R v J P
[2008] VSC 84
•28 March 2008
| EDITED VERSION | Do Not Send for Reporting | |
| IN THE SUPREME COURT OF VICTORIA | ||
AT MELBOURNE
CRIMINAL DIVISION
No. 1622 of 2007
| THE QUEEN |
| v |
| JP |
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JUDGE: | WHELAN J | |
WHERE HELD: | Melbourne | |
DATE OF HEARING: | 11 October 2007, 6 March 2008 | |
DATE OF SENTENCE: | 28 March 2008 | |
CASE MAY BE CITED AS: | R v JP | |
MEDIUM NEUTRAL CITATION: | [2008] VSC 84 [Edited Version] | |
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CRIMINAL LAW – Sentence – Murder – Very significant co-operation with Police – Already serving life sentence – Sentenced to life imprisonment, non-parole period fixed preserving existing earliest eligibility date.
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APPEARANCES: | Counsel | Solicitors |
| For the Crown | Mr G. Horgan SC and Mr A. Tinney | Office of Public Prosecutions |
| For the Accused | Mr D. Dann | McLennan (Chris) & Co |
HIS HONOUR:
JP, on Thursday 11 October 2007 you pleaded guilty to the murder of Shane Chartres-Abbott on 4 June 2003.
You murdered the deceased by shooting him with a handgun as he walked along a suburban street.
You and an accomplice had conducted reconnaissance prior to the shooting, and had planned the shooting and had planned your getaway. The deceased left his home with his de facto wife and another person at approximately 8.50 am on 4 June 2003. The group were walking down the suburban street in which the deceased and his de facto wife lived when you and your accomplice ran towards them. The two people with the deceased were pushed or knocked to the ground. You fired two shots at the deceased. The first struck the left side of his body and the second struck him under his chin. The two of you then escaped in a car you had parked in a car park nearby.
At the time of the shooting the deceased was on trial at the County Court in Melbourne on charges of rape and assault. According to the account of events you have now given police, you carried out the murder at the request of a close associate of yours. You did it as a “favour” for him. He in turn had been requested to arrange for revenge to be taken against the deceased by a person said to be close to a victim of assault and rape by the deceased.
When you first admitted your involvement in this murder to police officers in July 2006, you would not identify anyone involved other than yourself. Eventually, you identified the person who requested you to carry out the attack on the deceased, the person who assisted you in that attack, and two persons who were then members of the Victoria Police Force who assisted you both before and after the murder.
You described to investigating police where you disposed of the weapon which was used in the murder and the police recovered a weapon, which was consistent with the forensic evidence as to the weapon used, from the location which you identified.
In the account of events you have given to police you say that the murder was done because you regarded the deceased as “an animal”, and as “a danger to other females”; because the deceased had “brutally inflicted injuries on more than one female victim”; and because you were requested to take action against him by a person who had been close to you for many years. You describe the murder as a “revenge killing”.
[Prisoner’s personal background].
[Prisoner’s personal background].
[Prisoner’s prior convictions].
[Prisoner’s prior convictions].
[Prisoner’s prior convictions and personal background].
[Prisoner’s prior convictions].
The murder to which you have now pleaded guilty was committed on 4 June 2003. [Prisoner already serving a life sentence].
Counsel for the prosecution and your counsel agreed that the earliest date upon which you will be eligible for parole under the sentences you are already serving is 18 May 2023. You will then be in your early 70s.
Before me the prosecution tendered a summary of the offence (P1), a copy statement of the informant (P2), a copy of a transcript of a record of interview conducted with you on 8 November 2006 (P3), three statements you have made in relation to the circumstances of the offence (P4, P5 and P6), a letter to you from the then Director of Public Prosecutions (P7), and two victim impact statements (P8 and P9), one from the deceased’s mother and one from the deceased’s de facto wife.
You gave evidence on your plea. You confirmed the accuracy of the three statements which you have made, you undertook to give evidence in accordance with those statements if required to do so, and you indicated that you understood that if you failed to do so after being sentenced on this charge you could be re-sentenced by the Court of Appeal.
In the course of the plea your counsel called Detective Senior Sergeant Ronald Iddles of Victoria Police. Mr Iddles had sworn an affidavit filed in this proceeding in which he swore that he is currently managing the homicide investigation known as Operation Briars which is a joint Victoria Police-Office of Police Integrity task force formed to investigate the murder to which you have now pleaded guilty. In that affidavit he addressed, among other things, the risks to your safety which the course you have taken involves.
