R v El-Ahmed

[2002] VSC 4

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF VICTORIA Not Restricted

AT MELBOURNE

CRIMINAL DIVISION

No. 1472 of 2001

THE QUEEN

v

BELAL EL-AHMED

---

JUDGE:	TEAGUE J
WHERE HELD:	Melbourne
DATE OF HEARING:	10 December 2001
DATE OF SENTENCE:	29 January 2002
CASE MAY BE CITED AS:	R v. Belal El-Ahmed
MEDIUM NEUTRAL CITATION:	[2002] VSC 4

---

Sentencing – Murder – premeditated killing for financial gain in home of deceased – plea of guilty and other mitigating circumstances – 20 years prison – 15 years before parole eligibility – other accused awaiting trial.

---

APPEARANCES:	Counsel	Solicitors
For the Crown	Mr. G. Horgan S.C. with Mr. C. Winneke	Office of Public Prosecutions
For the Accused	Mr. I. Hayden	Victoria Legal Aid

HIS HONOUR:

1. You have pleaded guilty to the murder on 15 September 2000 of Paul Parsons at Werribee.  The circumstances of that murder cannot be explained without reference to the roles of two other persons accused of that murder.  They are Donna Parsons and Andrew Stocker.  They have pleaded not guilty to the charge of murder. The trial of the charge against them is due to start today.  There are reasons for and against delaying my sentencing you until after the trial.  The prosecution has stated to me that you are to be called to give evidence at the trial.  However, you have this morning made it clear that you propose to continue to decline to answer questions put to you by the prosecution.   Accordingly, I propose to proceed to sentence you this morning.  I must make my assessment of the facts on the evidence at present available to me.  I must do the best I can, even though I would or might be better placed in making findings if I had deferred sentencing you until after the trial.

1. I repeat that you have pleaded guilty to the murder on 15 September 2000 of Paul Parsons at Werribee.  Although Paul Parsons was not a man known personally to you, you had agreed to arrange to murder him.  Paul Parsons was the husband of Donna Parsons.  In the year 2000, you knew Donna Parsons through working with her. You made known to her your dislike of men who harmed wife or children. She told you that her husband was giving her and her two children a hard time. As time went on, she told you more of what she said were her husband’s wrongdoings.  She said he was abusing her and hurting the children.  After a while, she spoke of her desire to have her husband killed.  She told you that his life insurance would pay up for his death.  She told you that if you could arrange to kill him, she would give you money.  As I will note in more detail later, you have long had a special interest in vigilante justice.  You have a special interest in righting what you perceive to be wrongs.  Partly because of that interest, and partly because of the prospect of making money, you agreed to kill Paul Parsons.

1. At the end of July 2000, Donna Parsons arranged for you to have the use of a mobile phone acquired in her name.  The plan was to use the mobile phone so that the two of you could keep in regular contact about the plan you and Donna Parsons made to kill Paul Parsons.  She did keep in regular contact with you.  She gave you information about her husband and his movements.  You discussed with her the possible means of effecting the killing.  As time went on, she kept calling you, asking you why execution of the plan was taking so long.  You followed Paul Parsons around at times.  You made your first attempt to kill him by cutting the brake lines on his car.  You made another attempt by enlisting the aid of a friend, Edward Turner.  You got Edward Turner to drive his car past Paul Parsons who was then riding on a motorcycle.  As the front seat passenger in the car, you pushed Paul Parsons causing him to fall onto the roadway.

1. You then enlisted another friend Andrew Stocker to help you.  You discussed with him how to kill Paul Parsons and how Andrew Stocker would be paid.  Discussions between you and Donna Parsons and Andrew Stocker led to it being agreed that you and Andrew Stocker would take steps to kill Paul Parsons on 15 September 2000.  It was arranged that the three of you would meet at 1 p.m. on that day near your home.  You and Andrew Stocker got into the closed utility of Donna Parsons.  She drove you to Werribee to a park near the Parsons home.  There, you and Andrew Stocker got into the back of the utility.  You put over you blankets that were there.  She drove you to the Parsons home.  She let you out of the back of the utility into her garage.  She left but returned an hour or so later.  The plan was that she would then travel well away from home with her children leaving open the back door to the home for you to enter.  Her plan was to go to see a friend in Sydenham when the killing took place.  A bit after 4 p.m., you and Andrew Stocker entered the house, taking with you two crowbars from the garage.  Inside the house, you took up a knife.

1. Paul Parsons arrived home that evening shortly after six o’clock.  He had taken only a few steps inside when he was attacked.  He was struck many times with a crowbar and a knife.  He had no chance at all.  He died just inside his front door.  Steps were then taken to make the scene look as if there had been a burglary.  Belongings of the deceased, including a mobile phone, were removed.  The plan was for you and Andrew Stocker to leave the house by the front door.  That plan was thwarted when a neighbour was seen on his roof next door adjusting tiles.  You and Andrew Stocker went back to the garage.  There, you rang Donna Parsons.  You asked her to come and collect you and Andrew Stocker.  She told you that it would take her quite some time to get there, and it did.  When she arrived, you and Andrew Stocker once again got into the back of her utility.  She drove you to where the two of you were collected belatedly by another friend.

