Director of Public Prosecutions v Thorpe

[2025] VCC 1727

IN THE COUNTY COURT OF VICTORIA

AT MELBOURNE

CRIMINAL JURISDICTION

 Revised

Not Restricted

Suitable for Publication

CR 24-02247

DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROSECUTIONS

v

SHAQUEL THORPE

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JUDGE:	HIS HONOUR JUDGE JOHNS
WHERE HELD:	Melbourne
DATE OF HEARING:	26 May 2025 and 21 July 2025
DATE OF SENTENCE:	6 August 2025
CASE MAY BE CITED AS:	DPP v Thorpe
MEDIUM NEUTRAL CITATION:	[2025] VCC 1727

REASONS FOR SENTENCE

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Subject:  CRIMINAL LAW - SENTENCE

Catchwords:  Attempted Armed Robbery – Community Corrections Order

Legislation Cited: s6AAA Sentencing Act 1991

Cases Cited:  

Sentence:Imprisonment, Total Effective Sentence 69D, 18M Community Corrections Order, Forfeiture Order

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APPEARANCES:	Counsel	Solicitors
For the Director of Public Prosecutions	Ms H. Baxter	Office of Public Prosecutions
For the Accused	Mr D. De Witt	Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service

HIS HONOUR: 

1Shaquel Thorpe, you have pleaded guilty before me after a sentence indication hearing to a charge of attempted armed robbery.  The charge of attempted armed robbery has a maximum penalty of 20 years' imprisonment.

2You have no prior convictions in relation to this matter.  There are some subsequent matters which indicate that at this period in your life, things had unravelled and your management or lack of management of mental health issues principally, your personal issues, led to your descent into erratic behaviour and in turn criminal offending.

Circumstances of Offending

3The circumstances of your offending are brief and they reveal a fairly forlorn attempt at an armed robbery, albeit having said that every armed robbery has an element of violence and terror, but the circumstances of your offending were that you took the opportunity to attend alongside a truck that was parked to fuel at the Liberty service station on Benalla Road in Shepparton, and when the driver who had gone into pay returned to his truck, you were standing there and you said 'give me your wallet, give me some money' and you were holding a baton in your left hand.

4The truck driver was able to overpower you and wrestle you to the ground.  He had you on the ground.  You said you needed money.  He was able to drag the baton away from you and also drag you towards the driveway of the service station and you were pleading for him to let you go.  He let you go and walked into the service station, where he reported the matter.  You left, still in possession of the baton.  The incident was captured on CCTV footage.  As I say, it was a fairly forlorn attempt and certainly one that was always going to be captured on CCTV footage.

5You are 23, you were 22 at the time of the offending and without a criminal history.

6It is a little unusual that you then spent 69 days in custody on remand for the matter.  Attempted armed robbery of course is a serious offence and the community denounces such offending, but someone such as yourself who had no prior matters, one might expect would have been bailed at an earlier stage.  There was a refusal of bail at your filing hearing and then you were bailed after a bail application on 8 July last year.  That 69 days you spent in custody was a very difficult experience for you and I accept that.  The materials make that clear.  I am not going to detail your experience, but you are a person who suffers crippling anxiety and for a young person who has never been in custody before, it was a very difficult experience.

7You are a Barkindji and Torres Strait Islander man and you have had a childhood and a family life that was less than stable.  You were born in Bendigo, moved around regional Victoria with your family throughout your early life.  You were exposed to family violence.  You were also exposed to substance abuse within the family structure and you experienced neglect.  Your parents separated when you were around four or five.  You then resided with your mother and siblings in Deniliquin.  You are part of a sibship of five, including three sisters and a brother.  You maintain telephone contact with your father, who then resided in Mildura, and you would visit him several times a year. 

8When you were 10, your family and yourself were struck by trauma and the tragedy of your father being murdered by a relative.  Understandably you were struggling even more at that point, trying to process what had happened to your father.  You then lost your paternal grandparents and several other aunts and uncles on your paternal side.  Losing your grandparents was very hard for you because you regarded them as an alternate set of parents in a way, and your contact with your father's side of the family after your paternal grandparents' death, substantially severed your connection to culture with the exception of attending funerals for family members.  So you grew up disconnected in that way.

9Education was difficult for you.  You experienced difficulty keeping up at school.  You struggled with literacy and numeracy.  You experienced bullying and you struggled with the social aspects of schooling.  You did not get satisfaction or joy from sporting pursuits or the social pursuits of school.

