Director of Public Prosecutions v Williams (a Pseudonym)

[2019] VCC 1206

IN THE COUNTY COURT OF VICTORIA Revised
Not Restricted
Suitable for Publication

AT LATROBE VALLEY
CRIMINAL JURISDICTION

DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROSECUTIONS

v

MICHAEL WILLIAMS (A PSEUDONYM)

---

JUDGE:	HIS HONOUR JUDGE SMALLWOOD
WHERE HELD:	Latrobe Valley
DATE OF HEARING:	25 June 2019, 31 July 2019
DATE OF SENTENCE:	6 August 2019
CASE MAY BE CITED AS:	DPP v Williams (A Pseudonym)
MEDIUM NEUTRAL CITATION:	[2019] VCC 1206

REASONS FOR SENTENCE
---

Subject:
Catchwords:
Legislation Cited:
Cases Cited:
Sentence:

---

APPEARANCES:	Counsel	Solicitors
For the Director of Public Prosecutions	Mr D Gray	Office of Public Prosecutions
For the Accused	Mr P. Kounnas	McFarlane Criminal Lawyers

HIS HONOUR:

1Michael Alan Williams[1], you have pleaded guilty to:  two charges of persistent sexual abuse of a child under the age of 16; one charge of indecent act with a child under the age of 16; one charge of incest; and one charge of encouraging a child aged 16 or 17 to be involved in sexual activity.  Those crimes carry maximum penalties of 25 years; 10 years; 25 years; and five years respectively.

[1] This is a pseudonym.

2You are now 47 years of age.  You pleaded guilty at a reasonably early opportunity and you must get the benefit of that.  Clearly there is a distinct utilitarian benefit about all this.  Remorse is somewhat more questionable but I will give you the benefit of the doubt insofar as that is concerned save for some comments I may make later.

3Firstly, pursuant to s.464Z of the Crimes Act I make an order you provide a saliva sample for DNA purposes.  That order having been made I must advise you that should you refuse to provide such a sample police may use reasonable force to take it from you.

4Secondly, because of the nature of the offending you will be placed on the sex offenders register and I advise you that the reporting conditions will be for life and just if you would not mind going with my associate, Mr Kounnas, just to get this signed.  The sex offenders register.

5MR KOUNNAS:  Yes.

6HIS HONOUR:  If you go with my associate, please.  Yes, thanks for that.  You, as I said, are 47 years of age.  You did make admissions to police when interviewed and, significantly, you have no prior convictions.  Because of the sentences I will be imposing, from Charge 2 onwards, you will be sentenced as a serious sexual offender.  I am aware that cumulation is mandatory unless otherwise ordered, and for reasons of totality I will so otherwise order.  The Crown do not seek a disproportionate sentence and I am aware that the principal sentencing purpose becomes one of community or public protection.  In your situation I think that the risk to the public at large is certainly not a high one but nevertheless I am aware of the provisions that relate to it.

7The summary that was read out and has been tendered was a long one and I do not propose to go into it in massive detail.  I think what probably suffices here is that, subject to some matters I will refer to, I will simply read out the actual Charge 1 and Charge 2.  Each of those clearly indicates the course of conduct that was undertaken by you and the persistence of your offending.  Charge 3 is one incident of incest and the other matters speak for themselves, as I will refer to in a moment.

8Charge 1 was that between 15 October 2008 and 25 February 2010 you persistently sexually abused your daughter, Hayley Williams,[2] who was under the age of 16 in that on at least three occasions during that period you took part in one or more of the following acts with her.  It is clear from the material before me that all these acts took place, and I would have thought clearly again, on multiple occasions:

(1) touch your penis and testicles;

(2) touching her breasts;

(3) masturbating in her presence;

(4) sexual penetration by introducing your penis into her vagina;

(5) sexual penetration by introducing your finger into her vagina; and

(6) sexual penetration by introducing your penis into her mouth.

[2] This is a pseudonym.

9Charge 2 relates to the period, 1 February 2009 to 11 August 2013 and relates to your natural daughter, Sarah.  Same offence.  The particulars there being: having her touch your penis and testicles; you touching and kissing her breasts; you kissing her on the mouth; you masturbating in her presence; and you introducing your finger into her vagina.  That, in summary, is what you did over a period of some years.

