Director of Public Prosecutions v Wolski

[2017] VCC 1687

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

AT LATROBE VALLEY
CRIMINAL JURISDICTION

CR 17-01306

DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROSECUTIONS

v

BIANCA JAN WOLSKI

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JUDGE:	HIS HONOUR JUDGE SMALLWOOD
WHERE HELD:	Latrobe Valley
DATE OF HEARING:
DATE OF SENTENCE:	15 November 2017
CASE MAY BE CITED AS:	DPP v WOLSKI
MEDIUM NEUTRAL CITATION:	[2017] VCC 1687

REASONS FOR SENTENCE
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Subject:
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Cases Cited:
Sentence:

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APPEARANCES:	Counsel	Solicitors
For the Director of Public Prosecutions	Mr P Triandos	The Office of Public Prosecutions
For the Accused	Mr S Linehan	Oakleys Law

HIS HONOUR: 

1Bianca Jan Wolski, on indictment, you have pleaded guilty to two charges of attempting to pervert the course of justice, one charge of perjury and three charges of make threat to inflict serious injury.  You also pleaded guilty to three uplifted summary matters of contravening an interim family violence order, the summary offence of unlawful assault and the summary offence of use cannabis. 

2Use cannabis carries a penalty of five penalty units and I convict and discharge on that charge.  Pervert the course of justice carries 25 years;  Perjury, 15 years; threat to inflict serious injury, five years; contravene a family violence order, two years; and summary assault, three months.

3You pleaded guilty at a reasonably early opportunity, you are 32 years of age and indeed a number of the charges are based entirely upon your own admissions.  I accept that in your particular circumstances, you would have difficulty expressing appropriate remorse but this is a family law matter, which has unfortunately stepped over into the criminal jurisdiction and I do not anticipate a lot of remorse in that sort of circumstance.

4You must obviously get the utilitarian benefit of that plea of guilty and it is added to by the fact that a number of the charges could only be brought upon your own admission.  You have prior findings of guilt for assault but they amount some ten years ago and whilst of relevance, they are of limited relevance.

5The nature of the offending is that you and a Mr Tolly were in a relationship between 2004 and 2010.  There is one child of that relationship who is now 11 years of age.  One Danielle is currently engaged to Tolly and has been in a relationship with him, it appears, since around about 2014.

6The offending is recorded as happening over a number of years.  Family Court proceedings started back at the end of - round about 2010, as I understand it, in relation to the child.  Part of the family court order was that there were mutual obligations to provide urine drug screens when requested.

721 March 2011 you were asked to provide a urine drug screen, which indicated that the urine had been diluted.  That, in fact, gives rise to Charge 1.  During the relationship, you conceded that you smoked cannabis and that you did hit - well, you have another relationship, that you smoked cannabis and then you did hit a Mr Taylor.

8In April 2011 you swore an affidavit where you denied each of those things, "That's untrue", that gives rise to Charge 2 of perjury.  On 12 April 2011, various orders were put in place and in May 2011, you provided a urine - see, I do not even know if I can do this here.  You provided a urine drug screen which had been altered. 

9In July 2013, final orders were made and some three years later, almost, two and a half years later, you provided another falsified toxicology report.  That gives rise to the charges of attempt to pervert the course of justice and the charge of perjury, which, as I have indicated, in the overall circumstances of this case, I think are at the low end of each of those offences.

10In the time period of around October 2015, you made a number of threats to inflict serious injury which were made effectively over just a few days.  They involved rather extraordinary threats as to what you were going to do and how much of it was believed, I would not know.  The fact of the matter is, the consequence of that does make people very anxious and fearful for their safety, and that gives rise to three charges which are in effect, represented or rolled up in this particular set of sentencing circumstance.  That makes no difference.

11Insofar as the summary charges are concerned, you contravened a family intervention order, which involves there being an altercation between you and Mr Tolly when you were handing over the children.  There is the assault charge which again involves an altercation between you and he, where you grabbed the car keys, he took your purse and you kept hitting him until he gave it back.

