R v Hounslow
[2020] VSC 363
•18 June 2020
| IN THE SUPREME COURT OF VICTORIA | Not Restricted |
AT MELBOURNE
CRIMINAL DIVISION
S ECR 2019 0207
| THE QUEEN |
| v |
| DANIEL HOUNSLOW |
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JUDGE: | TINNEY J |
WHERE HELD: | Melbourne |
DATE OF HEARING: | 9 June 2020 |
DATE OF JUDGMENT: | 18 June 2020 |
CASE MAY BE CITED AS: | R v Hounslow |
MEDIUM NEUTRAL CITATION: | [2020] VSC 363 |
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CRIMINAL LAW – Murder – Accused beat innocent victim to death over prolonged period under delusion that victim was his brother who had sexually abused him as a child – Contribution of drug use to offending – Serious criminal history including long sentence for aggravated burglary and rape – Verdins issues – No reduction in moral culpability in the circumstances – No reduction in importance of general and specific deterrence - Serious offender provisions applied - Protection of the community paramount – Just punishment – Denunciation - General deterrence - Specific deterrence – Standard sentence – Current sentencing practices - Sentence of 33 years’ imprisonment with a non-parole period of 26 years – But for plea of guilty, sentence of 38 years’ imprisonment with a non-parole period of 30 years.
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APPEARANCES: | Counsel | Solicitors |
| For the Crown | Mr N Hutton with Ms S Clancy | Ms A Hogan, Solicitor for Public Prosecutions |
| For the Accused | Mr J McQuillan | Matthew White and Associates |
HIS HONOUR:
Introduction
Daniel Hounslow, you have pleaded guilty to the murder of Micah Kawalek, and admitted prior convictions contained in a criminal record filed in this case.
The maximum penalty for murder is life imprisonment.
Murder is a standard sentence offence with a standard sentence of 25 years.
Your counsel Mr McQuillan correctly acknowledged before me that in your case, a long term of imprisonment must be imposed. The seriousness of the crime to which you pleaded guilty, along with your substantial criminal history, dictate that that is so.
Background to the murder
In the context of a long history of criminal offending, you were released from prison on 22 December 2018 and moved into a house at 2 Mount Eagle Way, Wyndham Vale two days later. These premises were a short-term transition house for recently released prisoners and other men requiring accommodation.
Micah Kawalek was 49 years’ old when a sad decline into alcoholism led to him being prohibited by an intervention order from returning to the marital home he shared with his wife Julie. As a consequence, he moved into the Wyndham Vale house on 8 March 2019, after seeking crisis accommodation through the Salvation Army. At the time he moved there, sadly as it turned out for Mr Kawalek, you were the only other resident.
Mr Kawalek introduced you to his wife over the phone and on occasions you passed messages between Mr Kawalek and his wife due to the existence of the intervention order. You assured Mrs Kawalek that you were looking after her husband and making him breakfast in the morning. You told her that you and Mr Kawalek would ‘get better’ together and would look into completing an Alcoholics Anonymous program together.
On 18 March 2019, the landlord Justin Odgers attended for his usual weekly inspection at the premises and observed signs of a disturbance including a broken bottle of wine on the floor. You came out of your bedroom and you were incoherent, unstable on your feet and clearly extremely drunk. Mr Kawalek was asleep in his room. Later that day, Mr Odgers returned and found both you and Mr Kawalek drunk. You were difficult to understand and Mr Kawalek remained very quiet. You admitted having let off a fire extinguisher earlier on in the day and having grabbed Mr Kawalek by placing your finger inside his cheek and ‘hooking him’.
That same day, two other tenants, Stephen Brooks and Nethanial Pearce, moved into the property. You told Brooks about the incident the day before. You told him that having passed out on the floor, you believed that Mr Kawalek had drugged you. You said that he had put you to bed the night before and when you awoke in the morning you suspected that he had tried to have sex with you. You told Brooks that Mr Kawalek was your older brother and that he had sexually assaulted you when you were a young child. You claimed that Mr Kawalek was involved in the sex and people smuggling trades. At the time you told Brooks these things, you were alcohol affected and drinking cheap cask wine. Brooks noted you to be ‘constantly pre-occupied and obsessed’ with Mr Kawalek.
Over the next few days, you continued your rants about Mr Kawalek. On one occasion you told Brooks that you wished to extort Mr Kawalek as you thought he had $800 million in a bank account. Brooks observed you and Mr Kawalek to bicker.
On 22 March 2019, you spoke to Julie Kawalek on the phone. You sounded angry, swore uncontrollably, and made little sense to her. You told her, amongst other things, that Mr Kawalek had been drunk, had broken a window, and had soiled himself, leading to you cleaning him up. You claimed Mr Kawalek had been bringing up unwelcome memories from your past. You accused him of having put pornography on your phone.
The following day, Mrs Kawalek called you to check on the welfare of you and Mr Kawalek. You sounded much calmer and spoke at length about having sorted things out with her husband. You told her of the plans you both had to complete Alcoholics Anonymous together.
The murder; 24 March 2019
On the afternoon and evening of 23 March 2019, Brooks was absent from the premises. Pearce was present, having returned late in the afternoon. He spent the night in his bedroom, emerging only a couple of times to go to the fridge. CCTV footage within the premises recorded both you and Mr Kawalek at home and moving around the property.
At 12.34 am on 24 March 2019, CCTV footage recorded you leading Mr Kawalek through the kitchen and towards the back door whilst holding onto the back of his neck. He was not recorded again on the CCTV footage. During a police interview subsequently conducted, you admitted that you had led Mr Kawalek out into the back yard where you engaged in a sustained physical assault upon him by punching and kicking him to death.
You told police that from the very start of your association with Mr Kawalek, you felt a powerful desire to hurt him. You said that in the days prior to the murder, and on the night of the crime itself, there had been much drinking of alcohol by the two of you together.
Acting in a fit of rage, you took Mr Kawalek outside, and punched and kicked him approximately 40 times. Once you started, so you claimed, you could not stop. He stood up a few times, then went down to his hands and knees and you grabbed him and continued to punch him. You kicked him to the face, stomach, backside, and head. You also stomped on his head. The kicks were ‘pretty hard’. You said Mr Kawalek was bleeding from the ears, mouth, nose and eyes. You told the police that at one point during your continuing assault of Mr Kawalek, indicated by CCTV footage to have been at 1.10 am, you went into his bedroom and obtained the cord to his dressing gown, which you then used in an attempt to strangle him. You told police that you only held the tightened cord around his neck for a short time and that this did not kill Mr Kawalek.
During the assault, CCTV footage showed that you entered the house a number of times to wash your hands in the kitchen sink. At 1.54 am, the footage showed you entering the house with a limp.