10I then turn to the actual summary itself, and as I said, I will endeavour to truncate this as much as possible.  The original Crown summary will remain on the court file and will obviously therefore be available to anybody with a genuine interest.

11You met your wife, the mother of the children, when she was 18 years old and you commenced a relationship in 1992.  Five children were born of that relationship.  The three victims in this matter are your three natural daughters.  The eldest is Hayley and she was born on 16 May 1995.  The middle daughter, Sarah, was the second victim.  She was born on 6 September 1999.  The youngest, Amelia, was born on 19 June 2001.

12With Hayley the offending against her was between the ages of 13 and 18. With Sarah, nine and 13, and with Amelia, seven and 17.

13After some time in around about 2006 the marriage broke down and the two of you separated.  There were various arrangements for custody over that period of time.  Sometimes the girls resided with their mother, sometimes they resided with you and sometimes it was fifty-fifty.

14In mid-2008 Hayley decided to move out from her mother's house and went to live with you and her brother.  A few months after she moved in with you, you started offending against her.  The first such incident was when she was in
Year 8, around about the time of her 14th birthday.  This was in a situation in a truck stop at Flynn.  You called the victim into the bunk of the truck with you.  When she climbed in you asked her if she had ever seen a penis before.  She said no.  You asked her if she wanted to and she again said no.  You were in your underwear and without warning you then exposed your erect penis to her.  You asked her if she had ever touched one before.  When she said no you said, 'You can touch this'.  She again said no but you grabbed her hand and placed it on your penis.  That lasted for about five seconds and she then pulled away.

15You then asked her if you could touch her boobs.  She again said no.  You ignored her, pulled up her top and exposed her bra and breasts and you started touching and rubbing them.  You were masturbating at the same time.  That continued for about three or four minutes.  She was shocked and confused about what was happening.  You then ejaculated into a towel, which would appear to appear again later during the course of this summary, and after that she asked you if she could go and you said, yes.  When she woke the next morning you drove off as if nothing had happened.

16When you were living at Athlone offending occurred there in your bedroom.  There were occasions where you would make advances or touch her in other parts of the house.  The offending was a regular occurrence and it was happening at least once in every three weeks.  You would convince her to watch movies in the bedroom or to have cuddles in bed.  While she was in bed you would start touching her breasts.  You would grab her hand and make her touch your penis or testicles.  You would then take over and masturbate in her presence to the point of ejaculation.  The summary says that you used the same towel you had used in the truck to clean yourself up.

17Early on at that address you had asked her if she touched herself and told her that she should try it.  You would also ask her to touch herself while you were offending against her.  When she refused you would say to her, 'Can I do it better, can I?', and then start touching her vagina and clitoris.

18In July 2009 there was another occasion of offending in the truck.  You pulled up in the truck in Quambatook, as I understand it, and told her you were going to have a sleep.  As you climbed into the bunk in the truck you called her in.  She did want to do to that because she knew what was going to happen.  She said, 'It was just easier to deal with by getting it over with'.  She followed you into the cabin.  You made her take her top off.  You pulled down her bra, fondled her breasts, told her to play with your testicles.  While she touched your testicles you masturbated with the penis in one hand and fondling her breasts with the other.  Again, this went on until you ejaculated.

19The first time that you vaginally penetrated her with your penis was when she was around about 14 years of age.  You were penetrating her with your fingers and you then said to her, 'I want to put my cock inside of you'.  She said, 'What?'  You then penetrated her with your penis.  She recalls you being on top of her and feeling heavy.  She felt uncomfortable and could not breathe and was telling you to get off because it was hurting.  You ignored her and continued to penetrate for about one or two minutes before you pulled your penis out of her vagina and ejaculated on to the towel with the square pattern again.

20It was put during the course of submissions that there was no coercion or physical coercion in this situation.  It was clear throughout this that none of these children, your daughters, wanted this and were in fact telling you so.

21She, after that, went into her bedroom but was unable to sleep. She had just, 'Lost her virginity to her own father'.  Following that you would regularly penetrate  her with your fingers and your penis.  Around that time that you had begun penetrating her you also began to have her perform oral sex on you.  You would plead with her to, 'Suck his balls or cock'.  When she said no you would become aggressive towards her.  You penetrated her mouth with your penis on at least six separate occasions.

