R v Hudson

[1992] QCA 175

COURT OF APPEAL	[1992] QCA 175
PINCUS JA DAVIES JA DEMACK J
CA NO 61 OF 1992
THE QUEEN
v.
MARK JAMES HUDSON	Applicant
BRISBANE
... DATE 4/6/92 JUDGMENT

DAVIES JA: This is an application for leave to appeal against

sentence for an offence of attempted unlawful killing, the date of the offence being 22 July 1991. The applicant was sentenced to seven and a half years' imprisonment, which when one has

regard to six months which he had already spent in custody, amounted to, in effect, a term of eight and a half years. Although he had some previous convictions, they did not relate

to offences of violence such as this was.

The applicant was convicted after trial and so His Honour, the

trial Judge was correct in taking into account the fact that he

did not plead guilty and put his wife through the full rigours

of a trial.

The offence had a number of aspects of what appear to be premeditation. The applicant had been separated for some time

from his wife. He had harassed her for some time to the extent

to which she had obtained a protection order against him

requiring him to be of good behaviour towards her and to be

prohibited from possessing a firearm or an offensive weapon.

On the occasion in question, the complainant, the applicant's

wife, had left work at her work premises at Mt Gravatt at about 6 o'clock to drive to her home. When she reached her car in the

basement, the applicant, who by that stage had apparently rented

a car, was there. He had tried to apparently enter her vehicle.
Having failed to do so in the car park because it was locked,
he followed her to her home. When they arrived at her home, as

she was walking from her car into her house, she saw the applicant leaning from his car. In fact, he had a .303 rifle and as he told us today, she was no more than 20 feet form him.

he fired the rifle at her and, it appears, with the intention of killing her. In fact, he wounded her quite badly in the hand. His defence of accident failed before the jury and although he has said to us today that he has an absence of recollection to what took place, it seems clear enough that he aimed and fired the .303 at her intending to kill her and that it was a deliberate and premeditated act.

He had, as he told us today, and as appears in his written

outline, had some considerable stress over a prolonged period. His parents had died, his brother had died. He had had, what was clearly for him, a traumatic separation from his wife, none of which he suggests justifies his conduct but which he suggests justifies either a lower sentence than that which he received or

a recommendation for early parole, which His Honour the trial

Judge did not give.

His Honour considered a number of factors in addition to those

to which I have already referred, and absence of a need for

deterrence in this case, the fact that there was no timely plea,

the existence of a protection order to which I have referred,

his obsession with the complainant, the question of

rehabilitation and as I have mentioned, the six months which he had already spent in custody to which His Honour had specific

regard.

We have been referred to a number of sentences for attempted

murder. They indicate, as Mr Ridgeway for the Crown has indicated, a very wide range but it does appear, in my view, in

any event, that the sentence which His Honour imposed here had regard to all of the circumstances including the applicant's state of distress and was well within the rage of appropriate sentences for an offence of this kind. In my opinion therefore, the application should be refused.

PINCUS JA: I agree.

DEMACK J. I agree
PINCUS JA: The order of the Court is application refused.

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