[References to assistance given by the prisoner in another matter].
Returning to this murder, Mr Iddles agreed with the proposition put to him that prior to your disclosure of your involvement in this murder you were not a suspect. Mr Iddles said that basically the investigation had come to a standstill. He described the prospect of securing a conviction in relation to this murder, prior to your revealing your role in it, as being “very little”.
When asked about the significance of the evidence you have indicated you will give in relation to this murder, Mr Iddles said the following:
Firstly, it is an extraordinary step for a career criminal to come forward, to implicate himself in a crime and then over a period of time to be prepared to make statements. Those statements implicate a serving police officer and an ex-member of the police force. In my 32 years’ experience I have never seen a criminal come forward and stand up and be prepared to give evidence against a member of the police force. That statement is crucial and vital to secure a conviction.
In the course of submissions, senior counsel for the Crown said:
Your Honour, it is my submission that the rooting out of corrupt police practices is of the highest, the very highest importance. So not only is the crime solved, but insofar as there is participation in that crime of police, a police officer and a former police officer, the character of the evidence the prisoner is prepared to give is elevated enormously. You would have thought, Your Honour, as a matter of principle there can be nothing more important in the criminal law than the exposing of corrupt criminal practices by police officers of a major sort. What is involved here is of the very highest sort, that is, in a murder.
Mr Iddles’ affidavit had indicated that by taking the course which you have, both you and your close associates will be in grave danger of serious injury or death. [Reference to risk to a particular associate].
In a matter such as this it is important to emphasise that the very significant matters addressed by Mr Iddles and by senior counsel for the prosecution cannot be allowed to obscure the fact that you have callously and brutally taken a person’s life away, and that you have also inflicted terrible hardship and suffering on those who were close to the deceased. The deceased’s mother says in her victim impact statement that what you did has changed her life forever. She says she has no interest in life any more. She sees the world as just an evil place. His de facto wife speaks of their son who will never know his father. She says she was pregnant at the time of the murder. She speaks of her anxiety whenever she hears people running up to her in public places. She says this terrible incident has changed all her relationships and her personality.
Your counsel submitted that I should impose upon you a sentence of a term of years, not a life term, and that I should impose a non-parole period which maintains your earliest eligibility date of 18 May 2023. The matters which were relied upon in this respect were the following:
(1)Your plea of guilty at the earliest possible stage.
(2)The fact that you had revealed your involvement in this crime in circumstances where that involvement would otherwise have remained unknown.
(3)The quite exceptional nature of your co-operation.
(4)The extraordinary danger in which you have placed yourself and those near to you. It was submitted that this would mean that your entire sentence will have to be served in protective custody.
In a letter to you from the then Director of Public Prosecutions dated 2 August 2006 which was tendered by the Crown, the then Director said that in the very unusual circumstances of this case he was prepared to submit to the sentencing judge that there should be no increase in your existing non-parole period. He pointed out that he could not bind the sentencing judge. Before me senior counsel for the Crown submitted that the Crown’s position remained as set out in that letter.
You have pleaded guilty to what is a most serious, indeed shocking, murder. Regardless of your views of the deceased, and accepting your account of why you murdered him, revenge attacks of this kind are something which society cannot tolerate. To make matters worse the murder was committed using a firearm, during the day, in a suburban street, in the presence of other people. To my mind this murder was as serious as murders sometimes referred to as contract killings. The only distinction between this murder and a contract killing is that this murder was carried out as a favour rather than for money.
Given your history[1] and the circumstances of this crime, but for your guilty plea, the circumstances of your confession, and your cooperation with police, I would have concluded that the appropriate sentence was life imprisonment and that it was not appropriate to fix any period pursuant to s 11(1) of the Sentencing Act 1991 after which you would be eligible for parole. Thus, without your plea, your confession and your cooperation life without parole is the sentence I would have imposed upon you.
[1]Including the crimes committed after this murder only so far as the fixing of a non parole period is concerned: R v Coulston [1997] 2 VR 446; R v Poulton [1974] VR 716.
You have pleaded guilty, and that circumstance alone justifies mitigation of your punishment.[2]
[2]R v Duncan [1998] 3 VR 208, 214-215.
The circumstances of your confession are significant mitigating factors, not just because you admitted your guilt but because you did so as a result of voluntary disclosure in circumstances where it was unlikely that your guilt would be discovered but for your disclosure.[3] Further, you have voluntarily disclosed your involvement in this murder in circumstances where you were already serving a life sentence and, as the Court of Appeal has observed in an authority particularly emphasised by your counsel,[4] few if any prisoners serving long sentences will confess to unsolved murders unless a discount is given and seen to be given.
