DPP v Coman

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF VICTORIA

Not Restricted

AT MELBOURNE

CRIMINAL DIVISION

S ECR 2022 0230

DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROSECUTIONS
v
BENJAMIN COMAN	Accused

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JUDGE:	TINNEY J
WHERE HELD:	Melbourne
DATE OF HEARING:	6 February 2023
DATE OF JUDGMENT:	31 March 2023
CASE MAY BE CITED AS:	DPP v Coman
MEDIUM NEUTRAL CITATION:	[2023] VSC 159

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CRIMINAL LAW – Sentence – Murder – Of separated domestic partner – Fatal stab wound to the back, damaging spinal cord – Motivated by anger largely attributable to delusional beliefs as to partner’s infidelity - Deceased the mother of two young children and 12 weeks pregnant – Early plea of guilty – Genuine remorse – Diagnosis of psychotic depression – Causal connection between illness and offending – Accused still understood nature, quality and wrongfulness of actions - Some reduction in moral culpability and general deterrence – Moral culpability remained high, and general deterrence remained important – Serious offending – Head sentence of 25 years’ imprisonment – Non-parole period of 20 years’ imprisonment.

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APPEARANCES:	Counsel	Solicitors
For the Crown	Dr Nanette Rogers SC	Abbey Hogan, Solicitor for Public Prosecutions
For the Accused	Ms Amy Brennan	Victoria Legal Aid

HIS HONOUR:

Introduction

Benjamin Coman, you have pleaded guilty to the murder of your partner, Michelle Darragh on 9 October 2021.

In the knowledge that Ms Darragh was intending to leave the relationship with you, in circumstances upon which I will later expand, you attacked her out of the blue in the home she had shared with you, stabbing her three times with a large kitchen knife. One of your thrusts with the knife entered Ms Darragh’s back, proceeded upwards and deep into her chest and neck, entering the spinal canal and severely damaging her spinal cord. This injury would have led to the immediate incapacitation and rapid death of Ms Darragh.

When Ms Darragh died, she left behind the two young children she shared with you. In addition, she was, as you well knew, 12 weeks pregnant at the time of her death. Her loss is a tragedy for her, her unborn child, her children, her wider family and friends, and the community of which she was such an important part. The crime you committed which wrought such devastation, involving as it did a vicious attack upon a defenceless and helpless woman in respect of whom you were in a position of trust, can readily be seen to be a very serious instance of the crime of murder.

Background

Ms Darragh (‘Michelle’) was the second youngest of four children born to her parents Ashley and Dianne Darragh. She grew up in a close and loving family, and was described by her sister Samantha Darragh (‘Samantha’) as ‘a beautiful girl with a heart of gold and always worried about other people before herself’ and ‘a very caring person who had a beautiful soul’. No doubt her kind and caring disposition sent her in the direction of a career in social work. She obtained her initial qualification in that field at Swinburne University before completing post-graduate studies at Griffith University. She then worked her whole working life as a social worker, with a focus on young children and families in need.

You met Michelle through your close friendship with her younger brother Aaron. You and Michelle commenced a relationship in 2015, which was initially kept a secret from friends and family, but by the end of that year, the relationship was in the open. The relationship was seen as a surprise by Michelle’s family and friends in light of your very different personality and habits relative to Michelle. One aspect of your conduct which was a constant source of concern and disapproval by Michelle was your regular and problematic drug use throughout the relationship.

After initially living together with another person in a share house, you and Michelle commenced to rent the premises at which she was later to meet her death, 13 Huntingdon Avenue, Bayswater North (‘Huntingdon Avenue’) about 18 months after the relationship commenced.

In reasonably quick succession, Michelle bore two sons to you, Tait, who was born on 3 January 2018, and Reid, who was born on 16 March 2020.

The relationship was a tumultuous one, largely brought about by your drug use, and the large amount of time you spent working in your cabinet making business and with your friends, rather than with your partner and children. Another source of friction was the fact that you admitted to Michelle that you had attended brothels on a number of occasions during the relationship.

It seems that in spite of your poor conduct, Michelle continued to love you, and to desire a future with you. That led her to conceal the problems she was having with you from some of her family and friends, but she did confide in some of them, including her sister Samantha.

In late 2019, you confronted Michelle with your entirely unfounded belief, about which I will say more later, that she was having an affair with your best friend Leroy Bartlett (‘Bartlett’), and that Bartlett, not you, was the father of the two children. Michelle tried to reassure you that there was no truth to your concerns, and took the step of informing Bartlett, who himself spoke with you to deny that there was any truth to your beliefs. Notwithstanding all of this, it seems that you continued to harbour those unfounded beliefs about Michelle’s conduct.

As I have already indicated, your ongoing drug use was a continual source of concern for Michelle. You continued regular use of cannabis, and engaged in sporadic problematic use of methylamphetamine (‘ice’). Shortly after the birth of Reid in 2020, in the face of your increasing use of ice and persistent cannabis use, Michelle and the children moved out of the house and moved back in with her parents in The Basin. She informed them of your worsening drug use.

After a few weeks of separation, Michelle moved back in with you at Huntingdon Avenue. A further period of separation occurred in 2021 during some of which period you lived in your factory in Bayswater, and you visited Michelle and the children at The Basin. Again, after a period of time, Michelle moved back in with you to Huntingdon Avenue. It is obvious that she did everything in her power to make the relationship work. The stumbling blocks to that were your drug use and other aspects of your behaviour, including your increasing mental instability and reckless spending of joint savings.

During this time, Michelle fell pregnant to you again. This occurred twelve weeks before you killed her. Michelle later told her friend Hannah Clarke that ‘my life is completely fucked’, and informed her that you had said that you did not want her to have the baby, and given her the ultimatum of it was either you or the baby.

On Friday 10 September 2021, Michelle arrived at her parents’ home in a state of distress, informing her parents and Samantha that her relationship with you was over.

Three days later, Michelle went to Huntingdon Avenue and found empty alcohol bottles and prescription pill packets in the kitchen and you slumped in your car in the garage, with the engine running and a pipe connected from the exhaust into the window of the vehicle. She obtained help for you, and police and ambulance officers attended. You were transported to Maroondah Hospital where you spent some days in the Mental Health Ward. You were diagnosed with adjustment disorder with depressed mood and polysubstance abuse (cannabis, ice and cocaine) and treated with antidepressant and antipsychotic medication. Upon your release on 16 September 2019, you returned to Huntingdon Avenue where you lived alone. The indications are that you did not take the prescription medications which had been provided to you.

From that time, the decision was made by Michelle and her family that you would only have supervised visits with the boys.

Another problem within the relationship concerned financial issues. You and Michelle had a joint bank account and had been saving for years to buy your own home. The two of you had saved about $100,000 for a deposit. In early 2021, you removed $82,500 from the joint account without telling Michelle. You used the money to purchase a Holden Clubsport sedan motor vehicle. When Michelle found out about this fact, she was understandably very unhappy with you, and concerned about her ability to care for the children without the benefit of her share of the savings she had worked hard to accumulate.

Lead-up events on 9 October 2021

On the morning of her death, that is 9 October 2021 at 3.08am, Michelle sent a text message to you asking you to transfer the sum of $10,000 back to her. She said in the message, ‘You can’t take all the money and leave me with nothing. That’s unfair’. You did not reply to this message. On the same date, also in the early hours, she sent an email to a firm of solicitors indicating she would seek legal advice concerning an asset split ‘after separation (de facto) with children’.

Later that morning, you exchanged a series of text messages with Michelle about a meeting you asked her to come to with you at a local park, known as the Train Park, in the morning. You had apparently tried to bring about a meeting involving Michelle, the children, and Bartlett, some days earlier. At 9.05am, Michelle agreed to meet you at the park. A little later, she told you that she would come by the house afterwards and collect some more of her possessions. You acknowledged receipt of that message.

Michelle informed her parents that morning that she was going to take the boys to meet with you at the Train Park. Before leaving, she grabbed some boxes and told her parents that she was going to stop at Huntingdon Avenue after attending the park to collect some belongings.

Michelle left home with the boys at about 9.30am.

At 10.31am, you sent an SMS to Bartlett informing him that you and Michelle were at the Bike Park, no doubt a reference to the same park you attended with Michelle.