22When living in Warragul the same sort of behaviour.  Progressed to her performing oral sex on you and you penetrating her vagina with your fingers and penis, and again the summary says you still had the same towel and would ejaculate onto that when offending against her.

23On one occasion at Warragul you were touching her breasts while you masturbated yourself.  You then asked her to, 'Suck his cock'.  You placed your penis into her mouth while you lay on your back on the bed with your fingers in her vagina.  She performed oral sex on you for about a minute and then without warning you ejaculated into her mouth.  When she tried to pull her head away you put your hand on the back of her mouth and pushed her head down on to your penis until you finished ejaculating and then let her go.  You told her to swallow it but she ran to the bathroom and spat it out.

24On another specific occasion she remembers you having her fondle your testicles and you simply masturbating yourself to the point of ejaculation.  She remembers Sarah coming in saying she could not sleep.  That was on that particular occasion.  There were other periods of time when you were in a new relationship where offending did not occur for a while but that is the gist of the offending that gives rise to Charge 1.

25Charge 4 of incest is a stand-alone count.  By this stage this occurred in around mid-2011, Hayley was over the age of 16.  She was working at a farm in Newlyn North and was rarely at home and would go home when she was forced to.  Whilst she was living at Catani you went to her unit outside the residence.  You walked in, saw her and spoke to her about something, then you had sex with her by penetrating her vagina with your penis.

26In November 2014 you again approached her and asked her to either have sex or play with you.  She was older, of course, at that stage.  She had a boyfriend at that stage and she said to you, 'No, it's wrong.  I'm with Eric and you're with Diane.  It's cheating'.  And you said to her, 'You enjoy it, don't you?'  She said, 'I'm not doing it', and walked away.  Since then there have been periods of no contact.

27I think in this situation I do not need to go through the complaint evidence in the way that the complaints all came out.  That is self-evident from the Crown opening.

28So far as Sarah is concerned there are matters during 2008 when Sarah was in Grade 4.  At around about nine or 10 years of age she stayed at your house along with her younger sister, Amelia, who was aged between seven and eight.  That night you had both girls lying on either side of you in the bed for, 'Cuddles with Dad'.  You started telling the girls about your penis saying it was okay to talk about it.  You told the girls that they should know what they feel like and that they could feel yours.  Sarah recalls reaching down under the blankets to touch your testicles while Amelia was also in the bed.  That relates to Charge 3 of indecent act with a child under the age of 16.  You told the girls both to play with your testicles but Sarah just held them, apparently.

29Insofar as Charge 2 against Sarah is concerned in 2012 when she was 13 or 14 she went to live full time with you and some other children of the then at that point de facto partner.  She does not know how many times you offended against her, as the offending was often similar and she says it was so many times it is difficult to separate one incident from another.  She said it was always you touching her or asking her to touch you.  You masturbating or a combination of all those things in one incident.

30She does recall a specific incident in Catani.  She had been working with you for the day, returned to the cow shed and she was standing near the exit near the grain silo.  You suddenly asked her if you could touch her.  You then said you wanted to touch her boobs and you wanted her to touch your testicles.  She was shocked and said no.  You kept asking and told her to, 'Forget', you were her dad and it would feel good.  You encouraged her to simply let it happen.  Eventually she stopped saying no and you started kissing again and sucking her breasts and nipples.

31You then kissed her on the lips, pushing your tongue into her mouth.  At the same time you were using your other hand to masturbate.  She told you that, 'She couldn't do it because it wasn't right'.  You went back to work as if nothing happened.  She recalls another occasion at Catani.  You were lying on your back, masturbating, which went on for about five minutes with her in the bed.  You asked her to touch your penis, which she did.  You then asked her to get a towel, which she did.  You sat up and continued to masturbate and ejaculated into the towel.  She walked out of the room and went to the bathroom to wash her hands.  You asked her why she would wash her hands and she said, 'It was gross and I didn't like it'.  In that bedroom at Catani you also 'fingered' and, 'Played with her clitoris'.

