Director of Public Prosecutions v Suliman
[2025] VCC 1141
•7 August 2025
| IN THE COUNTY COURT OF VICTORIA AT MELBOURNE CRIMINAL DIVISION | Revised Not Restricted Suitable for Publication |
CR-25-00215
| DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROSECUTIONS |
| v |
| SAMIR SULIMAN |
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JUDGE: | HIS HONOUR JUDGE DEMPSEY | |
WHERE HELD: | Melbourne | |
DATE OF HEARING: | 29 May 2025 (SIH), 7 August 2025 | |
DATE OF SENTENCE: | 7 August 2025 | |
CASE MAY BE CITED AS: | DPP v Suliman | |
MEDIUM NEUTRAL CITATION: | [2025] VCC 1141 | |
REASONS FOR SENTENCE
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Subject:Criminal law - Sentence
Catchwords: Aggravated burglary, assault, handle stolen goods and driving whilst disqualified. Plea after sentence indication. Resolved after committal mention stage. Family violence, offender 25 years of age, subject of CCO at time of offending. Prior criminal history. Serious impact on victim. Bugmy applied. Verdins applied. Ancillary order for disposal made. Ancillary order for licence cancellation made.
Legislation Cited: Crimes Act 1958 (Vic), Sentencing Act 1991 (Vic), Criminal Procedure Act 2009 (Vic), Road Safety Act 1986 (Vic).
Cases Cited:Hogarth v The Queen [2012] VSCA 302, DPP v Meyers (2014) 22 VR 486, Bugmy v The Queen (2013) 249 CLR 571, R v Verdins (2007) 16 VR 269, Boulton and others v The Queen [2014] VSCA 342, Pasinis v The Queen [2016] VSCA 97, Cameron v The Queen (2002) 209 CLR 339, R v Marrah [2014] VSCA 119, DPP v Herrmann [2021] VSCA 160, Sabbatucci v The Queen [2021] VSCA 340, Ellis v The Queen [2021] VSCA 229, DPP vMilson [2019] VSCA 55, R v Novakovic (2007) 17 VR 21, Koukoulis v The Queen [2020] VSCA 19.
Sentence: TES: 52 months’ imprisonment. NPP: 28 months’ imprisonment.
PSD: 82 days.
S.6AAA: 68 months’ imprisonment with a non-parole period of 42 months.
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APPEARANCES: | Counsel | Solicitors |
| For the Director of Public Prosecutions | Mr I. Guan | Office of Public Prosecutions |
| For the Accused | Mr A. Pyne | Stephen Peterson Lawyers |
HIS HONOUR:
INTRODUCTION
Samir Suliman, you have pleaded guilty to:
# Charge and particulars Legislative Provision Max Penalty &
other statutory matters1 Aggravated Burglary on 22 June 2024
(intent to assault and with weapon and with knowledge of person present);s.77 Crimes Act 1958 25 years 2 Assault on Lucy[1] on 22 June 2024 Common law 5 years 3 Handling stolen goods (number plates) on 24 June 2024 s. 88(1) Crimes Act 1958 15 years RSO 7 RSO Driving whilst disqualified on 24 June 2024 s.30(1) RSA 1986 2 years [1] A pseudonym.
This plea comes after a sentence indication hearing (SIH) conducted in June of this year.
The first two charges that you have pleaded guilty to are properly described as family violence.
Your counsel, Mr Pyne, submitted that despite the gravity of the offending and your prior history the matter could be dealt with by imposing a combination sentence. Such an outcome, he submitted, would reflect your early plea and the particular matters personal to you. In the alternative, it was put that a sentence with a significant rehabilitative component is warranted.
Mr Guan, on behalf of the prosecution, submitted that a term of imprisonment, with non-parole period is appropriate.
I concluded that a term of imprisonment with a meaningful non-parole period was warranted. I indicated in June that should you plead guilty to the above charges, I would sentence you to not more than four years and eight months, with a non-parole period of two years and six months.[2]
[2]Criminal Procedure Act2009 (Vic) s207.
You accepted that indication on 11 June 2025, having been remanded in custody on alleged fresh offences in the interim.
I heard further submissions today.
I will sentence you to four years and four months' imprisonment, that is to say 52 months—with a non-parole period of two years and four months' imprisonment, that is to say 28 months. That should equate to a differential of 53 percent of the head sentence.
I will make other consequential orders at the end of these my sentencing reasons.
OFFENDING [3]
[3]Taken from Exhibit A; SPO for SIH 22 May 2025.
Background
You were 25 years of age at the time you committed these offences, and you drove a red Daewoo hatch.