At about 1.55 am, James Gray, a neighbour whose property shared a back fence with your property, was alerted by his dog’s barking to something untoward occurring in your property. He went out to investigate and heard a loud voice which must have been yours, ‘domineering’ and swearing at another male. He heard a series of blows being delivered, sounding like thumps, followed by more talking by you, followed again by a series of blows. He heard the sound of the second male groaning. The assault continued until about 2.40 am, that is, two hours and six minutes after you had initially led Mr Kawalek into the back yard.
You told police during an audio-visually recorded re-construction carried out at the crime scene after the formal police interview of a point during proceedings when you observed the results of your assault. You said:
I looked at him and could see how much damage I’d done. I thought, ‘Shit, what have I done?’ I could still see him breathing. I went inside and got his pillow and put it under his head and put his doona over the top of him. His face was swollen as. He was gurgling…I said, ‘I’m sorry, mate, like, I didn’t mean it’. He stopped breathing for a second. I started pumping his chest. Then he came back again. He started gurgling. I sat there with him until his last breath. Then I said a prayer for him and meself (sic). I was sorry that I done it. Then I didn’t know what to do…I checked his pulse. It had stopped.
The occasion on which you went inside and obtained the pillow and doona of Mr Kawalek was recorded on CCTV footage at about 2.40 am.
Post offence conduct
You told police that once Mr Kawalek was deceased, you returned inside the house to drink some wine. You took a glass of wine outside with you into the backyard and stood looking at the dead body of Mr Kawalek. You told police of having burnt the blood-stained pillow on which Mr Kawalek’s head had been resting, and also a bag of his clothes. You told them that your thought at that time was to get rid of the body to avoid responsibility.
At 4.27 and 5.22 am, you were recorded entering Mr Kawalek’s room with an empty laundry washing basket and exiting with unknown items in the basket. When police later searched the premises, Mr Kawalek’s room was empty of his belongings other than his mobile phone, his tablet and his wallet.
You admitted attempting to conceal the body of Mr Kawalek after you had killed him by dragging the body using a hose to the area between the bungalow and the back fence. Having considered and then discounted the idea of digging a hole in which to bury him, you threw branches on top of him to roughly conceal him. You changed your shirt after the murder because it was dirty and sweaty.
At approximately 11.00 am, you walked to the local IGA store in Wyndham Vale. You spoke to the owner Sam Salem and said, in reference to Mr Kawalek, ‘That Jewish bastard tried to molest me last night’. You admitted having bashed Mr Kawalek over two hours. Mr Salem urged you to call the police. You told him you were reluctant to do so because you did not want the police to hassle you.
Around lunchtime, you told Brooks that you had killed Mr Kawalek, claiming that you had bashed him for three hours in the back yard. You asked Brooks to obtain a shovel so that you could bury Mr Kawalek.
Sometime between 1.00 and 2.00 pm that day, you knocked on the door of a neighbour, Samantha Wainwright’s, home. You apologised for the fighting and yelling the night before and said that you had been in the back yard beating up your brother for two hours because you had an argument over an inheritance. You said that your brother’s head was now flat and that you had to clean up and hide the body.
Later that day you told Pearce that you had done something bad and that ‘He’s around the back of the shed’. You asked whether you should call Mr Kawalek’s wife and he advised you to go to the police.
At 8.46 pm, you telephoned 000. You reported that the previous evening you had bashed a man to death in the back yard of your house. You told the operator that you, ‘punched him…plenty of times…We went out the back yard…I started punching him…I punched him and punched him and punched him and I couldn’t stop’. You told the operator that once the man died you had dragged his body behind the shed and considered burying him but had received some advice that the best thing was to ‘call it in’.
Arrest and interview
Police arrived at the crime scene at 9.00 pm on 24 March 2019. You were found by police sitting on the grass near the front door of the house, with a cigarette in your mouth and your head bowed. You were arrested and handcuffed by Acting Sergeant Joyce. You told him Mr Kawalek was behind the shed. The body of Mr Kawalek was found in a gap between the bungalow and the fence in the back yard. He had obvious facial and other injuries and his face, trunk, arms and legs were covered with dirt. An ambulance paramedic confirmed that Mr Kawalek was deceased.
You spoke freely with Senior Constable Mark Ash and amongst other things said the following:
(a) It’s been chaos.
(b) I’ve been mediating with his wife.
(c) He’s been putting child pornography on my phone.
(d) I got out of him that he’s been putting things on my phone.
(e) I said you’re my brother, because I was sexually assaulted as a child. He said ‘Yes’ and that’s when I started hitting him.
(f) I’ve been trying to get help, seeing doctors and shit, try to talk about what happened when I was a kid.
(g) He said ‘I had a brother called Daniel’. I said you are my brother because my brother abused and raped me.
Senior Constable Ash commenced to record a field interview with you in which Detective Senior Constable Oakley also questioned you. You told them the following:
(a) You were washing and cleaning up after Mr Kawalek ‘pissed and shit himself’ because he was drinking too much;
(b) You were mediating between Mr Kawalek and his ex-wife, and she told you how crazy Mr Kawalek was;
(c) Mr Kawalek nodded when you asked him if he was the your brother. You told police that you had been sexually abused by your brother Brian when you were a child and Mr Kawalek told you that he was involved;
(d) Mr Kawalek knew someone who was involved in trafficking people through shipping containers and was attempting to get money from these people, but they had disappeared;
(e) Mr Kawalek took you into your bedroom the other night and the you ended up on the floor and couldn’t remember anything; you felt as if you had been poisoned. You claimed that in the morning your bed ‘smelt like shit’. You said that you were trying to piece it all together and said to him, ‘Did you do something to me, you fucker?’ You said that he came across as a ‘real evil person’.
(f) When Mr Kawalek first saw you he nearly broke down in tears. Mr Kawalek told you, ‘I used to have a brother named Daniel’. You responded, ‘Oh yeah…You know what my brother did to me?’. You accused him of having changed his name from Brian Hounslow.
(g) On the day of the murder you had consumed a couple of glasses of wine. You said that you hadn’t taken any drugs;
(h) You asked Mr Kawalek whether he was your brother. When he said that he was, you took him into the back yard and assaulted him. You couldn’t stop hitting him. You punched Mr Kawalek’s face in and used your hands and feet to assault him. You hit Mr Kawalek about 30 to 40 times. You kicked Mr Kawalek a few times in the face and this was the reason for your injured leg. You said that you specifically took Mr Kawalek out into the backyard so that you could assault him. You said, ‘If he was my brother, I had every right to do what he (sic) did to me’.