32Before you moved to Jindivick there was again similar offending with you asking her to touch you and keeping her hand on your penis for about 30 or 40 seconds.  She said she could feel your penis through the jeans.  The offending against her ceased for a period of time and it would seem that when at around about the age of 14 she was at the Jindivick - sorry, she was at the Jindivick property when she was around about 16.  She was watching television with you.  You left your chair and went to her, placed one hand on either side of her so she felt trapped in the chair.  You asked to touch her, saying that it, 'Felt good'.  She refused and you told her to, 'Forget that I'm your dad.  Besides that, it felt good, didn't it?'  She kept telling you to say no and pushed your hand away and it would appear to have been about the end it.  Again perhaps not to the same - or not perhaps - not to the same level of offending as against Hayley but very serious in itself.

33Charge 5 is encouraging a child of 16 or 17 under care, supervision or authority to be involved in a sexual act.  In July 2018 Amelia was at your Jindivick home.  At about 10 o'clock she went with you into the bedroom for a cuddle in bed.  You took off your top and pants and got into bed in your underwear.  You were, 'Spooning', her, and you then touched her breasts through a flannelette top and asked about whether she masturbated.  You then encouraged and invited her to touch your penis and said effectively, asked her if she had ever felt a penis. 'Do you want to feel anything, you know?'  She said no and that was realistically, the end of the offending against her.  Hers are two quite specific counts.  Again, I will not go through the complaint evidence.

34When interviewed you made certain admissions as to the offending.  You were interviewed in relation ultimately in relation to each of the three children and made sporadic, though significant, admissions, and I take that into account.

35Again, that is just a summary of the Crown opening.  There is a lot more to it than that.  The impact on your family has been devastating.  There are a number of victim impact statements, and I will refer to each of them in fairly short compass.  The full impact of them could only have been experienced by sitting here as they were read out and the full details becoming apparent.

36The first is from your son, David.  He says, and again this is very much - some of it is paraphrasing, I am leaving a lot out:

'When everything came to light regarding the abuse upon Amelia I was in a state of shock to find that one of my own parents, my own father, someone I have learnt so much from, someone I looked up to as a child, could do that to someone that he is supposed to protect, it completely broke my heart.  To find out with a matter of hours after finding out the abuse towards Amelia, that he had also done this to Sarah, sent me into a complete spiral of anger, hurt and sadness.  The following day, speaking to Hayley, she opened up to me as the first time to tell me that she too had been sexually abused by our father.  I couldn't believe what I heard.  I feel nothing but utter disgust, shame and anger to be known as his son, to the point where I can't even stand to have the same middle and surname, as in finding out that one of the biggest mentors and role models in my life is a manipulative, controlling predator, and it's forced me to question everything I've ever learnt from him.  All my values and my morals I've had to assess and my differentiation of right and wrong has been put into question.  Seeing the impact this has had on my sisters and my mother has been excruciatingly hard, knowing that Hayley, Sarah and Amelia have had to suffer through these events, they're going to have to live with this every day of the rest of their lives.  It's completely heartbreaking and upsetting for me.  I can't even begin to fathom the extent of emotional turmoil he's put them through.  There isn't a day that doesn't go by where I don't think about the impact this has had on my sisters.  My heart breaks all over again every day, knowing that they're suffering.  I want all of this to be over and life to resume as normal but I know that it will never be over for any of us'.

37Amelia said:

'When I was young I looked up to my father.  He was one of the people who I trusted and valued in my life, but with everything I'd been through I'd lost all the trust I had for one of my parents.  He was someone who was supposed to protect me but instead he betrayed me and my trust.  This has affected my relationships and friendships as I have doubts about trusting people and fears that I will be betrayed again. I fear in the future that when I get married and have kids I won't be able to trust any male with my children.  I never want anyone else to experience what this is like because it's absolutely terrible and it hurts so much.  This has made me feel angry and frustrated at my dad for everything that he has done.  I'm constantly scared that I'll turn a corner on a street and I'll see my dad and I won't be able to escape.  Although I know this couldn't happen I fear that it will.  This has heavily affected my everyday life emotionally and socially.  I have very bad days where I don't like to leave the house, let alone my bed.  Ever since everything became known to me I realised who my true friends are.  I still struggle to leave the house to be able to see those people.  There isn't a day that goes by where I don't think about what my dad did and how much hate I feel towards him.  I have struggled physically, as I struggle to activities like netball.  I used to play but with everything I just can't bring myself to play as I've lost all motivation to do so.  Things like the grief have caused me so much depression and anxiety.  I don't really want to go out in public.  I get the leg shakes, I get pains in my chest.  It's even got that bad where I resorted to cutting myself to try and deal with all the pain.  I haven't yet been able to move on and on some occasions I wish I could end it all.  Not only have I lost the trust of people around me, I am not going to go into the family difficulties with all of this with other relatives, but I also lost the trust towards my father's family because they've practically disowned us from that side of the family.  This is the hurt feelings.  I feel betrayed by them as they spoke to me and my sisters and were supportive of us.  Now they won't contact us even when we try to have, or have tried to contact them first'.

