Director of Public Prosecutions v Taylor

[2020] VCC 1001

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

AT GEELONG
CRIMINAL JURISDICTION

CR 20-00035

DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROSECUTIONS

v

SHAUN TAYLOR

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JUDGE:	HIS HONOUR JUDGE MULLALY
WHERE HELD:	Geelong
DATE OF HEARING:	22 June 2020
DATE OF SENTENCE:	6 July 2020
CASE MAY BE CITED AS:	DPP v Taylor
MEDIUM NEUTRAL CITATION:	[2020] VCC 1001

REASONS FOR SENTENCE

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APPEARANCES:	Counsel	Solicitors
For the Director of Public Prosecutions	Mr A. Moore	Office of Public Prosecutions
For the Offender	Ms S. Borg	Pica Criminal Lawyers

HIS HONOUR:

1Shaun Taylor, yet again this court is called on to sentence a man who, in a cowardly way, attacked his ex-partner in her own home.  The community is sick of this scourge of domestic violence.  The message from the courts must be consistent; if you commit violent crimes against a woman you will serve some time in prison.

2You, Shaun Taylor, and the complainant or victim, had been in a relationship for around eight years.  It had been marked with your violence and mutual drug abuse.  The victim had secured an intervention order in the past, which had been breached, and sentences of imprisonment imposed.  The most recent example of this was that in early 2019 you were sentenced by a magistrate to eight months' imprisonment for violence and persistent breaches of an intervention order.  At that point you had served over six months on remand and thus you were released sometime in March of 2019.

3By June 2019 the victim was living alone and had recently commenced a friendship with another male - only two or so months, therefore, after your release from prison - that is, on 23 June 2019.

4The victim was alone in her unit, talking on the phone.  She heard a knock on her door and she assumed it was her new friend and so she simply unlocked the door and kept talking on the phone.  To her shock, it was not her new friend but it was you.  You immediately grabbed a cask of wine and punctured it and threw it on her and around the lounge room.  You directed her to her bedroom, where you turned off the lights.  It was then dark and frightening.  You then brutally punched the victim in the head and face.  Ultimately she sustained serious bruising around her right eye and, significantly, what was said to be an acute complex fracture to her cheek and upper jaw and she has had abrasions.  Significant force is needed to cause these sorts of injuries.

5After the attack on the victim you went to sleep on her bed.  She was able to get help from her new friend, who came around.  You grabbed her by the throat when you heard his arrival.  Ultimately you left and an ambulance was called and the victim was taken to hospital.

6You were arrested in Melbourne on 26 June 2019.  First you denied the offences but ultimately, after a committal, the matter was settled and you pleaded guilty to one charge of intentionally causing injury and one charge of breaching the intervention order with the intent to cause harm.  You had originally faced a more serious charge of aggravated burglary but you were not committed by the magistrate on that charge and it fell away.

7I should say that I was told that you had offered to plead guilty to the charges that you ultimately pleaded guilty to prior to the committal, however as noted already, this was a brutal attack on the victim in her own home.  It was in breach of an intervention order secured in order to prevent the very criminal conduct you perpetrated.  It is a serious example of this crime, though thankfully the victim's injuries resolved.

8After your remand you were able to contact the victim by telephone.  This contact has been charged as another offence of persistent breach of an intervention order.  Of note is that telephone contacts from the prison can only occur if the receiver gives consent to their number being on the prisoner's list of contacts.  Further, it is said that the telephone calls were to apologise to her and advise her that her new friend himself was now in the same prison but nothing untoward would occur.  It was not said there were any threats of recrimination or the like.

9The victim has completed a new victim impact statement where she says that she wants you released from prison so you can rehabilitate in the community.  While expressions of forgiveness from victims do not determine sentences, such sentiments are not completely ignored.  The relevance is especially that the third recent charge is not at the most serious end given its impact and its context.

10You are a man with a poor criminal history involving crimes of violence, as I have mentioned.  The matter that you received eight months from the Magistrates' Court in March 2019 was for recklessly causing injury and an intervention order.  Your extensive criminal history means your moral culpability for this crime is much higher.  You had been imprisoned for relatively short periods of time on many occasions for crimes of violence and breaches of intervention orders.  In 2002 you were sentenced to a lengthier term of four years and six months with a minimum of three years for aggravated burglary, robbery and false imprisonment.  There were, as I have said, many, many more prior convictions and gaol terms for crimes of dishonesty and drug offences.

11Your offending in the adult courts commenced when you were 18.  You have been imprisoned and sentenced to youth justice centre periods since the age of 18 with depressing regularity.  It has been calculated that you have had 29 separate periods of imprisonment or detention since you turned 18.  Your criminality has been such a sad yet regular part of your life that the sentencing purposes of protection of the community, deterrence to you, and to others, and denunciation are the most important.  Your rehabilitation is not totally abandoned but your prospects are grim indeed.

