R v Bradley
[2015] VSC 768
•22 December 2015
| IN THE SUPREME COURT OF VICTORIA | Not Restricted |
AT SHEPPARTON
CRIMINAL DIVISION
S CR 2014 0188
| THE QUEEN |
| v |
| STEVEN BRADLEY |
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JUDGE: | OSBORN JA |
WHERE HELD: | Shepparton |
DATE OF HEARING: | 18 December 2015 |
DATE OF SENTENCE: | 22 December 2015 |
CASE MAY BE CITED AS: | R v Bradley |
MEDIUM NEUTRAL CITATION: | [2015] VSC 768 |
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CRIMINAL LAW – Sentence – Murder – 27 years’ imprisonment – Non-parole period of 21 years.
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APPEARANCES: | Counsel | Solicitors |
| For the Crown | Mr A Tinney SC | Mr J Cain, Solicitor for Public Prosecutions |
| For the Accused | Mr J Fitzgerald with Mr S Payne | Victoria Legal Aid |
HIS HONOUR:
Steven Bradley, you have been convicted by a jury of 12 of the murder of Michelle Buckingham at Shepparton on or about 21 October 1983. I am satisfied that the evidence of your brother-in-law, Norman Gribble, is substantially accurate and that you confessed to the murder of Michelle when you went to visit him on the morning after the killing in a state of emotional distress and consciousness of guilt.
In that confession, you first stated the terrible fact that you had killed someone. This was a true statement and the someone was Michelle Buckingham.
You also told Norman Gribble that you had gone to Strayleaves Caravan Park in your car with your friends Rodney Butler and Trevor Corrigan in order to pick up your then girlfriend, Jodie Ormiston, but that in fact you picked up Michelle Buckingham.
I am also satisfied that this is true and that you did so intending to have sex with Michelle. She refused and you, together with your two companions, stabbed her to death in the car park at the back of the Pine Lodge Hotel.
You then drove Michelle Buckingham’s body out past Kialla in the boot of the car and dumped it beside a little-used rural road. It was discovered in a substantially decomposed condition some two weeks later.
After dumping the body, you drove your companions back to Shepparton and then sat by the river alone in your car in a state of emotional turmoil contemplating what you had done, before going to visit your brother-in-law, Norman Gribble, the next morning at the caravan park in which he lived at that time with your sister.
After seeing that you were in a highly distressed condition and were bleeding from a cut in your hand, Norman Gribble first bound up your hand and then drove you to Waranga Basin, stopping to buy some cans of beer in Tatura on the way. After arrival at Waranga Basin, you calmed down sufficiently to tell him what had happened in some considerable detail while you each drank two cans of beer.
Because of the very substantial elapse of time in question (some 32 years), it is appropriate to record for the public why, in my view, it was plainly open to the jury to be satisfied, as they must have been, that Norman Gribble’s evidence of your admission as to responsibility for Michelle Buckingham’s death was substantially accurate.
(1) It was made on the morning after the killing and to a man you obviously trusted.
(2) Although Norman Gribble did not come forward to police for some 30 years for family reasons, when he did so he gave a very circumstantial account of what had occurred and what you had told him.
(3) Norman Gribble was a good witness who conceded he was unsure about some circumstances, but remained clear as to his central recollection of what you told him.
(4) As the prosecutor submitted to the jury, even on the defence case at trial, Norman Gribble has a remarkably good memory. His account was replete with detail which your counsel did not challenge.
(5) Your counsel conceded Norman Gribble was an honest witness and the only issue for the jury was his reliability.
(6) The central admission which you made to Norman Gribble, namely that you had killed someone by participating in a stabbing, is corroborated by the nature of the fatal wounds to Michelle Buckingham and the fact that you had cut your hand and presented with it, still bleeding, the following morning to Norman Gribble.
(7) Ultimately, you went so far as to admit to police that you were present when Michelle Buckingham was killed.
(8) You also admitted that you helped dump Michelle Buckingham’s body and helped Trevor Corrigan and Rodney Butler flee the scene immediately afterwards. In my view, this conduct speaks eloquently of your consciousness of responsibility for her death.
(9) Similarly, I am satisfied from the evidence of Jodie McNeill (formerly Ormiston) that you disposed of the car that you used on the night of Michelle’s killing very shortly after she was killed and did so before Jodie McNeill’s 18th birthday on 24 November 1983. Once again, the disposal of the car demonstrates consciousness of responsibility for Michelle Buckingham’s death.