38That is not an aggravating feature.  It just simply points out the dreadful consequences that often occur with offending such as this.  She goes on to say:

'I had savings which my father kept.  Now I have nothing.  No money to put towards my first car or my future.  I have had to watch my mother struggle to buy food for both of us and I constantly think that she can't support me as well as herself'.

39Your former wife says:

'Through Michael’s manipulation of the children and myself, gradually one by one the kids moved away from my home to live with Michael.  This made me feel like I was unable to give them the love and care they needed.  I felt as though Michael did not give my children the love and care they needed and deserved.  Since learning of their mistreatment I've been feeling very depressed.  I feel betrayed because I thought I could trust Michael with my kids.  Some days I find it very difficult to put a smile on my face and go to work.  There's not a day that goes by where I don't have the thoughts of what he did that are in my head.  I feel physically sick to my stomach knowing and trying to understand what my kids have been through and knowing I was unable to help them.  Knowing everything that's happened I struggled with the thought knowing that my beloved children and myself will have to live with it for the rest of our lives.  I struggle to go out in a social environment as I leave my youngest daughter to come home alone as she is now living with me.  I find it difficult as I haven't got the money to go out and I also feel I'll run into someone Michael knows and I'll have to face issue of having to explain the difficult times we've all been through'.

40She goes on to refer to you having kept the children's money, and again, that is not an aggravating feature.  It just goes to the overall nature of the relationship.  The next is Sarah.  Again, she talks about money being owed.  She says:

'My future is going to be hard as well as I know there'll be men I'll never fully trust my children with.  I feel this way because one man any daughter should trust broke my trust repeatedly.  Because of what my dad has done I feel very uncomfortable in some sexual situations.  There's certain aspects I know I do feel quite triggered by because I've experienced it with a man who I should never have had to experience them with.  I feel quite awkward and uncomfortable in sexual situations as a result of the persistent abuse.  The only time it has ever felt natural has been from drunken nights out where I go home with a guy I've just met.  I also struggle to form meaningful relationships with men and push them away and friends only before a more meaningful relationship can develop.  This has really impacted me emotionally.  The daily stress I go through because of this is enormous, and to try and cope and relieve some of the stress' -

41she says she has turned to smoking:

'Because of what he's done and the manipulation has run so deep for so long I've been made to feel worthless and objectified and just another way for Dad to get the sexual gratification he desired.  I never really wanted to live with Dad but was manipulated to living with him while I was being abused.  Because I felt I had no escape I thought the only way out would be suicide.  I've never been able to bring myself to try but the thoughts were there continuously for a long time and has continued throughout the court process.  When I was being abused I knew how much worse it could get.  In order to try and prevent the loss of my virginity to my dad I chose to lose it to a friend when I was 14 years old.  I knew then I was way too young and most definitely not ready.  All I ever wanted was for it to be special and sacred like anyone else does.  Instead I gave all that up to a friend to protect myself from Dad'.

42Hayley says:

'When all of this was happening to me I was led to believe that if I told anyone they wouldn't believe me and I'd get in trouble.  Hence why I kept this bottled up for so many years.  So instead of confiding, I mean my friends, I kept it to myself.  I drifted away from my closest friends because I felt alone.  I didn't feel I could tell anyone, especially not Mum or my siblings.  At that time in my life my father was manipulating me to believe that my mum wasn't a good mum and I should have nothing to do with her.  So I lost my relationship with my mum for a couple of years, and it was probably the hardest time in my life.  Not even my mum, and my father was abusing me.  Even now I struggle to get and maintain friendships.  I think this is because not only did I drift from my friends, but when you are constantly moved from school to school because of your parent, you learn to make acquaintances, not friends'.