Bartlett arrived at the park at about 1.00pm, having messaged you to say he was running late. He then spent some time at the park in the company of you and Michelle and playing with the boys. While there, he made no observations of you suggesting any unusual presentation. He asked you if you were clean and you told him you were. You informed him that you had closed your business after breaking up with Michelle. You also informed him that you were off your ‘meds’.

After the time spent at the park, Michelle attended at a 7-Eleven store with the boys before returning home. She waited some hours for her parents to return home. She left their home in The Basin at about 3.00pm, leaving the boys in the care of her parents. That was the last time they saw her alive. At 3.04pm, she made a mobile telephone call to you, no doubt as she drove from The Basin to Huntingdon Avenue. That was the last use of her mobile phone.

The offending; 9 October 2021

The timing of Michelle’s arrival at Huntingdon Avenue is not entirely clear. You told Dr Carroll that she arrived just after 3.00pm, although a neighbour claimed to see her arrive at about 4.45pm. I think your estimation of the time is more likely to be correct.

There is some mystery as to what occurred after her arrival, or the time at which you killed her. I will later turn to the account you gave to Associate Professor Andrew Carroll, whom I will refer to as Dr Carroll, a consultant forensic psychiatrist, as to the events.

One thing is clear enough. You stabbed Michelle to death sometime after her arrival at Huntingdon Avenue.

By about 6.00pm, Michelle’s parents were becoming worried as they had not heard from Michelle since she left their home. She was a stickler for routine where the boys were concerned. They commenced to message and call Michelle, without response.

At about 7.00pm, Mr Darragh set off for Huntingdon Avenue in his vehicle. He saw your van parked in the driveway, with Michelle’s vehicle parked behind it. There were no lights on in the house.

Mr Darragh, having called both you and Michelle on his phone, eliciting no answer, knocked repeatedly on the front door, again without response. He proceeded around the back of the house and entered through the rear sliding door, calling out as he went. He walked through the house and as he walked into the third bedroom at the rear, he observed the legs of Michelle protruding from behind the bed. As he walked further into the room, he was then met with the horrifying sight of his daughter lying flat on her back, dead on the ground, covered in blood, with you lying next to her half on your side. He thought you, too, were dead.

Mr Darragh immediately left the room and called his wife and the police for assistance.

Aftermath of the crime; crime scene examination and medical treatment of you

On the arrival of police, it was ascertained that you were alive, but with significant injuries to your abdomen, where you had stabbed yourself, leaving some of your entrails protruding from your body. You were dragged from the bedroom to enable ambulance officers more space to provide treatment to you.

It was quickly ascertained by ambulance officers that Michelle was deceased. As for you, once your condition was stabilised, you were loaded into an ambulance and transported to the Royal Melbourne Hospital. You received extensive surgical and other treatment for your injuries including a trauma laparotomy with extensive bowel and colon resection. You remained under police guard in the hospital. On 17 October 2021, you were assessed by a forensic medical officer and found unfit for police interview. On that day, you were informed by police that you were under arrest in relation to the death of Michelle. On 19 October 2021, you were charged with murder and remanded in custody.

On examination of the crime scene on 9 October 2021, extensive bloodstaining was found in a number of areas of the house, including the bedroom in which Michelle had been found. A bloodstained black-handled Wiltshire Staysharp knife with a bent blade was found on the floor underneath the bed in that bedroom, in close proximity to Michelle’s upper body. Photographs of the knife against a measure were tendered during the plea hearing.[1] The photographs reveal that the blade of the knife was about 20cm in length, with the handle a further 10cm. It would be reasonable to describe the knife as a carving knife.
[1]Exhibit D.

Autopsy

An autopsy was carried out on Michelle’s body on 10 October 2021 by Dr Chong Zhou from the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine. The examination by Dr Zhou revealed the presence of three sharp force injuries. The main injury was a stab wound to the right upper back extending into the right posterior neck. This wound measured approximately 4cm in length on the skin’s surface and was located 3cm to the right of the midline. The wound trajectory was oriented from right to left, upwards and forwards, with a depth of penetration of approximately 12cm. The wound passed through a number of muscles of the back and neck, the cartilaginous aspect of the right C3/C4 facet joint, and into the spinal canal with subtotal transection of the cervical spinal cord in this region.

The second stab wound was to the lateral aspect of the left hip. This wound measured approximately 1.8cm in length on the skin’s surface, and passed to a depth of approximately 4cm into subcutaneous fat.

A third incised injury to the hypothenar eminence of the right hand was also observed.

In addition to the stab wounds, Dr Zhou observed contusions, abrasions and lacerations to the face of Michelle, particularly in the area around the mouth on both sides, to the upper and lower lips, and the intra-oral mucosa overlying the dental arcades. He also found subcutaneous and intramuscular contusions and bleeding involving the muscles of the neck, and a subcutaneous bruise to the occipital region of the head. There were also bruises and abrasions to the legs and arms.

The cause of Michelle’s death was ascertained to be the stab wound to the back. The subtotal transection of the cervical spinal cord at the location in question was a fatal injury that would be expected to cause immediate incapacitation. It would have led to disruption of the cardiovascular autonomic pathways, circulatory collapse and very rapid cardiac arrest and death.

The injury to Michelle’s hand was consistent with a defence-type injury. The injuries to the lips and intra-oral mucosa may have been indicative of blunt force trauma to the region or smothering by the mechanical occlusion of the mouth and nose. The bruise to the occipital region represented an episode of blunt force, possibly from the collapse of Michelle. The significant bleeding within the neck muscles could have been the result of blunt force trauma, vascular injury, or neck compression.

In light of the degree of haemorrhage associated with the blunt force injuries, it was the view of the pathologist that the injury to the spine was inflicted after the blunt force injuries.

Michelle was found on autopsy to be pregnant at the time of her death, with an estimated gestational age of the foetus of 12 weeks.

No drugs or alcohol were found in her system.

Your account of the attack

Much light is thrown on the nature of your attack upon Michelle by the magnitude of the injuries observed on autopsy. Further light was thrown by the account you gave to Dr Carroll of your recollection of the events, which is set out in his report of 29 November 2022.[2] That said, some of what you said did not sit at all comfortably with the reality of the injuries inflicted, and in particular, the fatal injury. You did acknowledge when speaking to Dr Carroll that you may not have full recall of the fatal incident itself. You said that your memory of the incident was ‘like photo blocks’. [3]
[2]Exhibit 2.
[3]Ibid [233].

You admitted to being angry with Michelle for a number of reasons while she was at the house before the attack. You blamed her for having left you and taken the children away from you, for failing to bring the children with her when she came to Huntingdon Avenue that day, for making you feel guilty about not wanting the baby, and for continuing to pack up her belongings while present at the house. You said that while putting away some dishes, you saw a kitchen knife in the drying rack, picked it up and secreted it in the pocket of your pants. You claimed that at the time you were contemplating stabbing yourself in her presence to traumatise her. You said that you went to the boys’ room and lay on the bed, thinking about what you would do, as Michelle continue to pack her belongings. You moved the knife to your shoe so that she would not see it. In the moments prior to the commencement of the attack, you were sitting next to Michelle on the bed, and she became emotional, asking ‘What’s happened to us?’ You claimed that at this point, your thoughts abruptly switched from planning to harm yourself to planning to harm her. You recalled having the knife in your hand, and having thoughts of killing Michelle before you heard some voices in your head telling you to ‘do it now’. You claimed to remember lunging at Michelle with the knife before wrestling with her for control of the knife. You claimed that you thought you missed her with the knife because she was wrestling with you. At one point, you said she was standing in front of you with her hands on your hands and yelling out, ‘Help! Help!’. Your concerns that someone may hear her cries and come in and see what was happening led you to put your ‘thumb in her cheek to stop her screaming’. As you made it clear, you did not want anyone to come into the house. Speaking of your thought processes, you said that after what you considered to be your unsuccessful lunge at Michelle with the knife, you thought ‘I’ve got to go through with this – she needs to die now’.[4] You claimed that at a point when you and Michelle both had your hands on the knife, you managed to bring it towards yourself and deliberately stabbed yourself three times to the stomach. You both fell to the ground, and you vomited. You said that you deliberately pushed your own viscera out of your body in an attempt to kill yourself and then took an overdose of sleeping tablets and locked the front door before returning to where Michelle was. You lay down and hoped you would die. You said your attempt at killing yourself by stabbing was not in response to any thought that you had killed Michelle – indeed, you did not believe you had stabbed her – but to traumatise her. You felt you deserved to die because you had done the wrong thing by Michelle in going to brothels and cheating on her.
[4]Ibid [236].

