Director of Public Prosecutions v Walter (a pseudonym)
[2018] VCC 265
•9 March 2018
| IN THE COUNTY COURT OF VICTORIA CRIMINAL DIVISION | Revised Not Restricted Suitable for Publication |
| DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROSECUTIONS |
| v |
| CAMERON WALTER (a pseudonym) |
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JUDGE: | HAMPEL | |
WHERE HELD: | Warrnambool | |
DATE OF HEARING: | 9 March 2018 | |
DATE OF SENTENCE: | 9 March 2018 | |
CASE MAY BE CITED AS: | DPP v Walter (a pseudonym) | |
MEDIUM NEUTRAL CITATION: | [2018] VCC 265 | |
REASONS FOR SENTENCE
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APPEARANCES: | Counsel | Solicitors |
| For the DPP | Mr D. Cordy | Office of Public Prosecutions |
| For the Accused | Ms A. Kapitaniak | Emma Turnbull Lawyers |
HER HONOUR:
1 Cameron Walter,[1] you come before me today to be dealt with for two matters. The first concerns an Indictment containing seven charges arising from offending committed on 10 April 2016 (Indictment G10965103). These offences contravene a Community Correction Order imposed by his Honour Judge Maidment on 11 September 2015, and it is the contravention of the CCO that is the second matter before me.
[1] Cameron Walter is a pseudonym.
2 On 11 September 2015 his Honour Judge Maidment sentenced you for five indictable charges and one related summary offence (Indictment C1510073.1). Those charges were recklessly causing injury (charge 1), intentionally causing injury (charge 2), making threats to kill (charge 3), common assault (charge 4), persistent contravention of a family violence intervention order (charge 5) and committing an indictable offence whilst on bail (summary charge 10). Those offences were all committed against your then-partner Ms Mariam Manaia.[2] His Honour Judge Maidment imposed terms of imprisonment of just under 12 months (effectively, time served), followed by a 2 year Community Correction Order. At the time His Honour sentenced you, he was told that the relationship with Ms Manaia was over, and that you were intent on putting it behind you, and no longer having any contact with her. You and Ms Manaia had previously been in a relationship for about five years and had one daughter together. She was about six years old, it would appear, at the time His Honour sentenced you. As a result of her exposure to violence, she had been in permanent foster care since she was three. It would appear that she had earlier, at about 18 months of age first been removed from your care for some time, but was then returned before being taken away again.
[2] Mariam Manaia is a pseudonym.
3 Ms Manaia is again a victim of the offences committed on 10 April 2016. These offences were committed less than seven months after your release, from the custodial component of the sentence imposed for the earlier assaults on her. On this occasion, however, she was not the only victim.
4 Given that, I will set out the circumstances of the offending for which His Honour Judge Maidment sentenced you before dealing with the 2016 offences.
5 The recklessly cause injury charge was committed on 21 September 2014. You struck Ms Manaia to the face with a cheese knife, cutting her skin above her eye. You chased her into a bedroom, pushed her against the wall, with such force that you left a hole in the wall. As a result, police were called and you were interviewed, and charged. The following day, 22 September 2014, a Family Violence Intervention Order was taken out on her behalf and served on you. Conditions of that intervention order included that you not commit acts of family violence or contact or communicate with Ms Manaia, or approach or remain within 5 metres of her, or go to her address.
6
The remainder of the charges for which Judge Maidment sentenced you were committed on 3 October 2014, less than 2 weeks after the Family Violence Intervention Order was made and served on you. You went to
Ms Manaia's home in the early hours of the morning and woke her up. You yelled at her, accused her of sleeping with another man. She denied it. You called her a lying dog and started hitting her. You pulled her hair and hit her with your fists all over her head and face. This attack lasted for a few minutes, and caused cuts and bleeding. That gave rise to charge 2 of intentionally causing injury. After some time you took off her shift, picked up a knife and said “I should just kill you with this". That gave rise to charge 3 of threat to kill. At one point, Ms Manaia managed to get away and hide in a closet, and started banging on the wall. A neighbour, hearing the banging, called the police, but by the time police arrived you had left.
7 Ms Manaia went to the police station and made a statement about what had happened. She returned home and a few hours after, at about 4 am but still on the same day, she heard a loud smashing sound from outside the bedroom door. You were ramming the bedroom door that she had barricaded, yelling “I should have killed you,” and abusing her in deeply insulting and pejorative language. That gave rise to charge 4 of common assault. She tried to resist your entry by pressing her feet against the door and using a coffee table as a barricade. She screamed out to her neighbour for help to call the police, and again you left.
8 Some hours later, but still that same day, at about 10:30 in the morning, you came across Ms Manaia when the two of you were in Lava Street. You tried to talk to her. She ran away as you were yelling at her. She got away, because someone stopped you in the middle of the road and diverted you.