(10) The principal matter about which defence counsel challenged Norman Gribble’s recollection at the trial was the most dramatic part of the account which he remembered, namely your initial statement ‘I’ve killed someone’ followed by two confirmations from you that this statement was true. The fact that it was the first thing said and the most dramatic thing said tends to support the view that this is the statement he would be most likely to remember accurately, despite the very substantial passage of time.
(11) When Detective Senior Sergeant Ron Iddles interviewed you in Brisbane in 2013, he put to you the account that he obtained from Norman Gribble. He explored aspects of the information in what can only be called a masterful interrogation. You admitted that elements of that account were in your recurrent nightmares and then purported to progressively recollect limited elements of the facts.
(12) You subsequently told a workmate that it was as if Ron Iddles was inside your head and that he knew your nightmares.
(13) The account you ultimately volunteered to police in 2015, and which at trial was asserted to be truthful, was preceded by a series of three interviews in which you deliberately lied (as was conceded at trial). Your fourth and final account was patently one devised to attempt to meet the evidence against you and was given by you only after you had heard that evidence at the committal hearing and had had substantial time to consider and respond to it. The jury’s verdict makes clear that they did not find your account credible and rejected it. In my view, it was palpably dishonest and mendacious.
In saying that I am satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that the evidence of Norman Gribble was substantially accurate, I should not be taken as saying that I am satisfied that everything that he recalled that you told him was true and correct. In particular, I am not persuaded that one of the things that he recalled that you said, even at that early stage, that purported to diminish your responsibility for the killing, was true and correct. What I am satisfied of is your admissions against your own interest that you were responsible for the killing of Michelle Buckingham and your admissions as to the general surrounding circumstances.
In making findings of fact, I must be satisfied beyond reasonable doubt before I make findings adverse to you and those findings must be consistent with the verdict of the jury. On the other hand, I must be satisfied on the balance of probabilities of factual matters favourable to you.[1]
[1]R v Storey [1998] 1 VR 359; R v Olbrich (1999) 199 CLR 270.
Because the prosecution put the case against you both as one of murder by joint criminal enterprise and, in the alternative, as one of simple murder, it is necessary that I state the factual basis on which I propose to sentence you with some precision.
On the morning after the killing, you first told Norman Gribble that ‘I’ve killed someone’ and then, after twice confirming that fact, went on to say ‘we killed someone’ and to explain that you had joined with Rodney Butler and Trevor Corrigan in killing Michelle Buckingham.
You went on to say that after the three of you had picked up Michelle Buckingham in your car and she had refused to have sex, it was agreed that the three of you would stab her because that way there would be no comeback on any of you. You told Norman Gribble that Rodney Butler stabbed Michelle Buckingham first and then Trevor Corrigan and you joined in.
I accept the prosecution submission that your confession was made when you were in an emotional state in the immediate aftermath of the killing and when you were overwhelmed by your guilt. There is no reason to doubt the truthfulness of its basic elements.
In turn, I accept that you killed Michelle Buckingham together with Trevor Corrigan and Rodney Butler. In other words, both your statements that ‘I’ve killed someone’ and your statement that ‘we killed someone’ are true and correct.
I make these findings despite the facts that:
(a) both Rodney Butler and Trevor Corrigan denied involvement in the killing on oath at your trial;
(b) neither man was separately represented nor able to test the evidence against himself;
(c) the evidence against them is essentially hearsay and would not be admissible in a criminal prosecution against them.
I am satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that you yourself actively participated in stabbing Michelle Buckingham by reason of the combination of the following matters:
·Your initial repeated admission to Norman Gribble that ‘I’ve killed someone’.
·Your subsequent statement that ‘we killed someone’ and not, for example, ‘they killed someone’.
·The circumstances in which your confessions were made.
·The fact that you cut your hand in the course of the killing.
·The fact that you cut your hand with a fishing knife from your own tackle box which was kept in your car.