10After leaving school your longest period of employment was a period of two years in Deniliquin where you worked with an uncle in shearing sheds, and you do hope to return to that work but there is a substantial amount of work you need to do in relation to addressing principally your mental health.

11Your home life in recent years has been difficult and my assessment of what I have been told and from what the materials indicate, is that has been due to the inability to properly manage your mental health frailties, and further your resort to alcohol use and heavy alcohol consumption in order to manage your distress and deteriorating mental health.

12As I said at the outset, I am satisfied that the period you spent in custody in relation to this matter on remand was a particularly traumatic and impactful experience for you, and one that you would experience with greater hardship than for another who does not have your challenges. 

13In particular, I refer to the expert psychiatric report that was relied upon from Dr Darjee.  I accept the opinions of Dr Darjee in his report dated 27 October last year in relation to your background and functioning and mental health challenges.  More material has been forthcoming in the process of endeavouring to have you assessed for a Community Corrections Order, and I do accept that you have particular and significant challenges in relation to engaging with services in the community.

14This is a matter that, with assistance, you will simply have to overcome because the sentencing factors that I need to reflect and have regard to are general deterrence and denunciation, which are important sentencing factors for an offence such as attempted armed robbery.  Largely, general deterrence and denunciation in your case can be met by the 69 days spent in custody, in particular given what I have said about your experience of that.

15Sentencing is not just about denouncing the conduct and sending a message to others and deterring you.  I also have to have regard to your prospects of rehabilitation and in my assessment the appropriate sentence for you, to meet all sentencing considerations, having regard to your plea of guilty, your relatively young age, your lack of history, and your presentation, is that of a combination sentence, that is a sentence of imprisonment of time served in combination with a relatively short Community Corrections Order aimed at providing you with the support and treatment in the community to rehabilitate.

16Accordingly, I sentence you as follows, Mr Thorpe.

Sentence

17On the charge of attempted armed robbery you are sentenced to a combination sentence of 69 days' imprisonment in combination with an 18 month Community Corrections Order. 

18The conditions of that Community Corrections Order will be supervision and also attend for mental health assessment and treatment and rehabilitation.  They are the only special conditions.

19HIS HONOUR: All right. Pursuant to s6AAA, were it not for your plea of guilty I would have sentenced you to a period of 18 months' imprisonment with a non-parole period of nine months.

20I declare that you have served 69 days as pre-sentence detention in relation to this matter.

21Anything else, any other orders required?

22MS BAXTER:  I am just checking, did Your Honour receive any forfeiture orders from my instructor?

23HIS HONOUR:  I don't know that I did.  What was sought to be forfeited, the baton, was it?

24MR DE WITT:  The dumbbell, I suppose.

25HIS HONOUR:  I don't think we did.

26MS BAXTER:  Thank you, Your Honour.

27HIS HONOUR:  He left with the baton and he probably hasn't ‑ ‑ ‑

28MR DE WITT:  It was recovered by police.

29HIS HONOUR:  Was it.

30MR DE WITT:  I mean if Your Honour receives by email any application, I can indicate ‑ ‑ ‑

31HIS HONOUR:  Yes.  I'll forfeit it, yes.

32MR DE WITT:  ‑ ‑ ‑ we don't oppose that, thank you.

33MS BAXTER:  Thank you.

34HIS HONOUR:  All right, now Mr Thorpe, do you consent to that community corrections order?  Yes, well you have given me the thumbs up, but we'll just unmute you at the moment.

35All right, Mr Thorpe, so this order is going to run alongside your order from your Magistrates' Court matter.  You are subject to supervision, that means you have got to keep appointments with Corrections.  They will also direct you for mental health assessment and treatment as directed.

36So the expectation - well it is more than an expectation - the order is that you comply with those conditions. That means that you attend appointments as required.  If you do not you will be brought back before me and I will consider resentencing you.  Do you understand all of that?

37If you breach the order by reoffending, you can be brought back for resentence, or if you do not attend appointments and you are not complying with the order, you will be back here and we will have to work something else out.  So this is in your best interests.  Completing this order will allow you to move on with your life and avoid gaol in the future.

38Now I will sign that order and we will send it off to Corrections for Mr Thorpe to sign when he attends.

39MR DE WITT:  Thank you, Your Honour.

40HIS HONOUR:  He will have to attend in two days.

41MR DE WITT:  Yes.  I've sent an email to Mr Thorpe's worker to make her aware that a new order is coming.

42HIS HONOUR:  All right.  All right, thank you.  We will adjourn.

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