You described what occurred as ‘a fight over the knife’ and ‘one minute of madness’.[5] You did not deny having stabbed Michelle, but claimed that you did not remember the knife penetrating her at all.
[5]Ibid [233].

There are a number of interesting aspects to this account you gave to Dr Carroll. Your account made it clear that your attack upon Michelle occurred against a background of substantial anger you felt towards her. Your irrational beliefs about her unfaithfulness towards you, however, did not figure in the mix of matters about which you told Dr Carroll you were angry. You made it clear that from at least a certain point in the attack, you intended to kill Michelle. You indicated that the eventual murder weapon had been deliberately secreted by you from the notice of Michelle before you commenced the attack, and had been moved by you to different locations inside the house prior to its use.

On the other hand, it is clear that your account as to your actual attack upon Michelle does not explain the events which led to her death. Your admission of having put your thumb in her cheek in an effort to silence her may explain some of her facial bruising, but not all of it. The bulk of the blunt force trauma to her face and head would not be explained, and nor would the bruising to other parts of her body. Centrally, however, your account would not explain the two more significant stab wounds to Michelle. The wound to the hip, whilst not life threatening, involved a significant penetration into the subcutaneous fat. It would be unlikely that you stabbed her thus without being aware of having done so. As for the fatal wound, that is even more apparent. Michelle died as a result of being stabbed in the middle of the back by you, by means of a thrust which penetrated deep into her back and neck to a depth of at least 12cm and damaged her spinal cord. You denied any memory of this event. You had her standing in front of you, with her hands on the knife, before you stabbed yourself in the stomach and you both fell to the ground. That cannot be the way things occurred. From the moment you severed her spinal cord, Michelle would have fallen to the ground, disabled and on the way to a very rapid death. Such a wound could not have been inflicted inadvertently or without your full awareness. Nor could it have been inflicted with Michelle standing and facing you. It must have been inflicted from behind her. After this wound’s infliction, Michelle most certainly was not standing in front of you, wrestling for the knife. And it seems inconceivable to me that as you lay on the ground next to Michelle, you could have been unaware of the terrible thing that you had done to her.

Psychiatric report and evidence

Dr Carroll examined you on a number of occasions. The first two occasions in April 2022 were in preparation for the report he provided dated 7 May 2022, relating to the question of the availability of a defence of mental impairment. This report was not tendered before me. Dr Carroll interviewed and assessed you again on 14 November 2022. His report tendered before me was dated 29 November 2022.[6] A final consultation on 9 January 2023 preceded the preparation of a final brief report bearing the same date.
[6]Exhibit 2.

In the report of 29 November 2022, Dr Carroll set out in some detail your personal circumstances, your long-term history of drug abuse, the history of your relationship with Michelle, and your worsening psychiatric condition from 2019 onwards. His account of your relationship history noted your longstanding concerns about Michelle’s fidelity, well before the onset of any psychotic illness on your part. When Michelle was pregnant with Tait, who was born on 3 January 2018, you harboured a concern that Bartlett was the father. On your account, your significant problem with depression commenced in about 2018, in the context of your starting your own business, the birth of Tait, and your increased drug used. Your concerns about Michelle’s fidelity intensified in 2019.

From 2020 onwards, you had repeated contact with mental health professionals, due in part to the intervention of your father and Michelle who were concerned for your wellbeing. As early as 15 February 2020, mental health triage documented that your father had reported that you were ‘experiencing delusional and paranoid thoughts…showing signs of aggression/violence towards his pregnant partner.’

On 26 February 2020, Michelle contacted Outer East Mental Health Service (Maroondah Hospital). The mental health notes documented that you had been verbally abusive and paranoid, having been found by Michelle crying on the kitchen floor in the midst of a panic attack. Michelle apparently reported that she had always thought you to have ‘vague paranoia’ which had intensified since you had stopped using cannabis some weeks earlier.

You were agreeable to follow-up in the community from the Crisis Assessment and Treatment Team (‘CATT’) and were prescribed the antipsychotic olanzapine.

Dr Carroll outlined the various mental health involvements you had with the CATT and other professionals throughout 2020 and 2021, including those following your apparent suicide attempt referred to earlier in these reasons.

In the Opinion section of his report, Dr Carroll expressed the view that your developmental history was notable for a number of factors that rendered you vulnerable to mental illness. These included your complex and dysfunctional relationships with key attachment figures, and your obsessional, self-centred and sensation-seeking temperament. These traits, however, were never at the level of a clinically diagnosable personality disorder.

Notwithstanding your previously confident and gregarious exterior, your personality issues likely contributed to difficulties for you in the key adult roles of father, intimate partner and breadwinner. Dr Carroll opined that this, in turn, made you:

vulnerable to engaging in dysfunctional behaviours (including, possibly, excessive levels of control) and to jealousy (which ultimately reached psychotic proportions) within his intimate relationship with Michelle Darragh. It also likely led to escalating insecurity in his mid-twenties as he faced the challenge of providing for a young family by means of working very long hours in his own, relatively new, business enterprise.[7]

[7]Ibid [288].

Dr Carroll stated that in the 3-4 years leading up to your crime, your various mental health and psychosocial challenges culminated in episodes of psychotic depression, in early 2020 and in the second half of 2021.

Dr Carroll’s view was at the time of the offending, you were diagnosable with psychotic depression: in DSM[8] terms, a Recurrent Major Depressive Episode: severe with psychotic features. He opined that the first episode occurred in early 2020. This occurred, he believed, against the background of:

· a pre-existing Delusional Disorder: jealous type; and

· A Mixed Substance Use Disorder with onset in your teens.

[8]Diagnostic and Statistical Manual.

He set out what he considered to be the causative factors of your major depression, including your underlying personality vulnerabilities, the progressively erosive impact of your persistent morbid and at time delusional jealousy on your relationship and your self-esteem, and the chronic neurobiological effects on mood of your cannabis and other drug use.

Dr Carroll expressed the view that your ice and cannabis binge in early September 2021 likely precipitated a further worsening in your mental health, resulting in the suicide attempt. The subsequent abrupt withdrawal likely affected your state of mind thereafter. He continued:

However, the overall timeline of his severe psychotic and depressive symptoms, including their persistence after cessation of substances for some 2 months, is not consistent with their being primarily explicable by the neurochemical effects of illicit drugs: in my opinion, this was not a ‘drug-induced psychosis’.[9]

[9]Exhibit 2 [295].

Dr Carroll considered that there was a very close causal relationship between your psychotic depression and the offending. You had a simmering anger that boiled over into acute rage, that manifested as impulsive, disinhibited, fatal violence. The anger was pathological, being primarily attributable to your severely impaired judgment due to your psychotic depression. A number of factors fuelled that anger.

Furthermore, various manifestations of your psychotic depression let to impairment in you capacity for reflective thinking and impulse control, rendering you vulnerable to episodes of behavioural disinhibition.

The final precipitating triggers to your rage, considered Dr Carroll, were your despair and resentment at Michelle for not bringing the boys to the house, your sense that she was not listening to your exhortations to leave, instead making you feel guilty about the end of the relationship, and the command hallucinations you claimed to have heard.

Dr Carroll stated that he ‘could find no strong evidence of any non-pathological, instrumental motive for the offence’.[10]
[10]Ibid [302].

Notwithstanding all of the above, he expressed his opinion that you did not lose the ability to reason that killing Michelle would be considered wrongful by other people.

Centrally, he continued:

In my opinion, but for the presence of mental illness, the murder would not have occurred: the symptoms of his psychotic depression are a necessary and central part of the explanation for the offence.[11]

[11]Ibid [304].

Dr Carroll observed that whilst in the circumstances, some depressive symptoms are likely to persist for the foreseeable future, your psychosis and delusional disorder have now entirely resolved. The risk of relapse into psychosis is low.