(i) Once you realised Mr Kawalek was ‘pretty stuffed’, you tried to save him by covering him up with a doona, pumping his chest to revive him, and saying a prayer for him;
(j) You wore the same shorts but a different t-shirt at the time of your arrest. You may have washed the t-shirt that you wore when you beat Mr Kawalek because you had been washing all of Mr Kawalek’s clothes;
(k) You freaked out and didn’t know what to do so you thought the right thing to do would be to ‘call it in, otherwise…it just ends up getting worse’
You were taken to Werribee Police Station. At 12.40 am on 25 March 2019, police conducted a preliminary breath test (‘PBT’) upon you indicating a blood alcohol concentration of 0.017 percent. A urine sample was taken from you at 2.50 am. Your urine was found to contain methylamphetamine, amphetamine and ethanol.
At about 1.00 am on 25 March 2019, you were examined by a forensic medical officer (‘FMO’) from the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine (‘VIFM’), Dr Sean Runacres. Dr Runacres initially assessed you as unfit for interview due to the fact you had not slept, had not eaten, and had alcohol in your system as revealed by the PBT. Dr Runacres observed marks on the prominent veins on your left and right cubital fossa consistent with intravenous drug use by you at an indeterminate time. The police interview of you was delayed until later in the day, and did not take place until another FMO assessed you as being fit.
You were interviewed by members of the Homicide Squad in an audio-visually recorded interview. You made admissions as to the facts set out earlier in this sentence at paragraphs 14 to 18. As I have already mentioned, you also took part in a re-enactment at 2 Mount Eagle Way, Wyndham Vale. Your co-operation with the police and obviously distressed state during the interview and re-enactment were relied on by your counsel as being consistent with the remorse you already felt at that time.
Autopsy
An autopsy was carried out on the body of Mr Kawalek on 25 March 2019 by Dr Heinrich Bouwer, a forensic pathologist with VIFM. The examination revealed the following injuries:
(a) Blunt force trauma to the head, including:
(i) Extensive bruising and abrasions over the entire face and neck;
(ii) Marked subcutaneous bruising and oedema;
(iii) Left and right temporal intramuscular bruises;
(iv) Intramuscular tongue haematomas; and
(v) Multiple upper and lower lip mucosal bruises and lacerations.
(b) Bilateral superior thyroid horn fractures, greater horn of left hyoid fracture, and multiple bruises to the strap muscles (all indicative of neck compression);
(c) Multiple bruises over multiple planes involving the torso, arms and legs;
(d) A lesser omentum (bowel membrane) laceration; and
(e) A small peritoneal haemoperitoneum with 100 ml of liquid blood.
Dr Linda Iles, also of the VIFM, conducted a forensic neuropathological examination of Mr Kawalek’s brain. Dr Iles found the following injuries:
(a) Patchy subarachnoid haemorrhage;
(b) Laceration of the dorsal aspect of the splenium of the corpus callosum;
(c) Grade 1 diffuse traumatic axonal injury; and
(d) Focal granulomata subarachnoid inflammation about the mammillary bodies.
Toxicological analysis of specimens obtained post mortem showed Mr Kawalek to have a blood alcohol concentration of between 0.22 percent and 0.27 percent at the time of his death.
Dr Bouwer considered the extensive bruising and abrasions observed over Mr Kawalek’s entire face and neck, together with the marked subarachnoid haemorrhage and other brain injuries to be the result of significant blunt force trauma to the head. Compression of the neck was evident by the presence of the specific neck injuries that involved multiple muscles on multiple levels together with hyoid and thyroid cartilage fractures. Further, blunt force abdominal trauma was evidenced by the laceration of the lesser omentum and collection of blood within the peritoneal cavity.
Dr Bouwer determined the cause of death to be blunt head and neck trauma.
Plea of guilty and remorse
You pleaded guilty to the charge of murder at the final directions hearing in this matter on 7 February 2020. Mr McQuillan submitted that whilst a committal hearing was conducted at the end of which you entered a plea of not guilty, the purpose of the committal hearing was to explore issues relating to whether or not you would be fit to plead or might have the defence of mental impairment available to you. It was submitted on your behalf that I should view your plea of guilty as having been made at the earliest possible time in the circumstances. Mr McQuillan submitted that your plea of guilty should attract a discount for its considerable utilitarian value in spite of its relative lateness. He further submitted that I should consider your plea of guilty to be a reflection of the remorse which you have exhibited since shortly after your crime, once you fully realised that the man you had murdered was entirely innocent. In Court, Mr McQuillan expressed your apologies to the family of Mr Kawalek, making mention of the eloquent contents of the victim impact statements. In response to a question from me directed to Mr McQuillan as to whether you acknowledge that there was no truth whatsoever to any of the claims you made about Mr Kawalek, you actually interjected in Court and said, ‘Excuse me, your Honour, you’re right there’.
The Crown accepted that your plea of guilty in the circumstances is capable of demonstrating remorse.
In sentencing you, I take into account in your favour that you have pleaded guilty to this crime. It was not an early plea of guilty, but I accept that there were good reasons why an earlier plea was not feasible in the circumstances. Your plea of guilty to murder is an important matter in mitigation of sentence. It is of great utilitarian value, and I am satisfied in your case is reflective of the genuine remorse you feel for your crime.
Personal circumstances
Mr McQuillan put no material directly before me touching on your personal history, family background, education and the like, preferring to rely on the comprehensive summary of such matters set out in the report of Dr Ong.
It seems to me that your personal background as spelt out by you to Dr Ong contained a number of claims which would stretch credulity. For example, in describing your ‘all bad’ childhood, you asserted that your father was a contract killer who perpetrated violence upon your mother extending to throwing her from a balcony, leading to her trying to ‘kidnap’ you and your siblings from school.
In any event, accepting for present purposes the accuracy of the things you told Dr Ong in this regard, you are 42 years old, having been born on 28 August 1977 in Ringwood to a father who was a builder and a mother who was a home-maker. Your mother, apparently, was of indigenous descent. You have one older brother, Brian, whose supposed sexual abuse of you as a child was an important part of your background as you spelt it out. Significant domestic violence was perpetrated upon your mother by your father, who drank to excess. Your mother left the family when you were aged four. You claimed that you informed teachers at school about the domestic violence you witnessed, but nothing was done about it.
You claimed the sexual abuse occurred when you were four. You claimed you were drugged and raped by your brother, not realising what had happened until years later when you saw blood in your underwear. Your father beat Brian when he found out, but according to you, nothing further happened, and there was no police or Child Protection involvement.
You lived with your grandparents for some years as a child, and from the age of ten, started running away from home and sleeping rough.