9 At around this time, you had been staying with a man who you knew. You told him that you were digging a grave under the house because you wanted to kill Ms Manaia so that you could have your daughter to yourself. Eight days later, he went to Ms Manaia’s house and she showed him a hole which had been dug in the ground under the house.
10 It was this course of conduct on 3 October 2014 that gave rise to the charge of persistent contravention of a family violence order, which was the fifth charge before His Honour Judge Maidment.
11
For those offences, and the offence of committing an indictable offence on bail - that being the bail, as I understand it, for the first recklessly cause injury charge before the intervention order was made - His Honour sentenced you to a total effective sentence of 356 days' imprisonment, followed by a two year Community Correction Order to commence upon your release. On the day of sentence, you had already served 342 days of pre-sentence detention, so you were released and commenced on the CCO two weeks later on
24 September 2015.
12 It is important to note His Honour Judge Maidment was told, in the course of the plea hearing before him, that the relationship with Ms Manaia was completely over, that you had had time, whilst in custody, to reflect on your behaviour, and to express regret and remorse for the way you had treated her. That was reflected, too, in the report of the psychologist, Mr Healey, which was tended and relied upon on that plea.
13 Four days after your release from that first term of imprisonment in respect to the attacks on Ms Manaia, that is on 28 September 2015, a full no contact intervention order between you and Ms Manaia was granted by the court. That was to run for a period of 12 months.
14 The 2016 offending on Indictment G10965103, was committed less than 7 months later, in April 2016. That is, just over a quarter of the way into the term of the Community Correction Order.
15 On Thursday 17 April 2016 you went to Ms Manaia’s home. She allowed you in. According to the evidence, you were booked into a residential alcohol and other substances program to commence the following Monday, and you had had nowhere to live before you took up that place. On the evening of Sunday 10 April, following what appears to have been constant drinking from the time that you arrived three days earlier at Ms Manaia’s home, you began accusing her of being in a relationship with a man by the name of Brandon Reynolds.[3] She denied it, maintaining that they were just friends. You did not believe her, and became increasingly agitated. She, concerned for her safety, fled to Mr Reynolds’ house which was nearby.
[3] Brandon Reynolds is a pseudonym.
16
You went to Mr Reynolds’ house an hour later and began banging on the door yelling “I know she is in there, open the fucking door”. Unbeknownst to
Mr Reynolds, you had already forced opened the security door, but thinking it was locked Mr Reynolds opened the front door, which you then took advantage of and pushed your way into the house. You were carrying a machete. You pushed Mr Reynolds up against a wall and started punching him. It is the breaking into the house armed with the machete that gives rise to charge 1 on the second indictment, that of aggravated burglary. That carries a maximum term of imprisonment of 25 years.
17 You punched Mr Reynolds repeatedly. He estimates approximately a dozen times. But after that he managed to escape and run for the back door. That door was locked, though, so you caught up to him and continued to assault him. You pulled the machete out from your shorts and removed the sheath. Mr Reynolds managed to escape, running out of the front door, and ran to a phone box to contact police. It is the attack on Mr Reynolds that gives rise to charge 2 of common assault, which carries a maximum penalty of 5 years' imprisonment.
18 Whilst you were attacking Mr Reynolds, Ms Manaia managed to escape out of the back door and hid under some stairs. You made your way around the back of the unit and used the machete to smash at fence palings, trying to get at Ms Manaia, screaming “I'm going to kill you”. A neighbour heard and called the police, and yelled at you to stop, telling you that she had called the police. You replied, "I don’t care, I'm going to kill her".
19 Ms Manaia ran back up the stairs, out through the front of the house and onto the road. You ran around the house chasing her, holding the machete above your head. As Ms Manaia was running along the road, somebody driving past saw her and stopped to pick her up, so enabling her to escape. It is that conduct in relation to Ms Manaia that gives rise to charge 3 of common assault in respect of her and charge 4 of contravening an intervention order intending to cause harm or fear. Both those charges carry a maximum term of imprisonment of five years.
20 After Ms Manaia had been assisted to escape by the people driving past, you went back to her home and locked yourself in the house. The police attended. They attempted to negotiate a peaceful arrest, but unsuccessfully. You told police that you were in it for the long haul. You started removing food from the pantry and fridge and stockpiled it in the bedroom. You taped a container of petrol to your body, opening a window so that the police could see what you were doing. You turned the gas on at the oven, saying words to the effect of "this will make a nice bomb", something the police could hear. However, fortunately for you, them, and the people living in the surrounding houses, the police had already turned the gas off at the mains.
