R v Andos & Basile
[2005] VSC 22
•11 February 2005
| IN THE SUPREME COURT OF VICTORIA | Not Restricted | |
AT MELBOURNE
CRIMINAL DIVISION
No. 1431 of 2004
| THE QUEEN |
| v |
| YIANNIS ANDOS AND MARIO GIUSEPPE BASILE |
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JUDGE: | KAYE J. | |
WHERE HELD: | MELBOURNE | |
DATE OF HEARING: | 13 December 2004 and 9 February 2005 | |
DATE OF SENTENCE: | 11 February 2005 | |
CASE MAY BE CITED AS: | R v Andos and Basile | |
MEDIUM NEUTRAL CITATION: | [2005] VSC 22 | Revised 22 March 2006 |
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CRIMINAL LAW – Sentence – Manslaughter.
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APPEARANCES: | Counsel | Solicitors |
| For the Crown | Mr B. Kayser | Office of Public Prosecutions |
| For the Accused Andos | Mr C.L. Lovitt Q.C. | Galbally & O’Bryan |
| For the Accused Basile | Mr M.G. O’Connell | Victor Andreou |
HIS HONOUR:
Yiannis Andos and Mario Giuseppie Basile, you have each pleaded guilty to one count of manslaughter of Kyriakos Lilikakis at Chadstone on 26 February 2003. Originally, you each, together with Sam Latesto, were charged with the murder of Mr Lilikakis. You were discharged on that count at committal proceedings in May 2004. The Director of Public Prosecutions then charged you, together with Latesto, with manslaughter.
On 13 December 2004, you, Yiannis Andos, pleaded guilty before me to the charge of manslaughter. A plea in mitigation of sentence was made on your behalf. You were then remanded pending the completion of the trial against your co-accused. That trial commenced on 31 January 2005. On the third day of the trial Latesto pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of intentionally causing injury to Lilikakis. Latesto had given a statement of evidence, which he undertook to give at the trial of you, Mario Basile, for manslaughter. Based on that undertaking, the Crown accepted the plea of guilty by Latesto to the lesser charge and the presentment for manslaughter in respect of him was stayed. I sentenced Latesto on 7 February. On the same day, you, Mario Basile, pleaded guilty before me.
It is first necessary for me to make findings of fact about the circumstances in which the offence occurred.
On the evening of 25 February 2003 you, Andos, shared a meal with Latesto at a restaurant. You told Latesto that you wished to locate the deceased man, Lilikakis. After the meal, you then contacted Basile, who you thought might be able to assist you to find Lilikakis. The two of you then met up by arrangement. You both, together with Latesto, then visited a number of places in an attempt to locate Lilikakis, but you were unable to do so.
During the two days before 26 February, Mr Lilikakis had been in the company of Doreen Liaskos at a room which he had booked at the Matthew Flinders Hotel. Later on 25 February 2003, Liaskos made telephone contact with you, Mario Basile, while you and Andos were travelling in a vehicle with Latesto. You both then travelled with Latesto in Andos's vehicle to High Street, Prahran, where you collected Liaskos, who told you where to find Lilikakis.
When you arrived at the hotel the four of you entered the room using a key provided by Liaskos. Lilikakis was not there. You both then searched the room looking for drugs or money. The two of you, together with Latesto and Liaskos, remained in the room and awaited the arrival of the deceased man. Mr Lilikakis arrived just before 1.00 a.m. in the company of one Michelle Toy, a prostitute who he had met in St Kilda.
The reason why you, Andos, were seeking Lilikakis is relatively uncontentious. During a period of about four years before the offence, you had become a regular user of illicit drugs, including cocaine and amphetamines. On the account given on your behalf on your plea, which I accept, some time before the offence you had given the deceased a substantial amount of money with which to purchase drugs on your behalf for your own use. However, the deceased had either failed or had intentionally omitted to purchase those drugs for you, but had retained the moneys which you had entrusted to him. The records of your mobile telephone indicate that in the weeks, and in particular on the day, before the offence, you sought to make contact with Mr Lilikakis on a number of occasions. It is clear on the evidence that Mr Lilikakis was attempting to avoid you in order that he could retain the money which you had given to him.
The account given by you, Andos, in that respect is supported by the witness Helen Zaicoff, who was in the company of the deceased up to Monday, 24 February 2003. According to Ms Zaicoff, the deceased showed her large amounts of money which he was holding and told her that a portion of it belonged to other people. The deceased made it plain to Ms Zaicoff that he was attempting to avoid accounting for that money to the persons entitled to it, and for that purpose he had to stay in hiding for the next couple of days. Ms Zaicoff, in her statement, concluded by stating that throughout the time she had known the deceased, "he has conned or borrowed people's money time and time again and never given it back."