You had a limited education, due to your frequent absences and trouble-making. You left school during year 7. You started an apprenticeship as a cabinet maker which you did not finish, and then worked in various labouring positions. You did part of an apprenticeship as a landscaper. Your last work was in an abattoir. Imprisonment interrupted most of your employment.
You had a five year relationship from which your son, now aged eight, was born. You are in no contact with your former partner. I was not informed whether or not you are in any contact with your son.
You have a long history of illicit drug use including synthetic cannabis and methylamphetamine, of which you were a regular user at the time of the murder, using four times in the immediate lead-up to your crime.
Criminal history
You have a very serious criminal history, commencing with a sentence of 14 years with a non-parole period of 11 years for eight charges of rape, a charge of aggravated burglary, and connected crimes. I have been provided with the reasons for sentence of Judge Duggan on 17 September 1999, and they reveal that the offending the subject of the sentence was of the highest order of seriousness, and revealed that at your then young age of 22, you represented a serious danger to the community.
You were apparently squatting in a partially completed house near where your victim, a 55 year old woman, lived alone in her unit in Ferntree Gully. Having determined her to be an isolated and vulnerable person, you decided that you would break into her home and rape her. In preparation for that, late at night, you cut off the water, electricity, and telephone line to her home, achieving the latter by climbing under her unit. You then forced your way into her premises and raped your terrified victim over a number of hours. There were repeated penile and digital penetrations of her vagina and anus perpetrated by you despite the pleas of your victim. Judge Duggan, who was provided with a victim impact statement by your victim, described your offending as appalling and outrageous. He said:
This lady was forced to undergo this horrific experience that will probably dominate her life for the balance of her days…By your violent and sadistic acts, you terrorised and degraded this totally innocent lady over a period of four-and-a-half hours. You subjected her to a saga of degrading sexual abuse.
The sentencing remarks of his Honour reveal that you had made the claim to a psychiatrist Dr Lester Walton, who assessed you in preparation for the plea hearing, that you had no memory of your offending. Dr Walton apparently accepted this claim, describing the phenomenon as ‘psychogenic amnesia’. I must say that in light of the detailed planning and preparation preceding your offending, the protracted nature of the offending, and the lack of any claim that you were drug or alcohol affected at the time, your claim of a lack of memory had an implausible sound to it.
You were sentenced as a serious sexual offender, and protection of the community was therefore regarded as the principal purpose for which sentence was imposed.
Mr McQuillan informed me that you were released after 12 years in custody. Unfortunately, after a pause of a few years, you resumed offending. You have had numerous court appearances since 2014 for offences including theft, assault, and contravening a family violence intervention order. You have been imprisoned on four subsequent occasions, most recently for making a threat to kill, unlawful assault, being drunk in a public place, and possession of a controlled weapon without excuse, for which you received a term of imprisonment of 12 months with a non-parole period of six months. I was informed that you were released from custody in respect of this sentence only three months before you murdered Mr Kawalek.
You have a very worrying criminal history. You are not to be punished again for your previous crimes, but your adverse criminal history is nonetheless a very important matter for consideration. As was said by the Court of Appeal in R v O’Brien and Gloster:[1]
It is of course clear that no principle of sentencing requires that more severe sanctions be administered to those who persist in their criminal behaviour. But an adverse criminal record may impact on the sentencing process in a number of ways; for example, as an indicator of the offender’s moral culpability, his prospects of rehabilitation, his dangerous propensity and the community’s need for protection, having regard to the failure of more moderate penalties as a means of deterrence.[2]
[1][1997] 2 VR 714.
[2]Ibid p 718.
Victim impact statements
Three victim impact statements were filed in this case. The statements of Julie Kawalek, the wife of Mr Kawalek, and Rachel Uranker, his sister-in-law, were read in Court by their authors. The statement of Jayme Kawalek, the niece of Mr Kawalek was read aloud by the prosecutor. These victim impact statements were particularly moving, prompting your counsel at the commencement of his plea in mitigation to remark upon the eloquence with which the statements were expressed.
Mrs Kawalek’s statement contained quite a detailed account of the history of her long relationship with Mr Kawalek, who was clearly a kind, decent and loving man. She described her marriage with Mr Kawalek as ‘beautiful’. She told of the deterioration in the life of her husband as a result of incidents in his life and his descent into the excessive use of alcohol and a battle with mental ill-health.
As Mrs Kawalek explained it, you met Mr Kawalek when he was at the lowest point of his life, having a break away from home to try to sort himself out. Mrs Kawalek believed that you were trying to help her husband, although she did sense danger when she spoke with you.
She said that her life changed forever with the death of Mr Kawalek. As she put it:
The emotional pain you inflicted on me is indescribable. Not only did you kill my husband, but you killed me emotionally. You have completely robbed my life…How you changed my life forever and you changed Micah’s life and our future forever. The ripple effect [of] your actions affected not only me, but my family and his friends and those in my community who loved Micah dearly.
Mrs Kawalek also spoke of the additional trauma involved in hearing the untrue things you said about Mr Kawalek. He was not in a position to defend his good name which had been very wrongly maligned.
The other victim impact statements, too, were very illustrative of the overwhelming sense of trauma and loss experienced by the loved ones of Mr Kawalek. Your crime, as well as removing from their lives a much loved family member, has according to Ms Uranker, robbed her of her inner peace, to think that good people can cross paths, as she put it, with deranged and wicked people. She, too, spoke of the trauma caused by your false claims about Mr Kawalek, saying, ‘You took his life and these slanderous accusations you have made in death continue to murder his good reputation’. As Jayme Kawalek put it, ‘This one man has torn my life apart, he’s taken my happiness, my ability to live without fear. He left me with only memories. I am broken because of his selfish actions’.
The victim impact statements are a clear and compelling illustration to me, to you, and to everyone, of the terrible toll your crime has wrought upon its victims. I have had regard to these statements in arriving at an appropriate sentence for your crime.
Expert report and Verdins issues
A detailed report of Dr Kevin Ong, Forensic Psychiatrist, dated 22 April 2020 was tendered during the plea hearing. The contents of the report were based on a 90 minute video interview with you and Dr Ong’s consideration of the Summary of Prosecution Opening, your criminal history, your police interview, the Justice Health Records, and some other material.
An important part of your claimed background is the belief you apparently had that your brother Brian sexually assaulted you from the age of four by feeding you tablets from a medical cabinet and raping you once you had passed out. You claimed you did not realise what was happening for years, and that your father beat Brian when he found out. There was no police investigation, however, and Child Protection were never involved.
You had little formal psychiatric history before being in prison in recent times, claiming to have been referred to a local area mental health service in Wodonga a few years ago in the context of an episode seemingly brought about by your synthetic cannabis use.