Lucy was close to you in age at the time of the offence, and you had been in a relationship for several years. You were married religiously but not on paper. In late 2023, she left you. You were separated.
Since around the start of 2024 she had been living with her mother, Jane,[4] and her sister, Daisy,[5] at Elm Court in Altona North.
[4] A pseudonym.
[5] A pseudonym.
After separation you continuously tried to contact her and her family, but she kept blocking you. You tried to contact her by phone calls, text messages, knocking on the door of her home and stalked her and her family.
Joseph[6] and Lucy started dating in around April 2024.
[6] A pseudonym.
Aggravated Burglary and Common Law Assault
Some two months after they started their relationship, at 6:30 pm on 22 June 2024, they were out the front door of the Elm Court property waiting to get an Uber. Lucy saw your car further down the court. She quickly told Joseph to get back inside the house and she feared for their safety because you had made many threats in the past that if she were to find someone else you would hurt that person, destroy her life and do something to her mother’s house and to her sister.
They ran back to the house, locked the door and turned the outside light on. You chased them to the door and yelled: 'How you gonna do this to me? How you gonna do this to me? What’s wrong with you?'.
Then you very calmly said: 'I just wanna talk. I just wanna talk’. Lucy sensed that you were truly mad and did not want to talk to you. She told you to leave the property, but you continued to stand there. She ran upstairs in order to look out from the balcony, and as they were running upstairs you smashed the window around four times and gained entry to the house.
As she reached the top of the stairs, you made your way to the bottom of the stairs carrying a heavy red metal mechanic's tool in a threatening manner. This represents charge 1, aggravated burglary.
You made your way upstairs quickly to go after Lucy and Joseph. Lucy did not know where to go, as there was no back door upstairs. It is fair to say she was terrified.
You made several attempts to assault her. You grabbed her arm and found a way to grab the mechanic's tool so it left your hand. You threw your hands and hit her in the head. You connected some punches. You threw her to the ground, and you kicked her while she was down.
You kicked one of her legs a few times. This is Charge 2, assault.
Then you went after Joseph. He dodged a punch and grabbed you. You both ended up wrestling on the floor a bit. There was punching involved but no charges relate to this conduct.[7]
[7]No charge relates to this conduct.
Then, Daisy and her three Great Danes came out of the upstairs bedroom. You got scared of the dogs and decided to leave. You grabbed something and threw it. You went down to the bottom of the stairs and threw items around. Daisy called Triple Zero and you got back in your red Daewoo hatchback and left.
Later that night police arrived at the scene and observed the front window was smashed and there was glass on the ground. On the kitchen table a 40-centimetre- long red wrench was located which was moved by Lucy to there. Police seized it.
Lucy said the whole struggle lasted about two to three minutes or possibly more. After the assault she suffered from a headache at the back of her head and a few small bruises on her body.
She visited a Box Hill super clinic on 26 June 2024. The attending doctor observed bruises on her right and lower legs and diagnosed her with soft tissue injury in the lower legs. On the same day her injuries were photographed. Bruises were noted on her arms, her back and both of her legs.
Victim impact
The victims initially refused to provide a victim impact statement. Lucy mentioned in her digitally recorded statement, understandably, that she was terrified, but today she provided a very articulate, somber victim impact statement about the serious effect that this crime has had on her. It has caused her stress and anxiety. She is hypervigilant. She feels a real sense of betrayal because it is you, her former partner, who did what you did. She has lost her trust in others. It has affected her ability to work properly.
All of this is totally unsurprising and would be unsurprising to you, I suggest.
This victim impact statement was written some time after your offending, but the effects still linger on.
Handling Stolen Goods charge and Driving Whilst Disqualified
You were disqualified from driving for four years from 7 April 2022 because your poor history of driving warranted it.
In the morning of 24 June 2024, CCTV footage captured you driving the red Daewoo to your workplace at Grand Tyres in Truganina.
Later that morning, police arrived at your workplace and arrested you.
The car bore front and rear number plates UWJ 010, and checks were conducted, and they were stolen.
Rachael[8] owned a Mitsubishi Colt with those registration plates, and on 25 April 2024 Rachael parked her car outside of her house in Altona Meadows. Later that afternoon her car’s number plates were stolen and it was you who handled those plates knowing that they were stolen.
[8] A pseudonym.
Arrest and interview
In the afternoon of 24 June 2024, police conducted a recorded interview with you where you confirmed that:
(a)you resided at Laughton Court, Altona Meadows, for over 12 years with your family;
(b)you owned a number of tools which you have at home and at work, but you refused to answer questions related to the offences.