·The fact that you lied to police as to the way you cut your hand. The explanation which you ultimately gave for the cut to your hand in your fourth and final record of interview was that after driving from the Pine Lodge Hotel to the place where Michelle Buckingham’s body was found, you pretended to stab her. As your counsel conceded on the plea hearing, it is implicit in the jury’s verdict that they rejected this account. Nevertheless, it is necessary for present purposes to say something about it because I regard your lie in this respect as very significant. You say that as Rodney Butler screamed at you ‘do it, do it’, you held the knife in your right hand with your finger around the blade and your thumb over the point of the knife. You claim you stood between Rodney Butler and Michelle Buckingham, who was in the back seat of the car, and ‘just tapped her on the stomach’ with your thumb, holding the knife so tightly you cut along your fingers. You then dropped the knife and got back into the driver’s seat of the car. I reject this account as deliberately untrue. You did not tell Norman Gribble that you had pretended to stab Michelle Buckingham — an extraordinary omission if this is in fact what happened and this is in fact how you cut your hand, a hand which was bleeding when he first saw you. You did not advance this theory until your fourth and final record of interview. Moreover, as the prosecutor put to the jury, the account you ultimately came up with is ‘fanciful’. It is inherently improbable that if Rodney Butler was in the rage you describe insisting that you stab Michelle Buckingham, that he would be satisfied with the charade you describe in which you say you pretended to stab Michelle Buckingham in the stomach but did not in fact do so. Moreover, I consider it unlikely that a young man with the dexterity of a shearer would cut himself in the way you describe. In addition, your story is directly inconsistent with the accounts you gave Norman Gribble in a number of fundamental details, including the place where the stabbing occurred, the fact that you both agreed to and participated in the stabbing, and the fact that Michelle Buckingham’s body was taken in the boot of your car to the place at which it was dumped.
·Putting the above matters together, that is, your admissions to Norman Gribble, the cut to your hand with your own knife and the fact that you deliberately lied as to the circumstances in which your hand was cut, putting those matters together, I am satisfied that you cut your hand in the course of the stabbing of Michelle Buckingham. The probability is that your hand slipped down the knife on impact although I cannot be certain of this.
·You were nearly 22 at the time of Michelle Buckingham’s killing, whilst Rodney Butler and Trevor Corrigan, who you say were with you, were only 16. It was your car that was used for the purpose of picking up Michelle Buckingham and disposing of her body after she was killed. You were in a position of independence.
·In addition, as I have said, the disposal of Michelle Buckingham’s body speaks eloquently of your consciousness of responsibility for her death.
·You also disposed of your car shortly thereafter, which again demonstrates consciousness of responsibility for Michelle Buckingham’s death.
·The repeated lies you told to police in your first three records of interview also demonstrate consciousness of guilt of Michelle Buckingham’s murder.
As I have said, it is the combination of these factors as a whole which I find ultimately persuasive of the fact that you actively participated in stabbing Michelle Buckingham to death. I do not rest my conclusion simply upon your initial admissions to Norman Gribble, although I am satisfied that those initial admissions were true.
In the course of the plea made on your behalf, it was submitted that I should be satisfied Rodney Butler took the lead in the stabbing. I am not so satisfied. This part of your account to Norman Gribble sought to downplay your role to some extent after your initial confession and I view it with scepticism. In addition, your statement to Norman Gribble that Rodney Butler stabbed Michelle Buckingham first implies a sequential stabbing by the three of you which does not fit well with the pattern of wounds observed by Dr Norman Sonnenberg, the pathologist. He found the pattern striking in the similarity of the angle of infliction of 19 stab wounds. This suggests, to my mind, that Michelle Buckingham was stabbed by one person whilst being held in a fixed position by others.
I am not positively persuaded that your attribution of the lead role in the stabbing to Rodney Butler should be accepted. I should say, however, that, even if it was Rodney Butler who led the way in killing Michelle Buckingham, I am satisfied that you actively participated in that killing and that this was why you said ‘I’ve killed someone’.
In summary:
(a) I am satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that you actively participated in stabbing Michelle Buckingham to death;
(b) I am satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that it was a killing carried out jointly with Rodney Butler and Trevor Corrigan;
(c) I am not satisfied on the balance of probabilities that Rodney Butler took the lead in the stabbing; but
(d) even if Rodney Butler took the lead, I am satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that you took an active role in the stabbing.
I should say that participation in a joint killing of this kind involves no less moral culpability than sole responsibility for the killing. Indeed, an offence committed by more than one offender against a victim who is outnumbered is generally considered to be more culpable than an offence committed by a single offender against another. As the Court of Appeal has observed:
An assault in company is more frightening and — almost always — more lethal than an assault by one, not least because the action of each tends to encourage the others. It is also more cowardly, because of the overwhelming physical superiority of the attackers.[2]
[2]DPP v Terrick (2009) 24 VR 457, 477 [82].