Dr Carroll gave lengthy sworn evidence before me during the plea hearing. In examination-in-chief, he elaborated on a number of aspects of the content of Exhibit 2. He noted that the material he considered in reaching his opinions included the records relating to the treatment you received at the Royal Melbourne Hospital and St Vincent’s Hospital following your arrest. He explained that psychotic depression is a form of severe mental illness characterised by both mood symptoms, in the form of predominantly depressive symptoms, and psychotic symptoms involving some loss of touch with reality. He believed the clinical picture you presented was strongly indicative of an episode of psychotic depression at the time of your offending. He emphasised the need for an expert such as himself to be provided with the fullest possible history and material and to carefully assess any self-report provided by you. He confirmed the opinions stated in Exhibit 2 about the causal relationship between your psychotic depression and your crime.

When asked to explain his opinion that the psychosis from which you were suffering at the time of your crime was not a drug-induced one, he stated:

So, I mean, drugs can induce a state that resembles psychotic depression, but one would expect it to be much more transient than was the case here. The timelines don’t really fit with it simply being a drug-induced psychosis in the context of withdrawal. Ultimately, that’s a matter of clinical judgment and obviously it was something that I had to turn my mind to quite forcibly. But my conclusion was that notwithstanding the fact that his very significant substance use problem was undoubtedly a risk factor for the onset of his difficulties, nonetheless, it wouldn’t be appropriate to label this as a substance induced psychosis.[12]

[12]Plea 96-7.

Dr Carroll was cross-examined at length by Dr Rogers SC who appeared for the Crown. The central focus of the cross-examination was upon the opinion expressed by Dr Carroll that the psychotic illness suffered by you at the time you murdered Michelle was not drug induced. In the course of cross-examination, Dr Rogers asked a number of questions touching on your regular and excessive use of illicit drugs over the years, and the prospect of this drug use having triggered or brought on your delusional jealousy of Michelle and otherwise interfered with your mental health. Dr Carroll accepted that cannabis and ice use would both have represented risk factors for subsequent mental health problems. In the case of ice use, he described it as a common phenomenon that male ice users develop delusions of infidelity in respect of their partners. Indeed, he stated that ice use is a risk factor for the development of a delusional disorder of the jealous type.

Importantly, Dr Carroll indicated that for the purposes of his opinions, he assumed that your abstinence from drugs commenced upon your admission to hospital in September 2021. This was based in part upon your self-report of having been drug free following your release from the hospital on 16 September 2021. The timing of the commencement of your period of abstinence was important for diagnostic reasons. When asked how important the truthfulness of your report on the matter was, Dr Carroll posited that, hypothetically, if evidence arose indicating that you had not been drug free from that time, that may or may not change his opinion. That would depend on the circumstances, and this would therefore be, as he put it, ‘a hypothetical’.[13] He was unaware of any evidence that this did happen. For the purposes of his diagnosis, he accepted the truthfulness of what you told him.
[13]Ibid 140.

Dr Carroll stated that what he took to be the persistence of symptoms in your case for some two months from mid-September 2021 was ‘an important criterion’[14] for him. He said that what occurred in your case was a trajectory of worsening in your condition in early October, and then a persistence of not only the delusional jealousy but also other psychotic symptoms such as hallucinations into November. This was suggestive of a ‘significant intrinsic psychopathological process rather than just the reaction of a healthy mind to an external insult’.[15]
[14]Ibid 156.
[15]Ibid 157.

Dr Carroll conceded that in the absence of drug screens and the like, he could not categorically rule out the possibility of a drug induced psychosis, but that he had reached a reasoned opinion, on all of the data available to him, that it was more probable than not that you did not suffer from a substance induced psychosis.

In response to the suggestions by Dr Rogers that a number of the reasons why you were angry with Michelle were not seemingly directly related to your mental illness, Dr Carroll suggested that your whole perception of Michelle at the time should be seen through the prism of your psychosis. That is, that your whole understanding of her was poisoned by your psychosis.

In response to questioning about his assertion at paragraph [302] of Exhibit 2, that there was no strong evidence of any non-pathological instrumental motive for what you did, Dr Carroll stated that you had nothing to gain from your crime, particularly as it was followed by a suicide attempt. Looking at the totality of what you did, it was not rational behaviour. There would be no pay off for you at the end of this, and it made no sense through a rational lens.

In re-examination, Dr Carroll reiterated his opinion that the psychotic illness from which you suffered was not principally drug-induced. He made it clear he had looked at ‘the whole longitudinal picture’[16] including all of the data available to him.
[16]Ibid 177.

Finally, in response to some question from me, Dr Carroll opined that notwithstanding the conditions from which you suffered, you were aware of the nature and quality of your acts. There was no respect in which you did not fully understand precisely what it was you were doing and the consequences of those actions. He confirmed that you told him that you intended to kill Michelle. When asked whether anything would have deprived you of the understanding that what you were doing would leave your two young children without a mother, Dr Carroll suggested that you had such impaired reflective functioning that ‘he wasn’t thinking in those terms’.[17] That said, however, no delusion would have prevented you from having that knowledge. You would have been conscious, too, of the fact that Michelle was pregnant.
[17]Ibid 181.

When asked - in light of his evidence that you did not lose the ability to reason that killing Michelle would be considered wrongful by other people - whether you lost the ability to understand yourself that what you were doing was wrong, Dr Carroll made it clear that the delusions and other mental conditions from which you suffered did not leave you with some sort of self-righteous sense that what you were doing was for some higher good. What was at play, he suggested, was really a loss of reflective function and a loss of self-control in the context of delusional thinking, ‘rather than a kind of neat delusional belief that led [you] to think that [your] behaviours were in any way justified’.[18] Nothing about the conditions from which you suffered, including the delusional jealousy, would have led you to believe that it would be appropriate to kill Michelle.
[18]Ibid 182.

When asked about the evidence he had previously given that the absence of there being anything to gain from your offending supported the inference of your having acted in response to your illness, Dr Carroll acknowledged that sadly, on occasions, males, not suffering from any psychotic illness, had been known to murder their spouses or partners out of anger or resentment, in circumstances where detection would be inevitable and there would seem to be nothing to gain.

Submissions in respect of the psychiatric evidence

Dr Rogers took no issue with the diagnosis of Dr Carroll that you suffered from depression and delusions as to the infidelity of Michelle at the time of your crime. What was at issue, she submitted, was the conclusion of the expert that your illness was not primarily explicable by your drug use. Dr Rogers submitted that a matter central or pivotal to the opinion of Dr Carroll was his acceptance of the proposition that you abstained from alcohol and drugs from your release from hospital on 16 September 2021, as set out in paragraph [204] of Exhibit 2. The persistence of psychotic symptoms for a period of two months after your apparent cessation of drug use was a critical factor in the expert’s conclusion. The conclusion that you had, in fact, abstained from drug use from the time relied upon as the commencement date of the two months of abstinence referred to above was supported only by your self-report to Dr Carroll and your self-reports to the CATT and others after your release from hospital. The evidence indicated that there was no professional follow-up of you in the last week of September and leading up to 9 October 2021.

Dr Rogers submitted that it would be impossible to over-state the importance of the question of your asserted abstinence from drug use between 16 September and 9 October 2021, given that the murder occurred within three weeks of your discharge from a hospital admission which commenced when you were undeniably abusing drugs.

She submitted that your claim of abstinence in the relevant period can be rejected for a number of reasons. First, this was a self-report by you, unsupported by other material. Secondly, you had a long-standing problem with cannabis and ice, including some intermittent cocaine use. This was your pattern of behaviour. Abstinence would have been very difficult for you in light of that long history of drug abuse, particularly in the absence of counselling or any other forms of assistance. Thirdly, you gave inconsistent accounts to medical professionals as to the duration of your cessation of drug use. Fourthly, expert material before the Court demonstrated that you had used illicit drugs throughout your life to help you cope with stressors. Your recent separation from Michelle, her pregnancy and the ultimatum you had given her, were significant stressors to which you were subject in the lead-up to your crime. It would have been highly unlikely, based on your past behaviour, that you would have been able to remain abstinent when attempting to cope with the situation in which you found yourself.

Dr Rogers submitted the truthfulness of your account of abstinence would be impossible to conclude in the circumstances, including the fact that you did not give evidence during the plea hearing. She submitted that it would be open to me to reject what you said to Dr Carroll and the CATT concerning your abstinence from drugs during the critical period, and, in view of the pivotal nature of the conclusion as to your abstinence to Dr Carroll’s conclusion that your symptoms were not primarily explicable by the neurochemical effects of illicit drugs, to reject that opinion.

