R v Drummond
[2000] VSC 206
•15 May 2000
| SUPREME COURT OF VICTORIA | |
| CRIMINAL JURISDICTION | Not Restricted |
No. 1436 of 2000
| THE QUEEN |
| v. |
| CHRISTINE DRUMMOND |
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JUDGE: | TEAGUE, J. | |
WHERE HELD: | MELBOURNE | |
DATE OF SENTENCE: | 15 MAY 2000 | |
MEDIUM NEUTRAL CITATION: | [2000] VSC 206 | |
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CATCHWORDS: Crime – Charge of assisting an offender – Plea of guilty – Accused a solicitor – Suspended sentence.
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APPEARANCES: | Counsel | Solicitors |
For the Prosecution | M. Bastianon | Office of Public Prosecutions |
| For the Accused | N. Clelland | Slades & Parsons |
HIS HONOUR:
Christine Drummond you have pleaded guilty to one count of assisting an offender knowing or believing he had committed the crime of murder. The offender in question was Paul Odgers. On or about 27 October 1996 he killed Bryce Chenhall.
I propose to explain in some detail my reasons for my proposing, first, to sentence you to a term of imprisonment but also to make an order suspending the whole of the sentence. Before making such an order, I am required under the Sentencing Act either to explain or to cause to be explained certain matters as to the operation of a suspended sentence. Those matters are the purpose and effect of the proposed order and the consequences that may follow if you commit another offence punishable by imprisonment in or outside Victoria during the next two years. It seems reasonable to assume that both you and your counsel are well familiar with those matters. Accordingly I could proceed on the basis that they can now be treated as having been caused to be explained. Nevertheless I do ask both you and your counsel whether any further time is needed to permit any further explanation.
MR CLELLAND: No, Your Honour.
HIS HONOUR: No. All right, I will proceed accordingly.
After a trial in this court before Coldrey J and a jury in 1998, Paul Odgers was found guilty of the murder of Bryce Chenhall. On 30 October 1998, Coldrey J sentenced Paul Odgers to a term of 21 years imprisonment.
You met Paul Odgers many years ago. You met him in your capacity as a solicitor. He was raised in an abusive environment. He has had little education. He has a poor work history. He has an extensive criminal record. He is more than 12 years younger than you are. You ceased acting for him but remained a friend. It was an unusual kind of friendship. It was not of a sexual kind. You were prepared to assist him somewhat like an older sister. You hoped that you could change him for the better. He was taking advantage of you. He was manipulating you. You knew that but were prepared to accept it because you felt he had had a rotten life. He made you feel guilty for not doing more for him. He developed some kind of hold over you. In addition to the manipulation, based on guilt, there could be manipulation based on fear. At times he hit you. The most rational reaction would have been to avoid contact. Yet you, even after he had been physically violent towards you, continued to allow him to keep in contact and you continued to give him help.
In September 1996, after he was once again released from prison, you agreed to his residing with you. You still hoped that he would change his ways but he didn't. On about 15 October you asked him to leave. He quickly formed a relationship with a woman named Kim Snip. On 27 October 1996 he and Kim Snip went to the home of Bryce Chenhall. They wanted marijuana. They invited Bryce Chenhall back to Kim Snip's house. There Paul Odgers cut Bryce Chenhall's throat. He then buried the body under the house.
On 29 October Paul Odgers contacted you. He told you that he had killed a man. However, you had trouble believing him. You learned later that he had also told his brother of having killed a man. However, you were still not aware of any police or other news of a death matching that spoken of by Paul Odgers. On 9 November 1996 he asked you to collect him in your car and you did. You drove him to your unit and he stayed there for three nights. In the early hours of 12 November the police located the body of Bryce Chenhall. A couple of hours later members of the Homicide Squad came to your unit. They told you they were looking for Paul Odgers in connection with the killing of a man.
From that time on, there can be no doubt that you knew or believed Paul Odgers to have committed a murder.
You misled the police. The police searched the unit. They failed to locate Paul Odgers although he was there. Later that day, you drove Paul Odgers to the Mulgrave Motor Inn in Glen Waverley. Using the name Karen Thomson, you booked him into a room there.
On 13 November, the police saw you again. You chose not to reveal to them the then location of Paul Odgers. On that same day, you drove into the Burvale Hotel in Vermont South and booked him into a room there.
