R v Bell

[2005] ACTSC 123

R v CRAIG JOHN BELL
[2005] ACTSC 123 (1 December 2005)

SENTENCE – domestic violence – conflicting accounts – no lawful excuse or mitigatory factors – prior assault convictions – link with alcohol – impact of domestic violence on women and children – link with later criminality.

No. SC 267 of 2004

Judge:             Higgins CJ
Supreme Court of the ACT

Date:              1 December 2005

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE     )
  )          No. SC 267 of 2004
AUSTRALIAN CAPITAL TERRITORY )

R

v

CRAIG JOHN BELL

ORDER

Judge:  Higgins CJ
Date:  1 December 2005
Place:  Canberra

THE COURT ORDERS THAT:

1. The offender be sentenced to two and half years imprisonment and be eligible for parole at the expiration of 18 months.  Having regard to time spent in custody that sentence is to commence on 23 September 2004.

1. Craig John Bell has pleaded guilty to one count alleging that on 17 September 2004 he assaulted Kerrill Gail Hann occasioning to her actual bodily harm.

1. There is a factual dispute concerning the circumstances surrounding the assault.  The offender does not deny the essential elements of it.

1. Ms Hann gave evidence in the proceedings.  She is the mother of two children, a boy aged 12 and a girl aged 10.  The offender is their father.  The girl has some disabilities and attends a special school.  The complainant and the offender lived together in a defacto relationship up until 1997 and, since then have maintained occasional contact.

1. Ms Hann deposed that, on 17 September 2004, she was “dragged out of bed by the hair of my head”.  She had no recollection of events preceding that occurrence for about one month.  However, she expressly identified the offender as the person performing that act.

1. She then hit the floor, she said, “… turned around and I looked up and as I did I was hit twice in the face and he dragged me out by the hair of the head and I was just about on my feet and he hit me again in the face and then he let go; he put his hands around my neck and was saying filthy things and putting his thumbs into my throat with – like this and proceeded to push with his thumbs into my throat … in the windpipe and then he proceeded with pressure and he cut my air supply off.  I couldn’t breathe.”

1. The offender was saying something to the effect of “Slut, I’ll kill you, I’ll kill you.”

1. She pleaded with the offender to let go, passed out and woke next morning on the bedroom floor.

1. Thereafter she walked around outside her house.  She was in considerable pain.  The offender was still about, following and verbally abusing her.  Thereafter, to cut the account to its essentials, she reported the assault to police and attended at hospital for treatment of her injuries.  Photographs of the complainant, taken on 17, 20 and 22 September 2004, corroborate her account of the nature and extent of her injuries.