R v Imadonmwonyi (Sentence)
[2004] VSC 362
•19 October 2004
| Do Not Send for Reporting | ||
| IN THE SUPREME COURT OF VICTORIA | Not Restricted | |
AT MELBOURNE
CRIMINAL DIVISION
No. 1420 of 2003
| THE QUEEN |
| v |
| CHARLES IMADONMWONYI |
---
JUDGE: | TEAGUE J | |
WHERE HELD: | Melbourne | |
DATE OF HEARING: | 3-7, 10-12, 14, 17-20, 24-28, 31 May, 1, 9 June, 29 July 2004 | |
DATE OF SENTENCE: | 19 October 2004 | |
CASE MAY BE CITED AS: | R v Charles Imadonmwonyi | |
MEDIUM NEUTRAL CITATION: | [2004] VSC 362 | |
---
Criminal Law - Sentencing – Murder and Intentionally Causing Serious Injury – Two victims – One stabbed the death, the other seriously injured – Prisoner suffering from severe chronic paranoid schizophrenia, but totally lacking insight – History of aggressive behaviour – Hospital security order pursuant to s 93(1)(e) of the Sentencing Act 1991 – overall term of twenty years – fifteen years non-parole period
---
APPEARANCES: | Counsel | Solicitors |
| For the Crown | Mr M. Gamble | Office of Public Prosecutions |
| For the Accused | Ms C. Randazzo S.C. | Victoria Legal Aid |
HIS HONOUR:
Charles Imadonmwonyi. I will tell you now, before explaining why, what I propose to order. I propose to make you the subject of a hospital security order. It is to be for a period of twenty years. You have been found guilty by a jury of two crimes. I fix seventeen years of the twenty years as to the murder of Hakan Ulu on Saturday 5 January 2002. I fix six years as to the crime of intentionally causing serious injury to Erhan Ulu on that same day. Of the six years fixed on the second count, three years are cumulative on, and three years concurrent with, the seventeen years fixed for the murder. I fix a non-parole period of fifteen years. I declare that you have served 1018 days of detention. Another order that I have signed is that you must submit to the taking of a body sample, by way of the taking of a buccal swab or swabs.
I repeat that you have been found guilty of two crimes. As to the facts as I find them to be, there are a number of stages or aspects. The first stage was the stabbing by you of the two victims. The second stage was the pursuit by others of you after the stabbing. The third stage was the other conduct by you after the pursuit. Additionally, it is appropriate to focus at some length on your schizophrenia. I make the comment that the schizophrenia and the three stages are not altogether readily severable.
I start with the stabbing of the two victims. Hakan and Erhan Ulu were brothers. They were not known to you. They had lived for many years in a block of the flats in Holland Court, Flemington. In January 2002, you lived in another block in Holland Court. Holland Court is a long dead end street north of Racecourse Road. It contains several blocks of many flats.
On the night of 5 January 2002, Hakan Ulu had been driving a car owned by Erhan Ulu. Hakan Ulu was troubled as to how the engine in the car was running. He wanted Erhan to hear it running, so as to consider what should be done to it. Hakan met up with Erhan not long before midnight. Erhan was with a group of friends at the northern end of Holland Court. Hakan collected Erhan. With Erhan as a passenger, Hakan drove south in Holland Court. He stopped the car just short of Racecourse Road. Both men alighted from the car. Several times Hakan revved the engine, with Erhan Ulu listening. With the benefit of hindsight, it is very apparent that the choice of time and place to check out an engine problem by revving it loudly was a particularly inappropriate one. It was done just before midnight. It was done in an area with many flats nearby.
As it happened, at that time, you were not in your flat. You were just a short distance away from where the car was being revved loudly. You were using a public telephone in Holland Court. Within seconds you were in a position to confront Hakan and Erhan Ulu. You did confront Hakan Ulu. Within seconds of your doing so, you had taken out a knife. Several times you used the knife to stab Hakan Ulu. You inflicted on him wounds that were to cause his death quickly, despite earnest efforts by others. When Erhan Ulu came to the aid of his brother, you stabbed him too. Those wounds caused serious injury.
After the stabbing, the pursuit began. The events of the pursuit were dramatic, as were the stabbings. Because of certain aspects of that pursuit, it came to assume a high level of relative importance. It was important at the trial, but important in other ways too. That applies as to how the pursuit and the effects of your schizophrenia affected other matters, and in particular your lack of memory, or at least your portrayal of a lack of memory, of the stabbings.
Although the Ulu brothers were just a twosome at the time of the engine revving, Erhan Ulu had seven friends close at hand. You could not have known that that was so. In two cars, they were travelling towards where you were in the process of stabbing the Ulu brothers. It was not a coincidence that they were headed towards you. As I said earlier, Erhan Ulu had been with them. He left them only in response to Hakan telling him about the car problem. Their only way out by car of Holland Court was to travel south. That meant approaching the spot where you used your knife to stab the Ulu brothers.