On 15 November, you drove Paul Odgers to a unit in Deepdene. Your sister had been living in the unit. She was interstate on 15 November. Later that day, the police spoke with you again. You told the police that you had taken Paul Odgers to Spencer Street Railway Station on 11 November. The implication was that you had not seen him since. On that same day, you bought for him blond hair dye so that he could change the colour of his hair. It was dyed that night.
On 16 November, you and Paul Odgers were still at the Deepdene unit. Paul Odgers drank some wine and he turned nasty. He hit you in the face causing significant injuries needing treatment in hospital. At last you did what you should have done much earlier. First, you sought help from a neighbour and shortly after that the police arrested Paul Odgers. Then you sealed his fate by making it known to the police the Homicide Squad wanted him.
Paul Odgers has thereafter remained in custody.
You made statements to the police on 16 and 18 November. In between, the police interviewed you and the interview was recorded. You were told that you were being interviewed in relation to the offence of being an accessory to murder. You told the police that you had assisted Paul Odgers, at least in part, out of a fear that he would hurt or even kill you. You spoke then of him having some hold on you.
That hold continued to lead you to acting unusually. Less than a fortnight later, you went to see Paul Odgers in prison. You visited him in prison eight times between 30 November 1996 and 23 March 1997. In July 1997 the police asked you why you had made those visits. What you said included that you were trying to make sense out of something there was no sense to.
Later that month, you gave evidence at the committal hearing of Paul Odgers. In September 1998 you gave evidence at the trial. The evidence you gave contained departures from what was in your statement to the police made on 18 November 1996. Coldrey J noted the tendency of the evidence to shift blame away from Paul Odgers. He also noted when sentencing Paul Odgers that your conduct was then being investigated by the Legal Ombudsman. I understand that you came before the Legal Profession Tribunal in September 1999 where your right to practise was suspended for 15 months.
You are not to be sentenced by me for the assistance given to Paul Odgers in that you misled, or at least were seen to have misled, the police and the courts. The sentence is only for the assistance given in driving Paul Odgers around and providing him with accommodation between 12 and 15 November and obtaining the hair dye for him.
You were born in October 1960. You were educated at Doncaster High School and the University of Melbourne. You and your supportive older sister came from a caring home. Your mother's death in 1995 added to the stresses affecting you at that time. After your admission as a barrister and solicitor of this court you worked for about ten years with the Legal Aid Commission. Your work was mainly representing young people in the Children's Court. That is demanding work.
I have taken account of the oral testimony and the letters placed before me. It is clear that you impressed those with whom you worked with your professionalism, your care and your capacity to do more than was required to assist those who needed your help. You have considerable talent.
It is regrettable that the adverse publicity from the events of 1996 seems to have led to you having difficulties at present holding employment.
You chose not to continue to practise law even before coming before the legal profession tribunal. You have had problems holding other work even of a relatively menial kind. You have suffered from depression. I have read the report of the psychologist, Heather Ambrose, and there is little in that report that I would have occasion to query.
I must take into account a number of matters in mitigation. I allow for your pleading guilty. I allow for your willingness to so plead having been made known early. I allow for your not having any prior conviction. I allow for your high level of remorse. I have read what was said when Kim Snip was sentenced by Justice Hampel in September 1997 also for assisting Paul Odgers after the murder of Bryce Chenhall. She had already served over ten months in prison. She received a sentence of two and a half years' imprisonment suspended for three years.
The assistance you gave Paul Odgers to evade the police would have been seriously wrong if you had not been a solicitor. For someone with a lawyer's training and experience you displayed an extraordinarily high level of lack of objectivity, indeed of irrationality. Your thinking seems to have been that your only way of surviving the ordeal was to accede to whatever Paul Odgers demanded. That meant hiding from the Homicide Squad for several days a man whom you knew they wanted in connection with a murder. I cannot come to any conclusion other than that your conduct deserved a sentence of imprisonment.
My concerns about whether it was appropriate to suspend the sentence have been tempered by what has been said by Mr Richter and Mr Morgan-Payler on the plea. However, I have not been able to accept that it fell within the acceptable range of my discretion not to record a conviction.
I sentence you to a term of imprisonment for eighteen months. I also make an order under s.27 of the Sentencing Act suspending the whole of the sentence for a period of two years.
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