Director of Public Prosecutions v Zheng
[2025] VSC 76
•7 March 2025
| IN THE SUPREME COURT OF VICTORIA | Not Restricted |
AT MELBOURNE
CRIMINAL DIVISION
S ECR 2022 0179
| DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROSECUTIONS | Crown |
| v | |
| HANLING ZHENG | Accused |
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JUDGE: | Gorton J |
WHERE HELD: | Melbourne |
DATE OF HEARING: | 11 November 2024, 19 February 2025 |
DATE OF SENTENCE: | 7 March 2025 |
CASE MAY BE CITED AS: | Director of Public Prosecutions v Zheng |
MEDIUM NEUTRAL CITATION: | [2025] VSC 76 |
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CRIMINAL LAW – Sentence – Intentionally causing serious injury and common law assault – Verbal and physical altercation with wife at house party – Male house party guest called to assist stabbed soon after – Verbal and physical altercation with male victim prior to stabbing – Multiple stable wounds to torso, male victim would have died without urgent medical care – Early plea of guilt accepted for assault charge against wife – Offer to plead guilty to lesser charge not accepted with relation to stabbing – Male victim posed no threat to accused at time of offending – Lack of remorse for stabbing – Total effective sentence of 9 years and one month – R v Verdins (2007) 16 VR 269 – Sentencing Act 1991 (Vic) – Crimes Act 1958 (Vic) – Pihlgren v R [2024] VSCA 47.
APPEARANCES: | Counsel | Solicitors |
| For the Crown | Dr N Rogers SC with Ms J Poole | Office of Public Prosecutions |
| For the Accused | Mr M Habib with Mr H Lewis | Acrolex Pty Ltd |
HIS HONOUR:
Mr Hanling Zheng,[1] you have been found guilty of intentionally causing serious injury to Mr Runyang Li, also called Jackie, and you have pleaded guilty to a charge of assaulting your then wife, Ms Chang Lu. The maximum penalty for the assault is 5 years’ imprisonment.[2] The maximum penalty for intentionally causing serious injury is 20 years’ imprisonment.[3]
[1]Also known as ‘Selwyn’ and ‘Wangzai’ Zheng.
[2]Crimes Act 1958 (Vic), s 31.
[3]Ibid s 16.
Causing serious injury intentionally is a category two offence for the purposes of the Sentencing Act 1991 (Vic). As a result, I am obliged to impose a custodial order.[4]
[4]It was not suggested any of the exceptions applied.
On 22 October 2020, you and your then wife, Ms Lu, held a party for some friends at your unit in Blackburn. By the early hours of 23 October 2020, three female guests had left and those remaining were you, Ms Lu, and three male guests. A substantial amount of alcohol was drunk at the party, but there is no suggestion that any other drugs were taken. Your marriage was in difficulty; your young child was with Ms Lu’s parents in China and you and Ms Lu slept in separate rooms.
The assault
That night, you and your wife argued. You threw some of Ms Lu’s possessions, including her wedding ring, over the fence into a neighbouring property. Ms Lu slapped you. In response, you grabbed Ms Lu around her neck, pushed her back onto the sofa and held her there. Considerable force was used and this choking event continued until Ms Lu had difficulty breathing.
While doing this, you had a large kitchen knife in your hand. Although Ms Lu did not see or has no memory of seeing the knife, I consider this to be an aggravating factor. I do not accept as probable the statement made by you to the forensic psychologist, Ms Rebecca Fakhri, who assessed you for the purpose of your plea, that you held the blade facing yourself and were threatening self-harm. There was no support for this from anyone else who described the assault, and what you said to Ms Fakhri was inherently improbable in circumstances where you did not acknowledge to Ms Fakhri that you were at the same time choking Ms Lu with a hand around her neck.
After the involvement of two of the guests, you released Ms Lu, and then went upstairs to bed.
This aggressive and unnecessary event was the basis of the first charge of common assault against you, to which you pleaded guilty before the jury.
I accept that your then wife Ms Lu slapped you immediately before the assault and that you were both heatedly discussing your unhappy relationship. I am satisfied that the assault was not premeditated but occurred in the course of a fight between you and your wife. But your wife is smaller and was physically unable to defend herself and posed you no danger at the time. The decision to assault her by grabbing her around the throat and pushing her onto the sofa was unacceptable and a significant act of violence. It was an act of domestic abuse in the home that warrants condemnation and punishment.