I should add for completeness that I reject your account asserting that the killing occurred on the evening of Saturday 22 October 1983 after extended drinking with Michelle Buckingham at two hotels. Nevertheless, I accept that it is probable that you were disinhibited to some extent by alcohol at the time of the killing. In my view, the evidence as a whole shows that it is probable that the killing occurred on the Friday night and that you and your companions had been drinking at a party prior to this.
Consumption of alcohol does not reduce your moral culpability although it may help to explain your violence.
There is a nightmare quality to the cruel brutality of your offending which comes from the combination of the following aggravating features:
(a) the heartless and predatory nature of your attack upon a teenage girl who had all her life ahead of her;
(b) the brutality of stabbing her at least 19 times in the back;[3] and
(c) the callousness with which her body was dumped.
[3]Part of her upper body was decomposed and her woollen jumper had 24 apparent cuts in it.
You have never demonstrated any real remorse for the killing or accepted responsibility for what you did.
There are echoes of the killing of Rosalyn Nolte by Lowery and King in a case which shocked Victorians just over a decade before this murder.[4]
[4]R v Lowery and King (No 3) [1972] VicRp 109; [1972] VR 939 (17 September 1971).
Victim impact statements
I come then to the impact of Michelle Buckingham’s death upon her family and friends. That impact has been devastating.
The violence of the manner in which she was killed and the callousness with which her body was left by the roadway to rot shocked and traumatised those who were close to her. The Court has received victim impact statements from:
· Heidi Moylan (cousin of Michelle Buckingham)
· Jennifer Harding (cousin of Michelle Buckingham)
· Bert Neff (uncle of Michelle Buckingham)
· Phillip Buckingham (brother of Michelle Buckingham)
· Karen Dewar (sister of Michelle Buckingham)
· Karen Dewar, on behalf of her mother Elvira Buckingham
· Susan Schramml (aunt of Michelle Buckingham)
· Veronika Taylor (aunt of Michelle Buckingham)
The statements of Susan Schramml and Heidi Moylan were read aloud to the Court.
Karen Dewar says, with respect to her mother, Elvira Buckingham, who was also the mother of Michelle, as follows:
I’m writing this victim impact statement for my mother Elvira Buckingham (Michelle Buckingham’s mother) as she sadly passed away September 23rd 2015, five days before the murder trial started. With my mum gone, it is hard for me to write down the pain my mum went through.
When Michelle’s body was found, a part of mum died that day also. She suffered from a broken heart for 32 years. Her life was never the same again. Her grief was indescribable. She couldn’t understand how someone could do that to her precious daughter, who was kind, caring and well liked.
For the first couple of years, she could hardly function due to the pain of losing Michelle. When mum went back to work for four hours a day, when she got home she would go back to bed as her grief was still too hard for her to cope with. She was denied the chance of watching her daughter grow old, have her own family. Mum and Michelle were more like sisters than mother and daughter. They would dance at home together singing to Elvis Presley. All that stopped.
More than once, she had contemplated suicide, but from the support of family and friends, it never happened. My mum still waited for ten years for Michelle to come to the front door.
What hurt my mum most was how they left Michelle’s body, lying there like a dead dog. That’s what stuck in her core. Why they didn’t just leave her in a place for her to be found straight away. Over the 32 years, mum had to carry her broken heart, stress over the case, her family was no longer complete. Mum had to put on a brave face to the outside world, but deep down she was still hurting badly.
Mum also had to take medication after as her nerves were bad, she didn’t sleep very well and got high blood pressure, which put more strain on her broken heart.
Michelle’s murder was a burden that she had to bear to the day she died.
The victim impact statements are eloquently matter of fact descriptions of the lasting pain and suffering that your actions have caused. Not only did you kill a young woman at the start of her adult life but you caused permanent emotional trauma to those who loved her. It is to be hoped that the conclusion of this trial will give them some closure and I can say to Michelle’s family that I do understand that you have suffered for a very long time.
Personal circumstances
I turn now, Mr Bradley, to your own personal circumstances.
You are 54 years old. You are the youngest of a family of seven. Your father was a Korean War veteran and, according to your sisters, suffered post-traumatic stress disorder. He was alcoholic and violent and you grew up in a family in which violence between your parents and violence towards your elder siblings was commonplace.