Accordingly, I accept that you, Andos, were seeking Lilikakis on the night in question because he had misappropriated money which you had entrusted to him for the purpose of the purchase of drugs.
In your record of interview with the police, you, Mario Basile, stated that you had no motive to seek out Lilikakis and that you were only in the vehicle occupied by Latesto and Andos in order to assist them find Lilikakis for their own purposes. However, I consider your record of interview to be unreliable. In your record of interview you told the police you had nothing to do at all with the violence which erupted in Lilikakis's motel room. That answer to the police is clearly and significantly inconsistent with your plea of guilty and with your acceptance through your counsel that you aided and abetted the infliction of violence on Lilikakis by punching and kicking. Thus, I do not consider your record of interview to be a reliable source of evidence on which I may rely. Your precise motive in wishing to find Lilikakis is not entirely clear. However, the evidence of the witnesses Liaskos and Latesto satisfy me beyond reasonable doubt that you did bear some antipathy to Lilikakis. Further, it is clear that you wished to confront Lilikakis when he arrived at the motel room; otherwise, there is no acceptable explanation why you entered the motel room and there is no acceptable explanation why you remained there until Lilikakis arrived. More importantly, there is no other explanation why you so willingly participated in the brutal assault which ensued when Lilikakis did arrive
When Lilikakis arrived at his motel room he was immediately set upon and violently attacked. As a consequence, he suffered severe injuries, particularly to the face and head, from which he died either during or shortly after the attack. You both, together with Liaskos and Latesto, then decamped from the hotel.
What precisely occurred in the motel room was the subject of some debate before me on your pleas. In order to make appropriate factual findings in relation to those issues, I am primarily reliant on the witness statements of Michelle Toy and Doreen Liaskos, both of which are in the depositions, on the report of the pathologist, Dr Dodd, and on the evidence of Latesto. Counsel for each of you have cross‑examined Mr Latesto.
In making findings of fact, it has been necessary for me to scrutinise the evidence of Latesto with particular care. Clearly Latesto had a motive to minimise his own involvement and thereby maximise the involvement of both or one of you when he made his statement to the police. It would certainly be consistent with such a motive for Latesto to have exaggerated the degree of violence meted out to Lilikakis by either of you and to have at the same time down-played his own involvement in the assault which resulted In Lilikakis's death.
In addition, Latesto has made statements both to his solicitor and in a “can-say” statement forwarded on his behalf to the Director of Public Prosecutions, which are materially and significantly inconsistent with the version of events which he has given in the statement which he has now sworn is true. In cross-examination, he frankly conceded that his previous statements to his solicitor and to the DPP were untrue. For those reasons, and other reasons advanced by Mr O'Connell in the course of his plea on behalf of you, Basile, I treat the evidence given by Mr Latesto with the utmost caution. Certainly, I heed the warning normally give to juries about an accomplice, namely, that it would be dangerous to act on the evidence of Mr Latesto unless it is corroborated by independent evidence.
On the evidence which has been put before me, I accept that when Lilikakis arrived at the door of the motel room, you, Basile, were at the door, and Andos and Latesto were further back in the room. I accept that you, Basile, initially pulled Lilikakis into the room, but very shortly thereafter you were assisted to do so by both you, Andos, and also by Latesto. The involvement of both of you and Latesto at that stage is confirmed by the evidence of Toy, Latesto and, to some extent at least, Liaskos.
I am also satisfied that in the ensuing moments a severe beating was meted out to Mr Lilikakis. The injuries suffered by Mr Lilikakis and which caused his death were particularly severe. They included fractures to the skull, fractures to both cheek bones, a broken nose and a fractured rib. As a result of the violence inflicted on him, the deceased sustained a substantial brain haemorrhage. The pathologist's report, not surprisingly, states that the cause of death was a skull fracture and intracranial haemorrhage as a result of blunt force trauma to the head.
At your plea, Andos, your counsel, Mr Lovitt of Queen's Counsel, correctly and realistically acknowledged that the significant injuries sustained by the deceased were such as to lend strong support to the evidence of Ms Toy that the deceased had not only been punched, but that he had also been kicked in the head. The evidence of Mr Latesto also supports that proposition. At your plea, Andos, it was realistically accepted that there was a likelihood that there were at least three or four kicks inflicted to the head of the deceased.