The Justice Health records show an entry from Dr David Thomas, a consultant psychiatrist, on 5 March 2018, noting your receipt into Ravenhall Correctional Centre reporting visual hallucinations and continuing to ‘express paranoid persecutory themes about his ex-partner in Wodonga and expressing homicidal and suicidal intent’. Dr Thomas noted this presentation to be very different from that observed prior to December 2015 and observed the change might be contributed to by the onset of your use of synthetic cannabis after your release from prison in early 2015. Up to 2015, as Dr Thomas noted it, your clinical picture was ‘dominated by long-standing personality-based difficulties, poor emotional regulation, distress tolerance, social anxiety, low-grade depressive symptoms, cannabis and alcohol use in the community, and drug seeking behaviour in prison’.
Dr Thomas was of the opinion that your then presentation suggested ‘the presence of paranoid schizophrenia or persistent delusional disorder and Cluster B personality traits against a background of chronic drug and alcohol use, significant childhood trauma and possible PTSD’.
A later assessment by Dr Clare McInerney on 18 December 2019 noted your ongoing preoccupation with what you believed were memories of various abuses which occurred in childhood, in particular, sexual abuse by your brother. You were described as having given a disorganised and inconsistent history. She was of the opinion that delusional disorder remained the most likely diagnosis. Dr McInerney increased the dose of the antipsychotic olanzapine which had previously been prescribed for you.
You gave an account to Dr Ong of statements having been made by Mr Kawalek which convinced you that he was your brother. You ruminated on the matter, becoming confused and angry, and convinced that Corrections Victoria had deliberately placed you with Mr Kawalek to ‘play games’. Upon reflection, you said to Dr Ong, ‘I was incorrect, the conspiracy was drugs playing on my mind’.
You explained to Dr Ong that your attack upon Mr Kawalek was triggered by an incident in which he had put you to bed and you suspected he had interfered with you.
In respect of your actual crime, you told Dr Ong that you lost control due to your belief that Mr Kawalek was actually your brother who you believed had perpetrated sexual abuse upon you.
Dr Ong agreed with the previous assessment of Dr Thomas of your having significant antisocial personality traits. As for the actual murder, he stated that you appeared to have developed delusional beliefs in respect of Mr Kawalek including that he was your brother and that he had sexually abused you.
Dr Ong opined:
In regard to the application of Verdins, this of course is a matter for the sentencer. However, it is my opinion that Mr Hounslow does suffer from a mental disorder or abnormality, mainly Delusional Disorder, which was of a severe nature at the time of the offending, such that it did impair his ability to exercise appropriate judgment and to make calm and rational choices and to think clearly. This was clearly exacerbated by concomitant substance use. After the event, given attempts to conceal the offending, albeit clumsily, it was likely that Mr Hounslow was appreciative of the wrongfulness of his conduct. However, at the time of the offence, labouring under delusional beliefs in regard to the victim, as well as being disinhibited at the time from substance use, it appears that he assaulted Mr Kawalek in a fit of rage, driven by his delusional beliefs.
Mr Hounslow does currently continue to experience symptoms of a delusional disorder, though attenuated with treatment. Given that those with a major mental illness do far worse in a custodial environment, it is my belief that any sentence imposed on Mr Hounslow would weigh more heavily on him compared to the person in normal health. There is also a risk of deterioration in mental state due to incarceration, and Mr Hounslow would benefit from ongoing treatment and support through prison mental health services.[3]
[3]Report of Dr Ong dated 22 April 2020, pages 15-16.
The expert opinions of Dr Ong were relied upon in support of the contention by Mr McQuillan that five of the six limbs of R v Verdins (‘Verdins’) [4] should be enlivened in your case.[5]
[4](2007) 16 VR 269.
[5]Mr McQuillan did not seek to rely on the second limb.
Mr McQuillan submitted that it was plain that but for the fact that you suffered from the delusion that Mr Kawalek was your brother, you would never have committed this crime. Your moral culpability was much reduced as a result and the need for general and specific deterrence correspondingly reduced. He also submitted that a sentence of imprisonment passed upon you would weigh more heavily on you as a result of your condition, and there was a serious risk that imprisonment would have a significant adverse effect on your mental health. Mr McQuillan submitted that it would be a matter for the Court the extent to which sentence should be reduced as a result of the effect of the Verdins considerations. He submitted, however, that taking the application of the principles into account, the seriousness of this offending fell below the middle range of seriousness for the crime of murder.
Mr Hutton for the Crown disputed that any other than the 5th limb in Verdins should have application in your case. Citing the case of DPP v O’Neill,[6] he pointed out the need for a rigorous examination and informed assessment, with a proper evidentiary basis, of either how the disability diminished your capacity at the time of the offending to reason appropriately concerning the wrongfulness of your offending, or how the condition might make a full application of the principles of general deterrence inappropriate. He submitted that you had not established the requisite realistic connection between your condition and either your moral culpability or the need for specific or general deterrence. Before limbs one, three and four could be called in aid by you, it would have to be established on your behalf that your disability affected your capacity to appreciate the wrongfulness of your conduct, or obscured your intent, or impaired your capacity to make calm and rational choices. Mr Hutton submitted that Dr Ong’s inclusion of your apparent disinhibition from substance use as a contributor to your conduct called into question his assertion that your fit of rage was ‘driven by your delusional beliefs’. He submitted that, ‘the Court (even with Dr Ong’s evidence) cannot untangle the effect of the prisoner’s delusional disorder from the effects of his intoxication’.[7]
[6](2015) 47 VR 395.
[7]Prosecution Submissions on Sentence [9].
This was particularly so in light of your admission that you were drinking a good deal in the lead-up to the crime, that alcohol made you angry, and further that you used ice at least four times in that lead-up. On your own account to Dr Ong of an aspect of your delusions, you indicated, ‘I was incorrect, the conspiracy was drugs playing on my mind’. Furthermore, you told Dr Ong that almost all of your prior offending had been in the context of substance use.
Referring to the authority of DPP v Davis,[8] Mr Hutton maintained that it had not been established unequivocally that your self-induced intoxication with alcohol and ice had had no independent impact on your decision-making and conduct.
[8][2017] VSCA 341.
It was submitted that in the overall circumstances, it had not been demonstrated on the balance of probabilities that your impaired mental health had reduced your moral culpability, the need for general deterrence, or the weight to be properly afforded to specific deterrence.
Rather, so it was submitted, the seriousness of your offending was aggravated by your voluntary use of alcohol and drugs in circumstances where you knew your criminal history was littered with many instances of offending which occurred in the context of alcohol and drug use. This would require increased prominence to be afforded specific deterrence to dissuade you from your habits in future.
