Director of Public Prosecutions v Towle

IN THE COUNTY COURT OF VICTORIA

Revised

Not Restricted

Suitable for Publication

AT MELBOURNE
CRIMINAL JURISDICTION
CR-22-00719

DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROSECUTIONS

DARREN TOWLE

‑‑‑

JUDGE:	HER HONOUR JUDGE TODD
WHERE HELD:	Melbourne
DATE OF HEARING:	30 March 2023
DATE OF SENTENCE:	30 March 2023
CASE MAY BE CITED AS:	DPP v Towle
MEDIUM NEUTRAL CITATION:	[2023] VCC 1305

REASONS FOR SENTENCE
‑‑‑
Subject: CRIMINAL LAW
Catchwords: Plea of guilty – dangerous driving causing serious injury; commit
indictable offence while on bail – serious example of failing to pay proper attention – driving while intoxicated – early plea of guilty – minimally relevant criminal history – remorse – effect of public scrutiny

Legislation Cited: Crimes Act 1958 (Vic) s 319(1A); Bail Act 1977 (Vic) s 30B; Sentencing
Act 1991 (Vic).

Cases Cited: McBride v The Queen (1966) 115 CLR 44; Jiminez v The Queen
(1992) 173 CLR 572; Stephens v DPP (2016) 50 VR 740; DPP v Neethling (2009) 22 VR 466; Stephens v R (2016) 50 VR 740; R v Whyte (2002) 55 NSWLR 252; Woldesilassie v The Queen [2018] VSCA 285

Sentence: Imprisonment for a period of 391 days (time served), with a Community
Corrections Order of two years’ duration; licence cancelled for a period of 18 months

‑‑‑

APPEARANCES:	Counsel	Solicitors
For the Director of Public Prosecutions	Mr J. Goetz	Office of Public Prosecutions
For the Accused	Mr J. Moore with Ms S. Gillahan	Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service