43She then goes on to talk about past relationships and the impact it has had on them.  She said it has affected past sexual relationships.  She says:

'This has impacted my current relationship.  When I told my partner what had happened to me he completely shut me out.  He didn't know how to process something like this.  My partner wouldn't look at me and he barely spoke to me right when I needed him the most, all because I feel he didn't know how to process this.  He was in shock.  They got along.  I don't think my partner could process that someone he was most with could ever do something like this'.

44She again goes on to refer to the financial aspects of your other conduct.  She then says:

'Although I trust Frank' -that is her partner – ‘entirely 'I feel as though I'm going to struggle to find trust in other people, especially men with my children.  I don't want what has happened to me to happen to my children.  I couldn't imagine what it would feel like as a mother to find out that someone has done that to her children'.

45I have gone into the victim impact statements in more detail than I normally would, simply to bring home the impact of this offending and the seriousness of it and the - well, literally, peristence of it.  It is clearly very or extremely serious offending.  As the learned prosecutor said the other day, it beggars belief.  It calls very much for the application of general and specific deterrence, as well as denunciation.  Specific is hard to deal with in this situation because they were your natural children.  It is hard to think you could ever get this opportunity again.

46Denunciation and, obviously, an appropriate punishment.  The concept of community protection also comes within the specific deterrence aspect, but obviously other people who are like minded must be deterred from behaving in this way.

47As Hedigan AJ said in The Queen v MJ:

'A society which fails to protect its children from sexual abuse by adults, particularly those who are entrusted with their care, is degenerate'.

48He continued:

'The offence of incest' -

49this is effectively what this is -

'is particularly erosive of human relations and casts doubt on the assumption that parents are natural trustees of the welfare of their children.  It ought to be unnecessary to recount the morbid features of incest, most prominent of which include the exploitation by the stronger will of the adult over the weaker will of the child.  The physical and psychological subordination of the child to the perverted indulgences of the adult, the gross breach of trust placed in the offender by the victim and the community and the irreparable fundamental damage to the victim'.

50I have often quoted that passage of Hedigan JA and I think it summarises in very short term the evilness of this sort of offending and therefore the evilness of what you have done.  It is quite clear from the material before me that this offending was based on perverted sexual gratification.  It is almost some sort of parental harem or something.  As I said, the prosecution said it beggars belief and I share his view.  A very significant gaol term is the only possible option here.

51In terms of deciding the length of that gaol term and prospects of rehabilitation, I look to matters personal to you.  I am well aware of the principles regarding totality, which is why I will be ordering partial cumulation only.  I am also aware of the need, wherever possible, to avoid a crushing sentence.  A crushing sentence, to me, seems to be often in the eye of the beholder and does not cause a situation where an unjust sentence should be passed because of some perception.

52Tendered on your behalf was a report from Mr Cunningham and very helpful submissions were tendered by your counsel.  You do have the support, it seems, of your mother and, to her credit, one of your sisters has endeavoured to support you throughout their entire process.  I am not buying into family dynamics around all this.  This sort of offending does destroy families, frequently destroys families, destroys lives and destroys the emotional welfare of the children, and often other close relatives.

53I have a reference from your sister and I have clearly read that and taken it into account.  I also have a reference which indicates that you in other ways have been a good member of the community.  Since you have been in gaol you have done a number of courses, and that is to your credit.  It would seem from the material before me that you have a very good work record over a long period of time and, again, that goes to your credit.  That ties in, obviously, with there being no prior convictions of any description.  Obviously this offending did take place over a number of years, so the lack of a prior conviction in one sense is a bit of an illusion but that being so, I do take that into account.

54

The report of Mr Cunningham was summarised in your counsel's submissions - are that essentially you have a proclivity towards disconnecting emotionally, and that impairs your ability to empathise with others and increases the risk of deviating from the accepted norms of society.  That is from the report of

Mr Cunningham.  It was put on your behalf that that essentially gave rise to the principles in Verdins.  Having looked at and reconsidered the matter, I still cannot find any real nexus between that condition and what you did.  This is not a one off aberration.  It is a considered, calculated, perverted, elongated course of conduct against all your natural daughters.

55The risk of you reoffending is hard to calculate.  I would not have regarded it as high, as I have indicated, and I certainly do not sentence on that basis.  It does seem to be situational.  The prospects of your rehabilitation are entirely up to you and will be a matter for the Parole Board at a later time.  Your mother is not well and the strong likelihood is that the sentence I impose will be such that you will not be released before she passes away, and I take that into account as difficult for you.

