Director of Public Prosecutions v Webber
[2023] VCC 1725
•20 September 2023
| IN THE COUNTY COURT OF VICTORIA | Revised Not Restricted Suitable for Publication |
AT HORSHAM
CRIMINAL JURISDICTION
CR 22-02265
| DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROSECUTIONS |
| v |
| MEG WEBBER |
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JUDGE: | HIS HONOUR JUDGE MURPHY |
WHERE HELD: | Melbourne |
DATE OF HEARING: | 20 September 2023 |
DATE OF SENTENCE: | 20 September 2023 |
CASE MAY BE CITED AS: | DPP v Webber |
MEDIUM NEUTRAL CITATION: | [2023] VCC 1725 |
REASONS FOR SENTENCE
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Subject: CRIMINAL LAW
Catchwords: Blackmail
Legislation Cited:
Cases Cited:
Sentence: 18 month Community Corrections Order
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APPEARANCES: | Counsel | Solicitors |
| For the Director of Public Prosecutions | Mr A. Grant | Office of Public Prosecutions |
For the Accused | Mr S. Collins | Victoria Legal Aid |
HIS HONOUR:
1Meg Webber you have pleaded guilty to one charge of blackmail, maximum penalty 15 years' imprisonment. I am able to deal with this matter relatively summarily given the comprehensive submissions from both sides in relation to the disposition of this matter, which I have exhibited and they remain on the file.
2The circumstances of the offence were set out in the prosecution opening, which was read in open court this morning and which I incorporate by reference.
3This matter arises out of an episodic casual sexual relationship that you had with the complainant in the matter. You became aware that he had recently sold some property, and earlier in last year you sent him a text message seeking an amount of money, $1,000, as a 50th birthday present. He declined your request. At that point he had, for the last previous five years, been in a relationship with another woman. You and he had not been in any formal relationship although you did live together for a few months approximately 20 years ago and then subsequently you would see each other from time to time for an assignation, and you then re-partnered and in fact as a result of that relationship you have a daughter.
4In all events the offending occurred over a narrow period of about two days between the 13 and 15 June 2022 when you commenced to send text messages to the complainant threatening to communicate to his partner of five years, attempting to transmit to her certain indecent videos and images that you retained as a result of consensual interchanges between you and the complainant during your relationship. The gist of the offending is you threatened to release those and communicate with her unless he paid you $5,000 within a period of four days.
5He did not respond to any of the text messages and also Facebook messages, and in fact at the time of those communications he was apparently on a cruise somewhere, but he was terribly concerned about those messages and so concerned that he discussed the contents of them with his new partner and brought the matter to the police. The police then intervened and you were apprehended on 17 June, which was a couple of days after the end of the text messages and they found out the phones where they had come from. Some of them were from Facebook. One of them was from a phone that had an unknown number but they traced back to you, and one was from your own phone, and so you then undertook a record of interview with the police at Ararat on 17 June where you made full admissions to your conduct.
6As a result of the text messages, no money changed hands and they ceased as soon as you were arrested by the police. In that record of interview as set out in the prosecution opening, you stated it was not the right thing to do and your explanation for the offending was that you were wanting money, and also you wanted to convey to his new partner the type of person he was. That second aspect of it makes it a particularly nasty example of the offence in that you were seeking to disrupt or poison his new relationship.
7In the record of interview, you gave a number of explanations for your conduct. In Question 224 you said at that point it was to pay your bills, 'And get the hell out of here. I want - just want to leave town. I just want to go far away and he's the only one who could help'. You also said at one stage in the record of interview, 'I just don't like the fact that people - I don't understand why people like screw around on their missus. If you love your frigging missus, why don't you love your missus and not love anyone else'. So you were seeking to impose your moral values on the complainant in the conduct of his new relationship, that would leave a bitter taste in his mouth. And in fact, he indicates in his statement that when this matter came to his attention he said, 'As a result of this I am heartbroken and physically sick. I have jeopardised my relationship and I am extremely remorseful for what I have done and how it has affected both myself', his new partner, 'and our relationship. I lost sleep over the whole thing', and I am sure that his new partner has as well. 'I have also had my daughter to think about and two grandchildren to think of if this ever got out', and he is hoping to have some counselling. So it has had a significant impact on him and that goes to the seriousness of the offence.