There was another aspect to the Crown’s resistance to the contention that most of the limbs of Verdins have application. It was submitted that yours was not a case in which the delusions operative at the time had you in fear or believing that you were under some sort of threat. Rather, you were mistaken as to the identity of your victim. There was no doubt that you wanted to kill your brother. And it was admitted on your behalf that as you attacked Mr Kawalek, you intended to kill him. The delusion as to identity could not be said to reduce moral culpability. You were out for revenge, and that was what you exacted. However, you exacted it against the wrong person.
Mr Hutton submitted that there was nothing in this case to displace the usual inference that intoxication of an offender may have a relevant causative effect on behaviour. In your case, your disinhibited yet purposeful pursuit of a violent attack upon Mr Kawalek was caused for the most part by your self-induced intoxication with ice and alcohol. There should be considered to be no reduction in moral culpability.
In respect of the 5th limb of Verdins, Mr Hutton conceded that the evidence of Dr Ong would entitle you to some reduction in sentence. As for the 6th limb, Mr Hutton disputed that that limb was enlivened, submitting that the evidence of Dr Ong fell short of proving what would be required.
Analysis of Verdins issues
It does seem to me that your murder of Mr Kawalek was the result, in part, of your disordered and strange thinking which apparently had you believing, on some levels at least, that he was your brother, and hence, deserving of the punishment you meted out to him. Your crime was not the result of well-considered, thought out, rational conduct. That much is clear, and I would take those matters into account in your favour, whether or not the principles in Verdins are called into play. That is not to say, however, that your moral culpability should necessarily be considered to be reduced substantially, or that there would be less call for general and specific deterrent aspects to your sentence.
Quite aside from the question of whether or not the effect of your intoxication at the time of the murder can be ‘untangled’ from the effect of your delusional disorder, which may itself be an impediment to your being able to call in aid the first four limbs of Verdins, the reality is that there is nothing to indicate that at the time of your offending, you did not fully understand the wrongfulness and criminality of your conduct, and did not fully appreciate the inevitable consequence of the physical actions which you pursued for that extended period of time. You felt great antipathy towards your brother, you transferred that antipathy towards Mr Kawalek due to your delusion, and then, acting on that antipathy, you attacked him at length, intending to kill him, and succeeding in that aim. Insofar as Dr Ong asserted that your delusional disorder impaired your ability to exercise appropriate judgment, to make calm and rational choices, and to think clearly, your murderous attack upon Mr Kawalek was not the product of some spur-of-the-moment, rash, ill-thought out decision to hurt him. You told the police in the interview that from the very start of your association with Mr Kawalek you felt a powerful desire to hurt him. In the early hours of 24 March 2019, in a disinhibited state due to intoxication with alcohol and ice, and labouring under the delusion as to his identity, you wreaked the vengeance you had seemingly long had in mind with tragic consequences. Your crime was not one brought about by an inability to exercise appropriate judgment or make calm and rational choices. You knew exactly what you wanted to do. You set about doing so. Throughout it all, you clearly knew the wrongfulness and serious criminality of your conduct, but went ahead, regardless.
In the circumstances, I do not believe that limbs 1, 3 and 4 of Verdins have application in your case. Nor has Mr McQuillan’s claim in respect of limb 6 been made out.
I do accept that limb 5 has some application in your case, and I will factor that into the sentence I pass upon you. I note, however, that it is not a very important consideration.
For completeness, I should say that insofar as Mr Hutton submitted that your self-induced intoxication at the time of the crime is an aggravating feature of your offending, I do not accept that submission. However, I do consider that the need for specific deterrence in your case is strong in any event, and not reduced at all by your mental condition at the time of your offending.
Nature and gravity of the offence and your culpability and degree of responsibility
Two of the matters to which I am required by s 5(2)(c) and (d) of the Sentencing Act 1991 to have regard are the nature and gravity of the offence and your culpability and degree of responsibility for the offence.
I should say at the outset that even had I accepted the submissions of your counsel as to the application of the principles in Verdins, I would have rejected his contention that the seriousness of your crime would fall ‘below the middle range for this type of offence’.
Your victim was an entirely blameless man who had the great misfortune to spend his last days living in a house with you, trying to get his life back on track. In those two weeks, you were doing what you seemingly have so often done in your life when not in custody. Using drugs and alcohol to excess and allowing that to influence your behaviour. You selected Mr Kawalek as the object of your animosity. On the morning of 24 March 2019, you acted on the deep-seated hatred you irrationally felt for him. You led him outside for the purpose of attacking him. You then beat him mercilessly and brutally for in excess of two hours, taking occasional breaks to regain your energy. Your attack upon him was of scarcely believable ferocity and duration. He must have suffered significantly. Throughout it all, you had time to draw yourself back from what you had in mind. You chose not to. Intending to kill him, you beat him until you had achieved your aim. Then you made some perfunctory attempts to conceal his body and cover up the crime. Throughout it all, you knew that what you were doing was morally, legally, and in every sense, wrong. Your actions and words in the aftermath of your crime made that entirely clear. In spite of the mental impairment from which you suffered at the time, your moral culpability was high.
Yours was a particularly serious example of the always-serious crime of murder.
Far from being a crime below the middle range of seriousness, yours was clearly a crime towards the more serious end of the spectrum, not that the attribution of such labels to offending serves much purpose.[9] What is important is that all of the features of your criminality be properly taken into account.
[9]See, for instance, DPP v Ristevski [2019] VSCA 287, per Priest JA [65]-[67].
Serious offender provisions
You are to be sentenced as a serious violent offender. As a result, I am required by s 6D of the Act to regard protection of the community from you as the principal purpose for which sentence is to be imposed. Quite properly, the prosecutor did not submit that in order to achieve that purpose, I should impose a sentence longer than that which is proportionate to the gravity of the offence considered in light of its objective circumstances.
Standard sentence scheme
Your crime having been committed after 1 February 2018, the standard sentence scheme applies to this offence. The standard sentence for murder is 25 years.
Pursuant to s 5A(1)(b) of the Sentencing Act 1991 (‘the Act’), the period of 25 years is the sentence for an offence of murder that, taking into account only the objective factors affecting the relative seriousness of that offence, is in the middle of the range of seriousness.
Section 5(2) of the Act requires me to have regard to a number of specified matters in sentencing you. One of them, pursuant to part (ab), is the standard sentence. In addition, s 5B(2)(a) requires me in sentencing you to take the standard sentence into account as one of the factors relevant to sentencing.