[3]R v Ellis (1986) 6 NSWLR 603, 604.
[4]R v Brazel (1995) 153 A Crim R 152, 161-2.
Then there is what I consider to be the most important mitigating factor, your cooperation with the investigating police.[5] Your cooperation has been described by the officer in charge of the investigation as extraordinary. In that officer’s very long experience it is unprecedented. It goes beyond implicating other offenders. It implicates persons who were then police officers. You have undertaken to give evidence against them. I accept senior counsel for the prosecution’s submission that the rooting out of corrupt police practices is of the very highest importance.
[5]R v Duncan [1998] 3 VR 208, 214-215.
It is also an important mitigating factor that as a result of your cooperation you have exposed yourself and those near to you to significant personal risk. In your case this will mean that you will have to serve your sentence under more burdensome conditions than would otherwise be the case.[6] The Crown accepts that the reason you must serve your sentence under those more burdensome conditions is because of your cooperation.[7]
[6]R v Bangard (2005) 13 VR 146, 149.
[7]As to the significance of the reason for the burdensome condition, see R v ZMN (2002) 4 VR 537, 543.
I accept that all of the matters put by your counsel in mitigation are matters properly to be taken into account.
In written submissions filed after the initial plea hearing counsel for the prosecution and your counsel both submitted that you are a serious violent offender within the meaning of Part 2A of the Sentencing Act 1991. I accept that submission. In those circumstances pursuant to s 6D(a) of the Sentencing Act 1991 I must regard the protection of the community from you as the principal purpose for which the sentence is imposed. The Crown has not sought a disproportional sentence under s 6D(b). Section 6E of the Sentencing Act 1991 provides that any term of imprisonment I impose must, unless I otherwise direct, be served cumulatively with any uncompleted sentence, and s 6F provides that in the circumstances the Court must record the fact that you have been sentenced as a serious offender.
Your counsel and counsel for the Crown joined together in submitting that I should impose a term of years as the head sentence and fix a new non-parole period pursuant to s 14 of the Sentencing Act 1991 which means you will remain eligible for parole on and from 18 May 2023.
The non-parole period should be the minimum time that justice requires a prisoner to serve having regard to all of the circumstances of the offence.[8]
[8]R v VZ (1998) 7 VR 693.
If I accede to the submission made on your behalf, and supported by the Crown, you will become eligible for parole in your early 70s.
I accept your counsel’s submission that the advanced age at which you will first become eligible for parole, and your alienation from your former associates due to the course you have taken, reduce the need for specific deterrence.
The murder to which you have pleaded guilty was a callous planned, premeditated execution. Given the nature of the crime and of your antecedents, only a life sentence is appropriate, even after taking all of the relevant mitigating factors into account. Given that you are already serving a life sentence, the matter which is of critical concern to you is the fixing of a non-parole period. As this is a matter to which s.14(1) of the Sentencing Act 1991 applies, I must fix a new single non-parole period in respect of all the sentences you are to serve or complete. Senior Counsel for the Crown submitted that in order to ensure that there is no uncertainty as to the matter I should, if I accede to the submission the Crown has made to preserve your existing earliest eligibility date, specify the period as being the period ending on 18 May 2023.
In the truly extraordinary circumstances of this case, and solely because of what I have been told as to the nature and importance of your co-operation and of your undertaking to give evidence, I am prepared to fix a non-parole period and to preserve your existing earliest eligibility date as 18 May 2023.
For the murder of Shane Chartes-Abbott I sentence you to life imprisonment. Pursuant to s. 14(1) of the Sentencing Act I fix a new single non-parole period as the period commencing this day[9] and ending on 18 May 2023.
[9]R v Ripper [2008] VSCA 40, at [3].
Pursuant to s 5(2AB) of the Sentencing Act 1991 I announce that I am imposing a less severe sentence than would otherwise have been imposed because of the undertakings you have given to assist law enforcement authorities. I direct that the undertakings you gave be noted in the records of the Court.
I further direct that it be noted in the records of the Court that you are sentenced as a serious offender.
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CERTIFICATE
I certify that this and the 7 preceding pages are a true copy of the reasons for Sentence of Whelan J of the Supreme Court of Victoria delivered on 28 March 2008.
DATED this twenty eighth day of March 2008.
Associate
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