Ms Brennan, who appeared on your behalf, initially submitted that in calling into question the cogency or reliability of the foundations behind Dr Carroll’s opinions, the prosecution was seeking to have me make a finding that you did, indeed, use illicit drugs between the time of your discharge from Eastern Health and the date of your crime. Correctly in my view, Ms Brennan did not persist in this particular submission.

She submitted that there is no evidence to suggest that the psychotic illness from which you were suffering on 9 October 2021 was drug induced, in the absence of evidence that you did use drugs during the relevant period.

Ms Brennan emphasised the considerable care exercised by Dr Carroll, a well-respected senior forensic psychiatrist, in arriving at his opinions. He considered a vast bulk of material in the clear knowledge of the importance of the conclusions he might reach. His ultimate conclusion was based not just on your self-reports, but on the totality of the material. This was not some apathetic process in which he simply accepted at face value what you told him. His was a reasoned series of opinions based on clear material.

Amongst the matters supportive of the truthfulness of your strong and maintained self-report of abstinence was the fact that in many respects, you did not seek to minimise the seriousness of your behaviour. Furthermore, there were powerful reasons why you may have seen the need to remain abstinent after your discharge from hospital, including the fact that your hospital admission had followed your first ever suicide attempt.

Ms Brennan relied, also, on what she called the synergy between Dr Carroll’s ultimate diagnosis and your earlier presentations at Eastern Health on 26 February 2021 and the diagnosis then reached and your history of mental ill-health from that time.

It was also emphasised that Dr Carroll relied on the significant elaboration attaching to your delusion of infidelity and the trajectory of your worsening mental health as supporting his diagnosis of psychotic depression.

Ms Brennan relied on the decision of RJE v The Secretary to the Department of Justice[19] in support of the contention that I should be slow to reject the opinions of Dr Carroll, which were unchallenged by any expert evidence called by the Crown.
[19](2008) 21 VR 526.

Analysis in respect of psychiatric evidence

Based upon the opinions of Dr Carroll, Ms Brennan sought to rely upon a number of the principles discussed in R v Verdins & Ors.[20] Specifically, she submitted that you are entitled to a substantial moderation of your sentence due to your reduced moral culpability,[21] as well as an appropriate moderation of the application of the principle of general deterrence.[22] Specific deterrence should also be appropriately moderated. The Crown, on the other hand, denied that any of the principles in Verdins should be considered to be enlivened in this case. The prosecution contended that if I rejected the evidence of Dr Carroll that your psychotic condition at the time of the crime was not drug induced, there would be no call for the application of any of the Verdins principles. For present purposes, I will act on the assumption that that is a correct interpretation of the law, although I express some reservations about this, and note Ms Brennan’s submission that the fact of a relevant psychotic condition being drug induced does not always stand in the way of the Verdins principles being enlivened.
[20](2007) 16 VR 269 (‘Verdins’).
[21]Limb 1 in Verdins.
[22]Limb 3 in Verdins.

In summarising the scope and limitation of the Verdins principles eight years after they were laid down, the Court of Appeal in DPP v O’Neill[23] stated, in part:
[23](2015) 47 VR 395 (‘O’Neill’).

Second, in order for the first, second, third and fourth principles enunciated in Verdins to have application to the sentencing task, there must be a connection between the impairment to mental functioning and the appellant’s moral culpability or the need for general and specific deterrence. If the mental impairment existed at the time of the offending, it must have some ‘realistic connection’ with the offending; or have ‘caused or contributed’ to the offending; or be ‘causally linked’ to the offending.
…
Third, to show the necessary connection to the offending and to so enliven limbs one to four of Verdins, the offender must establish that the mental impairment affected the offender’s ability to appreciate the wrongfulness of the conduct, or obscured the offender’s intent to commit the offence, or impaired the offender’s ability to make calm and rational choices or to think clearly at the time of the offence.
…
Fifth, cogent evidence, normally in the form of an expert opinion, is necessary to establish the existence of the mental impairment, either at the time of the offence, or at sentence, or both, and the nature, extent and effect of the mental impairment experienced by the offender at the relevant time.
Sixth, the assessment by the sentencing judge must be undertaken with rigour, as was made clear in Verdins itself and has since been repeatedly emphasised by this Court on appeal.
…
As this Court emphasised in Verdins, and in many later cases, careful consideration needs to be given to whether the evidence establishes that mental capacity has been impaired, and to which of the circumstances set out in Verdins are engaged. That consideration requires a rigorous evaluation of the evidence.
…
The expert evidence should be scrutinised with care and, where appropriate, a challenge made to the adequacy of the material. Where the judge concludes that the material is inadequate to support the opinion expressed, either because of its content or because of the circumstances in which it came into existence, the sentencing judge will ordinarily be obliged to state the reasons for rejecting the opinion or for finding that the material is inadequate. But it is a matter for the sentencing judge to determine the manner in which such issues are resolved.[24]

[24]Ibid [74]-[81] (citations omitted).

In circumstances where your descent into psychotic illness occurred over a period of years during which you engaged in substantial abuse of illicit drugs, which constituted a significant risk factor for the development of such illness, it was unsurprising and entirely appropriate that Dr Rogers, in her cross-examination and strong challenge to the opinions of Dr Carroll, sought to expose those opinions to the careful scrutiny required by the authorities.

I have carefully considered the important opinion expressed by Dr Carroll that your psychotic condition at the time of the crime was not a drug-induced one. Dr Rogers advanced a strong argument that that opinion, significantly dependent, as it was, upon an acceptance of the truthfulness of your self-report of having abstained from drug use following your discharge from hospital on 16 September 2021, was based on shaky ground and should not be accepted.

In the end, albeit with some hesitation, I have formed the view that I should accept that particular opinion held and attested to by Dr Carroll, essentially for the reasons advanced by your counsel.

That finding, however, is not the end of the matter. First, it does not mean that I should accept all of the opinions of Dr Carroll. Secondly, it does not automatically lead to some identifiable outcome when the Verdins principles are considered. It would of course remain a matter for me to carefully assess the nature and extent of the possible effects of your mental impairment upon your behaviour at the time of the murder.

Dr Carroll opined that there was a very close causal connection between your psychotic depression and your offending, to such an extent that but for the presence of this mental illness, the murder would not have occurred. He expressed the view that the symptoms of your illness ‘are a necessary and central part of the explanation for the offence’. [25]
[25]Exhibit 2, [304].

I have some misgivings about accepting those additional opinions of Dr Carroll, but I note that they were not expressly challenged by the Crown, so for present purposes, I accept them. Still, that is by no means the end of the enquiry, or a clear pointer to the level of any reduction of sentence in your case.

Relying on the opinions of Dr Carroll set out in paragraph [97] above, Ms Brennan submitted that you should be entitled to:

a substantial moderation of [your] sentence due to [your] reduced moral culpability, as well as an appropriate moderation of the application of the principle of general deterrence.[26]

[26]Defence outline [87].

Dr Rogers, on the other hand, questioned the magnitude of any reduction to your moral culpability on account of your illness. She pointed to the apparent existence of non-pathological causes of the anger you felt towards Michelle, and disputed that each and every aspect of your anger was pathological as set out in paragraph [299] of Dr Carroll’s report. Some of your reasons for anger had a rational basis. The reality is, a loss of temper in the context of the killing of an intimate partner or ex-partner is very commonly observed in this Court, she submitted.

Dr Rogers further submitted that the reduction in your moral culpability should only be limited in light of the fact that you were fully aware of the nature and gravity of your crime, and that it was wrong. The mitigating effect of the causal connection between your illness and the crime should be viewed as being ameliorated by that awareness and knowledge. She submitted that your moral culpability should not be considered to be reduced ‘to any great extent’.[27]
[27]Plea 211.

She made a like submission in respect of any moderation to general or specific deterrence.

Insofar as Dr Carroll indicated that he ‘could find no strong evidence of any non-pathological, instrumental motive for the offence’, I do not accept that proposition. You were a person who, long before the onset of any psychotic illness, harboured ill-founded suspicions about the fidelity of Michelle. Whether that was purely the product of your personality type, or related to your long-term abuse of ice, which was a substantial risk factor for the development of exactly those type of feelings, the reality is that you were a jealous, and on the evidence, somewhat controlling man for some years before your crime and before the development of psychotic depression. At the time of your crime, your partner had left you, and was in the process of moving her possessions out of the house. Both of those things caused you distress and anger. She was, to your knowledge, pregnant again, and ambivalent about terminating the pregnancy. Her pregnancy and seeming unwillingness to choose you ahead of the baby were further things that caused you to be unhappy.