The standard sentence scheme was the subject of consideration by the Court of Appeal in the decision of Brown v The Queen (‘Brown’).[10] The Court stated:
For the most part, the provisions are clear and the approach required is not in dispute. The key new requirement is that a judge when sentencing for a ‘standard sentence offence’ must ‘take the standard sentence into account as one of the factors relevant to sentencing’. This requirement:
·is to be treated as a ‘legislative guidepost’, having the same function as the maximum penalty;
·does not affect the established ‘instinctive synthesis’ approach to sentencing;
·does not require or permit ‘two-stage sentencing’; and
·does not otherwise affect the matters which the court may, or must, take into account in sentencing.[11]
[10][2019] VSCA 286.
[11]Ibid [4] (Maxwell P, Priest, Kaye, T Forrest and Emerton JJA).
The Court noted that the only area of uncertainty concerned the judge’s assessment of the seriousness of the offence before the court, in light of the definition of the standard sentence contained in s 5A(1)(b) of the Act. The Court indicated that the question explored at the hearing of this and two related appeals was whether the new scheme required, or permitted, the sentencing judge to assess the seriousness of the subject offence ‘taking into account only the objective factors’ as defined in s 5A(3). The Court concluded that the question should be answered in the negative. The Court held:
In our opinion, the standard sentence provisions do not have any bearing on the judge’s obligation to assess the seriousness of the subject offence. That assessment remains a necessary part of the process of instinctive synthesis and it is not constrained by the legislative definition of ‘objective factors’. Those constraints are referable only to the assessment which gives content to the hypothetical offence as an offence ‘in the middle of the range of seriousness’. [12]
[12]Ibid [7] (Maxwell P, Priest, Kaye, T Forrest and Emerton JJA).
I have had regard to the standard sentence for murder as one of the matters to be taken into account in arriving at the appropriate sentence for you by the process of instinctive synthesis. In doing so, I have applied the law as recently explained in Brown. I note that in his submissions before me, Mr McQuillan accepted that taking into account only its objective factors, your crime is a very serious one falling above the middle range of seriousness, albeit that he submitted that when I came to look at the whole picture, it would be below the middle of the range of seriousness.
Section 5B(5) statement
Section 5B(4) of the Sentencing Act 1991 requires a court that sentences an offender for a standard sentence offence to state its reasons for imposing that sentence. Sub-section (5) requires me to refer to the standard sentence for the offence and explain how the sentence imposed by me relates to that standard sentence.
As I understand it, the applicable law does not require me in complying with the requirement of s 5B(5) to ‘attribute particular mathematical values’ to matters regarded by me as significant to the formation of a sentence that differs from the standard sentence.[13] It does, however, require me to ‘identify fully the facts, matters and circumstances’ which bear upon the judgment I have reached as to the appropriate sentence.[14] I have endeavoured to do that in some detail during these reasons for sentence.
[13]Muldrock v R (2011) 244 CLR 120 [29].
[14]Ibid [29].
The sentence I will pass upon you is higher than the standard sentence for the offence of murder. In arriving at that sentence, I can indicate that I have taken into account all of the matters I am required to consider under s 5(2) of the Act, including the standard sentence for murder. I have taken into account any mitigating factors which apply to your crime. By the process of instinctive synthesis, I have arrived at the sentence I will shortly announce.
Current sentencing practices
The requirement in s 5(2)(b) of the Act for me to have regard to current sentencing practices remains, but s 5B(2)(b) dictates that I:
must only have regard to sentences previously imposed for the offence as a standard sentence offence in relation to the sentencing for which this section applied.
This change in the law does not preclude me from having regard to sentencing principles established in previous cases.[15]
[15]R v Brown [2018] VSC 742 [111].
Only a relatively small number of sentences have been passed in respect of murder as a standard sentence offence. I have had regard to those sentences of which I am aware.[16]
[16]R v Brown [2018] VSC 742; R v Robertson [2019] VSC 145; R v Leigh [2019] VSC 378; R v Willis [2019] VSC 398; R v Marshall [2019] VSC 601; R v Pozzebon [2019] VSC 631; R v Munn [2020] VSC 251; R v Cameron [2020] VSC 334.
In Brown, the Court of Appeal considered the sentence imposed by Champion J in that case, which was the first sentence imposed for murder as a standard sentence. This was a particularly serious case of murder. The applicant, a 58 year old man, had killed his 57 year old female victim in the context of an argument over money he owed her. He killed her in shocking circumstances including hitting her to the head with a brick, wrapping a plastic bag over her head, and striking her to the head with a golf club. He then disposed of her body in the country and used her credit card and transferred money of hers overseas to the girl with whom he was besotted. There was an early plea of guilty. His mental health was not normal but there were no Verdins issues. He had a history of stable employment. Importantly, whilst the applicant had a number of prior convictions, these were mainly more than 30 years old and for relatively minor matters. In sentencing the applicant to 30 years’ imprisonment with a non-parole period of 24 years, the sentencing judge considered that general deterrence and denunciation were important factors. He found that the applicant’s prospects of rehabilitation were reasonable, so that there was no need for specific deterrence. Nor did he regard protection of the community to be a significant consideration in light of the age of the applicant.
The appeal against sentence on the basis of manifest excess failed, the Court of Appeal considering the sentence to be ‘stern’ but not manifestly excessive.
I make it clear that no individual sentence passed in any other case is in any way a precedent for the sentence I must pass. It is worth noting, however that whilst the crime itself in the case of Brown may be considered to be even more serious than yours insofar as its objective features are concerned, in some important respects, your overall position is considerably more serious. Your criminal history, raising as it does the strong need for protection of the community and specific deterrence, along with your status as a serious violent offender, are important matters of distinction. So too are your age and poor prospects of rehabilitation.
It may be said that it is still too early to conclude any meaningful sentencing practices have emerged. However, I have considered the circumstances of the cases I have footnoted and mentioned in this sentence, and considered the sentences passed.
Non-parole period
If I sentence you to a head sentence of 20 years or more, I am required by s 11A(4) of the Act, unless I consider it is in the interests of justice not to do so, to fix a non-parole period of at least 70 percent of the head sentence. The head sentence I impose will be one of 20 years or more.
No submission was put to me that I should fix a non-parole period lower than 70 percent of the head sentence.
Taking into account all of the circumstances of this case, I do not consider that it would be in the interests of justice for a non-parole period of less than 70 percent of the head sentence to be fixed. Indeed, the non-parole period I will fix will somewhat exceed 70 percent of the head sentence. The assessment of the length of a non-parole period will depend on all of the circumstances of each case. In this case, I will fix as the non-parole period the shortest term of imprisonment which, in my view, would meet the needs of justice in this case.