21 Police, though, were required to evacuate nearby houses in order to ensure the safety of their residents and shut down or lock down the surrounding streets. You locked yourself in the bedroom, refusing to negotiate, and ultimately a Critical Incident Response Team (CIRT) attended. They attempted over a period of over five hours to engage with you and negotiate with you, but for over five hours were unsuccessful. At one stage, you tried to throw fuel over some of the response team members, and flicked your lighter at them. It was shortly after 5 o'clock that you finally walked from the premises and were arrested. As a result of this, you have pleaded guilty to a charge of reckless conduct endangering serious injury. That too carries a five-year maximum term of imprisonment.
22
You inflicted considerable damage to the houses of both Mr Reynolds and
Ms Manaia, and as a result of that you have pleaded guilty to two charges, charges 6 and 7, of criminal damage.
23 In Ms Manaia’s house, police located the machete you had with you. You had nailed the windows closed with wooden palings, placed mattresses in front of the windows, moved the washing machine to the front of the laundry door, smashed the toilets and filled the wardrobes with food.
24 Both the front and back security doors of Mr Reynolds' property had been broken by you. The back wire screen door had been partially ripped from the frame and slashed with a machete. You had punched holes in the walls, destroyed the television, the washing machine and microwave and slashed the couch and bed multiple times with the machete. You had damaged the back fence and the gate. These were indeed vicious, spiteful, serious, and sustained acts of criminal damage. As Mr Cordy said, the other charges are each serious examples of their type for the objective circumstances as I have outlined them.
25 When you were arrested, you were taken back to the police station and ultimately questioned. When interviewed, you denied all the offending but stated that you knew you were going to be in trouble for breaching the intervention order.
26 As a result of this spate of offending on this day occurring within the operational period of the community correction order, you have also been charged with and have pleaded guilty to a charge of contravening that community correction order by further offending.
27 In his victim impact statement, Mr Reynolds said that he suffered nightmares, depression, loss of confidence and an exacerbation of his pre-existing post-traumatic stress disorder. He spoke frankly about the difficulties he had had in his own past, the progress that he had made since securing his own housing in Warrnambool, improvements which have been severely impacted on since the offending. He says that he now must sleep on the couch during the day as he is afraid to sleep at night for fear of someone breaking in. That has negatively affected his ability to attend appointments during the day and to deal with day-to-day life. As a result of the assault on him, he suffered a split gum and an eyebrow, black eyes and bruising. He has since suffered problems with his vision, which he says have been diagnosed by an optometrist as being fluid on his eye and scarring from the trauma of the punch. He says a treating specialist has indicated that it is possible surgery may fix the issues, otherwise the impairment will be permanent, and he refers to the financial costs associated with the repairs to his property and his ongoing medical costs for which he has needed to seek financial assistance. Whilst medical reports have not been provided to support that, what is significant in my view is that he is, as he says, significantly affected physically and emotionally as a result of what you did.
28 Ms Manaia did not provide a victim impact statement, but it requires little imagination to consider the impact on her.
29 This is the second time that you have been before this court for serious offences of personal violence towards Ms Manaia and the circumstances on both occasions including making threats to kill her. Although you are not charged on this occasion with the offence of making threat to kill, the accepted summary includes references to the threats to kill that you did make. It is also the second time you have been before this court for breaching family violence intervention orders made expressly to protect her from you. She was a person with whom you had been in an intimate relationship for a number of years in the past. The two of you had had a child together. It is apparently a matter of profound distress to you that because of the family violence to which she had been exposed, your child had been removed from your care at the age of 18 months, returned, and then removed again when she was three. You have repeatedly expressed a desire to regain custody of her, and yet you continue to exhibit what can only be categorised as murderous and ungovernable rage towards her mother.
30 You have a long and sorry list of criminal convictions amassed before these two most recent episodes of violence involving Ms Manaia, and for the most recent one on Mr Reynolds as well.
31 On my count, you have had over 20 court appearances, across New South Wales, Queensland and Victoria. Your first appearance was before the Gosford Local Court in New South Wales in 1993, when you were 19. In the four years after that, you had approximately nine court appearances in New South Wales local courts. They were mainly for violence-related and driving offences. The penalties included bonds, fines, and imprisonment – in fact, on four of those nine occasions you were sentenced to terms of imprisonment. Two of those sentences of imprisonment were for driving offences, but notably two were for offences of violence (assault occasioning actual bodily harm).
32 Between 2002 and 2005 you had three separate appearances in Magistrates’ courts in Queensland. You were convicted and fined for charges of receiving property obtained by crime (2002), obstruct police (2005), and for breaching a fine option order.
33 Between 2006 and 2007 you were dealt with by New South Wales courts. Two were driving matters and you were ultimately sentenced to terms of imprisonment after appealing those sentences to the District Court in Gosford. The other appearance was for a charge of assault occasioning actual bodily harm, for which you were sentenced to 12 months' imprisonment, with a non-parole period of 9 months.
