Director of Public Prosecutions v Strickland

[2014] VCC 996

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

AT LATROBE VALLEY
CRIMINAL JURISDICTION

CR -

DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROSECUTIONS

v

BREE STRICKLAND
ASHLEY PERRY

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JUDGE:	HIS HONOUR JUDGE SMALLWOOD
WHERE HELD:	Latrobe Valley
DATE OF HEARING:
DATE OF SENTENCE:	2 July 2014
CASE MAY BE CITED AS:	DPP v Strickland
MEDIUM NEUTRAL CITATION:	[2014] VCC 996

REASONS FOR SENTENCE
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Subject:
Catchwords:
Legislation Cited:
Cases Cited:
Sentence:

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APPEARANCES:	Counsel	Solicitors
For Director of Public Prosecutions	Ms J Taylor
For Accused STRICKLAND	J Verhoeven
For Accused PERRY	J Verhoeven

HIS HONOUR:

1Ashley Perry, you have pleaded guilty to one charge of trafficking a drug of dependence.  One charge of handling stolen goods, and one charge of robbery.  Those crimes each carry a maximum penalty of 15 years imprisonment.  You have also pleaded guilty to four uplifted charges of use Amphetamine, driving whilst disqualified by two and drive an unregistered vehicle.  Use Amphetamine and drive whilst disqualified, carry custodial sentences, unregistered vehicle a monetary penalty only.

2You, Bree Strickland, have pleaded guilty to one charge of handling stolen goods and one charge of robbery, and you have also pleaded guilty to an uplifted charge of use Amphetamine.  You are 21 years of age, and 20 years of age respectively and were a year younger when the offending occurred.  Obviously you are still young offenders.

3Your pleas of guilty rendered an early opportunity and you both made confessional records of interview.  I accept that your pleas are accompanied by at least now appropriate remorse, and you must also of course get the utilitarian benefit of those pleas of guilty.  Importantly Ms Strickland, you have no prior convictions.  You Mr Perry have a number of prior findings of guilt and convictions and I will go through those in a moment.

4Firstly, in regard to you Ms Strickland, I make an order that you provide a saliva sample for DNA purposes.  That order having been made, I must advise you that should you refuse to provide such a sample to the police, they may use reasonable force to take it from you, and that order is made and handed down.  The circumstances of the offending were that you two, together with one Mr Pepper and one Mr Abel were involved in a robbery on 11 September 2013.

5You drove to premises in Sale in a motor vehicle and a robbery was discussed for the purpose of buying Methamphetamine.  Mr Abel and Mr Pepper left the vehicle and approached a service station on the corner of York and Ragland Street.  You two remained in the vehicle.  They went into the store and in the end, took $360.  Each of them has been charged and pleaded guilty to armed robbery.  Each of you is pleading guilty to robbery, I therefore have to sentence you on the basis that you were not aware that Mr Abel had the knife.

6In any event, Mr Abel and Mr Pepper ran to the vehicle where you were, Mr Pepper handed you the money, Mr Perry, and you drove to the Sale Greyhounds with the knife was discarded and a taxi was ordered.  Mr Abel and Mr Pepper went to Warwick and you Mr Perry and you Ms Strickland arrived sometime after with cigarettes, alcohol and approximately $100 worth of Methamphetamine.  You have each admitted using Methamphetamine which is the basis of the uplifted charge.

7The charge of handling stolen goods relates to an iPad which had been stolen and which you had been in possession of.  It was used as security to purchase drugs for another person who is not before me, and that gives rise to the charge of trafficking and the charge of handling stolen goods.  You were each ultimately arrested and each made admissions.

8The co-accused Mr Abel pleaded guilty to armed robbery.  He had a number of prior convictions and had been sentenced to imprisonment previously.  He received two years and six months, with a minimum term of 15 months.  Mr Pepper is currently in the process of being dealt with by me, through Koori Court.  He has pleaded guilty to armed robbery.  Mr Pepper has not as yet been sentenced, but he it would seem to me quite clearly has an intellectual disability and has virtually no relevant prior convictions.  Accordingly, parity with Mr Pepper is of no issue, and it must be moderated in so far as Mr Abel is concerned.

9The victim impact statement as I pointed out to Mr Abel when I sentenced him, eloquently brings home the reason why crimes such as this have to be treated with condign punishment.  I have got to be careful though because of course that impact victim statement relates to a charge of armed robbery, not robbery, but the principal holds.

10You have been involved in this sort of thing before Mr Perry, and I have dealt with you before.  You have now been in custody on these matters for some 285 days.  Back in October 2012, you were sentenced by Judge Parsons to a community based order for an attempted armed robbery.  You were brought before me on 3 May in respect of that community based order.  I still have the sentencing remarks from that, and it was clear that you had done nothing on that community based order, and I had no option but to imprison you.  Because of your age, that was in a youth justice centre.  At that time, I was aware of the same things that Judge Parsons was that you had schizophrenia which is clearly currently under control.

11When I sentenced you at that time, I told you that I thought Judge Parsons' sentence was lenient and that I would not have given you such a sentence.  I told you I would have given you 18 months.  But in all those circumstances, you were given the six months youth justice.  You told the elders at that time, because it was Koori Court, that you had turned your life around and that in reality you were going to be good.

