living in Alice Springs and Darwin, determined to rid yourself of the drug habit that had proved so destructive. You stayed away for four years and in that time, I am satisfied, did conquer the drug habit and ceased use of heroin.
13 During the plea, your counsel tendered a letter you wrote which I took hesitantly, as it is my experience that accused people rarely write to any benefit of their own behalf, comprising self-exculpatory raves, if I can put it that way, and unconvincing excuses for their behaviour. However, refreshingly, yours was an informative and truly remorseful letter containing amount of extremely useful detail.
14 You noted that following the offending, that is the subject of this court hearing, your mother told you to leave the house. You described what occurred as a massive wake up call. You realising you had to do something with your life. You said you lived in Geelong for a week, knowing police would want to speak to you but you were scared to return to jail. You stated, “I had done the wrong thing and travelled back to Darwin instead of facing up to what I had done”.
15 You then worked at a casino in Alice Springs for a few months, then moved to Darwin where you worked with a carpet firm for a number of years, in that time travelling around Australia with your work, which included flooring installations at army, navy and RAAF barracks, rigs on the Timor sea, holiday resorts and many Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory. In that time, you obtained your passport and travelled overseas, in the interim, getting in touch with an old friend, Kelly Williams, with whom you ultimately formed a relationship.
16 About three years ago, you moved back to Ballarat, lived with her for six months, then moved to Geelong where the two of you lived together for about two years, both of you working. In that time, you reconnected with your son who lives with an aunt and he would stay with you on weekends. You also resumed contact with your daughter, who lives in a foster care arrangement with a family in Bacchus Marsh, which you described to Mr Joblin as positive.
17 You became aware police were looking for you while you were in Geelong, panicked and fled to Queensland where you worked in Gladstone, then decided it was time to face up to your offending and handed yourself in. You were told by police they were not ready to see you. An appointment was made and you returned in three days and this is to your credit.
18 You had a job with a carpet firm in Ballarat but once you were interviewed and the matter went before a Magistrate, it was reported in the local newspaper and you were sacked. Since then you have had trouble obtaining work. You had mended relationships with your brothers but they failed once you were charged and that charge was publicised.
19 You apparently had had a difficult with your relationship with your father for some years, although a close relationship with your mother who has become, however, you believe, torn between those members of the family who are understandably antagonistic towards you and you.
20 You have recently found rental accommodation after spending a period of time living in your car and throughout this time, again, to your credit, you have managed to keep up contact with your children.
21 I received several written references on the plea, one being from your mother, who describes you as a decent person at the core, who is a good worker, enjoys working and who is remorseful for his offending. She said you had turned your life around in the past seven years. She did not, however, come to court.
22 Your former partner, Kelly Williams, (I note that you separated in March 2013), also wrote a letter stating that she had known you for over 10 years and was impressed with the way you had changed your life and said, to her knowledge, you were not using heroin during the time that she was in a relationship with you, although she had some concerns over your drinking.
23 Finally, I received a reference from a registered psychiatric nurse, James Sullivan, a next door neighbour who has known you for most of your life. He described you as an enthusiastic student at school and a talented sportsman who had represented Victoria in junior state cricket. He described your descent into drug use saying he had lost contact with you for about eight years but had reconnected with you since your return to Ballarat. He said he found that you had addressed your own drug rehabilitation successfully and were remorseful for your part in the offending and keen to have the matter resolved, so as to resume a stable life.
24 Mr Joblin said, during your interview with him, you indicated you were seriously embarrassed and ashamed of your behaviour in the offending and that you were frustrated at your inability to understand why it had occurred. He stated, “the self-deprecation, at an emotive level, that he demonstrated at the time of my interview was indicative of remorse”.
25 Mr Joblin said you did not try to minimise the seriousness of your offending or try to shift the blame to the victim. He said it may well have been the case that in the absence of drugs and alcohol, the offending would not have occurred, relying on for that opinion the absence of such offending in the past.
26 Your impact on your victim, understandably, has been severe. In her victim impact statement, she stated that she continued to suffer from depression and anxiety and suffered from an ongoing fear that you may return and injure her again.
27 The offending was, of course, extremely serious and brutal and the charge carries a maximum term of 15 years imprisonment. The prosecution urged that I deal with you by way of a sentence of imprisonment to immediately served. It was conceded in your case that specific deterrence was not a factor I need take into account but the prosecutor correctly submitted that this was a nasty attack, an attack comprising domestic violence, and that the principles of publishment and general deterrence play the dominating role in the sentencing process I must undertake.