34 In 2009 and 2010 you were convicted and fined for two charges of public nuisance in Queensland.
35 Later in 2010 you were dealt with on two occasions in New South Wales, once for trespass and once for assault occasioning actual bodily harm, and you were fined and sentenced to a bond respectively.
36 2012 appears to be your first sentencing before a Victorian court. This was the Magistrates’ Court in Warrnambool. You received a combination sentence: 3 months' imprisonment and a 9 month Community Correction Order for charges of unlawful assault and assault police. In 2013, you were fined for charges of intentionally destroying property and contravening a family violence safety notice.
37 Your next court appearance was the 2015 County Court matter, where you were sentenced by His Honour Judge Maidment and to which I have referred, and that brings me up to the most recent set of offending, the 10 April 2006 offences, that are the subject of the major indictment before me.
38 Your long history of violent offending, and the most recent history of serious violent offending involving Ms Manaia of itself demonstrates that denunciation, deterrence both general and specific, and just punishment must loom large in the sentencing mix. The failure of the previous sentence and the community correction order for similar offences on Ms Manaia reinforce the need to give proper weight to these consideration and also demonstrate the significance of factoring in protection of the community as a relevant sentencing factor in these later charges.
39 It is unclear to me on the evidence before me whether Ms Manaia had formed new relationships on either of the two occasions that now bring you before me: that is, for the offences that come before me for the first time, and for the offences for which I am dealing with you by reason of the breach of the CCO. It would not matter if Ms Manaia had formed new relationships on one or both of those occasions. Relationships do break up. People do move on. You yourself had repeatedly said that the relationship with Ms Manaia was over both before you were sentenced by His Honour Judge Maidment and again after. You had said on repeated occasions you wanted nothing more to do with her. Yet you exhibited in respect to the offences that have led to both sentencing occasions, jealous, possessive rage, and angry suspicion about her contact with other men.
40 It is well-known and well documented that women are most at risk of threats and violence from an intimate partner after a relationship has come to an end. Men must understand that the women they have been in relationships with have as much right to autonomy as the men themselves. If somebody seeks to threaten a woman, to attack her sense of personal safety and to threaten to, or actually inflict physical violence on her because the relationship has come to an end or after the relationship has come to an end, or when she forms a new relationship, or when they suspect she has formed a new relationship, they must understand that they will be punished. If a relationship is over, it is no business of yours whether Ms Manaia was forming any new relationships. It was no business of yours who she was associating with, and whether she was engaging in sexual activity with anybody else.
41 If someone does as you do - forces their way into the home of a former partner, or a place they believe they are taking refuge, physically injure them or anyone with them, assault or threaten them or anyone with them, deliberately trash their houses and damage their property - then the court must impose a punishment that will defend the autonomy of that partner to act in a way that she considers to be right for her or is an exercise of her right to make her decisions about. A woman, including one with whom you have shared an intimate relationship, should be able to speak to, or enjoy the friendships of other men, without being suspected, or accused of, or denigrated or punished for forming a new relationship or associating with any other men.
42 If a person flouts court orders, made in order to protect a former partner, that is if a former partner has already had to seek the assistance of the courts to protect them after past actual or threatened violence, then the person who flouts those orders must understand that they will be punished, and sternly, not only for their disrespect for the former partner but their disrespect for the court orders made to protect them.
43 You and men like you must understand that you cannot treat partners or former partners as chattels. If you use threats or violence against them, force your way into their homes - places they should feel safe in - assault them and put them in fear, if you break into the home of anyone you believe to be a male friend and accuse her or him of being in a sexual relationship together, as if you have exclusive and lifelong possession of her, the sentence must serve as a deterrent to you and others who are like-minded from acting in such a way.
44 Recent decisions of the Court of Appeal have made it very clear that those who commit confrontational aggravated burglaries, such as the one that you have pleaded guilty to, are looking at terms of imprisonment and substantial ones. And had it not been abundantly clear before, it is very clear now that a confrontational aggravated burglary committed against an intimate partner, or former intimate partner, or someone a person believes to be in a relationship with their partner or former partner, is no less serious than a confrontational aggravated burglary committed on a stranger, or someone otherwise known to or associated with the perpetrator.
45 In my view there are good reasons why aggravated burglaries committed on intimate or former intimate partners or their friends, can be worse than aggravated confrontational burglaries committed in other circumstances. That is not only because of the fact of a shared life between the perpetrator and the partner or former partner, but because of the violation of trust involved, and because of what it says about the nature of the view of the relationship or possession, the removing of any autonomy of the woman to live her own life.
46 What then are the other considerations, mitigatory or personal to you, that must weigh against these significant sentencing factors I have already identified, and which must be taken into account and weighed against the need for deterrence, just punishment, denunciation, and to the extent that it weighs separately, protection of the community? The first matter I take into account and give considerable weight to is your plea of guilty and what I accept is, in the circumstances, the early stage at which it was entered. Whilst there were a number of committal mentions, it was clear that they involved appropriate negotiations to identify the appropriate charges to reflect the overall criminality.