Those seven friends of Erhan Ulu saw different aspects of what happened between you and the Ulu brothers. The nature of the attention being paid by them to what happened was different. In their different ways, six of the seven saw or heard enough to become your pursuers. The seventh drove Hakan Ulu to hospital, where Erhan Ulu also drove. In their different ways the six pursued you through the area of the flats and out onto Racecourse Road. The pursuit ended only when you got to the Seven Eleven store on the corner of Boundary and Racecourse Roads. By then, you had disposed of the knife. Despite extensive searches, it was not found.
There were several stages to the pursuit. You were chased out of the Holland Court roadway. You were confronted by some of the friends in another block of flats. There, you again produced the knife. When you got through to Racecourse Road, you tried to persuade the driver of a passing car to drive you away from the scene. You almost succeeded. When that move failed, you were confronted again by several of the six in Racecourse Road. There, you again produced the knife. At one stage, you were struck a slight blow by one of the six who was holding a clublock. At another stage, a passing group of men intervened on your behalf. It was by chance that the eight members of that group, who were celebrating a bucks party, came by in two taxis. They intervened even though many of whom were more than slightly inebriated. That intervention enabled you to get to the Seven Eleven store. There you found sanctuary. There, later, you spoke with the police.
I turn from the pursuit to other conduct by you after the stabbing and pursuit. I will not go into the detail but will just touch on a number of aspects of that conduct. You were selective in what you told the police at the Seven Eleven store and thereafter. You portrayed yourself as the victim of an attack by a group of other men. When your account to police was not accepted and you were arrested, you reacted adversely. You treated a number of members of the police force in a verbally aggressive way. You resisted moves to obtain your clothes. When you became aware of the police plans to get swabs of the blood on your face and hands, you went about thwarting those plans. Not only on the day, but later, you chose to act relatively abnormally.
Before the trial, you sacked the barrister who had represented you at the committal hearing. You then acted in other ways that raised concerns as to whether you were fit to stand trial. At one time, you indicated that you proposed to represent yourself. Ultimately, at a time when the taking of medication led to your being assessed as fit to stand trial, you gave instructions as to how the defence of the charges against you should be handled at the trial. I cannot know, but I can draw inferences, as to aspects of those instructions. I infer that you chose to insist that every step that could be taken to challenge the prosecution case should be taken. I infer that you chose not to provide your counsel with an alternative scenario as to how Hakan Ulu and Erhan Ulu came to have been stabbed. I infer that you only reluctantly gave the approval to the issue of mental impairment being raised.
I turn to your schizophrenia. I am well satisfied that you suffer from that insidious condition, and to a severe and chronic degree. I am also satisfied that the condition materially affected why you acted as you did at the time of the stabbing, and during the pursuit and the events thereafter. One symptom of your condition is a high level of paranoia. Another is an absence of insight. You attribute blame for events that affect you to the inappropriate actions of others. You do not think that you are to blame. You do not accept that you are mentally unwell. You do not think that you need medication. Your subjective assessment on such matters is totally at odds with any reasonable objective assessment.
As to your background, I have quite a deal of material before me. I make a point as to some of the material, particularly as to your family history, your qualifications and some of your claims of assaults and injuries. Most of the particular matters are not readily capable of being verified. Dr Triglia noted that it was not possible for her to go to family members or friends. Your credibility in her eyes appears to her to have been understandably suspect given that you denied to her having stabbed the Ulu brothers.
It appears that you were born in December 1965 in Nigeria into a large family that operated cocoa and rubber plantations. It seems that in 1977, you were involved in a car collision, and had to have glass removed from your neck. Between 1984 and 1989, you studied agricultural economics at university. In 1991 you left Nigeria and worked in Spain. In 1992, you married in Spain, Carmen Palomares, a woman of Spanish background, born in Australia. In 1993, you came with her to Australia. You lived in Melbourne, where her family came from. You took up work in a factory and as a security officer. You went about upgrading your qualifications. In 1996, a daughter was born to you and your wife.
On 11 December 1996, you were involved in an incident that led to your being charged with certain offences. Police statements were prepared. I have only read those of Rosina Ngawati, and Katherine Smith. The incident and its aftermath led to various reports being prepared between 1997 and 2001 by various professionals. Those reports of Doctors Lenton and Lim, and Messrs Healey and Joblin have been supplemented by reports of Drs Triglia and Walton as to later events and treatment.