When you were six you moved to the Shepparton area and lived there into your early adult years. You were educated at Shepparton Technical College up to the age of 15. By that age, you had started to use alcohol yourself and you commenced working as a roustabout with a shearing contractor working at a series of properties interstate. In so doing you escaped the world of your childhood.
I accept that to some extent your life has been blighted by the alcohol abuse and violence which occurred within your family during your childhood. Nevertheless, it is apparent that other members of your family were able to overcome the same difficult start to life and live productive lives. Your childhood provides a context, and partial explanation, for your subsequent behaviour, but it does not in any way excuse it.
At about aged 17, you returned to Shepparton and moved in with Jodie Ormiston, the ‘de facto’ sister of Trevor Corrigan, if I can call her that. After working as a roustabout for two or three seasons, you became a shearer and did that work for about five years. Your relationship with Ms Ormiston ended in about early 1984, not very long after the murder of Michelle Buckingham. After the relationship with Ms Ormiston ended, you commenced to drink heavily. At about that time, you were admitted to Mont Park Psychiatric Hospital for about two to three weeks with what your sisters describe as a ‘breakdown’. On discharge, you lived with your brother Lawrence Bradley and his wife in Melbourne for a time, and worked as a shearing contractor and then as a wool presser. Whilst working at Invicta Carpets in 1986, you formed a relationship with a colleague. The two of you moved to Swan Hill and in 1991 you had a son together.
The relationship broke down in 1993 and your drinking again increased.
You committed a number of criminal offences in the period between December 1984 and June 1996 for which you were sentenced to Community Based Orders, and an Intensive Correction Order, and then, on breach of those orders by re-offending, to imprisonment, both immediate and suspended. Your offences included an armed robbery committed on 9 December 1984, an aggravated burglary on the home of your former partner committed on 13 August 1995 and a threat to kill your former partner made on 15 June 1996. I will not set out the detailed circumstances of this offending but they demonstrate serious inadequacies with respect to anger management in the context of a failed relationship. They also demonstrate a continuing propensity for violent offending. As a result of your behaviour, you have lost all contact with your son.
As a consequence of your convictions, you served time in B and D Divisions at Pentridge and were also treated as a psychiatric patient at the prison now known as the Melbourne Assessment Prison. Your time in Pentridge was harrowing and I comment that this experience gives you an obvious motive for your subsequent lies.
Following release from prison in 1997, you lived with your mother. You recommenced drinking and had a number of admissions to hospital, some following suicide attempts. In 2000, you were admitted to Shepparton Base Hospital following a significant overdose of Valium.
After your discharge from Shepparton Base Hospital in 2000, you moved to Queensland and found some work in Townsville. Whilst in Townsville you were admitted to a psychiatric hospital following another overdose. For six years, you were homeless and lived on the streets.
In about 2005, you moved to Brisbane where you were able to obtain a steady job as a cleaner and general hand at a veterinary clinic. You enjoyed this work, particularly the working with animals, and you had good relationships with your workmates.
In about 2010, you were admitted to Princess Alexandra Hospital in Brisbane after attempting suicide with an overdose of tablets. You then stopped drinking alcohol and lived frugally, developing the practice of providing financial assistance to elderly homeless people with whom you had remained in contact. I accept that, as your counsel put to me, you were living ‘a peaceful and pro-social’ life.
A neuropsychological report was obtained from Associate Professor Warrick Brewer prior to the commencement of the trial. He assessed your intellectual ability as falling within the ‘Low Average’ range.
He considered it likely that you are:
alcohol-dependent in remission, and [have] suffered the consequences in terms of physiological signs of withdrawal, lost employment, strained family relationships and family hardship.
He also noted depressive symptomology.
He found that ‘on objective assessment and from details of clinical history, features of compromised personality style (borderline and antisocial features in nature) are also apparent, which stem from late adolescence.’ I comment that this finding is hardly surprising in the case of a serious violent offender.
Professor Brewer also considered whether a formal diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder was warranted on your part but was not persuaded that you present with symptoms related to traumatic stress.
Professor Brewer was prescient in finding that the account which you gave to police in your final record of interview was ‘questionable’.
When he saw you in September, Professor Brewer was of the view that you remained an ongoing moderate suicide risk in the light of your previous history and the then upcoming stress of your trial. He believed that risk would be exacerbated if you were convicted.