HER HONOUR:
Introduction

In late 2021, Garry Laver was planning a visit to Tasmania with friends to walk the Cradle Mountain trail. On 21 November 2021, while he was out delivering the local paper, another driver drove into the back of the Ute where Mr Laver was standing, imposing a devastating crush injury to his right leg, which could only be treated by amputation. He never got to Cradle Mountain.
You, Darren Towle, were the driver of the car that drove into Mr Laver. You have pleaded guilty to one charge of dangerous driving causing serious injury an offence which carries a maximum penalty of five years' imprisonment.[1] You have also pleaded guilty to one summary charge, being that of committing an indictable offence while on bail, an offence which carries a maximum penalty of 30 penalty units or three months' imprisonment.[2]
[1]Crimes Act 1958 (Vic) s 319(1A).
[2]Bail Act 1977 (Vic) s 30B.
Circumstances of Offending
On your plea, a prosecution summary of facts dated 4 October 2022 was tendered. Apart from one feature of it, with which I will deal in these reasons, the summary was agreed. That document forms part of and is attached to these reasons. I will not repeat it entirely here but refer to some parts of it.
On 12 November 2021, Mr Laver was delivering bundles of the Mildura Weekly newspaper onto nature-strips around town. He drove a Ute and had parked in the parking lane of Walnut Avenue and was standing at the back of his Ute to unload more papers.
At approximately 8:45 am, you were driving south-west on Walnut Avenue and at some point, your car began to travel partly in the bicycle lane and then into the parking lane. The front passenger side of your car struck the rear driver's side of Mr Laver's Ute. The front of your car lifted up the Ute, before coming to a rest.
Mr Laver was trapped between your car and his Ute.
The impact took place in the bicycle/parking lane, which was about 1.18 metres from the south-west traffic lane, where your car should have been travelling. Later, the speed of your car was determined to be 59 km/h; this was a 60 km/h zone.
Various CCTV cameras in the area captured your driving in the time before you hit Mr Laver in his Ute. A compilation of the video images of your driving shortly before these events was tendered in the course of your plea hearing and I watched that material.
One witness, a Ms Beaumont, who was travelling in the same direction as you, described your driving as ‘erratic and dangerous’. She saw you driving in the bicycle lane prior to the collision and a similar observation was made by another witness.
In the moments after the collision, you spoke to witnesses Jeremy Baird and Rhys Hall. You said variously that you were just falling asleep, or that you were not sure if you had fallen asleep, or that you did not know what had happened.
You spoke to police at the scene about your state prior to the collision. You described being distracted by something on the other side of the road. You made various statements about your state prior to the collision, similar to this one:
I just blacked out. I blacked out. I seen the blue of the police thing and I was wondering what was going on with that car, and then that is all I remember. I'm always just going about 40 or 50. I always go slow there, especially in the rain.
The reference to 'that car' is thought to be to a car that was parked nearby, which, unrelated to these events, had crime scene tape on it.
Witnesses observed you at hospital later nodding off and snoozing even while being treated.
An analysis of your blood showed the presence of:
a) Alcohol, 0.029 grams per 100 millilitres of blood;
b) Methylamphetamine at approximately 0.19 micrograms per litre; and
c) No amphetamine was detected.
In the opinion of the toxicologist, you were driving after having consumed alcohol and methamphetamine, and given the lapse of time between the collision and the taking of the blood sample, which was just over two hours, the conclusion was that at the time of the collision, you had a blood alcohol content between 0.051 per cent and 0.072 per cent. The expert opinion was that the methamphetamine level in your system was a level that had the potential to have adverse effects on your driving. Moreover, it could have compounded the effects of the blood alcohol content, potentially resulting in a blackout.
You were fully licenced at the time of the collision. You were 46 years old.
As a result of what happened, Mr Laver sustained what was described as a ‘devastating crush injury’ to his right leg. On his arrival at the emergency department at Mildura Hospital, his right foot had no blood supply. He needed life-saving surgery. His leg was amputated, at that stage, beneath the knee.
After this procedure was performed at Mildura Base Hospital, he was transferred to the Alfred Hospital, where secondary infection was suspected. He had to have further surgery on the leg, this time taking the amputation to above the knee. He also suffered a C5 cervical spine osteophyte fracture and some abrasions to his other leg. His treatment is ongoing.
You were arrested at the scene of the collision and you were not interviewed. I will return later in these reasons to some of the things you said at the scene to the police.
Procedural History
Turning now to the procedural history of your case. Your case resolved via the sentence indication process in this court. I understand that you first offered to plead guilty to this charge and on this basis on 15 March 2022. It is accepted by the prosecution that yours is an early plea.
Criminal History
I have seen your prior criminal history, which has no entries after 2011. I have had regard also to your VicRoads history. Although you have committed a range of relatively low-level offences of public disorder and dishonesty, you have never served terms of immediate imprisonment, and, but for the traffic offences, I regard your history as only marginally relevant to this sentence. You do have a conviction for driving while exceeding the prescribed content of alcohol back in 2015, and a ‘drive in a manner dangerous’ charge from 2009, which I was informed arose out of a burnout in front of police.