In the course of the plea made on behalf of you, Basile, your counsel related to me his instructions as to your version of the events which occurred in the motel room. While those instructions are not evidence, nevertheless, relevantly they do contain the admission by you that Lilikakis was not only punched, but also kicked while he was on the ground.
As I understand it, the main issues in dispute in the plea were, firstly, which of you kicked the deceased in the head and, secondly, the extent of the kicking which had been described by Latesto in his evidence. By your pleas, you each accepted that you aided and abetted the other in an unlawful and dangerous act which resulted in the death of Mr Lilikakis. Further, it was accepted that you aided and abetted the administration of violence in the form of both punches to the head and also kicking to the head while the deceased was on the ground.
From the point of view of assessing your individual culpability, I do not consider that it matters which of you actually administered the kicks and the punches. Indeed, as I understand it, ultimately it was not submitted to me that the offender who actually inflicted the physical injury was any more to blame than the offender who aided and abetted the infliction of that injury. Nevertheless, as the matter was in dispute, I ought to make some findings in relation to it.
Latesto's evidence is that after Lilikakis was pulled into the room by both of you with his help, the two of you punched Lilikakis. When the punches ceased, he then went to the toilet. When he emerged he saw Lilikakis kneeling on the floor. He stated that you, Basile, were over him, punching him to the back of the head. He said that he saw you kicking Lilikakis to the head and upper body on at least 10 occasions and then stomping on him. He does not describe any violence inflicted on Lilikakis by you, Andos, at that stage.
As I have stated, I am obliged to, and do, treat the evidence of Latesto as I have summarised it above with the utmost caution. His evidence that Lilikakis was kicked to the head is corroborated and, indeed, conceded. There is no direct corroboration to his evidence that it was only you, Basile, who kicked him in the head. Nevertheless, I am prepared to except that at least some of the kicks to the head of the deceased were administered by you, Basile.
Liaskos, in her witness statement, described how, in her turbulent relationship with you, you had inflicted the same violence on her. You have a previous conviction for assault by kicking. Latesto was cross-examined extensively by your counsel. On some aspects of his evidence I have real reservations. In particular, I refer to his failure to concede that his motivation for making his present statement included the expectation of a benefit, namely, a reduction on his sentence. Nevertheless, I found his evidence sufficiently reliable to be satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that you, Basile, did actually kick the deceased in the head while he was on the ground.
There is no direct evidence that you, Andos, actually kicked the deceased. I am therefore unable to make a finding that you did so. Nevertheless, as I have stated, I do not consider that on that account you are any less culpable for the death of Lilikakis than your co-accused, Basile. In a case such as this, it is equally culpable to have aided and abetted the infliction of such violence, as I have described, as to have been the person who actually inflicted it.
In his statement Latesto stated that you, Basile, kicked Lilikakis to the head about ten times and then stomped on his head two or three times. There is no evidence which corroborates that the amount of kicks to the head were as many as ten, or that either of you stomped on the deceased's head. In the absence of corroborating evidence, and particularly bearing in mind the motive which Latesto had to exaggerate the culpability of his co-accused, I am not satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that there were as many as ten kicks to the head or that either of you stomped on the head of the deceased. In light of the evidence of the pathologist and the concessions made correctly on your pleas, I am satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that the deceased was kicked to the head on at least three or four occasions.
There was also an issue between you as to whether I should regard you, Basile, as the prime mover in the infliction of violence on Lilikakis. For the purpose of sentencing, I do not consider that the evidence supports that conclusion. It was you, Andos, who initially sought Basile out. If, as Liaskos and Latesto suggest, Basile was in an aggressive frame of mind during the evening, you were in a position to readily foresee that violence might occur when Lilikakis arrived at the motel room. Rather than desist from being involved in the violence, you immediately, without hesitation, joined in the violence that was inflicted on Lilikakis. I consider that in all the circumstances, it is appropriate to treat you as equally culpable. Both of you were active in seeking out the deceased. Both of you readily participated in the violence. Neither of you made any real step to withdraw from it until its conclusion.
The offence to which you have both pleaded guilty is particularly serious. You both lay in wait for the deceased. The deceased was subjected to considerable violence. He was outnumbered. He was taken by surprise. After he had been forced to the ground, he was cruelly kicked. He never had a realistic chance of properly defending himself. The attack on him by you was unprovoked and without any justification. Even if either of you had a grievance, and I accept that he owed you, Andos, a large amount of money, such a grievance does not provide any justification for such a violent attack on him.
