Director of Public Prosecutions v Walker
[2025] VCC 1427
•30 September 2025
| IN THE COUNTY COURT OF VICTORIA AT LATROBE VALLEY CRIMINAL JURISDICTION | Revised Not Restricted Suitable for Publication |
CR 25-01500
| DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROSECUTIONS |
| v |
| JACOB WALKER |
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JUDGE: | HER HONOUR JUDGE HARPER |
WHERE HELD: | Melbourne |
DATE OF HEARING: | 30 September 2025 |
DATE OF SENTENCE: | 30 September 2025 |
CASE MAY BE CITED AS: | DPP v Walker |
MEDIUM NEUTRAL CITATION: | [2025] VCC 1427 |
REASONS FOR SENTENCE
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Subject: CRIMINAL LAW
Catchwords: Threat to inflict serious injury, threat to kill
Legislation Cited: Sentencing Act 1991
Cases Cited:R v Verdins [2007] VSCA 10, Bugmy v The Queen [2013] 249 CLR 571
Sentence: TES: 6 months
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APPEARANCES: | Counsel | Solicitors |
| For the Director of Public Prosecutions | Ms Pezzimenti | Office of Public Prosecutions |
For the Accused | Mr D. Brown | E. Anselma Criminal Law |
HER HONOUR:
1Jacob Walker, you have pleaded guilty before me to one charge of making a threat to inflict serious injury and one charge of making a threat to kill. You have also pleaded guilty to two summary charges of possessing a controlled weapon without excuse. The maximum penalty for making a threat to inflict serious injury is five years' imprisonment. For making a threat to kill, the maximum penalty is 10 years' imprisonment, and for the related summary offences it is one year in each instance.
Circumstances of offending
2The circumstances of your offending were comprehensively outlined in the summary of prosecution opening for plea dated 27 August 2025. At the time of the offending, you were in receipt of disability support services from Simba Support Services, otherwise known as 'Simbass'. Helen Bays and Dennis Churcher are both disability support workers who were employed by Simbass in February 2025. On 21 February, Ms Bays was assigned to meet with you for the first time in her capacity as a disability support worker.
3She attended at the Latrobe Hotel in Princes Drive, Morwell in a company car at 10.20 am. She met you and your partner, and you asked to be driven to Moe. Ms Bays agreed, and you got into the front passenger seat. Your partner got into the back. During the journey you became aggressive and as you approached your former address in Margaret Street, Moe you produced a large carving knife which had been concealed in your pants. You showed the knife to Ms Bays and said you were going to get something from the house.
4You told Ms Bays that you carried the knife at all times and if she did something wrong, you would use the knife on her and hurt her. She believed you. You went inside the Margaret Street house and returned 10 minutes later. You directed Ms Bays to Churchill but changed your mind and asked her to return to the hotel. Ms Bays drove back to the hotel, and you left the vehicle. She fled and sought assistance from hotel reception before phoning her manager.
5You checked out of the hotel and were found alternative accommodation by Simbass. The following day, Mr Churcher was assigned by Simbass to assist you between 10 am and 12 pm by driving you as requested. At 10 am you and your partner got into Mr Churcher's car, you in the front and your partner in the back. He drove you from Morwell to Moe, Yallourn and back to Morwell. While in the car at about 11.50 am, you asked Mr Churcher to drive you to Churchill. He said this was not possible without approval and he would have to take you home. You said, 'if you don't take me to Churchill, I will kill you'. The threat was taken seriously.
6As Mr Churcher exited the freeway, he took his wallet and mobile phone from the centre console. He pulled over outside the Simbass office and removed the keys from the ignition. As he did so, you pulled out a 20-centimetre kitchen knife and said, 'I'll stab you'. Mr Churcher ran from the car and called for help. You screamed after him 'I'll stab you. I'll kill you. I don’t care if I go to gaol'. You were identified from dashcam footage from the vehicle of a witness and arrested on 25 February 2025. You were assessed as unfit for interview.
Objective Gravity
7Threat to inflict serious injury and make threat to kill are both serious offences. Here you threatened disability support workers while in their vehicles as they attempted to help you get from place to place. They were vulnerable and I consider your offending to have been particular frightening in circumstances where you were also in possession of a knife. Your plea of guilty was entered at the earliest opportunity before the second committal mention. You have saved the community the time and expense of running a trial and spared your victims the ordeal of giving evidence.
Plea of guilty
8You are entitled to a benefit for the utilitarian value of your plea and your willingness to facilitate the course of justice. Additionally, your plea is an acceptance of responsibility for your conduct and an indication of remorse, albeit at a superficial level. You expressed to psychologist, Megan Rogers, whose report I shall return to, that you 'shouldn’t have done it and you should have gone about it differently'. I received a victim impact statement from your victim, Helen Bays. She did not wish for that document to be read aloud so I will not quote from it, however it goes without saying that the impact of your offending on her has been ongoing.