1. Three days later, you were tracked down and interviewed by the police.  You were co-operative up to a point. You answered some of the questions put to you truthfully.  You have subsequently spoken with Dr Lester Walton, a psychiatrist, and Mr Bernard Healey, a psychologist.  I have read their reports including what they recorded of what you told them of the killing and of the events preceding the killing of the deceased.  You have given evidence before me in the course of an application made before you pleaded guilty.  The application was to have me exclude as evidence what you said when interviewed by the police.  Some parts of what you have said to the police, to Dr Walton and Mr Healey and to the court are not credible.  There are some matters which cannot be treated as accurate in the light of other evidence.  One example was that you denied to the police your involvement in the attempts to kill the deceased by cutting his car’s brake lines and by pushing him from a moving motorcycle.  In addition to those inaccuracies, there are several inconsistencies when one compares what you have said on one occasion with what you have said on another.  Even within the account you have given on a particular occasion, such as in giving evidence before me, there are internal inconsistencies.

1. You have most clearly lied on the subject of who were your accomplices.  You have talked of the role of a man named Charles.  In the light of other evidence, it is clear that the Charles you describe does not exist.  Many of the attributes and actions of Charles apply, or appear to apply, to Andrew Stocker.  Yet, you have denied that Andrew Stocker had any role at all in the events of 15 September 2000.  In giving evidence before me, you added to the lantana of lies as to your partners in crime in at least two further respects.  First, you then swore that Donna Parsons was not involved.  Secondly, you spoke of the involvement of another person or other persons.  But you chose not to identify him or them.

1. Before I turn from the circumstances of the offence to your circumstances, I wish to refer to the victim impact statements placed before me.  They come from the parents and siblings of Paul Parsons.  I have read those statements carefully.  I have been moved by them.  They have reminded me of the balance I must seek to achieve in determining the most appropriate sentence to impose upon you.

1. You are 25 years of age, having been born in Carlton in July 1976.  Your parents were migrants who worked hard running milk bars to raise you and your brothers and sisters.  You are of average intelligence.  You have had employment in various positions in sales, security, transport and otherwise.  You have shown some ambivalence about the values of your Muslim family.  You have had relationships and interests many of which are not significantly different from other men of your age and background.  Your health in 2000 was a concern to at least your mother.  You slept little, you were addicted to caffeine, and you were acting strangely in other ways including as to your claimed contact with faceless friends to which I will refer further shortly.  You developed a special interest in, indeed a preoccupation with, vigilante justice, where there is a concern to avenge wrongs to others.  That preoccupation was most clearly manifest in your obsession with the film titled “The Crow”.  Members of your family have confirmed the depth of that preoccupation and obsession.  That preoccupation with avenging wrongs made you more vulnerable to acting on what you perceived to be, in the case of Donna Parsons,  a case of the maltreatment of a woman and children calling for retribution.  Your family also told me of your propensity to tell them often and over an extended period about certain people with first names like David and Daryl and Philip and Patrick whom you claimed as friends.  Your family never met the named but faceless friends.  They doubted that the friends really exist.  But it is significant that, through you, your family did get to meet Andrew Stocker and Edward Turner.

1. There are a significant number of mitigating factors operating in your favour.  You are young.  The prospects of rehabilitation appear to be good.  You have no prior convictions.  The indications are that, until the year 2000, you were not a man inclined to violence or to break the law.  You come from a supportive and law-abiding family.  You have undergone courses in prison, and achieved an enhanced status while on remand.

1. You have pleaded guilty.  That means a saving in costs and less distress for certain witnesses.  The allowance for the plea might have been greater but for certain factors.  They included that the evidence against you was very strong.  Further, the plea came immediately after an adverse ruling as to the admissibility of the police interview, and as the trial was about to begin.

1. I accept that there is and has been a degree of remorse.

1. As I noted before, you have co-operated to a degree with the police.  You provided the police with considerable information.  I am satisfied that much of that information was valuable in one way or another.  In certain respects it appears to have been very accurate and reliable.  In other respects, it either supported information already available from other sources or provided a lead to other sources.  Having said that, I also would say that the cooperation could have been of much greater value.  That might have been the case if some information given by you had not to be regarded as of no value at all because it was misleading.

1. You have made it clear that you do not propose to answer any questions put to you during the trial of Donna Parsons and Andrew Stocker.  You will not be additionally penalised by me because you have taken that position.  But I will not make the allowance in your favour that I would have made if you had agreed to co-operate with the authorities.  I am conscious that there are many unpalatable considerations affecting a decision either way.

1. I have said  that as to many matters, I have accepted that you have told the truth to the police and others.  As to other matters I am satisfied that you have lied.  As to some matters, I am troubled as to where the truth lies.  Most specifically I refer to your portrayal of your role in the period of and immediately prior to the actual killing of Paul Parsons.  You say you then exhibited reluctance, restraint and empathy for Paul Parsons. I am not satisfied that that was the case.  On the other hand, I am not going to impose on you the added penalty that would have been appropriate if you had played the more brutal role that you attributed to the fictitious Charles.

1. I sentence you upon the basis that you planned the murder of Paul Parsons over a period of several weeks.  At least one reason for that plan was to get paid a significant amount of money.  You tried to kill him first by cutting the brake lines on his car, then by pushing him off his moving motorcycle.  You enlisted their support for a more brutal plan.  You organised for Paul Parsons to be killed in his home, where he had the right to feel safe.  The successful plan involved killing Paul Parsons in a brutal way with crowbar and knife.  You were then present wielding a knife.  At least until that point, you seem to have viewed the prospect of killing another man with equanimity.  Murder is effectively the most serious crime tried in our courts.  This was a very serious example of murder, and the sentence that I impose must reflect that.

1. I declare that you have spent 499 days in pre-sentence detention.  I direct that that be entered in the court records.  I sentence you to 20 years imprisonment.  I fix a non-parole period of 15 years.