The attack on Lilikakis was vicious, cowardly and utterly reprehensible. In those circumstances, the facts of the case require me to take the view that this is, on the scale of matters, a particularly serious case of manslaughter.
I have read victim impact statements of members of the family of Mr Lilikakis. The relevant aspect of the statements is that they give specific point to the probable consequences of the offence which was committed by each of you. The grief, loss and suffering of the family of the deceased is but one aspect of the gravity of the type of offence for which you have each pleaded guilty.
I now turn to matters relating to the background of each of you.
You, Yiannis Andos, are 33 years of age, having been born in August 1971. You come from a good family to whom you have been close. Your late father, to whom you were particularly close, had regular employment and a strong family ethic. You were educated to Year 12 level. While you were at school during your teenage years, you worked late hours after school in restaurants in order to save money. When you completed your secondary education, you used those funds to finance two information technology courses, which you successfully completed.
Between then and approximately 1998, you remained in regular employment apart from a short time when you travelled to Greece for a holiday. You worked as a computer operator for Australia Post for approximately 18 months. After your return from Greece, you worked as a car park attendant and then as a supervisor of a car park for approximately three years. You later assisted your father build a new home in Richmond.
A significant turning point in your life occurred with your marriage in late 1997 or early 1998. After you had been married for about four months, you discovered that your wife had been unfaithful to you. That resulted in the breakdown of your marriage. As a consequence, you resorted to using illicit drugs. You frequented bars and clubs and lived, it would seem, quite an erratic lifestyle. You were using a dangerous cocktail of cocaine and amphetamines.
During this time, your cousin, Theo Magazis, realised that you were using drugs. Mr Magazis, who was an impressive witness on your plea, is a solicitor specialising in criminal law. His evidence graphically described the deterioration in your lifestyle during this period of time. You became isolated and to his, albeit inexpert, assessment, quite depressed. In addition,
Mr Magazis stated that there were incidents which occurred relating to you when you were clearly hallucinating as a result of the effect of drugs. When one such incident occurred, he told your parents that they must confront you about your drug habit. Understandably, your parents were then in a state of denial.
During those years, it seems that you continued to work, but only intermittently and generally on a part-time basis.
However, a second event occurred in June 2000 which also had a significant effect on you. At that time your father, who had suffered ill health, was due to enter hospital in order to undergo an operation for the removal of his kidney. You absented yourself from the family home in pursuit of your drug affected lifestyle. When you returned home, your father took you to task and had angry words with you. Your father then entered hospital. Tragically, he suffered a massive heart attack while in theatre and died as a result of it. You blamed yourself for the death of your father. Apparently, some peripheral members of your family also sought to blame you for it.
As a result, your drug use increased and, as Mr Lovitt stated, your downhill decline became steeper. Fortunately for you, your sister, Vicki, who is devoted to you, took you to task about your lifestyle. Her sharp words to you jolted you into some form of reality. You reduced, but did not cease, your use of drugs. However, you secured regular employment with Home Loans Australia Pty Ltd, which involved selling mortgage loans to home purchasers. It appears that you had learnt your work from scratch. The testimonials tendered on your behalf attest to your willingness to learn, your conscientious application to your work and your sense of responsibility in your employment with that company. Mr Magazis described how you derived genuine satisfaction from helping young persons purchase their first home.
Regrettably, you did not take the opportunity at that stage of your life to completely abandon the use of drugs. It is clear from the testimonials and from your work capacity that you had significantly reduced your consumption of drugs. That improvement in your life stands to your credit and, in particular, does show that you do have the capacity to reform and to undertake regular employment. Nevertheless, you did choose to continue to adopt a lifestyle involving the consumption of illicit drugs. That choice by you led to your involvement in the offence for which I must sentence you.
Mr Cummins, the psychologist who examined you in prison, gave evidence before me and his report was tendered. Mr Cummins expressed the view that during the period of time in which the offence occurred, you suffered an adjustment disorder. However, he did not suggest that at the particular time the events occurred in the early hours of 26 February 2003 you were then affected by the disorder. Rather, as he put it, the use of drugs was the occasion on which you found yourselves involved in the offence.
For a short time after the offence, you remained at liberty. You only used drugs on one further occasion, but otherwise refrained from doing so. You have been on remand since April 2003 and are presently in custody at Port Phillip Prison. During the whole of that time, I accept that you have been free from the consumption of drugs, and random urine tests conducted on you have proven negative.
