R v Corrie

[1994] QCA 564

[1994] QCA 564

COURT OF APPEAL

PINCUS JA
DAVIES JA
LEE J

CA No 385 of 1994

THE QUEEN

v.

FRANK PATRICK CORRIE  Applicant

BRISBANE

..DATE 17/11/94

JUDGMENT

PINCUS JA:  This is an application for leave to appeal against sentence.  The applicant, who was aged 41 at the time of the commission of the offences, was convicted on pleas of guilty on three counts:  1) that on 27 November 1993 he unlawfully and with intent to damage a building put an explosive device in the foyer of the building;  2) that on the same day he without lawful occasion went armed in public in such a manner as to cause fear; and 3) that he wilfully and unlawfully destroyed a glass door.  The penalties imposed in respect of these were as to count 1 six years; as to count 2 two years; and as to count 3 12 months' imprisonment; and the learned sentencing Judge also recommended that the applicant be considered for parole after having served two years of his sentence. 

At the time when the matter came before the District Court, the applicant had in fact been in prison for the best part of a year (about ten months) and as his counsel points out today it is now very close to a year since his imprisonment began.  The Judge also recommended that, if the applicant were admitted to parole, that be conditioned upon his psychological condition being monitored with a view to preventing any repetition of his behaviour.  The behaviour to which the Judge referred was of rather an alarming kind. 

The applicant, who had some experience with explosives, manufactured explosive devices:  one made out of sixteen sticks of gelignite and the other from a hand grenade filled with some sort of mixture.  He went with a loaded rifle to the MLC Building on the corner of George and Adelaide Streets about 1.45 p.m.  He uttered threats and fired shots from the rifle, damaging plate glass.  The gelignite bomb was wired electrically to explode on the connection of two wires. 

The emergency lasted several hours and eventually, due to some good work on the part of police, the applicant was persuaded to give himself up.  Nobody was hurt but the two shots fired did some property damage.  The opinion of the experts was that the explosion of the hand grenade device would not have done much damage, but the gelignite had enough power to cause significant damage to the building.  It was also said the gelignite was old and unstable. 

The pleas of guilty were perhaps inevitable and it is difficult to see that any concession should have been made to the applicant on that account.  The principal bases of the present application are that the applicant, according to the reports before the primary Judge, had a fairly miserable childhood, has significant psychological problems, and did these rather reckless things when he was subject to a sense of grievance and rather depressed.  The applicant, in discussing the matter with the police, said he had received demands for maintenance from solicitors acting on behalf of his ex-wife.  He also said he had had a dispute with the MLC Insurance Company concerning a sum of some thousands of dollars which he had paid into that company, which he felt entitled to receive back.  The company's attitude was that the sum paid in had been worked off, so to speak, by charges which the company had imposed.  The applicant's story to the police was that although he had in mind blowing himself up, he did not intend to hurt anybody else, but did intend to damage the MLC Building, with a view to getting his own back on the company. 
The psychological and psychiatric history of the applicant is fairly complex, but since it forms the principal basis of the application some reference should be made to the details of it.  There are two reports from a psychiatrist, Dr P J Edwards, one dated January 1994 and the other dated September 1994. 

In the first of these reports, the applicant told
Dr Edwards of having being reared in an orphanage, of having had difficulty at school and of having served in Vietnam, of being a heavy drinker and having a past psychiatric history of some significance.  When he was a young lad, he was admitted to a psychiatric unit after having problems with one of the nuns at the orphanage, whom he had struck.  He had also been admitted to the Royal Brisbane Hospital in his 30s - he is now in his 40s, as I have mentioned - when he was depressed and suicidal.  He has been treated as an outpatient at the hospital for the past eight years, and the treatment has included - until recently, it appears - a substance called tryptanol, an anti-depressant.  He told Dr Edwards in his second discussion with him that he had ceased taking tryptanol for some five days before the incident which is the subject of these proceedings, because he could not afford to pay for the medication. 

In Dr Edwards' second report, he gave some further details about the applicant's background, and expressed the opinion that he had a mixed disorder of personality as assessed at the hospital; he had impaired tolerance to stress and frustration and was subject to mood swings.  As to the future, Dr Edwards expressed the opinion that the applicant was poorly adjusted and had depressed mood at the time the events occurred. 
Dr Edwards said the applicant did not always tolerate certain types and degrees of stress, as happened on the occasion now in question.  The doctor thought that with continuing psychiatric treatment and also because of the settlement of the difficulties with the MLC he had settled down.  The doctor did not expect that any further improvement in his condition could be expected, and he thought he would always be prone to react adversely to certain types and degrees of stress, that not being absolutely preventable.

Another report which has been obtained, from the Queensland Corrective Services Commission, gives similar information concerning the applicant's unfortunate background and his rather deprived upbringing.  The opinion of the person who wrote that report, C Marquez, was that because there was no record of criminal offences previously, there should be a short custodial sentence, with psychiatric intervention to assist the applicant to cope with the normal pressures of society. 

Mr Collins, who has appeared for the applicant today, has urged upon us the view that the primary Judge erred in taking the course which he did.  He says that deterrence is not really the issue and that the principal thing is to ensure that this applicant receives adequate treatment so as to preserve the community from harm.  The suggestion which
Mr Collins makes is, in effect, that the applicant should be released forthwith, or at least very soon, and placed on probation.   He was unable, however, to submit that the treatment which the applicant would receive while on probation would be more beneficial to him than that which he would be likely to receive on parole. 

One can hardly read the reports without feeling considerable sympathy for the applicant, but nevertheless the Court has, as Mr Collins frankly recognised, an obligation to protect the community.  It does not appear to me possible to say, and indeed this was the foundation of Mr Ridgway's submission for the Crown, that in taking the course which he did, the Judge erred.  Certainly, other courses were possible:  shorter and indeed, I suppose, longer periods of imprisonment could have been within the range of discretion.  It was very much a matter for the primary Judge to determine in this difficult case what was the best balance of the interests of the community and the interests of the applicant. 

One matter which was referred to in the course of submissions was that the applicant's recommendation for parole was said to be conditional only upon his psychological condition being monitored with a view to preventing repetition of this or similar behaviour.  It was suggested that it would be desirable that, if parole is granted, there be a further condition and that is that the applicant continually submit himself to appropriate treatment.  The importance of this is, of course, that it is said that there is a direct connection between the applicant's having abandoned the treatment which he was undergoing, namely taking tryptanol, and the events which occurred. 

I would, in the circumstances, be disposed to refuse the application, but to add to the recommendation which has been made below a recommendation that there be a condition such as I have mentioned; that is, that parole be conditional upon the applicant submitting himself regularly to such treatment as is required or prescribed.

DAVIES JA:  I agree.

LEE J:  I agree.

PINCUS JA:  The application will be refused and it will be directed that the additional recommendation which is mentioned in my reasons be brought to the attention of the Corrective Services Commission.

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