8So turning to the moral culpability, you bear significant moral culpability for this offence, although your counsel put to me that it does not hold some of the common features of blackmail. There was no threats of violence and no money changed hands, and you described your motivation, 'It was just something stupid that I want money, I need money to get me out of this'. It was also suggested in the record of interview that in fact you had run out of your medication, you were on anxiety and antidepressant medication and you were about to go to the chemist to get further stocks of that medication, and that impacted on your mental state at the time, but of course it does not provide any justification for your conduct.
9The impact on the complainant of the offending is a matter to take into account, although no victim impact was filed, but even so, for someone who is in a five year relationship to have, in a sense, baggage of an old relationship brought out, threaten to take that to his new partner, would, I am satisfied, have a significant impact on him.
10Characterising the seriousness of the offence I regard it as in the lower range of seriousness. As I said, there were no overt threats and it was over a short period of time. There was only a modest amount of money claimed. There was little sophistication and little premeditation. Unfortunately it is the type of offence due to the ubiquity of social media that is coming more often before the courts due to the sheer volume of intimate material floating around in the internet or in the cloud, that could be accessed when people get involved in new relationships and have regrets or want to then take out their anger on a previous relationship.
11Turning to matters in mitigation, your personal circumstances were set out in the comprehensive plea submission by your counsel. You are now aged 51. As your counsel said in his submissions, your mother is dead, your father is still alive, he is elderly, living down in Camperdown. You had a difficult relationship with your parents and had little to do with your mother as you grew up. She passed away about 10 years ago and you have had limited contact with your father since you moved out of home. You have an older sister, but you have a poor relationship with her. You have had several negative relationships with men over the years and you have a daughter aged 12 and you are the primary carer, although you share care with her father. In fact in the record of interview you indicate that you are trying to get some money out of him for child support, unsuccessfully.
12At the time of the offending, you were in somewhat straitened circumstances in that you were living in a campervan in a caravan park and that might provide some explanation as to why, as you indicated in the record of interview, you needed money to sort of try and move on in your life.
13You lived in Tasmania at one stage but then came back to Victoria. You were educated in the Camperdown area in Pomborneit, Camperdown Primary School and Camperdown Tech, but you struggled at school and had difficulty reading and writing. You have had a limited employment history and worked intermittently as a cleaner. You have two children, a 21 year old son, and a 12 year old daughter. In recent times you have been able to obtain full time employment as a cleaner.
14Your counsel relied on a couple of references. They indicate that you have been able to obtain employment working for the Public Parks Committee of Management at Moyston in the last 12 months since this offending, and that has made a significant difference to your happiness, and you have a good reference from both the president of the Committee of Management and also from another person involved as your employer down there.
15Your counsel relied on a report from Mr Jeffery Cummins, a well-known forensic psychologist. He indicated that you explained to him that you were down and out, did not make any explicit reference to your financial circumstances, in fact denied that you needed money, which was inconsistent with what you had told the police. He said he had difficulty properly analysing you, but he did say at paragraph 37 that he found that you did not present as having any personality disorders, and he also indicated that you were, 'genuinely regretful, apologetic, remorseful and shocked', regarding your offending behaviour. He noted that you had some of the characteristics of borderline personality disorder, including low self-esteem and you sometimes have difficulty in social relationships.
16He also noted that you were of a mindset that you would genuinely appreciate the opportunity to readily receive talking based mental health treatment, which in his opinion, you require in order to get proper insight into your current and historical psychological functioning. So his report and, indeed, the reference from the Community Corrections office, indicates you have insight into your behaviour and that you are remorseful, and those are factors relevant to sentencing, and they are also relevant go your prospects of rehabilitation, which I would regard as good, or very good in fact.
17Your counsel emphasised in in his closing sentencing submissions that the most significant mitigating factors were your early plea of guilty. You made full admissions in the record of interview, which is two days after the offending ended. The early plea of guilty must be given significant weight. It is evidence of remorse and calls for a perceptible amelioration in sentence in the COVID environment.
18Your are a 51 year old woman with no prior convictions. You have a 12 year old daughter who is effectively dependent on you and you are her primary carer. That is also relevant to whether you are likely to reoffend. He also relied on remorse and I accept that you are remorseful for your offending and you did make full admissions, as I have indicated.