47 The same applies to the course the matter took when it first came into this court; that is, that within a very short time of it being before this court, pleas of guilty to the appropriate charges, and following proper and careful consideration by your legal advisers so as you could make an informed decision about the entry of those pleas of guilty, were entered. So I take it in the circumstances to be pleas of guilty in effect entered at the first reasonable opportunity, having regard to the bulk of the evidence, the weight, the number of charges and the need to negotiate pleas on a properly informed and advised basis to appropriate charges. The pleas of guilty clearly have significant utilitarian value, and advance the interests of justice.
48
Whilst there is a level of expression of remorse and regret for your behaviour, I am concerned about the expressions of what I described to Ms Kapitaniak in the course of her plea as expressions of victim blaming relayed in
Mr McKinnon's report and quoting what you had told him. So whilst I accept there is a degree of remorse, and certainly your pleas of guilty do recognise acknowledgement of your wrongdoing and have spared your victims the ordeal of having to give evidence and recount the events, the remorse I think is at an early stage. That does not devalue, though, the weight that I am giving to your plea of guilty as I hope the s.6AAA declaration I will make at the end will reflect.
49 The next matter I take into account in your favour is the delay in the finalisation of the matter. The offences were committed on 10 April 2016. You were interviewed and charged the following day and remanded in custody, where you have remained ever since. The almost two year delay between the commission of the offences and the sentencing has been a product of the time it has taken, essentially, to work its way through the court system and some delays, not at all of your making, by which by reason either of the problems of listing matters in the relatively few circuits that are held in this town, or on the last time, the inexcusable failure of Corrections to bring you to court in response to a gaol order, meant that you have had to wait for two years to have the matter resolved when it could and should otherwise have been dealt with, probably within about 12 months of the offending.
50 You have had the matters therefore unresolved, hanging over your head for all that considerable time and although, as I said in the course of discussion with Ms Kapitaniak, I understand that more facilities and programs are available now for remanded prisoners than there were in the past, you have been without the benefit of certainty as to your sentence, your planning for your prospects for release, and the capacity for Corrections to reclassify you and consider moving you to a different prison as a sentenced prisoner instead of a remandee. All of those matters you are entitled to have taken into account in your favour and in reducing the sentence otherwise appropriate.
51 In the time that you have been on remand, you have been isolated. The only family that you had in Victoria were Ms Manaia and your daughter. For obvious reasons, you have had no visits from Ms Manaia. She is making it quite clear that from her perspective, the relationship is and has long been over. Your child, who has been in care since she was three, has not been brought to see you in custody as I understand it, and there are understandable welfare reasons why that often does not occur.
52 You have done your best to maintain contact with her through telephone calls, and also through active engagement with DHS. I am told that although you have not received any visits from her, as a result of your engagement with DHHS she has now been placed in a kinship placement with your sister in Queensland. Your hope of being able to continue a relationship with her has clearly been rekindled by that, notwithstanding your acceptance that you are today to be sentenced to what will be a considerable term of imprisonment.
53 However, your daughter and your former partner were the only people in Victoria who counted as family. The rest of your family are all, it would appear now, in Queensland and whilst there has been some limited telephone contact with them, there have been no personal visits and that is likely to continue to be the case. Whilst your current plans are to relocate to Queensland when you can, either upon your release on parole if granted parole, or, earlier now that you have discovered the existence of the interstate prisoner transfer scheme, you will be isolated during the time you spend in custody in Victoria. That clearly also is a matter to take into account in your favour in reducing the sentence otherwise appropriate.
54 In the nearly two years you have spent on remand, you have used your time as effectively as you can. You have been working as a unit billet, initially cleaning, now painting. That shows that you must have been offence and substance-free for the bulk of the time in custody because otherwise you would not have been appointed to or continued to hold such a position. You have also engaged in such courses as have been available to you, in particular an AOD awareness course, a food handling course to give you employment skills, both in custody and on release, and I am told recently, a men's behavioural change program that you had been waitlisted for for a considerable time and that you are now well over halfway through.
55 You have also, in addition to the physical withdrawal from substances, taking advantage of the more restricted atmosphere of a prison, it would appear, to maintain yourself substance-free whilst in custody. You have taken an active interest in your health and well-being, looked after your physical fitness, changed your diet, become interested in diet and nutrition and lost a considerable amount of weight. Whilst you have recently been diagnosed with a thyroid problem which may account for some if not all of that weight loss, it is clear that you have a commitment to looking after yourself physically and developing an understanding of health and nutrition that seemed to have been deficient in the past. That has given you a greater sense of, perhaps, responsibility for yourself and your own welfare.