Case History
The following is a chronology of the proceedings in this matter (and related proceedings for that matter):
DATE EVENT 18 March 2024 Charges of theft and stalking
Breach of CCO (imposed for sexual assault x 4 in 2022)
Breach of CCO (imposed for driving offences)
Placed on 3 year CCO with conditions.22 June 2024 Date of aggravated burglary and assault 24 June 2024 Date of HSG and DWD Date of arrest
Remanded18 July 2024 Bailed after 25 days in custody 10 October 2024 Prosecution proposed the counter-offer back in 10 October 2024, which was rejected by the defence.
The same counter-offer was discussed again on 14 February 2025.14 Feb 2025 Pre-committal negotiations brought the parties to a potential resolution and the accused elected not to cross-examine
witnesses but to proceed to the County Court to seek a sentence indication30 May 2025 SIH 5 June 2025 Original return date for SIH
Unable to be concluded as remanded on fresh matters said to have occurred in late May 2025
Listed on 11 June 202511 June 2025 Return date of SIH
Arraigned and pleaded guilty
Bail revoked7 August 2025 Plea in mitigation held
PSD 82 days
After your initial remand on these matters (which was 25 days), you were bailed on conditions. You were on bail for approximately a year before being remanded again on new matters, and your bail on this matter was revoked. You have since spent another 57 days in custody.
MATTERS PERSONAL TO THE ACCUSED
Background
You were 25 years of age at the time of offending and are now 26.
Your life is one underscored by displacement and extreme trauma.
This offending is unquestionably serious, but it ought to be viewed through the lens of your upbringing and worldview, that is, one shaped by violence, loss and war.
Family history
You were born in South Sudan, and you are the youngest of five.
Your childhood was marked by significant socio-political instability at the outset of the armed conflict in the region.
Notwithstanding your young age, you experienced deep familial and communal trauma as a result of being raised in an environment of conflict and war. As young as three or four years of age, you recall frequent mourning within your family due to the loss of relatives. You attended something like 20 funerals.
Your family’s displacement journey commenced when your parents were forced to flee South Sudan in the search for safety from the escalating war and rising ethnic tensions. Your family it seems were specifically targeted by the army. This journey of displacement first took you to Egypt when you were about four or five and it was during this period you experienced a racially motivated physical assault that resulted in the loss of a tooth. It also engendered a sense of hypervigilance in you, given the ever presence of violence, tension and sexual violence in those camps.
You migrated to Australia with your immediate family when you were five. Since settling here, you have lived with your mother while your father resides separately. Your parents separated while you were still a child, prior to your adolescence. Their own displacement took a toll on them, of course, too. Your father was violent at home as he struggled to adjust to a new country and his own losses.
You have regular contact with your father and report a positive relationship with your mother, but it is your mother that plays an important role in this sentencing exercise.
Your mother has had several medical conditions.[9] The primary issue is with her heart. In 2014 she underwent heart surgery and remained in hospital for about six weeks. She had a heart attack in the years following this surgery.
[9]See Exhibit 5; Further Submissions dated 7 August 2025.
In 2018, following a return trip to Africa, she contracted a blood-borne virus. It led to a high temperature and multiple hospital admissions. In 2019, she fainted during one of these episodes, fell and struck her head on a door. The wound required 17 stitches and when she was hospitalised a tumour was discovered in her brain. It is understood that it is not cancerous, but it caused a blood clot in her brain which was initially monitored. It grew until it was surgically cleared in 2023. Following this surgery, she was discharged but received visits from a nurse twice a day to monitor her condition and ensure that intravenous antibiotics were taken. Any viral or bacterial infection could have serious, even fatal, consequences given her pre-existing cardiovascular conditions.
Up until you were remanded, you cared for your mother. This consisted of ensuring that she took her medication, running errands for her, cooking for her and ensuring she attended regular medical appointments. It also involved some degree of psychological support. She has been taking antidepressants since her heart surgery in 2014. Her health has declined since you have been remanded, which I will come to in due course.
You are now a citizen of Australia and hold a passport. Tragically, despite the security this offers, your experience of migration, displacement and trauma persisted into your later childhood and adolescence.
The conflict in Sudan continued to have a profound impact on you. You reported losing many uncles and cousins to the ongoing conflict. In addition to this direct source of grief and loss, you appear to suffer indirectly through your reflection on the broader geopolitical conflict in the region. Certainly, the large-scale displacement of the Sudanese population weighs heavily on you.
I pause to note here that it is deprivation of the kind identified above that gives rise to the application of the principles in Bugmy v the Queen,[10] which I will come to in due course.
[10][2013] HCA 37.