During that time you have also made commendable and most encouraging steps to rehabilitate yourself. You have been working as a billet in the kitchen of the prison. As a result, you have gained a certificate in hospitality, kitchen operations. You have also completed the requirements of the Minimising Harms, Maximising Connections course conducted by Odyssey House. That course is a drug and alcohol peer education programme of 18 hours. You are also on the waiting list to do an alcohol and drug course. You have completed a course conducted by Monash University law students consisting of a court readiness programme. In November 2003 you completed the prison's Peer Education and Prison Listener course. You have also applied to a do a bachelor of finance through Distance Education with Charles Sturt University.
Mr Magazis stated that he had noticed a remarkable change in you since your time in custody. Mr Cummins' assessment is that your rehabilitation is now significantly under way and his opinion is that your prospects for long term rehabilitation are good. I accept that evidence. It seems, to your credit, that the tragedy in which you found yourself involved has been a significant wake-up call to you.
Your solicitors offered on your behalf a guilty plea to a charge of manslaughter shortly after the committal proceedings in June 2004. In addition, it appears that from a very early stage, you acknowledged to your legal representatives your culpability for the death of Mr Lilikakis. Mr Magazis told me that, notwithstanding the circumstances in which you went to the hotel on 26 February 2003, you have never sought to be critical of the deceased or to rely on his conduct towards you as any form of justification or excuse for what occurred.
Mr Magazis also gave evidence that you have been extremely remorseful, not only because of the predicament in which you now find yourself, but more importantly, because of your recognition that you have been involved in an incident with someone who lost his life. The evidence of Mr Magazis and Mr Cummins is that you are genuinely remorseful for your involvement in the deprivation of
Mr Lilikakis's life and for the grief and pain which that tragedy has occasioned to those who loved him.
In relation to your character, you do not have any previous convictions for violence. You do have some Magistrates' Court convictions, principally involving dishonesty. In each case the penalty imposed by the court indicates that the charges were not particularly serious. I was told at your plea that a number of those convictions arose out of your drug use. In the context of the matter for which I now sentence you, the previous convictions have little significance.
Thus, there are in your case a number of important mitigating factors which I do take into account. First and foremost is your plea of guilty. That plea was made on your behalf at a relatively early stage of the proceeding. On its own, and without more, you are entitled at law to a significant discount from your sentence. In addition, and coupled with that, is your genuine remorse. That remorse gives particular force to the plea of guilty made by you. As I have stated, I accept that you are genuinely sorry, not only for your own plight, but, more importantly, for your involvement in the taking of the life of another human being and the consequences which that has had for the family of the deceased.
I also accept that you have embarked on a genuine and promising process of rehabilitation. That factor is relevant in at least two respects. First, it reflects directly on the length of the sentence which might be necessary to achieve specific deterrence in your case; secondly, and as an aspect of that, your rehabilitation is evidence of your genuine remorse and of your concern that you do not again find yourself in the circumstances which you were when this offence was committed.
As an aspect of your rehabilitation, I am also impressed that you do have a capacity to hold productive and steady employment. Although your history and background is not untarnished - you have minor previous convictions and a history of drug use - nevertheless, you are clearly capable of being a useful member of the community.
Mr Cummins found that there was no evidence of any sociopathic tendencies on your behalf. I accept that it is out of character for you to become involved in violent incidents of the nature which transpired on 26 February 2003.
I now turn to the matters relating to the background of you, Mario Basile. You were born in Italy in 1961, and are therefore 43 years of age. You completed your secondary education in Italy at the age of 17. For the next four years you travelled in Europe where you supported yourself by working. On your return to Italy, you then undertook 18 months' national service in the army. From then until you came to Australia in 1990, you worked mainly in the hospitality industry, in addition to which you worked four months a year as a paid life-saver.
In 1988 you met, and one year later married, an Australian woman. Your first child, a daughter, was born in July 1990 in Italy. Five months later you, your wife and your daughter came to Australia. Although your initial intention was to stay for a period of months, ultimately you ended up remaining in Australia with your wife and have permanent residency here. However, your parents and siblings and other relatives all remain in Italy.
After your arrival in Australia, you worked in a butcher shop and then a pizza a shop. In 1993 you opened your own pizza a shop in East Burwood, which you conducted for the next four and a half years. Your second child, a son, was born in 1994.