Personal Circumstances
9I turn now to your personal circumstances.
10You are 26 years of age, having been born in May 1999. You grew up in the Gippsland area in an unstable childhood. Your mother died when you were two years of age and you lived with your father until the age of about 10. You experienced physical and sexual abuse before residing with your aunt between the ages of 10 and 14. You were then placed in residential care. You were introduced to drugs and alcohol as a teenager and currently take methadone daily.
11In the community you used MDMA, alprazolam and methamphetamines in significant quantities, the latter up to five points per day. You have expressed a desire to stop using drugs. You completed ear 7 at school but have never been employed and receive the disability support pension in the community due to diagnoses of adjustment disorder, schizophrenia, bipolar affective disorder and PTSD. You are prescribed antipsychotic medications but continue to experience paranoid delusions and auditor hallucinations.
12You have been in a relationship for the past year. Your partner does not use drugs and is also in receipt of a disability support pension. She has recently secured accommodation and you intend to live together upon your release. I received a report from psychologist, Megan Rogers. She opined that in addition to the diagnoses to which I have already referred, 'you were experiencing paranoid delusions which you believed were real and which shaped your behaviour at the time of the offending'.
13Ms Rogers found that you currently present with paranoid delusions and auditory hallucinations together with symptoms of depression. She was of the view that your symptoms of psychosis will almost certainly continue if not adequately treated. Your current medication regime is only somewhat effective as indicated by your ongoing symptoms.
Sentencing factors and considerations
14Mr Walker, the disability support workers were trying to help you and you made them feel scared and unsafe in their workplace. It was a terrible way to act. You need to understand that you cannot act this way, or you will find yourself in custody.
15You have eight prior convictions for making a threat to kill, six of which resulted in detention, and you now find yourself in adult custody for the same offence. You have an extensive criminal history with a number of other prior appearances and convictions, and I consider your prospects of rehabilitation to be guarded, contingent on you engaging with mental health supports and remaining drug-free. Other members of the community minded to act in this way and threaten people going about their work day, must see from the sentence I impose that terms of imprisonment will flow from such behaviour.
16It was submitted by Mr Brown on your behalf that the principles in Bugmy v R are applicable in your case in a general sense given your exposure to family violence, sexual abuse, housing instability and drug-use from an early age. These principles contemplate a background of deprivation that may compromise a person's capacity to mature and to learn from experience. I accept that your moral culpability is less than that of an offender whose formative years have not been so marred and your ability to regulate your behaviour and make decisions is reduced. I take this into account.
17Given your ongoing inability to regulate your behaviour, I must place emphasis on community protection. The risk to the community of your offending in the future is high according to Ms Rogers and I give weight to this factor. It was further submitted that limbs 5 and 6 of the R v Verdins apply in your case, namely that imprisonment will be more burdensome on you because of your mental health conditions than it would on a prisoner not so afflicted and that these conditions may deteriorate in custody.
18I am satisfied that both of these limbs are applicable, and I take them into account. You have served just over six months in addition to serving a 30 day sentence since your remand. I take the principle of totality into account. As you have six prior convictions which resulted in a term of detention for making a threat to kill, should I impose a term of imprisonment on Charge 2, you will fall to be sentenced as a serious violent offender on that charge. Should that be the case, I must give primacy to protection of the community.
19I have the power to impose a disproportionate sentence but it is not submitted that I should do so. Unless directed otherwise, any sentence imposed on that charge must be served cumulatively on other sentences imposed.
Disposition
20Mr Walker, on Charge 1, making a threat to inflict serious injury, you are sentenced to two months' imprisonment.
21On Charge 2, making a threat to kill, you are sentenced to three months' imprisonment.
22On related summary charges 3 and 7, both charges of possess controlled weapon without excuse, you are sentenced to an aggregate term of one month imprisonment.
23Charge 2 is to be the base sentence. I direct that the sentence imposed on Charge 1 and the aggregate sentence imposed on the related summary offences be served cumulatively on the sentence imposed on Charge 2 and on each other. That makes a total effective sentence of six months' imprisonment.
24I declare that pursuant to s18 of the Sentencing Act 1991, you have served six months by way of presentence detention.
25Pursuant to Part 2A of the Sentencing Act 1991, you are to be sentenced as a serious violent offender on Charge 2. I direct that this be noted in the record.
26Pursuant to s6AAA of the Sentencing Act 1991, I declare that had you not pleaded guilty, the sentence I would have imposed would have been a total effective sentence of 10 months' imprisonment.
27Is there anything further, Ms Pezzimenti?
28MS PEZZIMENTI: No, Your Honour.
29HER HONOUR: Mr Brown?
30MR BROWN: No, Your Honour.
31HER HONOUR: Thank you both for your assistance with this matter. We will leave you on the screen so Mr Brown can talk to you for a moment, Mr Walker.
32OFFENDER: Thank you.
33HER HONOUR: We will adjourn sine die.
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