Associate Professor Andrew Carroll, psychiatrist, saw you on 29 October 2015, after your conviction, and prepared a report dated 10 December 2015.
Associate Professor Carroll noted that you have been diagnosed with depression in the past and have been in receipt of various antidepressants but are not currently in receipt of any treatment. You prefer to self-manage your mental condition with strategies such as meditation. He also observed that you appear to have adapted remarkably well to prison life and currently do not show any active signs or symptoms of a depressive illness.
In his opinion, you suffer from a recurrent depressive disorder. The episodes of depression appear to be relatively brief in duration, up to several weeks rather than months. You are not currently clinically depressed. The depressive disorder is in remission.
The genesis of your depressive disorder is likely to be partly constitutional and partly secondary to the major traumatic experiences you suffered as a child. There is no evidence that you were clinically depressed or otherwise psychiatrically unwell at the time of the murder of Michelle Buckingham in 1983.
In his view, however, you have a permanent predisposition to episodes of depressed mood although each episode is time-limited in nature.
You do not currently display any active symptoms of psychiatric disorder. Your mental capacity and functioning are intact.
Professor Carroll says:
Notwithstanding his recurrent depressive disorder, he impresses as a resilient individual. His tendency to brief depressive episodes does mean that at times of stress, such as after sentencing, he will be at significant risk of a depressive episode and the possible emergence of transient suicidal thinking. He will therefore need to be carefully assessed or monitored by prison based mental health services at that time.
In the longer term beyond that however, there is nothing to suggest that imprisonment will have an adverse effect on his mental health or that he will find imprisonment more difficult than a person not suffering from a depressive disorder. He has adapted well psychologically to his predicament.
He assesses your likelihood of reoffending as low and your prospects of rehabilitation as very good. You will, however, require formal psycho-social supports, akin to those that you received from Open Minds while living in Brisbane, when you are released from prison.
Drawing these matters together, I make the following background findings:
(a) you grew up in a violent and dysfunctional family;
(b) you commenced drinking in your mid-teens and have had alcohol-related problems for most of your adult life;
(c) you have been unable to sustain satisfactory lasting relationships with members of the opposite sex and have lost contact with your son;
(d) you have engaged in violent offending as a mature man albeit nothing of equivalent violence to the offending here in issue;
(e) your offending demonstrates serious ongoing problems with anger management and a capacity for violence in your mature years;
(f) you have suffered from recurrent episodes of depression;
(g) you had nevertheless settled into a stable and productive life in Brisbane prior to your arrest. You were not abusing alcohol and there is no evidence of violent behaviour during this period;
(h) you have adapted well to prison life and show no current signs of depressive illness;
(i) it is likely that your sentence may produce a depressive reaction; but
(j) your long-term prognosis is good and there is nothing to suggest that long-term imprisonment will produce an adverse effect on you or that you will find it more difficult than the average prisoner.
Your counsel concede that your offending is a serious example of a serious offence, but it was submitted on your behalf that the following matters should be taken into account in mitigation of your sentence.
First, it is submitted that the murder was not pre-planned or premeditated. I accept that this is so, but its casual and heartless quality is, in a fundamental sense, totally abhorrent. To say things had ‘fallen foul’ at the Pine Lodge Hotel, as your brother Lawrie reports you to have stated at one point, does not adequately reflect the predatory and deliberate nature of the killing.
Secondly, it is submitted that I should be satisfied that Rodney Butler was the driving force behind the offending. For the reasons I have explained, I am not satisfied that your role was that of a subsidiary. On the basis of your admissions and of the circumstantial evidence as a whole, I am satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that you killed Michelle Buckingham by actively participating in stabbing her. On the basis of your admissions and the circumstantial evidence as a whole, I am also satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that you did so jointly with Trevor Corrigan and Rodney Butler. I am not, however, satisfied on the balance of probabilities that your role should be regarded as less significant or culpable than that of Rodney Butler.