I also note that it took place in Ms Lu’s home, which was a place where she was entitled to feel safe, but also that it took place in circumstances where there were other people present who could come to her assistance.
No victim impact statement was provided by Ms Lu. The incident must have been frightening for her, but there is no material that indicates that she suffered any physical injuries of consequence or that it caused ongoing psychiatric injury.
You entered an early plea to the assault charge that entitles you to a meaningful sentencing discount.
Further, on 16 July 2024, when you were first assessed by the forensic psychologist Ms Fakhri, you told her that you recognised that your assault of Ms Lu was wrong, and that you should have walked away.
I accept that you are remorseful for your actions that constituted the assault on Ms Lu.
The intentional causing of serious injury
One of the guests, after discussing the matter with Ms Lu, contacted one of their friends via mobile phone and asked him to come over to speak to you about your treatment of Ms Lu. That person, Mr Runyang Li, also called Jackie, had only met you a couple of times but was friends with Ms Lu and some of the other guests. Mr Li drove over. By the time he arrived it was in the early hours of the morning and you were upstairs in your bedroom. When Mr Li arrived, he called out for you to come down and to apologise to your wife. When this did not happen, Mr Li walked up the stairs, kicked on your bedroom door, opened it, dragged you out of bed, and brought you down the stairs with his arm around your neck. He repeated his demand in front of the other guests that you apologise to Ms Lu. You refused to do so. The two of you started fighting. You punched and kicked each other. Mr Li’s phone was smashed. Mr Li grabbed a beer bottle and hit you over the head with it. The bottle did not break. You were later found to have a haematoma on one part of your head and a small laceration on another part. I am satisfied that you were hit over the head on at least two occasions.
The fighting ceased after these blows to your head. Ms Lu tidied up some blood on your head with a napkin, and Mr Li decided to go home. CCTV footage establishes that he had opened the front door and was just outside the premises, when you came up to him, after which you both returned inside and the door was closed. I am satisfied beyond reasonable doubt, based on the evidence led at the trial, that you apologised to Mr Li and invited him to come back inside and that this led to his doing so.
Inside the unit, while Mr Li was speaking to Ms Lu and the other guests, you went to the kitchen, picked up a large kitchen knife, and then came out of the kitchen and attacked Mr Li with that knife. You chased Mr Li around or across the sofa, while Ms Lu and the other guests screamed. Mr Li ran to the front door and opened it trying to run away. You stabbed him either just inside or just outside the door. Mr Li stumbled, but you continued trying to stab him. Mr Li ran to his car but was unable to open the door quickly enough to get in. You chased Mr Li further down the street. Mr Li reached a parked vehicle about 30 metres away and you pursued him around that vehicle for a short time, before Mr Li collapsed to the ground. You continued to stab or to attempt to stab Mr Li while he was on the ground. Two of the guests were trying to disarm you. At one point, you appeared to calm down, causing them to release your arm, only for you to launch again at Mr Li. Eventually, you stopped and walked back to the unit.
Mr Li was left lying on the ground, bleeding profusely, with five deep stab wounds to his torso. One was to his neck or upper back, one in the area of the left trapezius, one in the right mid back, one in the left upper chest, and one in the armpit. Each wound extended into the muscle. The knife penetrated a sufficient depth to cause the collapse of both lungs. The stab over the right upper back was of sufficient force to fracture Mr Li’s shoulder blade. The loss of blood caused Mr Li to go into shock. The precise locations at which you inflicted each of the stab wounds – that is, the extent to which they were inflicted while Mr Li was inside the unit or just outside the front door or while Mr Li was running down the street or while he was lying on the street – was not clear and does not really matter. Had Mr Li not received excellent and prompt medical attention from ambulances that quickly arrived, and the hospital to which he was taken, he would have died from his blood loss or his punctured lungs or both.
You must be sentenced on the basis that you chased after and stabbed Mr Li with the intention to inflict injuries that endangered Mr Li’s life or which were substantial and protracted, but you were not intending actually to kill him.
I am satisfied that you would not have stabbed Mr Li had he not dragged you out of bed and downstairs and initiated a physical conflict with you. I am satisfied, however, beyond reasonable doubt, as noted above, that the physical confrontation between the two of you had ceased, things had calmed down, Mr Li was leaving, and that you invited him back into the house for the purpose of obtaining and then attacking him with a knife. In this limited sense, the stabbing was premeditated.
