DPP v Tran
[2006] VSC 394
•26 October 2006
| IN THE SUPREME COURT OF VICTORIA | Not Restricted |
AT MELBOURNE
CRIMINAL DIVISION
No. 1531 of 2005
| DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROSECUTIONS |
| v |
| NHAT ANH TRAN |
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JUDGE: | Teague J | |
WHERE HELD: | Melbourne | |
DATE OF HEARING: | 16-19 October 2006 | |
DATE OF SENTENCE: | 26 October 2006 | |
CASE MAY BE CITED AS: | DPP v Tran | |
MEDIUM NEUTRAL CITATION: | [2006] VSC 394 | |
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Criminal Law – Sentencing – Murder of daughter by emotionally stressed father aged 49 – Intentionally causing serious injury to Mother and to daughter’s friend – Plea of guilty – Effective sentence of 21 years – non-parole period of 16 years
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APPEARANCES: | Counsel | Solicitors |
| For the DPP | Mr D. Trapnell | Office of Public Prosecutions |
| For the Accused | Mr I. Crisp | Michael J. Gleeson & Associates Pty |
HIS HONOUR:
Nhat Anh Than, you have pleaded guilty to three offences arising out of events that occurred on 18 December 2004. You have pleaded guilty to the murder of your daughter, Thuy Sen Tran. You stabbed her fatally. You have also pleaded guilty to two counts of intentionally causing serious injury. You caused serious injury to your wife, Mui Thi Phan by stabbing her. You caused serious injury to your daughter’s friend, Luan Tran by stabbing him. Each of the three victims was stabbed by you at about the same time with the same knife.
On 18 December 2004, you were residing along with the three victims at a house in Carlton Street, Braybrook. Also residing there were the three other children of yourself and Mui Thi Phan. At that time, and for a considerable time previously, relations between you and other members of the family had been strained. For a period of two years between the years 2000 and 2002, you had been excluded from living with the family. During that period, your wife, Mui Thi Phan had obtained an Intervention Order against you based on your ill treatment of her. In time, she relented, and let you rejoin the family. You then had the benefit of the company of your children. However, you had little say in the running of the family. Your wife managed the family finances. Both your wife and daughter worked and provided the income to sustain the family. You had lost your employment. You managed to get by financially on some regular benefit payments. Your wife, who kept her financial affairs separate, suspected that, at times, you took money from her purse. Until the morning of 18 December 2004, she chose not to confront you as to her suspicions in the presence of other family members.
In the period leading up to December 2004, your older daughter, Thuy Sen Tran was engaged in study, in work and in travel. She trained and worked as a pharmacy assistant and as a social worker. Through a cousin, she had come to know and like Luan Tran. Like Thuy Sen Tran, Luan Tran had been born in Vietnam. He had moved with his parents to the United States. Thuy Sen Tran had visited Luan Tran in the United States. They had plans to marry and reside in the United States. Your wife prevailed on Thuy Sen Tran to return to Melbourne. After she returned, she arranged for Luan Tran to come to stay with your family here for a time. It was late in November 2004, that Luan Tran came here. He resided in the family home at Braybrook. Because of the lack of room with a household of seven, he slept in the lounge room. You were troubled by the sleeping arrangements and by the circumstances in which Luan Tran had come into the family home. You had had no say in what was arranged as to the visit and as to where Luan Tran slept. According to Vietnamese traditions, prior to his staying with the family, there would have been an arrangement made between you and the father of Luan Tran.
On the morning of 18 December 2004, your wife went shopping with three of your children and with Luan Tran. When she went to pay for her first proposed purchase, she found that there was no money in her purse. Her immediate reaction was to conclude that you had taken her money. She returned to the Braybrook house. There, she accused you of taking all of the money from her purse. There followed a heated exchange of words between you and your wife. Because you had operated a tape recorder as you were speaking, I have been able to listen to the record of that exchange. It occurred in front of four others. There was not only your daughter Thuy Sen Tran, but also Luan Tran and your two youngest children. Amongst other things, your wife called you a water buffalo. In the Vietnamese culture, that is an insult indicating stupidity. Initially you chose to respond only with angry words. Then, your wife returned to accusing you of being a thief. You then made the impulsive but very foolish decision to take a knife from a drawer in the kitchen.