You identify as a practising Muslim and your faith offers you structure, hope and resilience. You rely upon your beliefs as a means by which to cope with the extreme adversity you have experienced. Positively, your faith also allows you to connect with the broader community.
Education and employment history
You attended Altona College from Prep to Year 9. You ceased schooling in Year 9 due to a range of personal and behavioural challenges that impacted your ability to engage. Upon leaving school you completed a Certificate II in plumbing. You later undertook vocational training, earning a Certificate in Civil Construction. You have expressed an interest in following in your father’s footsteps by obtaining a Certificate in Mechanics. In fact, you have already done much of this through your employment as a mechanic.
I received a letter today from your employer.[11] It was very positive, both as to your abilities and your work ethic. As testament to the potential he sees in you, he will certainly re-employ you upon your release. I am conscious of the purpose that work gives you.
[11]Exhibit 4; Letter of Mr Ahmed, employer, dated 6 August 2025.
Medical issues and substance use issues
You have a history of physical injury. A dislocated shoulder and fractured collarbone continue to impact on your daily functioning, particularly your ability to sleep. You have not sought professional medical or specialist care, instead self-managing your pain through over-the-counter painkillers and sleeping tablets, but you do present with symptoms very much consistent with PTSD, which has its origins in multiple early life traumas, including exposure to armed conflict in South Sudan, forced displacement, racially motivated violence during resettlement and profound personal loss.
You report tobacco use between 15 and 16 years of age and alcohol from 17 onwards. Your drinking escalated rapidly and by the time you were 20 you were binge drinking daily. You acknowledge the negative impact that this had on your well-being and close relationships, including with the victim. You have been abstinent from alcohol, I am told, since the age of 22.
You began smoking cannabis at age 17. Your use increased progressively to daily use, at times consuming as much as a quarter of an ounce a day. You reported impaired cognitive functioning and mental clarity, attributable to the combined use of cannabis and alcohol. You have demonstrated insight into the negative effects of cannabis use, attributing some of your own offending behaviour to being under the influence of the drug. You have expressed regret for allowing substance use to jeopardise your future and family relationships. It seems positively you have been abstinent from cannabis for more than eight months.
Your family noticed the negative changes in you when you started drug use, and the positive ones since you have ceased, though it must be said it is not claimed that drug use was said to be causally related to this offending.
Relationship history
You were in a long-term relationship obviously with the victim in this matter, spanning approximately seven to eight years. You met in your final years of secondary school and began living together soon after. You entered into a religious marriage, although this was never formalised legally. Your relationship with the victim deteriorated to a point where it could not be repaired. You report this as occurring as a consequence of your own unfaithfulness and other negative behaviours, including your own episodes of substance abuse.
Forensic history
You admit five previous court appearances between 2016 and 2024.
Your first two court appearances were in the Children’s court for offences of robbery (times two) and later theft of motor vehicle. You received a bond.
In April of 2022, you appeared at Melbourne for driving in a manner dangerous, failing to stop more than once, drive while disqualified, commit offence on bail, contravene conduct of bail, careless driving, state false name, and other driving offences and possess cannabis You were put on a two-year CCO with conditions to be supervised, to perform 200 hours of unpaid community work, undergo treatment for drugs and alcohol, mental health, undergo conditions to reduce re-offending and your driver’s licence was cancelled, as I said, for four years.
On 25 July 2022, you were sentenced for sexual assault involving acts against four separate women, commit offence on bail and unlicensed driving. You were given another CCO, this time for 18 months, and had to undergo 120 hours and other treatment conditions, but by March of 2024 you were back in court and being dealt with for breaching both of those orders. It is unclear to me what degree of compliance there was, but you were dealt with for breaching offences of theft and a new charge of stalking, which I am told arose as a result of a romantic infatuation with someone other than this victim.
The April 2022 breaches were dealt with by way of an $800 fine.
The other CCO and the new offences were dealt with by a three-year CCO, this time to perform 100 hours community work along with conditions to undertake similar programmes as previously ordered and included further incentives to get treatment.
Within three months of the imposition of that three-year order this offending occurred. Rather than abide by the benevolent, tailor-made conditions of the CCO, you re-offended. And more than being in breach of a court order designed to assist you, this very offending represents a real escalation in your criminality.
You have breached, it seems, most if not all orders designed to curb your behaviour – CCO's, bail conditions, licence conditions, including the most recent one imposed. I have concluded that you would be a poor candidate for a further CCO.
Post remand
While on remand you have engaged in several educational courses and have secured work in prison.