Thirdly, you were at the time of the offending only 21 years of age (although almost 22) and it is submitted that your youth should be regarded as reducing your moral culpability. I accept that you were still at an age where there is the potential that immaturity might have affected your moral judgment to some degree. Young adult age of itself is not, however, conclusive proof of immaturity. At the time of the murder, you were living an adult life working as a shearer and living in an apparently stable relationship. There is no evidence that you were immature. There is nothing to show that you were led into the killing because of your immaturity. On the contrary, you were the older man amongst the three who, you say, were present at the time of the killing. The other two were markedly younger and it was your car which was used for the purpose of the offending. In the case of DPP v SJK,[5] the Court of Appeal, constituted by Phillips CJ, Chernov and Vincent JJA, said the following:[6]
When youth is raised for sentencing considerations, the focus is usually placed upon the offender’s prospects of rehabilitation, but this is by no means the only basis upon which it assumes relevance. For at least a century, the attribution of criminal responsibility and the response in terms of the dispositions handed down upon offenders has increasingly reflected developing ideas and understandings concerning personal responsibility, moral culpability and accountability. In the case of young people, to some extent, the law incorporates an acknowledgment of aspects of immaturity. By reason of the stage of development that an offender may have reached, he or she may not fully appreciate the seriousness and real consequences of the offending actions. However, it does not follow that this is always the situation or that, as teenagers, offenders cannot be held appropriately accountable for their conduct in engaging in serious criminal activity.
[5][2002] VSCA 131.
[6]Ibid [61].
The Court went on to observe that in that case the criminal conduct in issue could hardly be explained or ameliorated to any substantial degree by reference to the offender’s levels of maturity.[7] In my view, this is a similar case and, making full allowance for your relative youth, your general level of culpability must still be regarded as extremely high.
[7]Ibid [62], [63].
Fourthly, it is submitted that, despite your troubled past, the fact that you had settled down in Brisbane prior to your arrest and obtained steady employment favours the view that your prospects of rehabilitation are good. A series of impressive references from staff at the veterinary hospital at which you worked have been tendered on your behalf. You also have the ongoing support of three of your sisters and of some friends. I accept the view of Professor Carroll that your prospects of rehabilitation are probably good. Although I doubt this to be so if you relapse into heavy drinking. I further accept the submission made on your behalf that a meaningful parole period should be provided to facilitate and ensure your reform.
Fifthly, it is submitted that because you have suffered recurrent depression, you are likely to find imprisonment more difficult than the average prisoner. In my view, very little weight can be given to this factor. Professor Carroll states that your symptoms are currently in remission and that you are a resilient person. He says that if depression reoccurs then it will be for limited periods only. He says that, in the longer term, there is nothing to suggest that you will find imprisonment more burdensome than for the average prisoner. I would add that the association between heavy alcohol use and depression which is apparent from your history will, of necessity, be broken in prison. I am not persuaded that the personality disorder which Professor Carroll describes gives rise to ongoing circumstances falling within what we call the fifth factor referred to in the case of Verdins.[8] I prefer his opinion to that of the neuropsychologist, Professor Brewer, by reason of his superior qualifications and the fact that Professor Carroll saw you after your conviction, rather than before your trial. Hence, his report relates to your current situation.
[8]R v Verdins (2007) 16 VR 269; DPP v O’Neill [2015] VSCA 325 [85].
I do accept, however, that you are likely to find the stress of the imposition of sentence itself more stressful than the average prisoner and I endorse the view that you will require supervision to prevent self-harm.
Sixthly, it is submitted that, by reason of the admissions made in your fourth and final record of interview, the issues at trial were narrowed. In particular, you admitted to being present at the time Michelle Buckingham was killed and you admitted that your car was used to dispose of her body. I do not accept this submission. It is true that these admissions narrowed the range of evidentiary issues in some respects but I do not accept that you can receive a sentencing benefit for the partial truths embodied in the lies you fabricated in your fourth record of interview. Aspects of your story in fact created new evidentiary issues, such as your attempt to maintain that the killing occurred on the Saturday, your assertion that the stabbing did not occur until you had driven away from the Pine Lodge Hotel and your account of pretending to stab Michelle Buckingham. There can be no benefit gained by you from the fact that your lies included partial admissions.
Seventhly, it is submitted that, in addition to current sentencing practices, some regard should be had to the sentence that would have been imposed if you had been convicted in 1983.[9] At that time, the offence of murder was punishable by mandatory life imprisonment. I agree that this is a relevant consideration but I do not see that this can of itself be said to somehow support a sentence of less than life imprisonment. Insofar as parole was subsequently granted to a number of prisoners who suffered this penalty, that decision was made subsequent to sentence. The regime then in operation is simply not comparable to that under which I must impose sentence. Insofar as it is relevant, this factor favours the imposition of an extended term of imprisonment.
[9]R v Stalio (2012) 223 A Crim R 261.
