Director of Public Prosecutions v Vlahos
[2013] VCC 959
•23 July 2013
| IN THE COUNTY COURT OF VICTORIA | Revised Not Restricted Suitable for Publication |
AT MELBOURNE
CRIMINAL DIVISION
Case No. CR-13-00346
| DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROSECUTIONS |
| v |
| JOSHUA PETER VLAHOS |
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JUDGE: | HIS HONOUR JUDGE RYAN | |
WHERE HELD: | Melbourne | |
DATE OF HEARING: | ||
DATE OF SENTENCE: | 23 July 2013 | |
CASE MAY BE CITED AS: | DPP v Vlahos | |
MEDIUM NEUTRAL CITATION: | [2013] VCC 959 | |
REASONS FOR SENTENCE
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APPEARANCES: | Counsel | Solicitors |
| For the DPP | Ms N Burnett (Plea) Ms T Krvenkovic (Sentence) | OPP |
| For the Accused | Ms J Hardy | James Dowsley & Associates |
HIS HONOUR:
1 Joshua Peter Vlahos, you have pleaded guilty to an indictment containing two charges: charge 1, attempted armed robbery, and charge 2, criminal damage. In addition you have pleaded guilty to the related summary offence of contravening a family violence intervention order.
2 The maximum penalties for these offences are:
· Attempted armed robbery, 20 years’ imprisonment,
· Criminal damage, 10 years’ imprisonment, and
· Contravening a family violence intervention order, 2 years’ imprisonment or 240 penalty units, or both.
3 The facts that support the charges are set out in the plea opening that was read aloud in court and tendered as Exhibit A on the plea. In short, in a drug-affected state you attended at your estranged partner’s home and attempted to rob her at knifepoint of money for food and drugs. You claimed at the time that your former partner owed you money. During the course of your time at your ex‑partner’s home you kicked a wall, damaging the plaster, and pushed over a set of stainless steel storage shelves.
4 At the time you were the subject of an intervention order under the Family Violence Protection Act 2008.
5 You have two relevant sets of prior convictions for assaults on your estranged partner in circumstances where you were in breach of a family violence intervention order. The facts surrounding these incidents were set out in police summaries that were tendered as Exhibit C on the plea.
6 At the time of the commission of the instant offences you were serving a 3‑month suspended sentence of imprisonment which had been suspended for a period of two years and which was imposed on 1 August 2012, only six weeks or so prior to the instant offending.
7 After you left your former partner's home you were approached by police who had been called to the scene, you called upon them to shoot you. You were arrested and taken to the Frankston Police Station, where you were interviewed under caution. You were extremely uninhibited in your answers to the police, and made partial but substantial admissions concerning your offending. You were remanded in custody and have remained so since your arrest.
8 Your matter first came before me on 9 May this year, but was adjourned to 21 June in order to obtain a report from Dr Lester Walton, which was tendered on the plea as Exhibit 1. This report was additional to three previous reports from Dr Naidoo dated 26 February 2013, Dr Cunningham dated 15 December 2011, and Mr Tim Murphy, psychologist, dated 7 March 2013, which were tendered as Exhibit 2 on the plea.
9 You are a man of normal intelligence with no evidence of cognitive deficit. You are a substance-dependent person. From time to time you have experienced amphetamine-induced psychosis, and you are not suffering from a diagnosable mood disorder, in particular bipolar disorder.
10 You are 42 years of age. You were born in Victoria. Your parents separated when you were five years of age. Since that time your mother has had two significant de facto relationships. You did not get on with the first of these men, but you have a sound relationship with the second man, named Dean. Your mother is supportive of you, and is prepared to have you come to live with her in Queensland upon your release from prison (see Exhibit 3).
11 You have had a longstanding and tumultuous relationship with your victim. You met when you were still at school. You commenced a relationship with her but separated in 1996 and you moved to South Australia, where you commenced a relationship with a woman named Melinda, to whom you have a child. This relationship broke down in 1999, which caused you to be hospitalised for three weeks.