Since you were remanded, your sister has taken over the care of your mother. She lives in Footscray. Your mother lives in Altona Meadows. Your sister is a single mother of four. The loss of your assistance has caused her great stress. Also, during this time your mother’s blood pressure has increased and she has returned test results with a high level of protein, suggestive of a kidney condition. This has amplified the concerns the family has because of the risk of infection.
This was not put as amounting to 'exceptional circumstances' as the law conceives that proposition, but the effect on you of the hardship caused to your family by your own imprisonment and the anguish at not being able to care for them is mitigatory. You will undertake your sentence with this knowledge, and it will make prison more burdensome. It tempers the application of specific deterrence and amplifies your prospects of rehabilitation. These 'conventional issues of mitigation', as Mr Pyne said, are not subject to the 'exceptional circumstances' threshold.
Finally, for the sake of completeness, I understand there are a number of pending matters that are yet to resolve including the matter that you are presently, or most recently remanded for, and the breaches of CCO.
MATTERS OF SENTENCING PRINCIPLE
Although the first two offences are notionally property offences and offences of violence, in reality they globally answer the description of family violence. They occur in the context of an intimate relationship that has broken down and one which you appear unable to, or unwilling to, accept that it is over, or that your former partner can make her own choices in life that do not involve you.
You have threatened and menaced the victim over time in an effort to ensure she cannot move on from you because you do not respect her wishes and see her as yours and yours alone. Well, she is not. This offending is a species of coercive control.
Aggravated burglary and assault
Offences like these often involve a terrifying experience for the victims and threaten the wider community’s sense of security.
Offences of the kind described in Hogarth[12] were subsequently included in the Crimes Act 1958 (Vic) as the offences of home invasion and aggravated home invasion, but the court explained subsequently after the Hogarth ruling to include 'more serious forms' of aggravated burglary and discouraged a rigid application of the categories of same. Terms of imprisonment in the range of five to seven years are regularly, if not routinely, imposed in cases of this kind.
[12][2012] VSCA 302
In Hogarth, the Court of Appeal adopted the terminology suggested by the Sentencing Advisory Council in dividing aggravated burglaries into six categories. The most serious included intimate partner, intent to commit a sexual assault and confrontational, while intent to steal, intent to rob and other spontaneous encounters were considered to be comparatively less serious. The Court of Appeal has subsequently discouraged such a rigid application of the categories described in Hogarth.
While it is necessary to consider other instances of the offence, by reference to both the offender and the offending, and identify what made them less or more serious examples of the offence, it does not mean the absence of an aggravating factor seen in another case means that the instant offence is necessarily less serious. Rather, it may simply mean the cases are different. Any process of reasoning by way of subtraction of the absent potentially aggravating features is an impermissible two-stage sentencing approach.
The following considerations will ordinarily be relevant to an assessment of the gravity of a particular instance of aggravated burglary, and I have considered them here, they include:
(a)the offender’s intent at the point of entry;
(b)the mode of entry;
(c)whether the offender was carrying a weapon;
(d)whether or not they were in company;
(e)whether threats or actual violence was being used (being mindful of course about the issue of double punishment);
(f)the time of day in which the intrusion took place;
(g)what the offender knew or believed about who would be inside and where the person(s) would be; and
(h)whether the offender was someone with whom the victim was particularly frightened.
Where offending occurs in the context of family violence, it is not considered any less serious because the offender is known to the victim.
Indeed, the criminal law now gives greater recognition to the devastating effects of family violence and recognises the fundamental importance of general deterrence in such cases,[13]and applying that analysis, these are reasonably serious offences of the charged offences.
[13]Pasinis [2016] VSCA 97.
I infer that you were not simply happening by your former partner’s house, but were rather monitoring it, and her. You report thinking in terms of betrayal and loss of face to Ms Mynard which is wrapped up in the offending.
You forced entry via breaking a window first. Once you were in there, you were told to leave. You still entered, not to talk, as you said that you were there to do, but to be violent, and it does not seem to me to matter much who you were violent with.
You entered the sanctity of a home with the intention to assault, although to repeat, or tack off from what I just said, though it is not specified whether you were there to assault your former partner or a new partner, and as I said, it did not appear to me to mean much at all who you did assault. You took a heavy, bulky, dangerous item with you to use, and did use.
You kicked and punched, somehow not amounting to an injury charge but still serious enough, your former partner. I cannot tell if this was punishment for defying you or making good on your earlier promise to harm her, or sheer rage, or a further attempt to control and coerce her, or a combination of all of those things, but whatever it was, once inside you set about targeting vulnerable parts of your victim's body by punching her in the head and then you threw her to the ground and you kicked her while she was down. This is a particularly nasty episode against an unarmed woman in her own home. It is worthy of condemnation by this court and naturally warrants a separate distinct sentence to be imposed, moreover, one that is partially cumulated on the sentence imposed for the aggravated burglary.