I should add that I do not find the bare sentencing statistics presented to me in respect of the 1987 and 1988, and more recent years, helpful for the reasons explained by the High Court in Pham v The Queen.[10] I am, however, familiar with current sentencing practices for murder in this Court and I take them into account.
[10]Pham v The Queen [2015] HCA 39, [28].
Eighthly, it was submitted that you underwent significant stress during the riot at the Melbourne Remand Centre earlier this year. Without going into the details of what occurred, I accept that this is so and some consideration can properly be given to that fact, although it is not a major consideration when weighed against the gravity of your offending.
I should add for completeness that it was not submitted on your behalf that the passage of time since the offending of itself required mitigation of your sentence. Nor could it be. You have enjoyed freedom for 30 years of your adult life, but the time has now come to pay the penalty for the murder you committed all those years ago.
In summary, I accept that:
(a) the murder was not pre-planned;
(b) to some limited extent, your moral culpability can be regarded as diminished by your relative youth at the time of the offending;
(c) my sentence should recognise the fact that you have good prospects of rehabilitation;
(d) you have undergone unusual stress during pre-trial detention;
(e) it is likely that you may suffer a depressive reaction to this sentence which will be greater than the reaction of the ordinary prisoner to a sentence of long term imprisonment.
I do not otherwise accept that the matters urged on your behalf warrant material mitigation of sentence.
Conclusion
Steven Bradley, in sentencing you I must impose punishment which is just in all the circumstances and adequately denounces your conduct on behalf of the community, which this Court represents.
Whilst I must adhere to the principle of parsimony, the sentence I impose must reflect the sanctity of human life and the gravity of the offence of murder. This gravity is reflected in the maximum penalty of life imprisonment that the law provides for the offence of murder and which sentence was mandatory at the date of your offending.
Despite the matters which have been urged on your behalf, the brutal and cowardly killing of a teenage girl and the abandonment of her body in the way which you did call for a very substantial period of imprisonment. The culpability of such a killing is aggravated when it is carried out, as it was here, by a group of offenders who have the capacity to jointly terrify and overpower a victim.
Since you were first interviewed by police, you have never accepted responsibility for Michelle Buckingham’s killing or demonstrated any real remorse for the horrific savagery of your crime.
Despite your relative youth at the time of the offence, I regard your moral culpability as high.
In terms of general deterrence, the sentence that I impose must convey to others that alcohol-fuelled violence will not be tolerated by this community. Society cannot and will not accept a brutal joint assault with a weapon upon a lone and vulnerable person. Society cannot accept predatory killing of the kind you engaged in as constituting offending other than of the utmost gravity.
Despite your progress in recent years and your prospects of rehabilitation, considerations of specific deterrence, that is, deterrence directed towards you to prevent further offending by you must also be significant in this case. As I have said, you have expressed no real remorse. Moreover, in my view, your ongoing prospects of rehabilitation are closely linked to continued control of your abuse of alcohol. The sentence I impose must bring home to you the seriousness of your offending and the fundamental need for you to permanently change your way of life.
Again, despite your progress in recent years, the murder of Michelle Buckingham was an act of such despicable cruelty that it raises a need to ensure the future protection of the community. Your subsequent problems with anger management, as evidenced by your later violent offending, confirm the underlying reality of this need.
Moreover, by reason of your conviction for the offence of threat to kill in 1995 and the imposition of a sentence of imprisonment in respect of it, you fall to be sentenced as a serious violent offender under the Sentencing Act 1991. As such, I must regard the protection of the community as the principal purpose for which sentence is to be imposed. This said, I accept that, in your case, this does not require a sentence disproportionate to the gravity of the offence.[11]
[11]Sentencing Act 1991 s 6D.
Steven Bradley, I sentence you to 27 years’ imprisonment for the murder of Michelle Buckingham. I fix a minimum non-parole period of 21 years.
I declare pursuant to s 18(4) of the Sentencing Act 1991 that you have served 650 days (not including today) by way of pre-sentence detention. I direct such declaration be noted in the records of the Court.
I further direct, that in accordance with s 6F of the Sentencing Act 1991, it be entered into the records of the Court that you were sentenced as a serious violent offender.
I make the order pursuant to s 464ZF(2) of the Crimes Act 1958 for a forensic sample which is sought by the prosecution and I have already explained to you the consequences of that order which your counsel has indicated to me you do not oppose.
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