You stabbed an unarmed person, who was trying to escape from you, multiple times, deeply, and, but for timely medical intervention, he would have died. You chased him down the road. You had no reason to do so other than anger and indignation that he was insisting that you apologise to your wife for assaulting her, and anger and indignation that he had dragged you out of your bed and, when you fought with him, had hit you over the head with a bottle. I consider this to be a serious example of the offence of intentionally causing serious injury.
I accept that Mr Li was frightened for his life as he tried to escape from you and you continued to follow and to attack him. The injuries he suffered were severe and they continue to cause him harm. According to his victim impact statement, which I accept, he remains unable to move his left arm and shoulder normally and has ‘non-stop’ pain because of muscular damage suffered due to the stabbings. He is still undergoing treatment for the scars. He has ongoing pain in his upper back that he describes as unbearable. He was a violinist who intended to study violin performance in Vienna, but has been unable to return to violin playing because of problems with his fingers associated with the injuries caused by the stabbings. In addition, he suffers from a Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. He feels anxious, has trouble sleeping, and dreams of the incident. He is fearful when he is out and feels difficulty communicating with people due to a fear of being hurt. The injuries caused him to lose his job in Australia, and this resulted in him having to borrow money from friends and family and then his returning to his home country China. He continues to need psychotherapeutic support and paying for that and some of the other medical treatment he has received has placed him under financial strain. The relationship he was in has ceased, in part because of the effect on him of the injuries sustained, and he has difficulties socialising and feels isolated.
Your actions have, in this way, caused great and ongoing harm – physical and emotional – to Mr Li that has changed his life and this must be taken into account.
You did not show remorse in the period immediately following the stabbings. You called an ambulance, but for yourself. You had cuts on your head and a cut on your hand that, I am satisfied, were caused while you were trying to stab Mr Li. When you called the ambulance, and spoke to the ambulance officers, you falsely described the events in a manner that was designed to minimise your responsibility for what had occurred: you said that your hand had been cut by an intruder and did not mention that you had stabbed anyone. This is not aggravating conduct: it did not lead to greater harm to Mr Li. But it does indicate that you did not, at that stage, feel remorse for your actions.
You were charged on 24 October 2020. You initially pleaded not guilty to the charge of intentionally causing serious injury and not guilty to the alternative but lesser charge of recklessly causing serious injury, as well as to the charge of attempted murder. That situation was maintained through both a s 198B[5] hearing and the first trial. The first trial was not completed because the jury was discharged without verdict and a new trial was ordered. You were not in any way responsible for that. The second trial commenced on 10 April 2024. Shortly prior to the second trial commencing, you indicated to the prosecution that you would plead guilty to the charge of recklessly causing serious injury, and you offered to plead guilty to intentionally causing serious injury but only if the prosecution would accept that plea in clearance of the indictment: that is, if the prosecution did not proceed with the charge of attempted murder. The prosecution did not accept this proposal. At your arraignment at the commencement of the new trial, you again pleaded not guilty to the charge of intentionally causing serious injury (and to the charge of attempted murder), but did plead guilty to the alternative and lesser charge of recklessly causing serious injury.
[5]Criminal Procedure Act 2009 (Vic).
You were acquitted of the charge of attempted murder. As events have shown, your offer was to plead to the offence of which you were found guilty but not to plead to the offence of which you were found not guilty. In this way, your offer, if accepted, would have prevented the second trial from having to proceed. Accordingly, you are entitled, in substance, to a utilitarian discount for your offer of a guilty plea.
You have also, through no fault of your own, experienced two trials not one, and this has resulted in delays. The jury did not deliver its verdict until some three and a half years after the date of the offences. You have had the reality of a term of imprisonment hanging over your head – leaving you in a ‘state of uncertain suspense’[6] – for a considerable time now. You were also facing a charge of attempted murder, of which you have been found not guilty, for an extended period. These matters would have been a burden on you, and I take them into account when determining an appropriate sentence.
[6]R v Todd (1982) 2 NSWLR 517, 519 (Street CJ).