On seeing you take out the knife, your wife and daughter and Luan Tran moved out of the house into the rear yard. They ran across the yard to a gate leading onto the street. You went after them. There was trouble opening and getting out the gate. At or near the gate, you inflicted the first stab wounds. Luan Tran was the first victim. He was stabbed as he tried to prevent you stabbing your wife. You then succeeded in stabbing your wife to the left arm and to her back. You believed then that you had killed her. Your daughter was the first to get out of the gate. She ran down the street. You ran after her. Luan Tran ran after you. As your daughter ran, she fell. That brought her onto her hands and knees. At that time, you stabbed her in the back. Luan Tran caught up to you and struggled with you. In that struggle, you stabbed him to his right hand. That was the last use that you made of the knife. Shortly after that, you hailed a car and asked to be taken to the police station. There you surrendered the knife and were taken into custody. The wounds that you inflicted to each of Mui Thi Phan and Luan Tran were serious. The wounds that you inflicted to Thuy Sen Tran were so serious as to cause her death, a senseless and tragic death.
I have read carefully the four victim impact statements placed before the court. They were prepared by each of your wife and your three surviving children. The three from the surviving siblings of Thuy Sen Tran are very moving as to how they have suffered from her death. They reflect the strong and good relationship they each had with their older sister. The greatest pain and the deepest sense of loss is that expressed by Mui Thi Phan. Her victim impact statement makes extremely sad reading.
I turn from the victims to you and your background. You are 51 years of age. You were born in Hue in central Vietnam in October 1955. You have a number of brothers and sisters. At least one brother lives in Melbourne. You worked as a nurse in Vietnam. You married Mui Thi Phan in 1978. Thuy Sen Tran was born in 1979. A son was born in 1982. In that same year, you left Vietnam. After some time in a refugee camp in Hong Kong, you came to Australia in 1985. Your wife and the two children joined you here in 1990. Later a second son and daughter were born. For some years until 2001, you worked for the Ford Motor Company.
General deterrence must play a major part in my fixing the sentence for these three crimes and particularly the murder of your daughter. The community would expect severe punishment to be meted out to a father who cannot control his anger in a family confrontation, but takes up a knife to attack three family members, and kills one who was innocent of any provocative conduct. Having said that, there cannot be the highest level of seriousness attaching where the acts were impulsive rather than pre-meditated. While I readily accept that the legal requirements of provocation would not have been satisfied, you were subjected by your wife to considerable provocation at a time of considerable vulnerability. Against a background of circumstances creating low self-esteem, you were subjected to significant emotional stress. A number of factors had contributed to you being at the critical time in a state of low self-esteem. You had no job. Your wife and daughter were working. You were at your wife’s call as to living with the family. You had no say in any of the arrangements as to Luan Tran. I must too, and do, allow for the added impact of Vietnamese cultural factors amplifying the effect of matters going to loss of face and respect. Further, there was more than low self-esteem. I accept the evidence of your having suffered symptoms of depression warranting medical attention prior to your committing these offences. A sensible moderation of the allowance for general deterrence is thus warranted.
I note a series of mitigating factors otherwise. You deserve a significant discount for pleading guilty to these charges. You made the choice to bypass a committal hearing, thereby saving your family members the trauma of being examined in court altogether. You have no prior convictions. You acted responsibly in going to the police and then substantially co-operating with them. Your prospects of rehabilitation are very good. You have shown remorse, particularly for the killing of your daughter. You will find prison particularly onerous and for more than one reason. You are likely to be so haunted by the memory of having killed your daughter so senselessly as to want to continue not to remember. Dr Sullivan puts to that the diagnosis of depressive pseudodementia. Further, you are likely to have lost forever the company of your wife and three other children.
I must impose three sentences but allow for partial concurrency and partial cumulation. There was but a little difference in time and place that separated the three stabbings. I must allow for the principle of totality. I do regard the stabbing of your wife as significantly more serious than that of Luan Tran. There being no objection and other bases for doing so, I have signed the orders as to disposal and retention submitted on the plea hearing.
On Count 1, I sentence you for the murder of Thy Sen Tran to 18 years in prison. On Count 2, I sentence you for intentionally causing serious injury to Mui Thi Phan to 4 years in prison, 2 years being concurrent with the 18 years imposed on Count 1. On Count 3, I sentence you for intentionally causing serious injury to Luan Tran to 2 years in prison, 1 year being concurrent with the 18 years imposed on Count 1. The effective sentence is 21 years. I fix a non-parole period of 16 years. I declare that you have served 678 days of pre-sentence detention, and direct that that be entered in the court records.
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