12As to your personal circumstances you are now 40.  You are an Indigenous man born in Queensland.  You had both academic and behavioural problems at school.  These worsened when your parents separated and you came to Melbourne with your mother.  From your early teens you did not remain at school.  You became homeless, living on the streets.  You were introduced to drugs and they became a dominant feature of your life to this date.  You became addicted to heroin at a frighteningly young age; in your mid-teens.  Your drug addiction worsened when in your late 20s.  You took to methylamphetamine.  You have been a heavy user of this drug for many years.  You have also consumed alcohol on a daily basis at very unhealthy levels.

13The other dominant and debilitating feature of your life has been your enduring mental illness.  For over 20 years you have lived with schizophrenia.  This diagnosis was confirmed by Dr Calvin, the psychiatrist, in his report of 14 April 2020.  It was a very helpful and targeted report and I have taken into account all its contents and opinions.

14As a consequence of your serious mental illness you have endured daily auditory hallucinations and paranoid delusions.  Fortunately, in recent times, your regime of medications has reduced the intensity of these hallucinations, though you still have paranoid thoughts and persecutory delusions.  You report that the voices command you to do 'silly things' like hurting yourself or others.  In recent times, while hearing hallucinations or auditory voices you jumped from a window, causing yourself significant injury.

15Your mental health treatment has been in outpatient clinics and through compulsory community treatment orders under the Mental Health Act.  Your medications include depot injections and oral antipsychotics.  The current regime involves high doses; such is the treatment resistant nature of your illness.  Although your mental illness is made more complicated due to your drug addictions it persists when you are in prison and thus plainly it is not a drug induced psychotic phenomena.

16You are not fully compliant with medications when in the community, thus at the time of this offending you were not taking the all-important antipsychotic medication and had returned to the use of ice and cannabis.  Your auditory hallucinations were more intense and commanding.  Your enduring fragile mental health was in a poor state when you went to the victim's house and attacked her.

17In my view, the well-established principles articulated in Verdins are relevant to some degree.  It was not urged that your impaired mental functioning operated to reduce your moral culpability.  What was submitted was because of your mental illness prison would be more onerous and, in particular, consideration should be given to alternative sentencing options.

18The prosecution submitted that in order to meet all sentencing purposes, especially given the gravity of the offences and your history, that little mitigation should be given to your mental health.  Whatever weight was given in the end a sentence, so the prosecution submitted, should be one with a head sentence and a non-parole period, though the prosecution could see that there were aspects of what was planned for you that gave some hope that you may be able to stay out of trouble.

19In my view your enduring mental illness and its impact on your behaviours and capacities when in the community sets you apart from others, thus I can, in this case, see that you are not the most suitable vehicle to send the important message of deterrence to other men who commit family violence or consider that course, thus there will be some moderation of the full impact of the very weighty matter of general deterrence, and to some extent, specific deterrence.  On the other hand, given your past history and, sadly, the unremitting nature of your illness, protection of the community becomes important.

20I agree with your counsel that prison, although familiar to you, is harder because of your anxiety, hallucinations and paranoia.  I also agree that if possible I should look at alternative sentencing options.  Your counsel urged that I consider a sentence that combined your imprisonment with a targeted community corrections order.  Her submission was that your situation was the very sort of case that involved the broad sentencing principles outlined in Boulton v The Queen.

21I had you assessed for a community corrections order.  The report provided to me was direct and helpful and it read, in part:

'Mr Taylor has an unsuccessful compliance history with community based dispositions, having breached two parole orders, one community based order and two community correction orders.  Mr Taylor has only successfully completed one parole period, which was three and a half months' duration.  This does not instil confidence in his ability to comply with further community corrections orders and may set him up for failure, however it is conceded that there are areas of Mr Taylor's life that require monitoring whilst he's in the community, including his drug use and how he manages his idle time and who he is choosing to associate with and how he navigates himself in any intimate relationship.

It is the view of the assessor that these areas can be addressed under either a supervised Corrections order or a parole period, with the latter being a more appropriate disposition.  A period of parole will allow close monitoring of Mr Taylor and address the areas of highest risk on a more intensive regime, with immediate consequences for non-compliance.

Mr Taylor has exhibited poor compliance on all previous orders with the exception of a parole order.  He is a high risk of re-offending and with consideration of the severity of the current offending a period of parole is warranted'.

22The assessor went on:

'When asked about his motivation to remain abstinent upon release
Mr Taylor said he had not given it any thought and was not overly hopeful that he will be able to do this'.