However, whether the plea offer is indicative of remorse is a separate issue. I have referred above to the fact that you called an ambulance for yourself but not for Mr Li (although you must have known that he was in need of urgent medical attention) and then told untruths and omitted key information to the ambulance officers. This indicates an absence of remorse immediately after the incidents. Further, and more significantly, on 16 July 2024, you told the forensic psychologist Ms Fakhri that you thought that the charge you faced of intentionally causing serious injury was unfair, because Mr Li, in your words, attacked you first. You did not express any remorse or regret for the stabbings to Ms Fakhri. Your belief that your being charged was unfair simply fails to come to grips with the events as they occurred. It is true that Mr Li initiated the unpleasant interaction with you and if he had not done that then you would not have stabbed him. But, as noted above, after the initial fight had ended and Mr Li was about to leave, you asked him to come back, and then obtained a knife and chased after him, stabbing and attempting repeatedly to stab an unarmed and fleeing man in the chest and back. I do not consider that you have shown genuine remorse for stabbing Mr Li, notwithstanding your plea of guilty of recklessly causing serious injury and your later offer to plead guilty to intentionally causing serious injury if the charge of attempted murder were withdrawn. Your statement that it was unfair that you be charged for stabbing him is inconsistent with your taking responsibility for, or genuinely regretting those actions.
For these reasons, you should receive some discount for offering to plead guilty to the offence of intentionally causing serious injury if the charge of attempted murder were not pursued because if accepted it would have prevented the need for a second trial, but not a discount as if you were remorseful for your behaviour in stabbing Mr Li.
Your personal circumstances
You were born in late 1994 in China and came to Australia, initially with your father but your mother later joined you, when you were 13 years old. Although your parents were strict, they were not abusive and you were not neglected or exposed to trauma. You finished your secondary education in Australia, and started, but did not complete, an architecture degree at RMIT. You had gainful employment throughout your adult life until your arrest in October 2020, both in a family dessert business (and you hold a TAFE qualification in patisserie), but principally you have been employed as a real estate agent.
You moved out of home when you were 21 when your father bought you a property in Burwood. Some years later, you purchased the property in Blackburn North. You married Ms Lu following an unexpected pregnancy. By the time of the offences, you had formally separated from Ms Lu, but you were still living in the same property albeit in separate rooms. Your daughter was in China. The assault, to which you pleaded guilty, was the first violence in this relationship. I accept that at the time that these offences took place you were under considerable stress associated with your marital difficulties, and your daughter being overseas during COVID lockdowns.
You do not have a history of abusing illicit substances, although you would engage in binge drinking that could cause you to become angry particularly during the times of the COVID lockdowns. At age 15, you had suicidal ideation and were diagnosed with a Major Depressive Disorder. Your suicidal ideation returned during the COVID lockdowns. You had consumed a considerable amount of alcohol at the time of the offending and the psychologist who assessed you for the purposes of your plea, Ms Fakhri, considers that you have an Alcohol Use Disorder.
You have one relevant prior conviction for violence. In 2013, when you were 19 years old, you were charged with intentionally causing injury for ‘slapping’ your then-girlfriend, and also for contravening a Family Violence Intervention Order on multiple occasions. You were given an 18 month Community Corrections Order for breaching the intervention orders. You were required to complete an anger management course and a men’s behaviour change program which you completed.
It is relevant that you did not offend between 2014 and the events of these charges in October 2020.
Since the events the subject of these charges in October 2020, in December 2023, while on bail for these charges, you struck your then partner (not Ms Lu), with whom you were living, repeatedly to the face and hit her head against the bedroom doorframe and the floor, squeezed her throat and pressed a pillow over her face, and later the same night again slapped her and squeezed her throat causing her to lose consciousness and, in response to her expressed fear that she might die, stated that you did not care if she did. You later sought to prevent her from calling the police or leaving, and, after finding something that displeased you on her phone, punched her twice in the face. The police did eventually become involved and your then-partner was found to have a cut eyebrow, two black eyes, and bruising on many parts of her body. You were charged with intentionally causing injury (not intentionally causing serious injury) and with false imprisonment, and you entered an early plea of guilty to both charges. You have not yet been sentenced for those offences.
It is not my role to sentence you for those offences and I do not do so. It is significant, however, that while on bail for the charges for which I am sentencing you, you engaged in violent behaviour towards another partner. I note, too, that the forensic psychologist, Ms Fakhri, said, and I accept, after having been informed of these later offences, that you have a ‘moderate to high’ risk of violent reoffending. She described you as having ‘avoidant, narcissistic and antisocial traits’ that are ‘reflective’ of your ‘need to feel special’, your ‘sense of entitlement’ and ‘heightened sense of self’ and your ‘disregard for others and generalised rules’.
The subsequent offences indicate a preparedness on your part to engage in violent behaviour and this together with Ms Fakhri’s opinions, which I accept in this regard, reduce the prospect of your rehabilitation and increase the weight to be given in my sentence to the need to protect the community.