Nature and Gravity of Offending
Turning now to my analysis of the nature and gravity of your offending. The dangerousness for which you are to be held to account was described by the Crown and accepted by you as arising in this way:
‘When travelling in the bicycle lane/parking lane, you failed to keep a proper lookout when you drove into the victim and the back of the stationary vehicle, which should have been highly obvious to you, in circumstances where drugs and alcohol in the bloodstream contributed to that failure.
The Crown is unable to say, beyond reasonable doubt, the extent of the effect of the drugs and alcohol, but in combination with other circumstances, they – that is the drugs and alcohol – had some impact on your failure to keep a proper lookout.’
Driving will be legally ‘dangerous’ where there is ‘some serious breach of the proper conduct of a vehicle, so as to be in reality and not speculatively potentially dangerous to others.’[3] The driving must have some feature which creates some risk over and above that ordinarily associated with the driving of a motor vehicle, including driving by a person who may on occasion drive with less than due care and attention.[4] The notion encompasses a very wide range of conduct.[5]
[3]McBride v The Queen (1966) 115 CLR 44, 72 per Barwick CJ.
[4]Jiminez v The Queen (1992) 173 CLR 572, 579.
[5]Stephens v DPP (2016) 50 VR 740, [21].
It is not in dispute that your speed at the time of the impact was 59 km/h in a 60 zone, and the Crown characterised the dangerousness of your driving in the way that I have just now set out. One of the witnesses who gave a statement described your driving as erratic and dangerous. Though I note that this is not an apt description of what I viewed on the CCTV footage, nor does speed or erratic driving form part of the carefully expressed and agreed analysis of dangerousness advanced by both parties.
Your sentence must take account of your moral culpability, the degree of dangerousness, and the seriousness of the injury caused.
Your counsel referred me to the cases of DPP v Neethling,[6] and to Stephens v R,[7] cases which guided my assessment of the seriousness of your offending. In making this assessment, I considered: the extent and nature of Mr Laver's injuries (serious and life-changing); the number of people put at risk (there was, it would seem, because this was daytime in a street in Mildura, some risk to others); your degree of speed (not above the speed limit); your degree of intoxication (which was contributory, but to an extent unknown); and whether there was erratic driving, competitive driving, duration of the risky driving, ignoring warnings or evading police – these latter features, including erratic driving, I do not find present in the relevant time beyond reasonable doubt.[8]
[6](2009) 22 VR 466.
[7](2016) 50 VR 740.
[8]R v Whyte (2002) 55 NSWLR 252.
I have been cautious not to reach a conclusion that you had knowledge of the risk of the drugs and alcohol causing you to drive dangerously. The Crown is unable to establish the degree of causal connection between the drugs and alcohol in your system and the dangerous driving, and I quote here from the case of Woldesilassie v The Queen.[9] The court in that case went to say,
More fundamentally, the taking of the drugs identified by the blood analysis, either individually or together, could not be regarded as logically bearing on the gravity of the offending by way of dangerous driving, unless some causal connection could be positively established to that offending. In the absence of such connection, the drugs could not be seen to aggravate the conduct, which caused the serious injury.[10]
[9][2018] VSCA 285.
[10]Ibid, [31].
In your case, of course, there is an accepted cause of connection between the drugs and alcohol, but to an extent unknown – they were operating on you in some unknown way when you drove into the bicycle lane and to the parking lane. You totally failed to see an entirely obvious parked car.
In conclusion, I find yours is a serious example of failing to pay proper attention. This conclusion is powerfully influenced by the consequences for Mr Laver, whose situation I will now turn to.
Impact of Offending
Mr Laver's victim impact statement was tendered and read on the plea. Because of what you did, he lost his right leg and still suffers nerve pain from that. He is 73 and was an active person with plans to cycle and kayak and walk in his retirement. Now, pain keeps him awake and he feels he takes things out on his wife sometimes when frustrated. He still has to travel for treatment, sometimes as far as Adelaide. He is threading his way through the financial and administrative maze of payment for prosthesis and treatment. He feels distressed on zebra crossings. He suffers embarrassment in personal situations. Overall, the effect of what you did has been monumentally life-altering for him, and I take this into account on your sentence.
I also listened to the victim impact statement of Ms Janet Laver, who sets out from the first horrible moment of taking the call where she was asked to give consent for the leg amputation, and traverses the legal, financial and emotional cost to her of her husband's injuries. She describes the loneliness of making decisions about her husband's care, separated from her friends and family in COVID isolation. It is a terrible and complex burden that you have imposed on her, and I take the impact on her into account.
Personal Circumstances
Turning now to your personal circumstances. You were born in Preston. Your family moved to Mildura when you were young. Your dad was Graham. He passed away in October in 2021. Your mum is Jillian, who is now 75 years old.
You are a Latje Latje man on your mother’s side.
Your dad worked as a labourer in roadworks and residential building. Your mum cared for your family. They separated when you were approximately five years old and the care was shared approximately 50-50 between them.