Sadly, it is the not-infrequent experience of this Court that angry, jealous, embittered men, not afflicted by mental ill-health, have been known to murder their partners upon learning that the partner is leaving or has left the relationship. Such crimes would never make sense on any level other than as representing an inclination of the perpetrators to allow their self-righteous indignation and anger to overwhelm their better judgment and humanity.

The opinion of Dr Carroll that your mental condition at the time of your crime did not cause you to lose the ability to reason that killing Michelle would be considered wrong by other people, was an important one. Dr Carroll went on in response to a question from me to confirm that at the time of your crime, you were fully aware of the nature and quality of your actions. You would have fully understood the consequences of stabbing Michelle as you did, with the intention you admitted you had during the attack to kill her.

There was nothing in the psychiatric material led on your behalf which would suggest that you suffered any general loss of grip with reality immediately before and at the time of your crime. You knew that Michelle was the mother of your two young children, and pregnant with your third child. You knew that she had been your partner for many years, but had now decided that she wished to leave you. You harboured anger against Michelle for a combination of pathological and non-pathological reasons. With that knowledge, you secreted a dangerous knife upon your person and then in your shoe, intent, apparently, upon killing yourself in her presence, to inflict trauma upon her. You had no view that this would be in any way appropriate or acceptable behaviour, no matter how negatively you viewed her.

Then, in response to the anger which you felt, you made the conscious decision to attack her and cause her harm with the knife. At a point during the attack after you had lunged at her with the knife, and, specifically, at some point before the infliction of the fatal stab wound, you decided that you were going to kill her; as you said to Dr Carroll, ‘Once I lunged at her I thought I’ve got to go through with this – she needs to die now’.

You carried out a significant attack upon Michelle before the infliction of the fatal wound, which the evidence indicates was the final part of the attack. She sustained bruising and abrasions to her face and limbs, as well as the two less serious stab wounds. There must have been a number of separate applications of force. All the while, you knew that the person you were attacking was your partner and the mother of your young children. You knew that whatever may have been your ill-founded beliefs as to her fidelity towards you, you had no right whatsoever to attack her. She screamed out for help and struggled to resist you. You suppressed her screams and continued on regardless.

Then there was the fatal blow with the knife. You must have stabbed her from behind in what could only have been a very violent, forceful and deliberate manner. You plunged the knife deep into her back and neck, damaging her spinal cord and causing her rapid death. There was nothing in the evidence to indicate that at the time of this murderous action, you were deprived of the ability to fully understand the shocking nature of what you were doing, and the terrible consequences it would wreak on Michelle, her children, and her unborn child.

Dr Carroll expressed the opinion that your simmering anger at the time of attacking Michelle was primarily attributable to your severely impaired judgment due to your psychotic depression and that the manifestations of your psychotic depression led to pathological impairment in your capacity for reflective thinking and impulse control, rendering you vulnerable to episodes of behavioural disinhibition. These were seemingly the matters he relied upon in expressing his opinion as to the strong causal connection between your illness and your crime.

In Verdins, the Court held:

Impaired mental functioning at the time of the offending may reduce the offender’s moral culpability if it had the effect of –
(a)impairing the offender’s ability to exercise appropriate judgment;
(b)impairing the offender’s ability to make calm and rational choices, or to think clearly;

(c) making the offender disinhibited;
(d)impairing the offender’s ability to appreciate the wrongfulness of the conduct;

(e) obscuring the intent to commit the offence; or
(f) contributing (causally) to the commission of the offence.[28]

[28]Verdins [26] (citations omitted).

Accepting the evidence of Dr Carroll, the necessary causal contribution to the commission of the offence was present in your case. So, too, might a number of other aspects of the requirement come into play.

The effect of an impairment on moral culpability is a matter of degree to be determined by the Court on all of the evidence. Even if there is a causal connection between the impairment and the crime, the Court should consider whether the offender is to be adjudged less blameworthy as a result.[29] The effect on the Court’s assessment of culpability will vary with the nature and severity of the condition, and with the nature and seriousness of the offence.[30] Similarly, culpability may only be reduced to a limited extent where the offender was fully aware of the nature and gravity of what he was doing, and that it was wrong.[31]
[29]DPP v Patterson [2009] VSCA 222, [46].
[30]Verdins [25].
[31]Green v The Queen [2011] VSCA 311 (‘Green’); Pato v The Queen [2011] VSCA 223.

In some cases where there is a proven causal connection between a mental impairment and offending, the condition would be such as to deprive the offender of a full or proper understanding of the nature and gravity of his crime, and of the wrongfulness of the conduct. In such cases, it would be expected that the reduction in moral culpability would be substantial. As noted by Maxwell P in Green:

Obviously enough, the greater the extent to which an offender can be shown to have been ‘out of touch with reality’ when committing the offence, the lower the degree of moral culpability properly attributable.[32]

[32]Green [25].

That is far from the case here, for the reasons I have endeavoured to spell out. You knew full-well what you were doing when you attacked and then killed Michelle. Your mental condition had a bearing on the magnitude of the anger you felt towards her, and perhaps on your ability to control yourself, but not on your understanding of precisely what is was you were doing, how serious that was, and what the consequences would be.

In the circumstances, I consider that the moderation to your moral culpability on account of the causal connection between your illness and your crime should be quite modest. Your moral culpability would necessarily remain high.

As for general deterrence, the Court in O’Neill stated:

Clearly, there must be an established evidentiary basis for moderating the principles of general deterrence in a particular case. For that to occur, it is not sufficient that the offender suffer from a particular mental impairment. There must be proper, and informed, consideration of how that impairment might have either materially diminished the capacity of the offender to reason appropriately at the time of the offence concerning the wrongfulness of his or her offending, or of how the offender’s condition might make the full application of the principles of general deterrence repugnant to the underlying sense of humanity which guides proper sentencing.[33]

[33]O’Neill [59].

As I have already said, there is nothing to indicate you had anything less than a full appreciation of the wrongfulness of your conduct. Furthermore, there is no reason why you would not be an ‘appropriate vehicle for general deterrence’, to use the phrase employed in R v Tsiaras.[34] In the circumstances, it would be inappropriate for there to be any more than a modest reduction in the general deterrent aspects of the sentence I impose upon you. General deterrence would remain a very important sentencing purpose in this case.
[34][1996] 1 VR 398.

As for specific deterrence, which did not assume much significance in the submissions made before me, for reasons I will later spell out, I will not attach much weight to that.

Personal background

You are 31 years of age and were 29 at the time of your offending. You were born in Mitcham. Your mother Lucy Caulfield is a primary school teacher. Your father Greg Coman is a clinical psychologist. You have one sibling, Christopher Coman, who works as a sports physiologist. Your parents separated when you were about four. Your mother re-partnered with Andrew Caulfield, himself a primary school teacher. Your father later moved to live interstate. You retained a close relationship with him. I note in passing that an impressive and supportive letter from your father was tendered on your behalf during the plea hearing. You have two half-siblings, Nicholas and Monique Caulfield.

With your second family unit, you lived and grew up in The Basin. You had a difficult relationship with your step-father. You began ‘acting out’ from a young age and your behavioural difficulties resulted in your receiving psychological assistance from the age of 10. The conflict between you and your step-father and the tension this placed on the family culminated in your being encouraged to leave the family home at the age of 18. You lived for a time with your aunt before moving on to various shared and other houses until the time you met Michelle.

You were educated at The Basin Primary School before going to St Joseph’s Secondary College in Ferntree Gully where you completed year 10. In year 11, you commenced VCAL studies in horticulture. You told Dr Carroll that you hated your secondary schooling, and resented having been sent to a single-sex, Catholic school. You exhibited behavioural problems at secondary school. You dropped out of school at 16 and worked for two years at a landscaping company. From that time, you had a solid work history. You completed an apprenticeship in shop-fitting and joinery, working as a shop-fitter before setting up and operating your own business in the field in 2016. You were successful in your business, building it up through hard work. In fact, the amount of time you spent at the business premises in Bayswater, particularly after hours, became a source of tension in your relationship with Michelle. You struggled with the administrative side of the business and your perfectionist and obsessional personality traits. You found it difficult to share the load with employees. In the end, you found the demands of the business overwhelming for you, a feature of your life at the time of your crime.