28 After anxious consideration, however, I have decided not to take this understandably submitted course. I have decided to deal with you by way of a community corrections order. This is not in any way to trivialise the seriousness of your offending which, as I have said, was nasty, brutal and utterly unwarranted and which was committed on someone weaker than you. Domestic violence is an appalling offence. Australia needs to be ashamed of its record of domestic violence, which the breadth and extent of which is only now being properly understood.
29 However, it is my view that there are circumstances in your case where I can conclude that the community’s best interests are better served by the imposition of a community corrections order than by my ordering you to serve a term of imprisonment.
30 First, I am satisfied, on balance, that this offending arose because of your excessive intake of drugs and alcohol. That is not to excuse your offending or to say it was less serious because it was committed in that context. But in terms of violence, I find that you do not pose a danger to the community and I accept Mr Joblin’s opinion that had you not been indulging in those drugs, this offending may not have occurred.
31 Secondly, I am satisfied you are truly remorseful for the offending, notwithstanding that you removed yourself from a position whereby you had to face up to it for many years. I am satisfied you were shaken and remorseful over what you had done and that, in subsequent years, have attended to ensure you conquered the drug habit that led to this offending and to the destructive lifestyle you had been leading in the previous years to that.
32 I am satisfied you have been successful in that endeavour and have rehabilitated yourself and have not subsequently reoffended apart from some minor driving offences. You have held down consistent employment. You have re-established contact with your children, which is extremely important.
33 I am satisfied you are truly remorseful for this offending and that as a result of your own efforts, you had excellent prospects of rehabilitation. You were assessed by the Office of Corrections of being a low risk of reoffending.
34 It is to your credit that you have pleaded guilty to this offending, notwithstanding your cloudy memory of it and have not sought to minimise its seriousness. There has been a delay. Ordinarily, delay is a significant mitigatory factor when a court is sentencing someone. Where the delay is of the accused’s person’s own making, the effect of it is less. But it still does have some effect and it has served to demonstrate that you have used that time in a profitable and positive way and you have got yourself off drugs.
35 You present to the court today as a very different man to the person who behaved in the appallingly violent fashion that you did all those years ago. A community corrections order allows the court to mark the seriousness of a person’s offending, particularly in its revised form from the old community-based order. A court can impose a community-based order for many years and can attach many more conditions, both to mark the seriousness of the offending and to attend to those factors that underlay it.
36 It also binds an offender to a promise to refrain from further offending whilst the order is in place, knowing that he or she will be dealt with very severely should there be any breach via further offending. In all the circumstances, I am therefore prepared to place you on a community corrections order.
37 Before I do, I can only place you on such an order with your permission and I have to explain the conditions. The core conditions of a community corrections order are that within 48 hours or two working days after the imposition of the order, you report to the Community Corrections Office. The address of which and contact details of which will be given to you. That means you must report to the Community Corrections Office in Ballarat by Thursday.
38 Secondly, whilst you are on the order, you must not commit any offence punishable by imprisonment either inside or outside Victoria. That does not mean you have to be charged and imprisoned, it means you simply have to be convicted of committing an offence for which you theoretically could be imprisoned. For example, if you were to steal a box of matches from Woolworths, you theoretically could be imprisoned for that. That would comprise a breach.
39 If you were breached, you would be brought back in front of me. Mr Speedie, I would have my sentencing remarks in front of me and I would then proceed to resentence you on this particular charge. You can expect that if you do not take advantage of this opportunity the court gives you then I will jail you.
40 Third, you must visit and receive visits from the Community Corrections Office. Fourth, while you are on the order, you may not leave Victoria without permission of the Community Corrections Office and that has particular application to you, Mr Speedie, given your penchant for taking yourself elsewhere. Finally, you must obey all lawful instructions of the Community Corrections Office. I am going to impose the special condition that you undertake 300 hours of unpaid community work whilst you are on this order, which will last for a period of three years. It will be a conviction.
41 Further, you are to undertake assessment and treatment for drugs and alcohol. I know that you have dealt with the most problematic drug in your life, that is heroin, but it is noted that you still engage in cannabis use and, in Mr Joblin’s opinion, drinking remains as a potential problem for you and these are matters that must be attended to. So you must submit for testing and assessment and treatment.
42 Are you prepared to enter the order?
43 MR SPEEDIE: Yes, your Honour.
44 HER HONOUR: Thank you. All right. So the order will last for three years. As I have said, we will just print the order out and get you to sign it. Thank you.
45 Pursuant to s.6AAA I declare that had you not pleaded guilty, I would have sentenced you to a term of imprisonment of three years and ordered that you serve a minimum term of two years.
46 I forgot to say that one of the other core conditions of the order is that you must inform the Community Corrections Office of any change of any address or employment within 48 hours of that change. All right. I will get you to sign that. Thank you. Yes. Thank you. We will stand down to 10.30. Thank you very much.
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