56I have also, as I have indicated to counsel, read comparative cases and they sit pretty much with what I originally thought.  I do not think I need to go into childhood histories or anything like that where you are concerned.  You are now 47 years of age.  You do, I accept from the material, have problems coping with negative emotions and stress and you escape from reality.  It is put in that report that your main forms of escape have been employment and alcohol, and your counsel, as I have indicated, have put forward that you disconnect emotionally from yourself and from others.

57In the context of this offending the summary of the psychiatrist is concerning.  It points out that you stated that you did feel emotionally disconnected and isolated, but concerningly, when talking to him, you said that you were not sure why the victim disclosed the offending to the police.  You stated that, 'In some ways', you thought what happened was, 'bad'.  You said a whole heap of things were stressing you at the time.  Relationship breakdown, you had gone bankrupt and you were overworking and drinking.  You told him that you did not have any sexual interest in children, that you had never pursued your subsequent partner's children sexually.  You said your behaviour was stupid.  You felt sorry for your children because you had, 'probably', caused them, 'emotional stress'.  You said there was no indication that they were stressed at the time.

58The psychiatrist says later:  'He did not present with insight into the causes of his offence behaviour or the consequences of his behaviour to his daughters.  He understood the wrongfulness of his behaviour but did not present as appreciating the significant deviance of his acts'.  So you clearly get the benefit of pleaded guilty.  You clearly get the benefit of your children not having to be put through the ordeal of being cross-examined and called liars, but it is hard to see in that psych report anything other than that you realise you should not have done it but just do not seem to understand or have any insight into what dreadful offending this is.  Anyone else who is likeminded hopefully will be deterred by the sentence to be imposed.

59In any event, I have taken into account all the matters contained in that report.  I have taken into account all the matters that were put on your behalf.  I do not know what your circumstances will be upon your ultimate release into the community if and when that occurs, and I am not in a position where I can foretell the future.  I do accept in this situation that with your personality difficulties you may well find it harder in a custodial environment than would other prisoners, but I am assuming that you will be detained in Ararat or some such prison and, unfortunately, a dreadful thing for a community to have to admit, those prisons are becoming very used to and very adept at dealing with people in your circumstances.

60However, be all those things as they may, you are sentenced as follows:

Charge 1, 10 years;

Charge 2, seven years;

Charge 3, 12 months;

Charge 4, five years;

Charge 5, six months.

61

I direct that three months of the sentence imposed on Charge 3 and three months of the sentence imposed on Charge 5, together with three years of the sentence imposed on Charge 2 and two years and six months of the sentence imposed on Charge 4, be served cumulatively upon each other and upon the sentence imposed on Charge 1.  That gives an effective head sentence of

16 years.  I direct you serve a minimum term of 12 years before becoming eligible for parole.  I direct that 355 days be reckoned as having been served under this sentence.

62But for your plea of guilty, pursuant to s.6AAA of the Sentencing Act, I say that but for your plea of guilty, I would have sentenced you to be imprisoned for a period of 21 years with a minimum term of 16.

63Do those mathematics add up to you, counsel?

64MR KOUNNAS:  Your Honour went a little bit too fast.

65HIS HONOUR:  Do you want me to repeat them?

66MR KOUNNAS:  Yes, please, Your Honour.

67HIS HONOUR:  Yes, of course.  Charge 1, 10 years; Charge 2, seven years.  I should have indicated that I - I think I have - that I differentiate between the two, the charges against Hayley involved all the penile penetrations, whereas Sarah’s did not.  If I have not said that in my sentencing remarks I will include that, but Charge 2, seven, that is Sarah.  Charge 3, 12 months.  Charge 4 of incest, five years.  Charge 5, six months.

68So far just go down in the order.  Three years of Charge 2, three months of Charge 3, two and a half years of Charge 4, and three months of Charge 5, served cumulatively upon each other and upon the sentence imposed on Charge 1.  My arithmetic gives me 16.

69MR KOUNNAS:  Yes, Your Honour.

70HIS HONOUR:  Minimum of 12, all right, and there are no other orders I have to make?

71COUNSEL:  No, Your Honour.

72HIS HONOUR:  No, all right.  You can take him now, thank you.

- - -