In your younger years, you were a keen footballer and formed strong relationships with team mates.

You smoked cannabis regularly from the age of 16, your use increasing substantially when you were 18. You became a daily, quite heavy user of the drug and developed a dependence upon it. This continued throughout the years leading up to your offending, and was a source of conflict between you and Michelle. Whilst as a younger person you considered cannabis use harmless, you told Dr Carroll that after your psychiatric crisis in 2020, if not before, you knew of its harmful effects, having developed temporary paranoid thoughts. You first used ice and amphetamine (speed) at the age of 18, with your usage increasing in frequency from around 2018. You also engaged in significant cocaine use. You sometimes funded your cocaine habit by doing cabinetry work in exchange for the drug. You reduced your cocaine use in early 2021 but stepped up your use of ice.

As Dr Carroll put it:

From adolescence onwards, Mr Coman has utilised substances, especially cannabis; initially this seems to have essentially been for recreational purposes. As his life challenges increased from his mid-twenties however, his cannabis use escalated, and he appears to have developed physiological dependency on the substance; this increased usage appears to have been in large part driven by a subjective need to dampen down escalating problems with anxiety and distress as the demands that he faced began to exceed his coping capacity. His usage of alcohol and, at times, stimulants, appears to have had a similar basis.[35]

[35]Exhibit 2 [289].

As far as I can tell from the material, in spite of the fact that you knew your drug use had become problematic for your health, your business, your financial security, and in your relationship, you never made any real effort to curtail it, with the exception of the brief period after your release from hospital in mid-September 2021.

You have two prior convictions for drink-driving which are of no relevance for present purposes.

Victim impact statements

The Court received 10 victim impact statements from the friends and loved ones of Michelle. A number of the statements were read aloud in the Court by their authors or the prosecutor. Others were simply filed and tendered, to be read by me. Whether read aloud or not, the statements painted a vivid picture of the terrible loss, tragedy and sense of betrayal caused by your senseless actions.

The statements of Michelle’s father, Ashley and mother Dianne, are particularly heart wrenching. Not only have they suffered the devastation brought about by the loss of their treasured daughter, but they now have the responsibility, which they have willingly taken on, of caring for Michelle’s two young children, serving as a constant reminder of the loss of Michelle. The lives they thought had been well mapped out have been taken away from them in more ways than one.

Ashley agonises over the fact that Michelle left their home before making her way over to your house where she was to meet her death. He describes the particular trauma he suffered finding his beloved daughter in the state in which you left her. As he correctly said:

No person should have to go through what I went through that night and I know I will never be the same. It has scarred my soul, my personality – the person I am.

Michelle’s mother, Dianne, like her husband, is tormented by the fact that Michelle left their company before going over to Huntingdon Avenue. She describes Michelle as a beautiful woman, kind and caring, and devoted to her children. Her murder had broken her and shattered everything in her world. A huge part of her died with Michelle.

Samantha Darragh, Michelle’s sister, states:

The day my sister was murdered, an irreplaceable light was taken from this world. Chelle was a friend, an aunty, a sister, a daughter, but most importantly a mother to her most precious boys. I only hope as I am looked at today, I am a reminder of the life that was taken.

She went on to describe her sister as a selfless and incredible woman, sentiments echoed in others of the victim impact statements.

Samantha, like her parents and her brothers James and Aaron, acutely feels the fact that you were welcomed into this loving family, trusted by them all, and yet betrayed that trust.

The victim impact statements are full of poignant and moving insights into the many ways that your crime has impacted upon the lives of the family and loved ones of Michelle. Whilst of course the contents of the victim impact statements must not be allowed to overwhelm the sentencing process, the victim impact statements provide an important insight into the profound grief and pain caused to so many as a direct consequence of your offending. I take the contents of the statements into account in sentencing you.

Nature and gravity of offending and moral culpability and degree of responsibility

I said at the outset that yours was a very serious example of the crime of murder. In my view, that is perfectly plain when the many aggravating features of your crime are considered.

Your crime involved the killing inside the recently-shared family home of your female domestic partner, the mother of your two young children, in respect of whom you were in a position of trust and responsibility. You were also in a position of relative physical strength. She was vulnerable and defenceless by virtue of the size and strength differential, and entirely unsuspecting and innocent. She was an especially vulnerable person in light of her pregnancy, of which you had full knowledge. Your killing of her occurred in circumstances where she had left you, and made it clear that this would remain the case. You killed her with the use of a dangerous weapon which you had earlier obtained and then secreted, intending to use it for violent purposes. Your crime was carried out for reasons of anger and resentment. Your attack involved multiple thrusts with the knife and further physical attacks upon Michelle. The fatal thrust was a particularly brutal one, inflicted with the intention to kill. In acting upon that intention, you knew full well that your conduct would leave your children without a mother, and lead to the death of Michelle’s unborn child.

Ms Brennan made some submissions about the nature of your offending about which I should make some comment. First, she submitted that the findings on autopsy are consistent with the account you gave to Dr Carroll of a brief but intense attack on Michelle involving one initial lunging action with the knife, followed by a struggle and attempt to smother her screams with your hand around her face. I do not accept that submission. Michelle suffered three distinct stab wounds, at least two of which would be reflective of two separate stabbing motions and the third of which might represent a defensive action to ward off your attack upon her or an injury sustained while trying to wrestle the weapon from you. She also sustained numerous other injuries indicative of blunt force trauma. In my view, what you told Dr Carroll could in no way explain the injuries sustained by Michelle. Nor could it be confidently concluded that this was an attack of brief duration only. It was an attack sustained at least to the extent of being sufficient to cause the many injuries suffered by Michelle.

I make it clear that I make no finding that you deliberately misled Dr Carroll. I accept that your memory may have been deficient for a number of reasons.

Secondly, Ms Brennan submitted that your attack was not premeditated and arose spontaneously when your thoughts ‘switched abruptly from killing [yourself] to killing Ms Darragh’.[36] The fact is, as I indicated earlier, that some time before the commencement of the attack, and having contemplated stabbing yourself in front of Michelle to cause her anguish, you obtained and secreted the knife, then moved it from one part of the house to another and concealed it in a different location. You contemplated serious and violent conduct aimed at hurting Michelle due to your powerful feelings of jealousy and anger towards her. The physical attack upon her, when it did occur, did not materialise out of thin air.
[36]Defence outline [65].

Yours was a crime of a very high degree of seriousness. Taking into account only its objective factors, I believe that it would fall above the middle of the range of seriousness of crimes of murder.

I have already spoken of your moral culpability. It remains high notwithstanding your mental condition at the time.

Plea of guilty and remorse

You pleaded guilty at the earliest opportunity in this case, having fully acknowledged responsibility not long after your admission into custody. Your plea of guilty at that early stage is an important matter in mitigation of sentence. It is of great utilitarian value, and I am satisfied in your case, is reflective of the genuine remorse you feel for your crime, which, again, you manifested at an early time.

I note that the authorities dictate that a plea of guilty entered during the currency of the COVID-19 pandemic should be accorded more substantial weight in mitigation of sentence than a similar plea entered at a time when the community and the courts have not been impeded by the effects of the pandemic.[37]
[37]Worboyes v The Queen [2021] VSCA 169; Surtees v The King [2023] VSCA 42.

Prospects of rehabilitation

As made clear by Dr Carroll in his evidence, none of the conditions with which you have been diagnosed are permanent in nature. Your response to treatment in custody has been encouraging. You have now been weaned off any anti-psychotic medications. You still have depressive symptoms, for which you are receiving appropriate treatment. I accept that your risk of relapse is low. You remain drug free.

Ms Brennan pointed to your demonstrated commitment to better manage your mental health in future, your strong ongoing family support and strong family focus, and your previously demonstrated good work ethic and skills as being matters which would assist in your prospects of rehabilitation. She submitted that your prospects in this regard are good.

The Crown accepted that your prospects of rehabilitation are ‘reasonably good’[38] provided you remain abstinent from illegal drugs and alcohol, seek medical attention if you become unwell, and are medication-compliant.
[38]Prosecution outline [21].

I accept, in the circumstances, that you have good prospects of rehabilitation.