23I take this into account but I also note that there has been considerable work done by those in the prison system to assist you upon your release, and I think that there is a greater motivation now to remain abstinent with the assistance that can be provided to you by those, as I have indicated, that they have set up for you - accommodation, medical assessments - and will look to your care as you leave the prison and go out into the community.

24The assessor concluded her report in this way:

'It is clear that Mr Taylor requires intensive case management to appropriately address the complex and longstanding areas of criminogenic need.  The assessor is very hesitant to consider Mr Taylor suitable for a further Corrections order and would be more comfortable with a period of parole for Mr Taylor'.

25In the end I am not persuaded that all sentencing purposes of denunciation, deterrence, protection of the community and rehabilitation can be met other than a sentence of imprisonment that involves a head and minimum term.  I have no doubt, as Dr Calvin said, that you need targeted mental health and drug treatment on release.  That is also the view of the Community Corrections officer whose report I have just read.

26Dr Calvin's report included a firm view, which was given significant emphasis by your counsel.  He said of you that:

'A lengthy custodial sentence is counterproductive, is likely to alienate him from the community and add to the mental burden of institutionalisation'.

27I accept the thrust of this opinion, though as has been observed you are, with your poor custodial history, likely to be already institutionalised, at least to some extent.  Further lengthy imprisonment is likely not to do much in terms of your rehabilitation save you will be free of substances and adherent to medications for that period of time.

28The test will be when you are released into the community.  The key then is, as Dr Calvin said, that there is targeted mental health and drug treatment.  That can occur on parole, that is part of the point of parole, and again I refer to the significant efforts that have been made to assist you immediately upon your release.  It is hoped that that is available to you, as it has been on each of the last two court hearings, immediately.  It is hopeful that that continues to be available for when you are granted parole.

29I well understand the decision to release you on parole is for others, not me, and any sentence I impose is done mindful that you may have to do every day of the head sentence.  I agree with what the Community Corrections assessor outlined in the report, including that any community corrections order may be setting you up for failure.  In my view some further time in prison, and then the potential for parole in the sentence that I will shortly announce, does not, or will not involve, in my mind, a lengthy further term of imprisonment, and it properly balances the purposes of sentencing with the counterproductive risks of institutionalisation and alienation from the community, to quote Dr Calvin.

30In this case your plea of guilty is of considerable value, coming early, in effect, by you facing a more serious charge.  I add to this by adopting what Justice J. Dixon said about the value of pleas of guilty in the current circumstances, where jury trials are suspended.  That is also the case with the very speedy resolution of Charge No.3 in this matter.

31Your plea of guilty evidences you are taking responsibility and have expressed some remorse.  The COVID-19 health crisis is particularly acute for prisoners.  Visits are suspended, anxieties are higher.  I am authorised, by recent Court of Appeal decisions, to take into account that prison is now harder and more concerning for prisoners because of the COVID-19 crisis.  You, as an Indigenous man, have greater vulnerabilities.

32You have served now – I'm so sorry.  How long has it been in custody, Mr Moore or Ms Borg?

33MR MOORE:  Three seventy-six days, Your Honour.

34HIS HONOUR:  Three seventy-six days.  You have now served 376 days and that period of time on remand will be taken into account in respect of the sentence that I am about to announce.

35In respect of Charge 1; intentionally cause injury, you are sentenced to two years and three months.

36Charge 2; which is the contravention of family violence order, you are sentenced to four months.

37Charge 3; persistent contravention of the family violence order, you are sentenced to two months.

38Those sentences are concurrent with the head sentence of two years and three months, so the total effective sentence is two years, three months, and I fix a period of one year and three months before you are eligible for parole.

39Had you pleaded not guilty to these offences and been found guilty of them I would have imposed a sentence of four years with a minimum of three.

40Thus the time that you have served in prison, 376 days – this figure having been reckoned I now declare it as part of the sentence that I have just imposed.  I will ensure that this declaration is entered into the records of the court, thus the prison authorities will be left in no doubt that the 376 days is part of the sentence that I have imposed and that you will be eligible to apply for bail within a period of time shortly hereafter – that is, after one year and three months.  Is there any further orders required?

41MR MOORE:  No, Your Honour.

42HIS HONOUR:  Ms Borg?  Ms Borg, you might need to come off mute?

43MS BORG:  Sorry.

44HIS HONOUR:  No, that's all right.

45MS BORG:  No, no further ‑ ‑ ‑ 

46HIS HONOUR:  All right.  Thank you very much for your assistance and those at Restart, and the like, that have set things up for Mr Taylor.  It's hoped that they remain.  We'll again allow you some time to have a discussion with
Mr Taylor when this is finished.  Just speak to Mr McIntosh about all that.

47MS BORG:  Thank you, Your Honour.

48HIS HONOUR:  Thank you.

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