Aggravating or mitigating and explanatory factors
As noted above, I am satisfied that:
(a) You had a knife in your hand when you assaulted Ms Lu; and
(b) you invited Mr Li back into your house, after he had left through the front door, for the purpose of injuring him with a knife, that he was unarmed and posed no threat to you, and that you then chased him down the street, with a knife, while he was trying to escape.
Those are aggravating factors.
As noted above, I am also satisfied that:
(a) Ms Lu slapped you before you assaulted her; and
(b) Mr Li woke you up, dragged you downstairs and fought with you, including by striking you over the head with a bottle, before you decided to obtain a knife to stab him.
These are both explanatory factors: although they do not reduce your moral culpability for your actions, I accept that you would have not engaged in the actions you did without their having first taken place.
Approximately an hour after the stabbings, you were measured to have a blood alcohol content of 0.156. Body camera footage taken by police officers that attended the scene, together with the CCTV footage of the incident and recordings of you calling for an ambulance, indicate that you were at the time both coherent and in control of your movements. The presence of alcohol is neither an aggravating nor a mitigating factor. Although, as I will return to, you had a problem with alcohol, you also knew that it could contribute to your engaging in violent behaviour.
Ms Fakhri’s opinions and R v Verdins (2007) 16 VR 269
It was submitted that the first, third and fifth limbs of R v Verdins[7] were enlivened. That is, that by reason of your mental condition you have reduced culpability for your actions, general deterrence should play a smaller role in any sentencing, and that a prison term would weigh heavier on you.
[7](2007) 16 VR 269 (‘Verdins’).
Ms Fakhri said that although you have some mild or moderate ‘elevations’ in various ‘Personality Pattern’ scales, they do not reach clinical significance. She said that at the time of the offending you had a Major Depressive Disorder, that has persisted but with fluctuating symptoms, and a moderate Alcohol Use Disorder, and that alcohol use tended to cause you to become angry and violent. She suggested that you came to realise this while in custody although she acknowledged that there was nothing that would have prevented you from drawing that connection back in 2013. Although Ms Fakhri did not diagnose a Borderline Personality Disorder, she said you had some elevated traits associated with such a condition and stated that:
The addition of avoidant, narcissistic and antisocial traits is reflective of his need to feel special, his sense of entitlement and his heightened sense of self, along with his disregard for others and generalised rules.
Ms Fakhri did not say that, in her view, you were unable to tell right from wrong or unable to appreciate the wrongfulness of your behaviour. She did say, however, that your depressive condition reduced your ability to regulate your emotions and drinking alcohol increased your likelihood of engaging in impulsive, reckless and irrational behaviour, although she stopped short of saying that your Alcohol Use Disorder caused your offending; there would be occasions, she posited, when you would drink to alleviate symptoms you were experiencing, and occasions where you would drink just because you enjoyed having a drink at a party. The evidence did not establish that, on this night, which, after all, was a night at which you were hosting a party, you were drinking as a consequence of depressive symptoms you were then experiencing rather than because you were hosting a party. And, it must be recalled, you were not drunk to the extent of not being well able to control your actions. Ms Fakhri, while not resiling from her view that your depressive condition contributed to your propensity to drink and your drinking and personality traits increased the risk that you would engage in violent behaviour, ultimately agreed that there was ‘nothing’ that made this offending ‘different from any other situation where somebody’s had too much to drink and has become angry and violent.’
Ms Fakhri assessed you a short time ago and she said that your symptoms had ‘settled’ and that you were ‘feeling ok on remand’. However, she also said, and I accept, that imprisonment would likely weigh more heavily on you, because your problems with emotional regulation would likely be heightened under the stress of ‘the volatile imprisonment environment’ which would likely lead to conflict with other prisoners and correctional staff.
I do not consider that the first or third limbs of Verdins are enlivened. The conditions identified by Ms Fakhri and referred to above did not reduce your capacity to tell right from wrong and thus do not reduce your moral culpability. Nor do those conditions preclude you from being a suitable medium for the full application of the principles of general deterrence; nor do they moderate the need for specific deterrence. To the extent that your alcohol intake contributed to the anger you felt, you remain entirely responsible for your decision to consume alcohol.
However, when determining an appropriate sentence, I will take into account, applying the fifth limb of Verdins, the fact that your underlying depressive condition, and personality factors, mean that prison will be more difficult for you than it would be for someone without those characteristics.