56 The combination of the recently diagnosed thyroid disorder, the imminence, ultimately, of your sentencing hearing, and the effect of a period of extended hour lockdown as a result of the Christmastime fire at Port Phillip has had, I am told, a deteriorating effect on your mental health and you have recently sought the assistance of a prison psychologist and just recently been started on anti-depressants.
57 You have reported in the past periods where you have been treated for depression and been treated with mood stabilisers and anti-depressants, and you have a significant and long-diagnosed history of post-traumatic stress disorder resulting from a serious motor vehicle accident and from the impact on you of many, many years of substance abuse. So I accept your mental health is not robust, and that whilst what is put before me does not of itself enliven any of the limbs of Verdins, that you are vulnerable to episodes of lowered mood or poor mental health, and that will make your time in custody more difficult for you.
58 I have had some discussions which you have heard, with your counsel in relation to the psychological reports from Mr McKinnon prepared for the purposes of this hearing and the one from Mr Healey prepared for the purposes of hearing before His Honour Judge Maidment. It is difficult to reconcile some of the matters in those two reports. I accept that some of it is probably due to your being a poor historian by reason of your long history of alcohol and substance abuse.
59 I consider that it is more likely that you are a person of average intelligence with reading skills appropriate to your age, rather than a person of low IQ, as Mr Healey tested. I consider the extended period you spent in custody before you were assessed by Mr McKinnon and the improvement in your physical and mental state and your extended period of being substance free, was likely to result in more realistic responses to tests than those provided to Mr Healey.
60 What that means is that you have got a capacity to have insight, to improve your employment skills, to engage in rehabilitative programs, that should stand to your benefit in the future. So I do not consider it to be a finding adverse to your interests to prefer the conclusion of Mr McKinnon in relation to your likely mental capacity and abilities.
61 Both reports contained expressions of your determination to live a better life on release, and I accept that you indeed, when sentenced by His Honour Judge Maidment and now, express a determination to live a better life upon your release than you had in the circumstances that led to each of the bouts of offending. I accept, too, your expressions of determination to stay substance-free, and the efforts you have made, both in and out of custody over the years, to do that, and particularly the efforts you have made since your release from the term of imprisonment imposed by His Honour Judge Maidment. And I take those into account as having potential for you.
62 Of course, anybody who has had a history as long as yours of substance abuse is going to face a long and rocky road, and your history that led up to the offending on the 2016 indictment demonstrates what happens when a period of sustained commitment - six months on release - then falls apart with a "bender", as you described it. So whilst you are indeed to be credited for the determination you continue to express and the engagement in that drug and alcohol counselling, you recognise, as do I, that it is not necessarily going to be an easy and continuous road for you. But the expression of determination and what you have done to date counts in your favour.
63 You are 44 now. You have got a long history of offending and an even longer history of substance abuse; connected with that, a very poor history of education and employment. Those matters all mean that your prospects of rehabilitation do have to be seen to be guarded, and your risk of relapse has to be seen to be on the high side. That is not to say things are insuperable, but as both your counsel and Mr Cordy, the prosecutor, said, a lot of it is going to be up to you and how well you can maintain that commitment and tap into the supports that will be made available to you, or that you will be able to access both during the balance of your term of imprisonment and on release.
64 It is clear to me that your prospects for rehabilitation, your prospects of being deterred from engaging in violent offending in the future, and from lapsing into substance abuse are going to be significantly enhanced if you are given access to all possible programs that are available to you in custody and on release to assist on dealing with that continuing burden of substance abuse.
65 Your prospects of rehabilitation are also going to be significantly improved if you engage actively in long-term programs in relation to personal relationships, respect for women and anger management. Whilst you have done some programs and the most recent corrections report for the period of six months you were on Judge Maidment's CCO indicate you engaged well, it is clear not only the conduct of 10 April 2016 but the sentiments you expressed over a year later to Mr McKinnon indicate you have a long way to go in understanding your own anger triggers, in understanding respect for a woman's autonomy in a relationship, and negotiating and navigating respectful and responsible relationships with women.
66 So again, I can only say in the strongest of terms, such programs - long-term programs - with real cognitive behavioural components to them, are going to be required for you to assist you with your rehabilitation, and to ensure that specific deterrence is addressed properly and so, therefore to deal with the need to protect the community. And so I urge Corrections to place in your way all programs that are available and urge you to participate in and actively seek out any programs that you can, in order to enhance those prospects.
67 You will also need support upon your release in finding stable housing, in assisting you with employment, and you will need assistance before release in improving your literacy skills and your employment skills so as to have a real prospect of being able to engage in paid work again.