The event is measurable in minutes, commencing with a conversation at the door, but then the forceful entry, the rush upstairs, the fight and your retreat. Its seems that the presence of the large dogs prevented this episode from dragging out rather than your own self-control putting an end to it.
Finally, of course, you offended while you were on a CCO.
Mr Pyne acknowledges that this is serious offending. It is not in dispute that 'confrontational' aggravated burglaries are inherently serious.[14] You do not dispute the presence of some clear aggravating circumstances, that is an intent to assault, forced entry, the use of a weapon and the fact that the offending took place in the evening at the complainant’s house against a backdrop of family violence.
[14]Hogarth v The Queen (2012) 37 VR 658; DPP v Meyers (2014) 22 VR 486.
But without diminishing those concessions or the seriousness of the incident, Mr Pyne submits it is relevant that the facts reveal offending that was not extensively planned, you were not company and the incident appears to have lasted something like two or three minutes, which to be clear, I regard as not a particularly brief period of time for a man bent on violence being in someone else's home. Further, there is no injury charge contrary to s18 of the Crimes Act.
Current Sentencing Practices
I have had regard to sentencing practices, whether that be by reference to statistics[15] in the Judicial College case collection[16], where relevant, which are not a controlling factor in my decision by any means, they certainly do not set a numerical limit on the upper and lower limits of the appropriate sentence in any particular case.
[15]SAC Stat snapshots 286 2018-19 to 2022-23 (aggravated burglary) and SAC Stat snapshot (assault).
[16]JCV case collection at 6.4 (aggravated burglary) and at 4.9.
Handle Stolen Goods and Drive While Disqualified
The handle stolen goods charge and the drive while disqualified charges are bound up in one another, it seems, you were using stolen number plates either to avoid detection or to keep driving. Your driving while disqualified is consistent broadly with your history. It seems it was also 'necessary' for you to work.
These are offences routinely dealt with in the Magistrates Court. I will impose short concurrent sentences on these matters but will cancel your licence once more in an effort to underscore to you, if possible, that you simply cannot just drive whenever you please. Your present licence disqualification period ends in early April 2026. I will extend the period of disqualification beyond that.
Plea of guilty
This matter resolved after committal mention stage, and in the context, I accept, of genuine efforts made to resolve the matter.
This is not a plea at the earliest possible opportunity, but nonetheless, I consider it to be early enough. What I mean by that is that this plea attracts the full utilitarian benefit.
The plea demonstrates an acceptance of responsibility and willingness to facilitate the course of justice, and in my view does show remorse for the offending.
Guilty pleas such as yours in high impact crimes spare victims the ordeal of having to come along and give evidence and may assist them to put their own experiences behind them and receive vindication and support.[17] No witness has been cross-examined in this case, and in that way there is a real human saving to the course that you have taken, and though the matter was listed for a committal, you elected to withdraw your application to cross-examine witnesses, including the complainants. The issues between you and the prosecution were narrow. You elected to be committed on a not guilty plea and to make a sentencing indication application in an effort to resolve the matter without them ever having to give evidence.
[17]Cameron v The Queen (2002) 209 CLR 339, 360-61 [66]-[67] (Gaudron, McHugh, Gummow, Kirby and Callinan JJ).
Even though the process did not see the matter resolve immediately, it resolved very shortly after I gave the indication, hamstrung somewhat by the intervening period where you were remanded. That is why I say the plea comes with a very significant utilitarian value that will be articulated when I make an announcement under s6AAA of the Sentencing Act.
Bugmy [18]
[18](2013) 249 CLR 571.
You spent the first four years of your life in a country ravaged by civil war. You fled to Egypt when you were four and to Australia when you were five.
Your experiences in those countries had a significant long-term effect on you. You report witnessing deceased people, attending multiple funerals and losing significant family members, all during your formative years. You and your family fled as refugees. You were all displaced people. You were seriously assaulted as a young boy in Egypt.
In the psychological report filed with the court by Ms Mynard[19] she diagnoses you with post-traumatic stress disorder. She describes your symptoms as longstanding. They involved alterations to cognition and mood, feeling that people are out to get you, paranoia, fear, guilt, sadness, and sometimes emotional disconnection and alterations in arousal and reactivity, hypervigilance, emotional sensitivity and heightened startle responses.
[19]Exhibit 2; Report of Alison Mynard dated 18 May 2025.