12The cannabis matters are based upon, effectively, a warrant being issued and drug - previous drug screens being found.  As I have said, the matters are over an extended period of time and unfortunately, have found their way into this jurisdiction.  I have read the victim impact statement of Mr Tolly and obviously take the matters that he refers to, insofar as they are admissible, into account in the sentence that I intend to impose.

13Offences, or it has to be in the normal course of events, regarded as serious, so it is clear that pervert the course of justice and perjury can have very wide-ranging consequences, as those experienced in the criminal law know.  The other matters are, again, at the lower end of this sort of offending.  I have expressed the view that I would not incarcerate you for this and the Crown has not demurred from that position so that community corrections order is within range, and that is what I propose to do.

14The situation is this; you are 32, you have the primary care of the child, you are involved in community activities, you obviously have a good work record and continue to work.  You and the child reside in safe family circumstances with your mother.  You are now in another relationship which obviously I know little about, but with a job, a place to live, community involvement and genuine concern for your child, I accept that the prospects of your rehabilitation should be good.

15You are battling with the use of cannabis and I think that is something I think you are going to have to deal with yourself.  You have been smoking it now for some 13 years.  I am told you have not used for about nine months but really there is not much a court can do so far as that is concerned.

16What is of importance in this sentencing disposition is that there are family court proceedings currently afoot and I am unaware as to what the consequences of those may be.  Insofar as offending of this nature is concerned, where it is situational and on occasion involves the use of cannabis, I would have thought that the threat of family law orders hanging over your head would be of far greater significance than any disposition I may make because of the child.

17Taking all those matters into account, the risk of your reoffending is up to yourself. I think it is probably remote if you can just simply get control of anger difficulties and quit smoking cannabis. I have taken into account all the references that were tendered on your behalf and whilst they may be over-asserting the situation, I accept that there is genuine support for you and that can only to your benefit and increases my confidence insofar as s.464Z of the Crimes Act is concerned.

18I am going to order that you provide a saliva sample for DNA purposes.  That order having been made, I must advise you that should you provide same, police can use reasonable force to take it from you and your counsel Mr Linehan will explain that to you in more detail.

19Accordingly, in the overall situation, I will put a community corrections order with conviction, bearing in mind you have got the child and you do work, I will make it over a period of two years.  The only condition will be that you provide - that you do 150 hours of community work, if you agree.

20All right, there is no other orders I need to make in that respect, gentlemen.

21MR LINEHAN:  No.

22HIS HONOUR:  All right, the 464 is made and handed down.  Morwell?  Newborough, Morwell, Moe?  Corrections?

23MR LINEHAN:  I did not know there was one in Newborough, I do not think - it has to be Morwell, I think.

24HIS HONOUR:  Make it Morwell.  If there is one in Newborough, they can transfer it.

25MR TRIANDOS:  You do not need 6-000, I was just - because it is a CCO.

26HIS HONOUR:  No, the question of the 6-000 we have indicated that perhaps we would have ‑ ‑ ‑

27MR TRIANDOS:  CCO.

28HIS HONOUR:  Would have ordered that there is offences unknown to the law but we will not go there.

29MR TRIANDOS:  Yes.

30(At this stage the court proceeded with another matter.)

31HIS HONOUR:  All right, so that order is made.  Could you stand up please, just for a second.  Look, I have made the order.  The trouble with offences like pervert the course and perjury, they do carry really heavy maximum penalties so if you messed up on the CCO by reoffending anything like that, I would not have a lot of choice, all right?  If you are having difficulties, make sure you tell people, talk to people and just keep getting assistance because apart from those two bursts of time, you are doing pretty good.  All right but if you do mess it up, it could get ugly.  All right, yes, thank you.  Yes, thank you, Mr Linehan.  Thank you, can come out of there now.

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