12You went into custody on that matter, and it was hoped that that would be the end of it.  You were released from youth justice as I understand it, in August of 2013 some three months later.  On the face of it, there still should be some three months of youth parole owing, but I accept what I have been told from the Bar table that the Youth Parole Board - because of the situation you are in, do not intend to proceed with that.  If they do reclaim you, that is a matter that your lawyers will have to sort out, I cannot take it into account here.

13As I say, you were released in August of 2013, and this offending happened in September of 2013 and is to a large extent, pretty much for the same thing.  You were arrested, as I have indicated, and remain in custody.  Ultimately, you were able to obtain bail in January of this year.  That lasted about six or seven days.  You breached that bail and I have not been told why, but it does not really matter, and you were taken back into custody on these matters where you have remained ever since.

14Because of what occurred with Mr Abel, parity has to play a significant role in all this.  You have now done something in the order of nine months, and I do not think that is enough.  After discussion with your counsel yesterday, what I am going to do is sentence you to be effectively imprisoned for a period of 12 months, which means I will be - on the charge of robbery, sentencing you to be imprisoned for 375 days.

15What I am then going to do, so that there is punishment for the trafficking and the handling of stolen goods, as well as the Magistrates Court summary matters is place you on a - if you agree, place you on a community corrections order which is to commence on 2 October of 2014.  That means you have - upon your release, you will be obliged to report for that.

16So there is an element of punishment for the other matters.  There will be 150 hours of community service work, and the conditions will be that assessment and treatment for drug abuse and alcohol abuse, mental health assessment because of your past diagnosis of schizophrenia, and undergo programs or courses aimed at addressing factors relating to the offending.  The community corrections order will be with conviction and as I think I have indicated, will operate for a period of 18 months. 

17The prospects of your rehabilitation are entirely in your hands, you are still a very young man.  If you do not rehabilitate, you will continue to re-offend, and you will spend I suspect a lot of time in gaol.  There was a letter tendered on your behalf which I have read, and I have also read the other reports that were tendered, each of which I had seen previously. 

18The letter says to me that you have learnt your lesson, that you are going to turn your life around.  You told me that last time.  All I can do, because principally of your age, is give you the chance to rehabilitate.  You have two small children, and you have a partner.  You do not have a good work record, but there is not much I can do about that.

19What I will say to you is this, that I think there is a part of you that sort of fancies being a gangster or something.  I do not know what it is.  But I will tell you this, if you breach this community based order and come back, and I re-sentence you for this robbery, I will give you another year, all right.  Just so we clearly understand each other, what is going to happen if you breach this, and you understand you can breach it by non-compliance and you can breach it by re-offending.

20What is concerning me is you have been accepted by Corrections for this order and that is good and I suspect it is because of your age.  The last time you had one of these you did nothing.  If you do nothing this time, you will be doing a year.  Just so we clearly understand each other.  This will be transcribed and I will read it back to you if you are brought back before me.

21With you Ms Strickland, you are in a different situation.  You were 19 at the time of the offending.  There have been reports tendered on your behalf and I have read those.  You have no prior convictions, and you have expressed, certainly to a counsellor that this offending was out of character for you.

22The report goes through your childhood and there is no need to do that here.  I think it can be simply said that you first went to school in Maffra.  Because of family circumstances, you went to a number of different schools and you had to leave school because you were pregnant.  I am assuming that obviously is to Mr Perry.  You have two small children, and to your credit, the report indicates that you are very good with them, and they are positive in their responses to you which is something that cannot be orchestrated.

23You have all sorts of reasons to rehabilitate.  Mr Perry is going to be in gaol for a while longer and then it is up to the two of you.  You indicated in the report that you began using Ice and alcohol to join in and the Ice started to occur after you had had post-natal depression.

24When you were charged with these matters I am told that Department of Human Services became involved, and I am told that they have now closed their file.  In simple terms, it is serious offending, so the community corrections order which I am going to offer you, which you have been found suitable for, will be with conviction.

25The circumstances are that the offending, as I have indicated is serious, and there has to be a punishment for it.  Your community corrections order, bearing in mind that you are charged with the trafficking and you do not have any prior convictions will be for two years, and the conditions will be that you perform over that two years 200 hours of community work.  That you undergo assessment and treatment for drug abuse and alcohol abuse, and that you undergo programs or courses aimed at addressing factors relating to your offending.

26For each of you, the community work hours that I have given can be, and if - used up by attendance at the various courses.  You know what the consequences of a breach would be, they could be catastrophic.  With two small children, you cannot risk being incarcerated, you just cannot.

27I do not know what is going on in the background of all this.  You have each been given another chance principally because you are both so young.  But those chances for each of you, as a pair I suppose, are going to get fewer, if indeed there are to be anymore at all.  I have made my position very clear with you Mr Perry, and indicate to you also Ms Strickland that I have got grave doubts about what your involvement in this may have been and a breach of this community corrections order could have very serious consequences.

28Your prospects for rehabilitation with no prior convictions should be good, you are still young, and if you rehabilitate, there is no reason why you should re-offend.  If you re-offend in company with Mr Perry, I will be taking a very, very dim view of it.  All right, so they are the dispositions, if you want to - sorry, also supervision in relation to each of those community correction orders, thank you.  Do you want to get your new clients to sign those for me please Mr Verhoeven. 

29All right those orders are made.  In Mr Perry's case, I direct that 285 days be reckoned as having been served under this sentence, and I point out that the community corrections order includes the charge of robbery, so that upon breach would be re-sentenced for robbery as well as the other crimes.

30All right, it is up to you two okay.  You have heard what I have said and I mean it so get your acts together kids, come on.

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