12 Upon return to Victoria you recommenced your relationship with the victim in this matter. In 2001 your daughter Chloe was born. She suffers from spina bifida. Until this time you had been a consistent worker, being a glazier by trade. There is conflicting information about your history thereafter. Put on your plea was that you ceased work at Chloe’s birth and went on a supporting parents’ benefit, but Mr Murphy reports that this did not take place until 2007. Not a great deal turns on this matter. You are particularly attached to Chloe, and her medical condition is a constant source of worry to you. You live in fear that she is terminally ill and may die at any moment. This does not seem to be factually correct, although plainly Chloe is very unwell.
13 At the time of the instant offending you were abusing methylamphetamine, and whilst you gave the police an address in Frankston, I gained the impression that your life more resembled that of a homeless person than someone in regular accommodation. You were without money, and had come from St Kilda to commit these offences.
14 Whilst affected by drugs, in breach of a court order, and whilst on a suspended sentence, you committed offences of violence against the mother of your children in the presence of Chloe, a child you profess to love. Your offending constitutes a serious example of domestic violence. You are an appropriate vehicle for the application of general and specific deterrence.
15 Your counsel, in a well argued plea, relied upon:
· Your plea of guilty and the time at which it was entered,
· Your limited prior criminal history,
· Your prospects of rehabilitation, particularly because of your family support, and
· The hardship that you would suffer in prison because of your separation from Chloe.
16 It was said on your plea that you and Chloe’s mother have resolved between the two of you that your relationship is over, but that the needs of your children mean that contact between you and her in the future is inevitable, and that this must be cordial because of the needs of your children. It was put on your behalf that you, upon release, hope to find accommodation in Phillip Island and eventually gain custody of your children. How this squares with the offer from your mother for you to reside in Queensland I am unsure.
17 Each of your children has been removed from your former partner’s care, and Chloe is in the joint care of her maternal grandparents and a maternal aunt.
18 You are entitled to the full benefit of your plea, both for its utilitarian value and because it exhibits your remorse for your actions. As to your prospects of rehabilitation, I must view them as guarded. As against the rest of the world, they are good, but you will have to be in regular contact with your former partner, the mother of your children, and the stressors that brought about the instant offending as well as your prior offending will be present. I was informed that while under escort for treatment at St Vincent’s Hospital you attempted to escape. You wanted to see Chloe. This attempt resulted in you being disciplined within the prison system. Concern for Chloe is understandable, but your conduct reflects a fixation rather than a concern, and this must impact upon any assessment that I make of your ability to conduct yourself properly in the future when you come to deal with your former partner on matters that concern your children.
19 Additionally, any prospects of rehabilitation will be dependent upon you addressing your drug addiction.
20 By this sentence I must punish you, publicly denounce your conduct, and deter you and others from committing these kinds of crimes. I must also look to your rehabilitation.
21 Taking into account the circumstances of the offences and their effects, with your personal circumstances and antecedents, endeavouring to produce a sentence which reflects and promotes the purposes of sentencing in a manner appropriate to you and your offending, I sentence you as follows:
· On charge 1, attempted armed robbery, two years’ imprisonment,
· On charge 2, criminal damage, six months’ imprisonment, and
· On the related summary offence, six months’ imprisonment.
22 I order that three months of the sentence imposed on charge 2 on the indictment and three months of the related summary offence be served cumulatively upon charge 1 on the indictment.
23 This results in a total effective sentence of 2½ years imprisonment and I order that you serve a period of 18 months before you become eligible for parole.
24 I declare that you have spent 316 days by way of pre-sentence detention.
25 I declare pursuant to s6AAA of the Sentencing Act 1991 that but for your plea of guilty I would have imposed a sentence of four years imprisonment with a non-parole period of three years.
26 You may be seated, Mr Vlahos.
27 (Orders signed.)
28 I have made a disposal order in respect of the knife that was used in the commission of this offence and I hand down three copies of that. In respect of the application pursuant to s.464ZF(2) I have made an order, Mr Vlahos, that there be a forensic sample taken from you and that will be a scraping from your mouth, that will be taken from you whilst you are in custody and I make that order on the basis of the seriousness of the circumstances of the offending warrant such an order, that the order is consented to and that the granting of the order is in the public interest and I hand down three copies of that order.
29 Are there any other matters that we need to deal with, counsel?
30 COUNSEL: No, Your Honour.
31 HIS HONOUR: Thank you very much. You may remove the prisoner please.
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