68 Although you have spent a long period on Disability Support, by reason of the motor vehicle accident, it counts in your favour that again you have expressed to Mr McKinnon and through your counsel, a desire to engage in active employment. Maybe one of the unexpected by-products or benefits of a term of imprisonment will be stability of hours, stability of housing and a stability of commitment to employment in prison, which may help give you the discipline as well as the enjoyment of engaging in paid work and feeling fulfilled for it, and therefore give you better skills upon your release. So there is a lot that you can plan for and look forward to, that I factor into the sentence.
69 Again, it is a little hard for me to, as I said to Ms Kapitaniak, work out what your childhood was actually like and how much of that can be seen to be laying some of the foundations for the appalling way with which you have negotiated personal relationships in your 20s and 30s and into your early 40s. I do not know whether, as Mr Healey said, you did have a happy and stable childhood, although you were a difficult, rebellious and violent child, or whether it was, as you told Mr McKinnon, a childhood marred by parental violence, by anger, by hard work and neglect, and then exacerbated by a very early commencement of the spiral of substance abuse that then followed.
70
Whatever it was, at the age of 44 you are old enough now to have to make your own decisions and no matter what your childhood was, to make adult decisions about respectful relationships and the way you negotiate your life with people, and there should be support available for you in prison and on release to assist you to do that. But again, as both Ms Kapitaniak and
Mr Cordy said, it is very much up to you.
71 So far as the breach of the community correction order is concerned, I had already indicated in discussions with Ms Kapitaniak the approach I was going to take. I do, as I must, take into account the fact that the breach offending was a single period of offending, but of incredibly serious nature. But your compliance with the conditions of your order, with the rehabilitative and supervision conditions of your order, were, as per the report that was provided today, very good, and particularly good for somebody with such a poor history as you have had of engagement with authority generally and engagement with AOD services.
72 So I take into account, as I must, that there was good condition compliance for that six months' or one-quarter of the order, and take that into account in deciding how best to resentence you for the original offending. It is clear, having regard to the intervening events, that there is no option but to cancel that CCO and to resentence you having regard to and taking into account the compliance with your program conditions for the six months.
73 So what I have decided to do in respect of that is this: to impose an aggregate sentence for the offences for which you were placed on the CCO, and that aggregate sentence of imprisonment is less than the unexpired portion of the CCO. So you get credit not just for the six months where you were compliant, but you get, in effect, added credit for the level of compliance that you had.
74 Given the nature, though, of the breach, I have decided it is appropriate not only to record a conviction in respect of the breach but to impose a penalty of a term of imprisonment in respect of that. But that is to be served concurrently with the resentencing for the offences for which you were placed on the now-cancelled CCO, and I am making a partial cumulation order for that on the sentences that I am going to impose in respect of 10 April 2016 offending.
75
So as far as that is concerned, I have already said that I accept Mr Cordy's characterisation that they are grave examples of their type, each of them, and having regard to your history of violence particularly and specifically with
Ms Manaia and the fact that you were on a CCO at the time of committing that episode of offending, that clearly the overall sentence must be a significant one.
76 I am mindful of the fact that I must adhere to the principle of totality, so that whilst fixing individual sentences that I consider to be appropriate for the individual offences, that the orders for cumulation have been adjusted so as to reflect as best I can what I think to be the appropriate total sentence for the overall episode of offending.
77
I can only urge you to continue to use the time in custody to reflect about leading a better life, but not to reflect on it in terms of blame of
Ms Manaia. Put that behind you and look forward from now on to what you have got to do and what you have got to take responsibility for, and to thinking about how are you going to navigate your relationships with anyone else, male or female, intimate partner or not, from now on.
78 That desire to be part of your daughter's life means very powerfully a desire to be a good role model for her, to model for her the way you would like her to be treated by the significant people in her life; parents, parental figures and in the future, partners, and to have her be able to be proud of the person you have become after the past that you have led.
79 So that I hope is something that you will continue to look forward to and to think about when you are tempted to resort as you so often have in the past either to substance abuse or to reacting with jealousy, rage or violence to things that do not go the way that you want them to.
80 Could you now please stand.
81 Cameron Walter, to the charges in matter CR 16-01709, on all seven charges, you are convicted.
82 On Charge 1 of aggravated burglary, you are sentenced to be imprisoned for a period of four years.
83 On Charge 2 of common assault, in respect of Mr Reynolds, you are sentenced to be imprisoned for a period of two years.
84 On Charge 3 of common assault, in respect of Ms Manaia, you are sentenced to be imprisoned for a period of two years.
85 On Charge 4 of contravene a family violence order, you are sentenced to be imprisoned for a period of 12 months.
86 On Charge 5 of reckless conduct endangering serious injury, you are sentenced to be imprisoned for a period of 18 months.