You have two elder brothers, Wayne, 57, and Thomas, 51, two elder sisters, Annette and Narelle, 56 and 54, and a younger brother Desmond who has now passed away.
You are completely estranged from your brother Thomas, and have been for many years.
You were frightened of your father who was a strict disciplinarian. He was incarcerated in 1980 for his sexual abuse of your sisters.
Your mother suffers from a range of serious medical issues and prior to the events that brought you before this court, you lived with her as her full-time carer providing material, practical and emotional support to her. Your mother has struggled in your absence.
You left school at 14 and have not had formal education since that time, but you are able to read and write and are numerate. You started, but did not complete, an apprenticeship in small engines mechanics.
When you were young, you met Dianne and were in a relationship with her for 27 years. You had two sons now aged 34 and 29, and a daughter now 28. You have eight grandchildren and have good relationships with all your children.
In 1992, you and your partner lost a third son to sudden infant death syndrome. The suffering you experienced was compounded by the suspicion and interrogation you were subject to by police until the ultimate finding was made by inquest. This event, which included you finding your son and attempting to resuscitate him is described as ruinous in your life, and precipitated mental health issues and drug problems. You have never received sustained treatment.
In your adulthood, you have worked in general labour and maintenance work. You worked in an Aboriginal health corporation in Tennant Creek for a time, but the job concluded with your departure and successful workplace claim in your favour. You moved back to Mildura.
The prosecution of your brother Thomas concluded in 2009 - to which I will return - and caused you and your family to receive death threats. Your children were bullied at school and were asked to leave the school because some children who were involved in the other accident, or were related to them, were still at the school.
You finally made the decision to leave Mildura and take your family to live in Kerang. You worked in a pet food distribution workplace in that town for 18 months but was subject to workplace discrimination including having a Nazi symbol placed on the piece of equipment you were working on, with a note to the effect that you should 'know your place'. After you complained, you were given a modest payout and no further shifts. You were low and used drugs frequently. You moved back to Mildura in 2016 and worked intermittently since then as a contract cleaner.
You have a range of significant health problems. In 2009, you became ill with a spinal infection and spent three months in hospital recovery after life-saving surgery. You were diagnosed with a serious lung infection while in custody and hospitalised in December 2021 for about three weeks. Since the death of your son, you used amphetamine, methamphetamine and heroin.
Matters in Mitigation
Plea of Guilty
Turning now to matters put in mitigation. First, I note the value of your plea of guilty. You pleaded guilty after a sentence indication and your plea saves the human and financial costs of a trial, and is very significant. Moreover, your plea at this time in the Court's history, when the backlog caused by measures to stop the spread of COVID-19 is reducing but still significant, means you have an additional and palpable benefit expressed in the form of this sentence.
Remorse
Turning now to remorse. Immediately after the collision, while at the scene, you stayed with your victim; you gave him what assistance you could; you immediately recognised you had imposed something terrible on Mr Laver. On your plea, I was taken to an exchange between you and a police sergeant, Tina Charman, at the scene. She recorded the following exchange:
I said, "Hey, how you going, mate". He said, "Not good, darling". I said, "Nah, I bet you are not". He said, "I don't know what I did, I was not speeding or anything". I said, "I know, mate, but we just have to go through our processes, okay". He said, "I know. I have fucking wrecked another man's life. I have wrecked another man's life. He told me he was retired, didn't he, the poor bugger. I do not know what to do, Sarg. I do not know what to do. I do not know what to do".
On a body worn camera, you were recorded saying the following:
I do not know. I am so sorry, Sergeant. I am so sorry to Garry. I hope he is all right. I am worried about Garry. I stayed with him the whole time, Sergeant. I stayed with him until people turned up. I was holding his hand and talking to him.
I accept that you stayed on at the scene, you did what you could. I find you are, and were immediately, remorseful for what you did.
Experience of Custody
Turning now to your experience of your time in custody. You were incarcerated from 12 November 2021 until your release on bail to the Odyssey House rehabilitation centre on 7 December 2022. I take into account the generally more onerous conditions in custody endured by prisoners, including you, during the measures to address the pandemic. Moreover, your particular experience of custody has been made more harsh by significant periods in quarantine, and hospitalisation and transfer on account of your being seriously assaulted in gaol. The days you spent in isolation in custody number approximately 90.
You spent your time in gaol worried that your brother's notoriety would be visited upon you and without knowing this was the reason, you were assaulted twice in gaol. Evidence of these events is recorded in your prison health records and these were tendered on your plea. The more serious event involved your receiving two lacerations to your face inflicted by a fellow prisoner with a razor blade: one eight centimetres in length near your eye. There were also superficial lacerations on your abdomen and forearm. You were hospitalised with a serious chest infection during your incarceration, and this was followed by your contraction of COVID-19.