She says:
'Samir’s psychological and clinical presentation is best understood through the lens of complex trauma and its long-term psychological consequences. From early childhood he was exposed to cumulative and severe traumatic stressors, including civil war, displacement, bereavement and racially motivated violence. These events occurred during a critical development period and have significantly shaped his emotional regulation, interpersonal functioning and world view.'
103.That conclusion is both sad and unsurprising. I accept on the balance of probabilities that you have PTSD, and it has an effect on your daily functioning, and that personal history is more than simply a matter of historical significance,[20] the principles in Bugmy are engaged. A background that leaves a person with PTSD of that kind cannot be described as anything other than disadvantaged. The impact of that disadvantage is complex, multilayered, non-linear and not easily 'diagnosed' or 'measured'.[21] The issue is the weight to be given to it and what it might reveal about your moral culpability, which I turn to now.[22]
[20]R v Marrah [2014] VSCA 119, [16] (Redlich and Tate JJA).
[21]DPP v Herrmann [2021] VSCA 160, [45].
[22]Sabbatucci v The Queen [2021] VSCA 340, [6].
Bugmy provides that childhood deprivation may reduce moral culpability in a general way or may do so more significantly when there is a causal link between the deprivation and the offending. To what extent deprivation may reduce moral culpability in any individual case depends upon the nature and circumstances of the offending, the nature and severity of the disadvantage suffered or whether or not the effects of disadvantage are explanatory of the offending.
Your belief that you had been betrayed is not mitigating and your intense emotional state, likewise, is not mitigatory of itself. As Mr Pyne pointed out, many, if not most, crimes are committed in intense emotional circumstances, but you though have lost more in your life than most under horrendous circumstances that are unthinkable to most of us in Australia. You do not cope well with loss, and that appears to extend to close, interpersonal relationships. So, in this instance it is an almost inescapable conclusion that your emotional state, with a lack of tools to control it, are related to your early life experiences that you did not want or choose, which reduces your moral culpability.
That is not the end of the application of the principle though.
The corollary to the approach above is that disadvantages of the kind I have just referred to, sometimes leads to an increased need for community protection. This does not swamp the mitigatory effect of your upbringing and its contribution to the present offending. In that sense, the principles in Bugmy are double-edged. Even if there is a potential reduction in moral culpability there can be a heightened need for community protection given any accused's criminal history and the circumstances of the present offending.
Mr Pyne submitted that the mitigatory edge of the sword is sharper than its protective twin, especially given the reasonable expectation that you had apparently made progress since this incident.
I still regard protection of the community to be an important sentencing consideration, and one that I have strived to facilitate both by your immediate removal from the community for a period of time where you can do no harm, but also permitting a meaningful parole period in order to facilitate your re-integration back into the world under supervision and with treatment when and if the Adult Board permits it.
Verdins [23]
[23](2007) 16 VR 269.
It is submitted that you were suffering a 'mental disorder or abnormality' or 'impaired mental functioning' at the time these offences were committed which falls within the scope of 'the wide variety of impaired mental functioning or conditions' as contemplated by the leading judgment in Verdins. In Verdins the Court of Appeal said impaired mental functioning, whether temporary or permanent, that is the condition or the impairment, is relevant to sentencing and outlined six ways in which that could be so.
This is of course a separate and distinct consideration to those under Bugmy.[24]
[24]Ellis [2021] VSCA 229.
Ms Mynard’s opinion is that the time that you have spent in custody on remand was onerous because of your psychological condition which enlivens both Principle 5, and later, Principle 6.[25] That is, on balance, it seems more likely than not that further time in prison will weigh more heavily on you because of your PTSD and associated symptoms than that of a person who had not gone through the same experiences in South Sudan and Egypt, and there is a real risk that those symptoms may worsen.
[25]Limb 5: The existence of the condition at the date of sentencing (or its foreseeable recurrence) may mean that a given sentence will weigh more heavily on the offender than it would on a person in normal health. Limb 6: Where there is a serious risk of imprisonment having a significant adverse effect on the offender’s mental health, this will be a factor tending to mitigate punishment.
You have no substantial previous experience in prison or confinement, and it is clear to me that your PTSD is sufficient to enliven both principles here. Ms Mynard's report at paragraph 50 makes this plain enough and the sentence imposed will be moderated to accommodate these considerations.
Prospects for reform and community protection
It was submitted that your prospects of rehabilitation are fair. Mr Pyne concedes some of your remarks in Ms Mynard’s report tend to externalise responsibility. You accept that your history and the fact that you were on a CCO will raise significant concerns, but submits:
(a)You having undertaken a Men’s Behavioural Change Program since the offending.