These same characteristics also, however, tend to reduce your prospects of rehabilitation and the characteristics that cause you to engage in violent behaviour also increase, but only to a modest extent, the importance of protecting the public when assessing a suitable sentence.
Current sentencing practices for intentionally causing serious injury
I have taken into account the sentences, and the circumstances, of other cases of intentionally causing serious injury referred to in submissions.[8] Factors routinely taken into account include the offender’s proven intent, the seriousness of the injury actually caused, how vulnerable the victim was, whether a weapon was used, how long the attack lasted, and whether the offender acted alone or in company.[9] Sentences have increased in more recent times, and general deterrence plays an important role.[10] It has, however, been observed that ‘the circumstances of the commission of the offence of intentionally causing serious injury are almost infinitely variable’ and so result in a wide range of sentences.[11] In a recent decision the Court of Appeal stated that ‘past sentences for intentionally causing serious injury are of limited utility’,[12] but also adopted a statement that:
Although one cannot be overly prescriptive, individual sentences of imprisonment in excess of 10 years are usually reserved for those cases of intentionally causing serious injury that involve life-threatening or catastrophic injuries, or ongoing serious physical or mental disablement.[13]
Sentencing
[8]See e.g., Smith v R (2013) 39 VR 336, DPP v Netherwood [2018] VCC 1951, DPP v Pearson [2018] VCC 951, Lukudu v R [2019] VSCA 248, Dhal v R [2023] VSCA 289, Carbis v R [2023] VSCA 285 and Pihlgren v R [2024] VSCA 47.
[9]Nash v R (2013) 40 VR 134, 137 [10] (Maxwell P).
[10]Lukudu v R [2019] VSCA 248, [46] (Niall JA, as his Honour was then, and Ashley JA).
[11]Nash v R (2013) 40 VR 134, 145 [55] (Priest JA), quoted with approval in Carbis v R [2023] VSCA 285, [23] (Macaulay, Osborn and Whelan JJA).
[12]Pihlgren v R [2024] VSCA 47, [71] (Emerton P and McLeish JA).
[13]Ibid [71]. The statement was from O’Toole v R [2019] VSCA 185 [46] (Priest JA and Kidd AJA).
Intentionally causing serious injury
The stabbing of an unarmed man, undertaken with the intention to cause serious injury, warrants significant punishment. It must deter you and others from engaging in such conduct in the future, and manifest the Court’s denunciation of the violent act performed.
You have shown no real remorse for your conduct. It has resulted in serious ongoing problems for Mr Li that will continue to afflict him. It is a serious example of the offence: both because of its violence and prolonged nature against an unarmed man at the time trying to escape, and because, for the reasons I have referred to, it took place after the fight between the two of you had finished and Mr Li had decided to leave the premises before you invited him back in so as to be able to obtain a knife and stab him. Your prospects for rehabilitation are guarded in light of your lack of remorse and the fact of your more recent offending and the need for specific, as well as general, deterrence is significant.
Mr Zheng, would you please stand.
Taking all these matters into account and also your mental state at the time and having regard to the purposes of sentencing and the other sentences that have been awarded in other cases, for the offence of intentionally causing serious injury you are convicted and sentenced to a term of imprisonment of 9 years.
Assault
The assault on your wife was violent and frightening and is to be condemned and punished. You have a prior history of violence against intimate partners and your more recent history indicates that your prospects of rehabilitation are, again, guarded. The sentence should operate to deter you or others from engaging in that conduct.
On the other hand, you have shown genuine remorse for this action, and there is no suggestion that it resulted in an ongoing injury.
Again, balancing, the competing considerations laid down in the Sentencing Act 1991 and having regard to the matters I have discussed, for the offence of common assault you are convicted and sentenced to a term of imprisonment of three months.
Of that three months, two will be concurrent, resulting in a total effective sentence of imprisonment for 9 years and one month.
I will fix a non-parole period of 6 years and six months.
I state, as required by s 6AAA of the Sentencing Act 1991, that but for your plea of guilty to the assault charge I would have imposed a total effective sentence of 9 years and three months, with a non-parole period of 6 years and seven months.
Pre-sentence detention
You were remanded on 23 August 2020 and released on bail on 19 August 2021 after you had spent 301 days in custody. Your bail was revoked on 18 December 2023. Pursuant to s 28(4) of the Sentencing Act 1991 I declare that you have served a total of 746 days of pre-sentence detention, not including today, and I direct that this be reckoned as time already served under the current sentence.
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