Cumulatively, these matters have made the period spent in custody extremely difficult for you and I take that into account.
Time Spent in Residential Rehabilitation
Turning now to consideration of the time you have spent in residential rehabilitation after gaol. You were bailed to a rehabilitation program at Odyssey House and evidence of your time there was tendered in the form of two letters. The regime there was disciplined and restrictive. You were unable to leave except with staff. You have only supervised access to a phone and no internet. While this time is not to be formally reckoned as equivalent to further time in custody, you have, in this time, foregone your liberty - and I take this into account - and you have demonstrated an enduring commitment to dealing with your drug problem, which supports more positive findings about your prospects for rehabilitation. You are described by Odyssey House staff as demonstrating both insight and responsibility.
Effect of Public Scrutiny
Turning now to the question of the additional punitive nature of the public scrutiny of your case. Fifteen years ago, your brother was sentenced for six counts of dangerous driving causing death and four of dangerous driving causing serious injury in an event in February 2006 which sent waves of terrible loss through your community.
The most recent consequence for you was that your case attracted an unusually high degree of media attention which caused your counsel to submit that that attention, and its specific manifestations in your case, should be calculated as additionally punitive. I emphasise that, in those submissions, the content of that reporting was not the subject of criticism. I do accept the additional scrutiny on your case has been meaningfully punitive and has contributed to your apprehension about your safety in custody.
You did not cause or participate in your brother's driving. You did not contribute in any way. So, what, if any, meaning does your brother's case have in my assessment of culpability? The unexpressed proposition in any comparison, which I do not accept, is you, having seen up close the suffering that your brother's driving caused to both his victims and to his family might have made you a better driver some 15 years later. That is not a proposition that I act on, and for the avoidance of doubt, you do not stand to be punished for what your brother did and, I note, in the face of your warning to him on the night.
Prospects of Rehabilitation
Turning now to your prospects of rehabilitation. Although your drug and alcohol use is not said to be the central causative factor in your offending, it has been a longstanding and corrosive problem in your life. I accept that your spontaneous remorse, your plea of guilty, your abstinence from drugs and alcohol in custody, your significant term of imprisonment, which was your first, was served in onerous circumstances, and your successful submission to the Odyssey House regime in recent months indicates that you have strong rehabilitative potential. You are needed by your family, particularly by your mother and you have further family around you.
General and Specific Deterrence
At the heart of sentencing for driving offences is the principle of general deterrence. This sentence should register with all drivers, that failing to pay proper attention, particularly with drugs and alcohol in the system, combined with terrible consequences will almost inevitably lead to a significant sentence of incarceration, as it has in your case.
I find the need for specific deterrence and community protection are reduced on account of my findings of remorse, your plea, your efforts at rehabilitation, and the conditions of a CCO will be directed at the entwined goals of community protection and your rehabilitation.
Punishment and Denunciation
This sentence must be punitive and though you have done a long stretch in gaol, there will be further punishment involved in the imposition of the corrections order that will now flow. Through this sentence and on behalf of the community, your conduct is denounced.
Current Sentencing Practices
Turning now to my assessment of current sentencing practises. A range of cases advanced as broadly adumbrating some approximation to this offending. They were generally defined by dangerous driving in the form of inattention or failure to keep proper lookout. I have considered these cases and others like them, and I have done this against the background of the sentencing statistics for like offending. No case is at all like yours. My task is to do individual justice, but I do this against this sentencing landscape.
Consideration
Finally, to my consideration of this sentence. The catastrophic consequences of your conduct for Mr Laver and for his wife remain firmly in mind as I conclude this sentence. I have taken into account the matters in your favour and conclude that the time you have already served, with the additional privations of the term in rehabilitation, will be supplemented by further punishment and rehabilitative treatment in the form of a Correction Order, which will of some duration. And you have been found suitable, I note, for undertaking such an order.
Disposition
So if you can just stand up for me now, Mr Towle. Darren Towle, on the charge of dangerous driving causing serious injury and the related summary offences, committing an indictment offence on bail, you are convicted and sentenced to a period of imprisonment of 391 days, in combination with a Community Corrections Order of two years duration. And I will return to the special conditions of that order in a moment.
Pursuant to s 18 of the Sentencing Act, I declared 391 days is to be reckoned as already served under the sentence imposed. And I note, and take account of, but do not formally calculate 114 days of COVID time in rehabilitation.