With two blemishes, you then lived a blameless life until about 2001. However, in 1999 your marriage broke down. Your wife decided to leave you. Her decision was both sudden and unexpected. Understandably, it constituted a severe and, indeed, traumatic blow to you. I was told that you found difficulty coping, and in particular lacked support in Australia, since all of your own family was still in Italy.
Until then, your only previous convictions were in 1994. In that year, you were convicted at the Melbourne Magistrates' Court for possession of a dangerous article, and in July 1994 you were convicted at Box Hill court for possession of a drug of dependence, possession of a firearm while unlicensed and possession of an unregistered firearm.
Between that date and 2001, you remained out of trouble. However, in 2001 you were convicted at the Ringwood court on a number of charges, including five charges of breaching the terms and conditions of an intervention order, burglary and theft, assault by kicking and other offences relating to dishonesty. I was told on your plea that those matters arose out of a domestic situation and were related to your marriage break-up. The main relevance of those previous convictions is that they do involve violence and in particular a conviction for assault by kicking. The matter was initially dealt with in the Magistrates' Court, but on appeal the County Court increased your sentence so that you were sentenced to 20 months' imprisonment with a minimum of 14 months. You were released on parole in February 2002. You struggled to cope with your changed circumstances, although you did obtain some work in pizza and coffee shops. You again came before the courts in January 2003 on charges of dishonesty.
The main mitigating factor put on your behalf on your plea consists of the guilty plea which you have made to the charge of manslaughter. I am required to, and do, discount the sentence which would otherwise be imposed on you as a consequence of that plea. It is in the public interest that those who are guilty of crimes plead guilty to those crimes, rather than wasting both the resources and time of the court, as well as imposing strain and inconvenience on witnesses and on victims, by contesting their guilt. Accordingly, as I have stated, I do allow a discount on the sentence which would otherwise be imposed on you.
Of course, your plea of guilty was made at a relatively late stage and significantly later than in the case of Andos. There is no evidence that your plea is accompanied by any genuine remorse. Accordingly, your plea of guilty is not so strong a mitigating factor as it is in the case of Mr Andos.
Your background also reveals, in my view, other mitigating circumstances which I do take into account. In particular, those circumstances include the following.
First, during your earlier years you showed yourself to be a useful and law-abiding citizen. Apart from the blemishes in 1994, you remained out of trouble until you were about 40 years of age. During that time, you had migrated to Australia without any family support, established your own family here and run your own business. Those bare facts reveal that you are capable of leading a useful and productive life as a law-abiding citizen if you choose to do so.
Secondly, the loss of your marriage and the associated difficulties with having contact with your children were a harsh blow to you. You had no family to support or comfort you during what must have been a difficult time. I accept that your past transgressions, and indeed the current offence, have some relationship with your disrupted life which resulted from your divorce.
Thirdly, I accept that the imposition of a term of imprisonment, particularly a lengthy one, will bear harshly on you. On your plea I was told that you have been in protective custody, although the reason for that was not disclosed to me.
Further, a term of imprisonment will make it even more difficult for you to establish any meaningful relationship with your children while they are growing up.
As I have stated, the offence in respect of which you both have pleaded guilty is particularly serious. The degree of violence involved in the offence and the circumstances of the offence require me to impose a stern sentence. It is important that in a case such as this, the sentence imposed by the court acts as a general deterrent to others. I am required to impose a sentence which is sufficiently severe that it sends a clear message that the type of violence inflicted by you will not be tolerated by the courts.
In addition, it is the role of the court by its sentence to express its condemnation and the community's abhorrence for the offence which you have each committed and to uphold the sanctity of human life. Further, the sentence must be such as to adequately deter each of you from being involved in similar circumstances again.
Bearing in mind all of those matters, and taking into account the mitigating circumstances in respect of each of you to which I have referred, I impose the following sentences.
In your case, Yiannis Andos, I sentence you to seven years' imprisonment. I fix a period of five years during which you are not eligible to be released on parole. I declare, pursuant to s.18 of the Sentencing Act, the period of 653 days to be the period reckoned as already served under the sentence, and I shall cause that declaration to be noted in the records of the court.
In your case, Mario Guiseppe Basile, I sentence you to nine years' imprisonment. I fix a period of seven years during which you are not eligible to be released on parole. I declare the period of 644 days to be the period reckoned as already served under the sentence, and I shall cause that declaration to be noted in the records of the court.
Remove the prisoners, please.
MR KAYSER: Your Honour, there is the retention orders.
HIS HONOUR: Yes, the retention orders have been signed in respect of both accused.
Remove the prisoners, please.
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