87 On Charge 6 of criminal damage, you are sentenced to be imprisoned for a period of 12 months.
88 And on Charge 7 of criminal damage, you are sentenced to be imprisoned for a period of 12 months.
89 I direct that six months of the sentence on Charge 2, six months of the sentence on Charge 3, three months of the sentence on Charge 4, six months of the sentence on Charge 5, three months of the sentence on Charge 6 and three months of the sentence on Charge 7 be served cumulatively upon each other and upon the sentence on Charge 1 which is the base sentence.
90 That makes a total effect of sentence on that indictment of six years and three months' imprisonment.
91 So far as the contravened community correction order is concerned, I find the contravention proven and sentence you to a term of imprisonment of three months. The community correction order is cancelled and you are re-sentenced on the charges of committing an indictable offence on bail, common assault, intentionally cause injury, threat to kill, persistent contravention of a family violence intervention order and recklessly cause injury.
92 You are sentenced to an aggregate term of imprisonment of 15 months. That makes a total effective sentence on that matter of 15 months' imprisonment. I direct that 12 months of that be served cumulatively upon the sentence on the other indictment, making a total effective sentence on both matters of seven years and three months, and I direct that you serve a period of five years and nine months before being eligible for parole.
93 I declare - and this is pursuant to matters CR 16-01709 only, pursuant to s.6AAA - that but for your pleas of guilty in respect of those charges, I would have sentenced you to a total effective sentence of nine years and six months, and would have fixed a period of eight years as the time you would have had to have served before being eligible for parole, and I declare in respect of that indictment that you have spent 698 days in pre-sentence detention, and direct that that be counted and reckoned as part of the sentence already served. I make the disposal order sought in respect of Charge 1 on that indictment.
94 Are there any further orders that are required to be made?
95 MS KAPITANIAK: No, Your Honour. I just wanted to clear up one finding which I think was just taken to the opening - - -
96 HER HONOUR: Sorry, you can take a seat again, Mr Walter, just while we deal with this.
97 MS KAPITANIAK: Your Honour found that in this record of interview denied all offending. That was amended orally when it was presented to partial, so I do not think Your Honour had picked that up necessarily, that most of the offending to which he has now pleaded to, he actually made admissions to.
98 HER HONOUR: He made partial admissions?
99 MS KAPITANIAK: Yes. I just think that is important.
100 HER HONOUR: All right, thank you. It is a factual correction.
101 MS KAPITANIAK: Yes.
102 HER HONOUR: Given what I have said about - - -
103 MS KAPITANIAK: The earliest opportunity, yes.
104 HER HONOUR: - - - the weight to be given to his pleas of guilty and the acceptance of responsibility, I hope it is clear that when I said that, that was not an adverse finding to him.
105 MS KAPITANIAK: Yes, indeed. Thank you. I'm grateful.
106 HER HONOUR: All right, thank you for clearing that up. Is the arithmetic correct?
107 MS KAPITANIAK: On my math, yes.
108 HER HONOUR: And do the form of orders correctly reflect what should be done? That is, the PSD applies only to the 2016 matters, the 6AAA declaration applies only to the 2016 matters, insofar as there was a 6AAA declaration for the 2014 matters, His Honour Judge Maidment made that declaration back in 2015.
109 MS KAPITANIAK: Yes, that's correct.
110
HER HONOUR: And this is a re-sentencing and I have clearly, by the orders that I have made, have taken his 6AAA declaration into account also. But more importantly, I have taken into account the manner of discharge of the conditions of the CCO and factored not just the manner of it into it, but used that to reduce the period of aggregate imprisonment imposed in respect of
the - - -
111 MS KAPITANIAK: The breach, yes..
112 HER HONOUR: The re-sentencing.
113 MS KAPITANIAK: Yes, that's correct.
114 HER HONOUR: Following the breach.
115 MS KAPITANIAK: To 15 months, yes.
116 HER HONOUR: And the sentence for the breach itself is concurrent with the re-sentencing following the breach of the CCO.
117 MS KAPITANIAK: Yes. Yes.
118 HER HONOUR: All right.
119 MS KAPITANIAK: That is all reflected in the non-parole period of five with nine months, which I think is right.
120 HER HONOUR: Yes, that is right, and in the 15 months.
121 MS KAPITANIAK: Yes.
122 HER HONOUR: Yes. All right, thank you for your assistance Ms Kapitaniak and thank you Mr Cordy for yours. There are no further orders, I'll direct then that Mr Walter be removed.
123 MS KAPITANIAK: If I could just briefly speak to him, just to speak about maths?
124 HER HONOUR: I am supposed to stay in court, so - - -
125 MS KAPITANIAK: Are you? I am happy for you to stay, but I will just briefly come behind you.
126 HER HONOUR: Yes. Just speak away from the microphone.
127 Ms McMahon, thank you for your attention the whole time and thank you for that report, that was helpful. You can go if you want to.
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