Section 6AAA
I declare that had you been found guilty after trial, rather than pleaded guilty, I would have imposed a period of imprisonment of three years and two months with a non-parole period of 23 months.
Conditions of CCO
If you can take a seat for me now, Mr Towle. I will read out the conditions of the corrections order that I am going to impose. Once I have read through the conditions, I will give you a moment with Mr Moore, and I will be asking you through him to consent to the making of such an order. You will be first subject to the standard conditions of a Community Correction Order. That means, importantly, that you must not commit any offences that are punishable by imprisonment for the entire 30-month period. You must report to the Mildura Community Corrections Service within two days of today, and I note this can be done by phone if travel does not allow your attendance in person.
You are required to advise your supervisor in the corrections office of any change of address, where you are living or working, and you must do so within two clear working days. For the term of all Community Correction Orders, that you must submit to visits as directed, and you must obey all of the instructions and directions of a Community Corrections officer. You are not able to leave the State of Victoria without their prior permission. That is for the entire 30 months.
The special conditions I will attach are as followed: You will be required to complete programs for treatment and rehabilitation regarding your drug use and your alcohol use. You will be required to complete assessment and treatment for your mental health. You are required to submit to supervision as directed. I require you to perform 150 hours of unpaid community work over the term of this order, but pursuant to s 48CA of the Sentencing Act, I direct that time spent in treatment and rehabilitation programs be credited to those hours. So I am requiring you do be doing unpaid work, but when you attend for your treatment, that also clocks up the time.
I also require you to participate in judicial monitoring, for the first part of your order at least. This means you have to come back to court, by video for the time being, in two months to tell me how your Community Corrections Order is going and I will receive a report about that. I next make specific mention here that the Court requests referrals to cultural appropriate services in Mildura for the delivery of these conditions.
Ancillary Orders
Before I ask Mr Moore to obtain Mr Towle's consent, Mr Goetz, are there any ancillary orders sought in this case?
MR GOETZ: There are. Your Honour would understand that this is defined as a serious motor vehicle offence under section 87P of the Sentencing Act.
HER HONOUR: Yes.
MR GOETZ: Section 89(2)(a), sets out that Your Honour must impose a minimum cancellation period of 18 months. There's no upper limit. The Crown's not urging a particular period on Your Honour. So if that order could be made in addition to Your Honour's orders. but apart from that.
HER HONOUR: Yes, I propose to make the order to the minimum required by law. Mr Moore, do you seek to be heard?
MR MOORE: No, Your Honour.
HER HONOUR: All right. Could I get you now to have a brief conference with your client and I will be asking him to sign the CCO.
MR MOORE: Can I clarify the term, the duration, Your Honour. It fell from Your Honour initially as two years, but then it is also fallen from Your Honour as 30 months.
HER HONOUR: I beg your pardon. I mean 30 months.
MR MOORE: Yes, thank you. And I might just clarify with respect to conditions. Pardon me for not keeping up.
HER HONOUR: Not at all. Please do.
MR MOORE: Supervision, treatment for mental health, 150 hours work with credit.
HER HONOUR: Yes.
MR MOORE: Judicial monitoring, recommendation to culturally appropriate services.
HER HONOUR: Treatment, drug and alcohol.
MR MOORE: Thank you.
HIS HONOUR: Yes.
MR GOETZ: Just while my learned friend's doing that, does Your Honour envisage that the sentence covers both Charge 1 and the summary offence?
HER HONOUR: Yes, I think I did say that.
MR GOETZ: I missed that, sorry.
HER HONOUR: If I did not say so, that is what I meant.
MR GOETZ: Thank you, Your Honour.
HER HONOUR: Mr Moore, my staff has a copy of the CCO.
MR MOORE: Perfect. Your Honour, would like us to countersign this document?
HER HONOUR: Yes, thank you. I will make the order under the Sentencing Act for the cancellation of license for the period of 18 months. Mr Moore, will you give your client some advice about that.
MR MOORE: Repeat, sorry. I am sorry, my learned junior was raising an issue.
HER HONOUR: Well tell me in a moment if it is necessary, but the order against your client's license is made for the duration of 18 months.
MR MOORE: I will most certainly advise him for the effect of that, yes.
HER HONOUR: Yes. Is there anything else you need to raise?
MR MOORE: No. My learned friend did raise the point of aggregate sentences and the aggregate exceeding the maximum penalty on the bail offence, but it does not matter because it is an aggregate sentence.
HER HONOUR: It is a Community Corrections Order though, is it not?
MR MOORE: Correct also.
HER HONOUR: Yes. All right.
MR MOORE: He consents to the making of the order.
HER HONOUR: Thank you. Counsel, thank you for your assistance in this case. It was not a straightforward one to bring to Court, but I can see that there has been good work done on both sides and I am grateful for it.
MR MOORE: If Your Honour please.
MR GOETZ: May it please the court.
HER HONOUR: Sorry, I should have said judicial monitoring on 30 May.
MR MOORE: Yes.
HER HONOUR: If that is not clear, I make it clear now.
MR MOORE: Thank you.

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[2023] VCC 1305

30 March 2023