(b)Your faith is important to you and should be viewed as a protective factor.
(a)Though your secondary education was disrupted you are capable and employed. Your professional goal is to obtain certification in automotive mechanics, and that is entirely achievable. You have a job to return to.
(c)You have a history of substance abuse, but at least according to reports with Ms Mynard have stopped using marijuana, which was the last of the substances with which you had previously struggled.
(d)Ms Mynard’s opinion is that your risk of reoffending in a similar way is 'moderate but modifiable'.
(b)Finally, I consider the desire to assist your mother to be an important impetus for change, as well as adding to the anguish you will feel in custody and unable to care for her.
Your prospects may be said to be fair, especially after a term of imprisonment and actual engagement in programs designed to reduce the risk of re-offending and mental health treatment. You certainly have potential. Ultimately the community is best protected by your enduring rehabilitation,[26] and I have attempted to fashion a sentence that will encourage the good in you and tame. or treat, the bad.
[26]Sentencing Act 1991 (Vic) ss 51(1)(c) and 51(1)(e). See DPP v Milson [2019] VSCA 55, [71].
Totality
I am mindful of the significance in this case and the application of the principle that requires me, when sentencing you for multiple offences, to ensure the aggregate term I impose is a just and appropriate measure of the total criminality involved. This is especially so when I consider the different but related harms caused by the commission of Charges 1 and 2.
Dispositions contended for
The argument originally put on the sentence indication was this: if I were to sentence you on that day I was presented with a 26-year-old man, fully employed who works full time and supports his mother when he can and has completed a Men’s Behavioural Change program. You have a concerning history but no longer use drugs and your family sees a real change in you. In those circumstances, a combination sentence involving not more than a year in custody followed by a lengthy CCO, was said to be open, especially when one considers the application of Verdins and Bugmy.
I considered that material carefully and the relevant authorities dealing with the imposition of CCO’s such as in Boulton.[27] I am obviously unable to accede to your counsel's submission. I agreed with Mr Guan; the offending is simply too serious, and your history really counts against you. Principles of deterrence, both specific and general, unmodified, denunciation and punishment are important sentencing considerations in cases such as this, and in order to be given proper weight a sentence beyond the range of combination sentences must be imposed.
[27]Boulton and Others v The Queen [2014] VSCA 342.
But I am persuaded, as I have said, to permit a meaningful parole period for you, and this period pays due regard to your prospects for reform whilst maintaining appropriate weight to be given to necessary and important countervailing factors when sentencing.
SENTENCE IMPOSED
I come now to the portion of my remarks when I formally pass sentence on you, though I have already told you what that sentence would be.
I sentence you as follows:
#
Charge and particulars
Legislative Provision
Max Penalty &
other statutory matters
Sentence
Cumulation on base and on each other
1
Aggravated Burglary on 22 June 2024
(intent to assault and with weapon and with knowledge of person present);
s.77 Crimes Act 1958
25 years
4 yrs
4 years Base
2
Assault on Lucy on 22 June 2024
Common law
5 years
12 months
4 months
3
Handling stolen goods (number plates) on 24 June 2024
s. 88(1) Crimes Act 1958
15 years
2m
RSO 7
RSO Driving whilst disqualified on 24 June 2024
s.30(1) RSA 1986
2 years
2m
That brings about a total effective sentence of four years and four months, that is to say 52 months' imprisonment.[28]
[28]Representing around 53% of the head sentence.
I will declare that you serve at least two years and four months, that is 28 months, before you are eligible for parole. That represents about 53 per cent of the head sentence and that is what I mean by a 'meaningful parole period.'
ANCILLARY ORDERS
Pre-sentence Detention
Pursuant to s18 of the Sentencing Act, I declare 82 days as reckoned as having been served under this sentence.
You can take a seat, thanks.
Section 6AAA Sentencing Act
But for your plea of guilty, I can indicate what that plea is really worth. Had you not pleaded guilty I would have sentenced you to 5 years and 10 months (68 months) with a non-parole period of 3 years and 8 months (42 months).
Ancillary
I make the disposal order sought once it's provided in relation to the wrench.
Licence cancellation
I will cancel any driver's licence that you hold and disqualify you from driving for a period of six months, to commence on 6 April 2026. I have had regard to the fact that that will be an imposition on you and perhaps affect your ability to work but your history is such that I have no choice but to impose an order as to your licence, and I expect it to be abided by.[29]
[29]I have had regard to the principles in R v Novakovic(2007) 17 VR 21, and Koukoulis v The Queen [2020] VSCA 19, when arriving at this period.
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