As to what happened on 11 December 1996, there are different versions. They bear a troubling similarity to the differing versions of what happened as to the Ulu brothers. You told Bernard Healey that a car was driven at you near your home, that you were forced onto the bonnet, that there you were threatened with death by a man with a steering lock, and that only then did you produce a knife to protect yourself. It seems that other material before the court would have shown that the other man had no weapon and did not get out of his car, and that your concern arose only from his having parked in a position that upset you. In any event, when you went to court in June 1997, you were sentenced to a community based order. You appealed. The appeal was abandoned in October 1998. The community based order was re-imposed at the County Court, to take effect from that time.
I go back briefly. It seems that in January 1997, you were involved in another car accident, in which you claimed to have suffered injury. Claims by you that you suffered injury at the hands of others were thereafter to become commonplace. Not always, indeed not too often, were the claims of injury supported on medical examination when you went to seek treatment. You claimed that in June 1997, you were assaulted by Asian youths. You claimed that in June 1998 you were beaten by a group of Maoris. In July 1998, your wife left you. She obtained an intervention order from the court to prevent you harassing her. You claimed later that in April 1999 you were attacked by two Somalians. Between December 1998 and May 1999, you attended at the Carlton Community Corrections Office many times. Those attendances were marked by hostility and aggression on your part. You refused to do an Anger Management Program pursuant to the community based order. In August 1999, you were convicted of breaching the terms of the intervention order, and of unlawful assault, and fined $500. As to that I have the statement of Mark Sontag. In October 1999, you were brought before the court, because of the report of your non-compliance with the October 1998 court order. At court, you were then abusive.
I pause at this point to note that I have experienced you acting in a hostile, aggressive, paranoid and abusive way. It was at a mention hearing in this court last year. I have subsequently seen you many, many times acting in a totally responsible way. At the time of the hostility witnessed by me, you were not taking any medication. You have later been suitably medicated. The opinions of the professionals still all point to the conclusions that you have a mental illness and that the illness responds to medication. You do not accept those opinions. You are unable to accept what a difference that the medication makes.
I resume my chronology to record that after the abusive court appearance in October 1999, you were taken to hospital, then to the custody centre. You claimed that you were assaulted there. You were placed in an isolation cell. You were prescribed medication. You refused to take it. Mr Joblin saw you in November 1999, and described you as grandiose, agitated and exuberantly hypomanic. On 18 November 1999, the community based order was cancelled and you were ordered to serve 5 months in prison. In March 2000, on release, you moved into the Holland Court flat. Over the next 18 months, you attended Dr Lim several times. To him, you made claims of various injuries resulting from assaults in prison and by the police. As to what happened in the period from March 2000 to January 2002, I also have the history you gave to Dr Triglia and the first hand account of Schem Hamou. The symptoms of the schizophrenia, including the paranoia and the social withdrawal, were becoming more and more manifest. The Ulu brothers were in the wrong place at the wrong time.
I turn from you to the Ulu family. I have read their victim impact statements. It is an important part of the role of the sentencing judge to reflect upon such statements. Here, as is too often the case, a mother has been left bereft, and asking unanswerable questions. Such as: “How can you understand the loss of a child if you have never lost one?” The death of Hakan Ulu has had a devastating impact on her and on the lives of other members of the family.
You have shown no indication of remorse. I treat that as being a position which is consistent with your mental condition, and the symptom which warrants your taking the objectively unacceptable position that you did not stab the Ulu brothers.
I have satisfied myself that there has been the required compliance with s 93 of the Sentencing Act and regulations governing hospital security orders. Such an order, as the legislation and current prison and forensic hospital resources now stand, has advantages and disadvantages. Ideally you would be treated indefinitely in hospital given the severity of your condition. The high demand for beds is regrettably likely to mean that when you appear to be well enough, you will go back to prison. There you will not be obliged to take medication. If you choose not to do so, and your condition deteriorates again, you may well have to be returned to hospital. The position will only be improved if the present inadequate resources available for those forensically mentally ill are supplemented to cater better for patients like you.
I turn briefly to the application of the Sentencing Act provisions as to the purposes of punishment. The period of the hospital security order reflects my taking into account your schizophrenia and sensibly moderating what would otherwise have been a considerably longer period in detention. Protection of the community is nonetheless a great concern in your case. My approach to sentencing you as to the two offences is governed by the importance of appropriately moderating and cumulating.
As I said at the start, I will sign a hospital security order pursuant to s 93(1)(e) of the Sentencing Act for a period of twenty years. I fix seventeen years for the murder of Hakan Ulu. I fix six years for intentionally causing serious injury to Erhan Ulu. Of the six years fixed on the second count, three years are cumulative on, and three years concurrent with, the seventeen years fixed for the murder. I fix a non-parole period of fifteen years. I declare that you have served 1018 days of detention. I direct that that be entered in the court records.
0
0
0