19Both counsel before me referred to current sentencing practices and a number of cases were handed up to indicate the approach of the courts to this type of offending. Generally where there was no overt threats or violence and money has not changed hands and people have no prior convictions, the matters have been dealt with by way of a community corrections order. Your counsel in his submissions also referred to the decision of Boulton and Ors v The Queen [2014] VSCA 342, which emphasises the principle in sentencing of parsimony. In other words, the courts must look to a sentence least coercive that can achieve all sentencing outcomes and Boulton indicates that the sentence of a community corrections order can meet all sentencing requirements under the Sentencing Act. Your counsel did not rely on any Verdins considerations, although he did rely on the report of Mr Cummins to indicate that a sentence of imprisonment would exacerbate your mental health condition. I have taken that into account.
20I had you assessed for a Community Corrections Order and you have indicated that you are prepared to consent to the order. The experienced assessor indicates that you, 'Presented as insightful and remorseful for your offending, taking full responsibility for your actions'. So that would indicate, as I have indicated, that your prospects of rehabilitation are good, and so in those circumstances where a court is able to deal with a matter without imposing a sentence of imprisonment that ought to be the course of action of a court.
21In sentencing you the purposes for which a court is trying to achieve a punishment, deterrence, both specific and general, rehabilitation, denunciation and protection of the community, I have got to have regard to a range of factors including the seriousness of the offence, your culpability for it, your personal circumstances and those of the victim. I am required to balance the interests of the community in denouncing criminal conduct with the interests of the community in seeking to ensure that as far as possible offenders are rehabilitated and reintegrated into society.
22In this case your conduct has got to be denounced. It is totally unacceptable to drag out old personal communications with a former partner in order to seek to extract money from him in circumstances where he has happened to have come into money and you personally had fallen on hard times. At the same time your conduct is somewhat explicable given you were not on your medication and you were down on your luck, living in a campervan in Moyston in the middle of winter, which would not be a pleasant experience I would imagine in the Grampians.
23So in those circumstances I have acceded to the submissions of your counsel that a community corrections order is an appropriate disposition. Could you please stand?
24
The sentence of the court is that you are convicted and sentenced to an
18 months' Community Corrections Order. The order has a special condition that you undertake community work of 125 hours in the 18 months that you are on the order and that you undertake treatment and rehabilitation as directed by the Office of Corrections.
25I declare that had you not pleaded guilty I would have imposed a three year community corrections order with 200 hours community work.
26I have got to explain the nature of the order to you. For the next 18 months you are under the supervision of the Community Corrections people. You are required to obey any directions that they might give you. You have got to tell them if you change your address. You have got to undertake 125 hours' community work. They will organise that for you, and you have got to undertake any mental health plans or treatment that they recommend for you.
27I have also provided that any hours that you undertake by way of mental health treatment, rehabilitation, going to undertaking, say, counselling, talking therapy, that can be credited against the 125 hours' community work.
28An important element of a Community Corrections Order is that for the whole period, the 18 months, commencing immediately, is that you are on a good behaviour bond effectively. So if you commit a criminal offence carrying a term of imprisonment that itself breaches the Community Corrections Order and you will be dragged back here to court and you will be breached for the breach of the community corrections order and be resentenced for this offending. So that is hanging over your head for the next 18 months. The order requires that you contact the Community Corrections office within two business days of today.
29I am giving you this one opportunity, a 51 year old woman who has had an unblemished career to date, to put this in the past. You have now got permanent accommodation. You are looking to get full time employment up from the part time employment that you had. You have got your 12 year old daughter to look after. Get your mental health under control and move or put this behind you and, yes, put this behind you, and I do not want to see you back in this court for breach of that community corrections order, but I note that you have been assessed as having a low risk of reoffending by the Community Corrections people and that is another fact that I have taken into account.
30I will get you to sign the order. I know that Mr Collins has explained it to you and I thank him for doing that. Are there any other matters, Mr Grant?
31MR GRANT: No, thank you, Your Honour.
32HIS HONOUR: Anything from your point of view, Mr Collins?
33MR COLLINS: No, thank you, Your Honour. There is nothing from me, thank you very much.
34HIS HONOUR: All right, I want to thank counsel for their assistance in this plea.
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