Standard sentence scheme

Your crime having been committed after 1 February 2018, the standard sentence scheme applies. The standard sentence for murder is 25 years.

Pursuant to s 5A(1)(b) of the Sentencing Act 1991 (‘the Act’), the period of 25 years is the sentence for an offence of murder that, taking into account only the objective factors affecting the relative seriousness of that offence, is in the middle of the range of seriousness.

Section 5(2) of the Act requires me to have regard to a number of specified matters in sentencing you. One of them, pursuant to part (ab), is the standard sentence. The standard sentence is to be treated as a legislative guidepost, having the same function as the maximum penalty.[39]
[39][2019] VSCA 286 (‘Brown’).

I have had regard to the standard sentence for murder as one of the matters to be taken into account in arriving at the appropriate sentence for you for this crime by the process of instinctive synthesis. In doing so, I have applied the law as explained in Brown. As I said earlier, it is clear that taking into account only its objective factors, your murder of Michelle is a very serious instance of the crime falling above the middle range of seriousness for murder.

Section 5B(5) statement

Section 5B(4) of the Sentencing Act 1991 requires a court that sentences an offender for a standard sentence offence to state its reasons for imposing that sentence. Sub-section (5) requires me to refer to the standard sentence for the offence and explain how the sentence imposed by me relates to that standard sentence.

As I understand it, the applicable law does not require me in complying with the requirement of s 5B(5) to ‘attribute particular mathematical values’ to matters regarded by me as significant to the formation of a sentence that differs from the standard sentence.[40] It does, however, require me to ‘identify fully the facts, matters and circumstances’ which bear upon the judgment I have reached as to the appropriate sentence.[41] I have endeavoured to do that in some detail during these reasons for sentence.
[40]Muldrock v The Queen (2011) 244 CLR 120 [29].
[41]Ibid.

In arriving at the appropriate sentence, I can indicate that I have taken into account all of the matters I am required to consider under s 5(2) of the Act, including the standard sentence for murder. I have taken into account any mitigating factors which apply to your crime. By the process of instinctive synthesis, I have arrived at the sentence I will shortly announce.

Current sentencing practices

The requirement in s 5(2)(b) of the Act for me to have regard to current sentencing practices remains, but s 5B(2)(b) dictates that I:

must only have regard to sentences previously imposed for the offence as a standard sentence offence in relation to the sentencing for which this section applied.

This change in the law does not preclude me from having regard to sentencing principles established in previous cases.[42]
[42]Brown [111].

Ms Brennan provided the Court, as an addendum to her outline of submissions on sentence, with a table of cases in which sentences have been imposed for murder as a standard sentence offence. She did not submit that any one of these cases was directly comparable with this case, but it seems they were selected as being cases of murder in a domestic setting, most of them involving knife attacks, with pleas of guilty entered. A consideration of these cases illustrates the reasons why, of course, no other sentence passed can ever amount to some sort of precedent for a sentence now to be imposed.

I have had regard to these sentences and sentences passed in other cases of murder since the standard sentence regime commenced in arriving at the appropriate sentence for you.

I make it clear that no individual sentence passed in any other case is in any way a precedent for the sentence I must pass.

COVID-19 considerations

I take into account in sentencing you the onerous conditions of custody which have applied to you for most of the time since your incarceration due to steps taken by the authorities to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 virus within the prison population. The effects of the pandemic on custodial conditions are well known. Fortunately, it seems that better times are upon us, and there is reason to believe that the substantial bulk of your sentence will not be blighted by COVID-19. The time you have spent in custody in prison since your remand, however, has no doubt been more burdensome for you, and I take that matter into account as well as the uncertainty that still prevails.

Non-parole period

If I sentence you to a head sentence of 20 years or more, I am required by s 11A(4) of the Act, unless I consider it is in the interests of justice not to do so, to fix a non-parole period of at least 70 percent of the head sentence. The head sentence I impose will be one of 20 years or more.

It was not submitted on your behalf that I should fix a non-parole period lower than 70 percent of the head sentence.

Taking into account all of the circumstances of this case, I do not consider that it would be in the interests of justice for a non-parole period of less than 70 percent of the head sentence to be fixed. Indeed, the non-parole period I will fix will exceed 70 percent of the head sentence. The assessment of the length of a non-parole period will depend on all of the circumstances of each case. In this case, I will fix as the non-parole period the shortest term of imprisonment which, in my view, would meet the needs of justice in this case.

Important sentencing considerations

As I have already indicated, your crime was exceedingly serious. Set against the background of your troubled relationship with Michelle – for which it is pretty clear, you were largely to blame - and the decision she had made, which was her right, to leave the relationship, you allowed the strong anger you had developed towards her, which emanated from a combination of your delusional beliefs and other non-pathological causes, to well up inside you, resulting in a violent and outrageous outpouring of violence towards her. Notwithstanding your mental illness, you understood perfectly well that any violence towards Michelle would be unacceptable, and that to kill her, as you decided to do, would be a crime of the highest order of seriousness, with devastating consequences. When you attacked her with a carving knife, you knew full well what you were doing, and, I am satisfied, had it within yourself to control your actions had you been prepared to do so, notwithstanding your mental condition. Your attack upon Michelle, who was entirely unsuspecting and helpless, was a violent and unforgivable one, which not only took away her young life, but deprived her children of the care and love of their mother, destroyed her unborn child, and devastated her family.

Your crime was committed in a setting of family violence. In Felicite v The Queen,[43] a case which concerned the murder of a domestic partner, the Court of Appeal stated:

The taking of a domestic partner’s life undermines the foundations of personal relationships and family trust, upon which our society rests. The sentence must reflect both the sanctity of human life and society’s abhorrence of violence towards vulnerable and trusting partners, who could legitimately have expected the offender to be the protector from, not the perpetrator of violent abuse. An outburst of homicidal rage in such contexts is totally unacceptable. The community expectation is that the punishment assigned to such conduct must be condign so as to denounce in the strongest terms the abhorrent nature of domestic murder and to deter others from taking a similar course. Accordingly, the principles of general deterrence, denunciation and just punishment will ordinarily be given primacy in sentencing for the murder of a partner in a domestic setting even where there are present, circumstances of provocation or great emotional stress. [44]

[43](2011) 37 VR 329.

[44]Ibid [20] (Redlich JA, with whose judgment Harper JA and Robson AJA agreed).

I believe those principles have application in this case.

To my mind, the important reasons for which sentence must be passed on you are just punishment, denunciation, and general deterrence. You must be punished in a way which reflects the seriousness of your crime and amounts to an appropriate response to it. The sentence must communicate in clear terms this Court’s condemnation and disapproval on behalf of the community of your violent criminal conduct towards Michelle. Your crime represents yet another instance of the murder of a female domestic partner by an angry and embittered male, a type of crime which has become distressingly familiar in the life of this Court and of our community, and causes enormous grief and trauma. Michelle Darragh should have been free to remain in or leave her relationship with you as she saw fit, without the prospect of being met with unforgivable violence from you. Her life was precious to her, her young children, her family, her friends and the community in which she lived and was making a great contribution. In respect of general deterrence, the sentence I pass must bring it clearly home to any person who might be minded to carry out serious crimes of violence against people – disproportionately women – in domestic settings, extending to violence of such magnitude as to take the life of others, that such conduct will be met with very strong punishment. In your case, in light of the steps you have taken since your crime, and your good prospects of rehabilitation, I do not believe that specific deterrence and protection of the community loom large in the sentencing synthesis. As for rehabilitation, I do have regard to the importance of that sentencing purpose, but note that the inevitable consequence of your crime is the imposition of a head sentence and non-parole period which will be lengthy in light of the requirement that they both adequately reflect the purposes for which sentence is imposed in this case.

Sentence

Benjamin Coman, for the murder of Michelle Darragh, you are sentenced to be imprisoned for 25 years.

I fix a period of 20 years during which you will not be eligible to be released on parole.

I declare a period of 538 days up to and including yesterday, 30 March 2023, as being a period already served under this sentence. I direct that the fact of the making of that declaration and its details be noted in the records of the Court.

I state pursuant to s 6AAA of the Sentencing Act 1991 that, but for your plea of guilty, I would have sentenced you to be imprisoned for 30 years with a non-parole period of 25 years.

[2023] VSC 159

31 March 2023