COVID-19 considerations
I take into account in sentencing you the onerous conditions of incarceration which currently apply due to steps taken to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 virus within the prison population. Personal visits have been ceased since March 2020, educational and other courses have been suspended, and the prison in which you are currently held has been subject to lockdown procedures which have greatly reduced the hours you are permitted to spend outside your cell. Your recent period of imprisonment, therefore, has been more burdensome for you, and that will be the case for some indeterminate time into the future. I take that matter into account, although I note that while the future course of measures in respect of the virus is uncertain, the reality is that these more onerous conditions on account of the COVID-19 issue will be very unlikely to be in place for anything more than a very small proportion of the sentence you will be required to serve.
Prospects of rehabilitation and the avoidance of a crushing sentence
One of the purposes for which a sentence may be imposed is ‘to establish conditions within which it is considered by the court that the rehabilitation of the offender may be facilitated’.[17] During the plea hearing, in response to a question from me, Mr McQuillan acknowledged that your prospects of rehabilitation, to say the least, are dim. That is undoubtedly the case.
[17]Sentencing Act 1991, s 5(1)(d).
Mr McQuillan acknowledged that a long sentence of imprisonment will be imposed upon you, but urged me not to impose a term which would be ‘crushing’. That submission which appeared in the written outline was not the subject of further consideration during the plea hearing. In the context in which the term was used, the submission, as I understood it, was that I should not impose a sentence which would be so long as to provoke a feeling of helplessness in you, or to destroy any reasonable expectation you may have for a useful life after release.
The difficulty with giving effect to that submission is plain enough when your age, the gravity of the instant offending, and your serious previous convictions are considered. It is perfectly plain that a very long head sentence of imprisonment is called for in your case. The non-parole period which I will be required to pass must also reflect the gravity of your crime, and the purposes to be served by the sentence. In view of your current age of 42 years, the long non-parole period required to be passed will have you ineligible for consideration for parole until you are of relatively advanced years. That is unavoidable. However, the overall sentence will hold out at least the prospect of your being released into the community when you might still have some hope of meaningful years of life after your release, should that eventuate.
Protection of the community
The serious offender legislation dictates, as I have already mentioned, that in determining the length of the sentence I impose upon you, I must regard the protection of the community from you as the principal purpose for which sentence is imposed. In light of the heinous nature of your crime, your serious prior convictions, particularly those for aggravated burglary and rape in 1999, and the other circumstances of this case, protection of the community would have loomed large in the absence of the serious offender legislation in any event. You were clearly a very dangerous person at the time of your offending in 1999. Your current crime makes it perfectly plain that you are still very dangerous, and that you are likely to remain so for a long time to come. This is especially so in light of your anti-social personality traits, your long-term drug use, and the delusional disorder from which you suffer in spite of the medication you have recently been on.
Mr McQuillan submitted that because of the long period of time you would necessarily be in custody before being considered for parole, the need to protect the community should not carry as much weight as it would if you were likely to be released in four or five years. It was submitted that you would be likely to be less of a danger to the community with the passage of many years. Mr McQuillan seemingly based this contention on the assertion that ‘people tend to get less violent and commit less criminality as they get older’.[18] He claimed that the experience of the Court would support that contention.
[18]Transcript 51.
I know of no such experience of the Court, and I do not accept the contention that people tend to be less violent as they age. In your case, you are, as I said, a very dangerous person, as you clearly were twenty years ago. I cannot be certain and I do not speculate about the magnitude of the danger you may pose to the community many years from now, but to my mind, it is perfectly obvious that it must be assumed that you may still be a danger, and that the sentence I pass must reflect that fact, and pay due regard to the importance of protecting the community from future violent acts by you.
Important sentencing considerations
As I have already indicated, this is a very serious example of the crime of murder. Micah Kawalek was an entirely innocent man who did nothing at all to warrant your murderous attack upon him. You had no reason to fear him, or to feel or do ill towards him. You had promised his wife that you would look after him. You did exactly the opposite. You knew that he was vulnerable and alone. You took advantage of that. Having decided from an early time in your contact with him that you would like to hurt him, you proceeded to do exactly that. Having at least to some extent stupefied yourself with alcohol and illicit drugs, you took the very drunk Mr Kawalek outside intending to attack him. You then carried out an attack upon him for hours which was entirely heartless and of incredible ferocity. You made him suffer. You were relentless and entirely merciless in your violence over a period of hours. When you had achieved your aim, your response was to drag him behind the bungalow, cover him with branches, and go about your business, showing the same callous disregard for him in death as you had shown him in his last hours of life.
To my mind, the important reasons for which sentence must be passed in your case are just punishment, denunciation, general deterrence, specific deterrence, and protection of the community. You must be punished in a way which reflects the shocking seriousness of your crime and amounts to an appropriate response to it. The sentence of this Court must make it perfectly clear that the Court deplores the sort of drug and alcohol fuelled violence in which you engaged. The life of Micah Kawalek was precious as, in particular, the victim impact statement of his devastated wife makes clear. You took his life away deliberately. In spite of your mental impairment, you acted in the clear knowledge of the wrongness of your conduct, and in circumstances where you had ample time to reflect upon what you were doing, even in a drug-impaired way, and desist. In respect of general deterrence, which does not cease to be an important sentencing purpose because of the mental impairment from which you suffered, the sentence I pass must bring it clearly home to any person who might be minded to inflict extreme violence upon another for reasons of vengeance, ill-will, or for any other reason, whether in a state of self-induced intoxication or not, that such conduct will be met with strong punishment. You yourself must be deterred from any future violent actions to which you may be disposed. As for the protection of the community, which must be viewed as the principal purpose to be served by the sentence I impose upon you, your actions in this case show that you are now, as you were in the past, a very dangerous person who may present a substantial threat to the safety of the public should you again be released from custody. Your dangerous tendencies were not modified even by the imposition of the long term of imprisonment you received as a 22 year old, and the further terms of imprisonment which followed. The sentence I pass upon you must be calculated to protect the community to an extent which is appropriate and necessary in the circumstances.
Sentence
Daniel Hounslow, for the murder of Micah Kawalek, you are sentenced to be imprisoned for 33 years. I fix a period of 26 years during which you will not be eligible to be released on parole.
Pre-sentence detention
I declare a period of 452 days up to and including yesterday, 17 June 2020, as being a period already served under this sentence. I direct that the fact of the making of that declaration and its details be noted in the records of the Court.
Section 6AAA declaration
I indicate pursuant to s 6AAA of the Sentencing Act 1991 that, but for your plea of guilty, I would have sentenced you to be imprisoned for 38 years with a non-parole period of 30 years.
Serious offender status
You have been sentenced as a serious violent offender for a relevant offence, namely, murder. I direct that the fact that you have been sentenced as a serious violent offender be entered in the records of the Court.
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