R v Grieef
[2005] VSC 60
•10 March 2005
| Do Not Send for Reporting | ||
| IN THE SUPREME COURT OF VICTORIA | Not Restricted | |
AT MELBOURNE
CRIMINAL DIVISION
No. 1481 of 2004
| THE QUEEN |
| v |
| DANIEL JAMES GRIEEF |
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JUDGE: | TEAGUE J | |
WHERE HELD: | Melbourne | |
DATE OF HEARING: | 9 March 2005 | |
DATE OF SENTENCE: | 10 March 2005 | |
CASE MAY BE CITED AS: | R v Daniel James Grieef | |
MEDIUM NEUTRAL CITATION: | [2005] VSC 60 | |
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Criminal Law – Sentencing – Manslaughter – assault – asphyxia – killing of wife – consequent callous and deceptive behaviour - Obtaining property by deception (2 counts) – advantage taken of close friend and mother-in-law – Significant mitigating factors – Head sentence of 9 years – Non-parole period of 7 years
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APPEARANCES: | Counsel | Solicitors |
| For the Crown | Mr K. Gilligan | Office of Public Prosecutions |
| For the Accused | Dr G. Lyon | Victoria Legal Aid |
HIS HONOUR:
Daniel Grieef, you have pleaded guilty to three charges. One is of manslaughter. The other two are of obtaining property by deception.
On 6 August 2003, you killed your wife, Linda. I am not able to make a satisfactory finding as to how Linda’s death was caused. Dr Burke was the forensic pathologist who carried out the autopsy. I have reviewed closely his report and his answers to questions at the committal. He has detailed his findings, including the many bruises that he found to many parts of her body. His conclusion was that Linda died of asphyxia with injuries consistent with an assault. That conclusion, with its various qualifications, is far from satisfying. The conclusion might have been more satisfying if you had given a credible account of what you could remember of the events leading to her death. You have not given what I can take to be a credible account.
For more than two years before you killed your wife, you had practised deception in a serious way. You chose to deceive your former employer Toyota Tsusho, where you had worked until August 2001. You transferred nearly $50,000 from the employer’s accounts into your personal account. You were caught out on that. You had to leave that job. You avoided being prosecuted by choosing to deceive two people who had your interests at heart. That adds to the seriousness of the criminal deception. One of the two was Linda’s mother, Annette. The other was Brendan, a close friend of yours from school days. They listened to what you said as to the purpose for which money was needed. They were not to know that you lied. Believing in you, Annette, as to $8,000, and Brendan, as to $28,000 made over to you their savings in August 2001. Between August 2001 and August 2003, they were encouraged by further deception on your part to believe that they would be repaid. That deception involved you engaging in an elaborate foreign exchange hoax. That hoax cost Annette more of her savings. At no stage was there any prospect of Annette and Brendan being repaid. They have not yet been repaid. By the start of August 2003, it was becoming clear that your deceptions were soon likely to be exposed.
Your serious deceptions before you killed Linda were of a different kind to your serious deceptions after you killed her. The latter are matters are properly to be weighed in aggravation. I have already noted that I cannot make a satisfying finding as to how you killed Linda, and that that is so, partly because of the lack of precise objective evidence, and partly because of the lack of credibility of your accounts. After you had killed her, but before the police came to investigate, you did two things that point strongly to you having devised a callous plan to deceive the police. You damaged the door to the house. You removed the DVD player from the house. You devised a story of deception to tell to the police who first spoke with you. When you realised that that first story could be seen through, you gave a second story. The removal, dumping and casual comments about the DVD player point tellingly to the extent of your deception. Significant parts of both your first story to the police and your second story are untrue. Despite your protestations to the contrary to the police, you knew that your wife was dead when you left home. You knew that there was only one way that she could be found, and that was by your children. Your children are a son, Tyler, born in January 1998, and a daughter, Danae, born in May 1999. They were then aged 5 and 4. You left them to find their mother’s body. Seeing the blood and bruises, they took out a first-aid kit, and from that the band-aids. They tried in their childish innocence to help their mother. That was before the phone call was made that led to the next stage of your deception. I add this rider. Even on your account to the police, your attitude was one of extreme callousness. If your wife had been not dead, but only unconscious, it was callous in the extreme not to call for an ambulance or to otherwise seek help for her, but to leave her unaided, with the children nearby.
The killing itself was not towards the most or the least serious end of the scale. In a physical contest, she would have been no match for you. Your sizes and your respective injuries bear witness to that. There are mitigating factors. I mention two now, and will return to note others that I have taken into account. You did not use a weapon. You have no known history of domestic violence.
Before turning to your background, I turn to the position of your victims. I have read the statements of Annette and of Brendan. That of Brendan is focused. It makes a number of appropriate points. Annette’s statement is much longer. She expresses herself very clearly, and very well. Her statement is more emotive. It is powerful in its impact. That it is emotive is understandable given that Annette is Linda’s mother, and that each clearly loved the other dearly. It is powerful not only because Annette is articulate as to her past pain and suffering. It also brings out how much Annette and her husband are prepared to sacrifice themselves for the present and future good of Tyler and Danae. Some questions that she poses for me are unanswerable. A sentencing judge has limited power. I cannot by my sentence, or by my sentencing remarks, resolve a great deal. I merely represent the state which is itself victimised by all crime. I aim to apply established sentencing principles, and to do so consistently.
I turn back from your victims to you. Your upbringing in a stable family with two siblings seems unexceptional. At times, communications between you and your parents have been strained somewhat. There were other indications of relative stability at work and otherwise until 2001. It seems that you then developed a problem with gambling. That problem seems to have been associated both with the strained communications with your parents, and with the transferring of funds from the account of your employer to your own account. Your work record is good. You continued to work as a business analyst until the time of your arrest.
There are several significant mitigating factors. You have no prior convictions. You have pleaded guilty. You have a supportive family. The indications of your desire to remain involved in the upbringing of your children are in one sense to be commended. It is a pity that, by your deceptive conduct, you have given others good cause to seriously question your motives. Your facility in deception makes it harder to credit you with genuine remorse. Nevertheless, I do so to some degree, in the light of matters that include the plea of guilty, and what has been said about you in the letters filed on the hearing of the plea. You are also to be commended for your willingness to work well while in prison on remand.
I have signed the orders submitted as to disposal and retention and compensation.
The terms of imprisonment that I now fix are as follows:
Count 1: 2 years.
Count 2: 2 years, all concurrent with the 2 years fixed on Count 1.
Count 3: 7 years, cumulative on the 2 years fixed on Count 1.
The head sentence is nine years. The non-parole period is seven years. I declare the period of pre-sentence detention to be 583 days. I direct that that be entered in the court records.
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CERTIFICATE
I certify that this and the 3 preceding pages are a true copy of the reasons for Sentence of Teague of the Supreme Court of Victoria delivered on 10 March 2005.
DATED this 10th day of March 2005.
Associate
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