R v Lamb
[2006] VSC 84
•9 March 2006
| IN THE SUPREME COURT OF VICTORIA | Not Restricted | |
AT MELBOURNE
CRIMINAL DIVISION
No. 1530 of 2005
| THE QUEEN |
| V |
| TROY MICHAEL LAMB |
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JUDGE: | KING J | |
WHERE HELD: | Melbourne | |
DATE OF HEARING: | 27 February 2006 | |
DATE OF SENTENCE: | 9 March 2006 | |
CASE MAY BE CITED AS: | R v Lamb | |
MEDIUM NEUTRAL CITATION: | [2006] VSC 84 | |
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APPEARANCES: | Counsel | Solicitors |
| For the Crown | Mr GM Horgan SC | |
| For the Accused | Mr PJ Morrissey |
HER HONOUR:
Troy Michael Lamb, you have pleaded guilty to one count of manslaughter, being that of Eng Lee on the morning of Sunday 16 January 2005.
You have admitted a significant number of prior convictions, particularly in light of your age, which is now 25 years. At the time of the commission of this offence you were in fact only 24 years of age.
The prior history is contained in the second presentment and commences in 1996 when you were aged 16. Those early offences in 1996 and 1997 were for thefts, burglaries and handling stolen goods, and over three appearances in the Children's Court you were fined once and placed on probation on the other two occasions.
From there you moved to the Magistrates' Court and compiled a quite astounding 124 charges from 12 court appearances. You gathered those offences between May of 1999 and February of 2004. Whilst a large number of them relate to driving offences, theft and burglary charges, there are a significant number that cause real concern in relation to your level of violence and animosity towards people.
They are a charge of armed robbery and common assault in May of 1999, which was dealt with in the County Court, and you received 12 months youth training centre on each; a robbery in June of 1999 which was dealt with in the Magistrates' Court and you received 12 months youth training centre; unlawful assault in July of 2001, for which you received in totality with other offences 12 months youth training centre with four months suspended; two charges of assault with a weapon, which were part of an aggregate sentence of nine months, together with matters relating to thefts, burglaries and obtaining by deception; in October of 2003 reckless conduct endangering serious injury for which you were imprisoned for two months; and finally, reckless conduct endangering life and driving a motor vehicle in a manner dangerous to the public, for which you received an aggregate sentence of four months' imprisonment.
As I stated, you are 25 and you will turn 26 later this month as you were born on 21 March 1980.
The circumstances of your offending are set out in an agreed statement of facts signed by counsel for the Crown and your counsel. It is Exhibit 1 on the plea.
In very brief form, you had met the deceased when you were aged about 15 and he was aged about 42. Initially the association commenced on the basis that the deceased paid you for oral sex. It appears that you had moved on from that time and you had relatively free rein within the deceased man's home. You stayed with him at different times when you were homeless or when you wished to get away from where you were living. You would take and use his car, it appears, with or without permission. It equally appears that Mr Lee used to report this to the police often, but then would withdraw his complaint and not proceed with the matter.
It is conceded that in all likelihood an argument had developed between you and the deceased on the Sunday morning over your use of the car without permission. A lot of what has been gleaned has been gathered from information given to Salvation Army personnel, and, in the main, fits with the physical scenario as found by the police upon investigation, but certainly not all of what you said fits.
On that morning you and the deceased argued, and in the course of the argument the deceased obtained a knife. There was clearly a struggle, during which time you were stabbed in the elbow and in the webbing of the fingers of the right hand, both of which apparently bled quite profusely and caused you intense pain. It is conceded that you and the deceased man fought for possession of the knife. At some point you gained possession of that knife and stabbed the deceased several times. You also obtained from the second bedroom a log splitter and struck the deceased to the head with that twice. The deceased died from a combination of injuries caused by the blows to the head and one of the stab wounds which cut the carotid artery and entered the lungs.
The Crown have accepted the plea on the basis that you were acting in self-defence up to a point, but thereafter the multiple stabbings and blows with the log splitter were without justification. The Crown also accepts that you had not formed a murderous intent at the time of your killing and that therefore what you committed was an unlawful and dangerous act.
You took Mr Lee's car and his credit card and tried to withdraw cash on more than one occasion, the purpose being that you say you intended to buy heroin and commit suicide. You were unable to withdraw any money from the account and you were seen by and spoke to Salvation Army officers about what had happened and you expressed your intent to turn yourself into the police. You were in a very agitated, upset, and dishevelled state at that point.
You did turn yourself in before anyone had discovered the body of the deceased. You made a series of confessional statements to those persons, which included justifying what you had done as self-defence, but you also expressed remorse for your actions towards Mr Lee, whom you described as a mate.
Two reports from Elizabeth Warren, a forensic psychologist, have been tendered, being Exhibits 2 and 3 on the plea. The first report was prepared in May of 1999 and the second in February of 2006. There are some inconsistencies between the histories presented as to your family background, which Ms Warren explains as your lack of maturity and full knowledge of your actual family circumstances. Your older brother has apparently provided information to you that has enabled you to more fully understand what was occurring at home when you were growing up. I must say I have a degree of skepticism about some of the information provided and the inconsistencies do cause me some concern.
You have been hospitalised at least twice with psychiatric problems, once in 2003 where you were diagnosed as borderline personality disorder, delusional disorder, adjustment disorder, opiate dependence, self-harm behaviour and parasuicidal behaviour, again in October of 2005 when your mother called the CAT Team. You were admitted with a diagnosis of adjustment disorder, antisocial personality traits and borderline personality disorder.
In her discussion, conclusion and opinion Ms Warren states at p.6 of the second report,
"What hopes he does have at this stage is focused upon his relationship with Ms Hinds, and (the) hope that he can complete nine months of his sentence in rehabilitation at the new programs prison, due to begin soon. He spoke with some enthusiasm of the potential for the programs to facilitate lasting, meaningful change that will continue post-release from the prison. For example, he contrasted the daily anger management program of the new prison and the proposed changes in prison officer role compared with the two sessions he has received during his current imprisonment. He acknowledged attracting censure as he exhibited some angry acting out, rebelling against authority and behaviour and saw him labelled as a management problem, and housed in 23 hour lock-down for months at Barwon. He felt he fluctuated between deep depression and psychosis, whereby prison officers demonstrated concern."
And then in the final paragraph of the report,
"He will need rebuilding and reconstruction of many facets of clinical and personality function to achieve a satisfying and stable life post-release from prison. The maturing and sobering process that occurred as a result of the death of his mate will assist, and may even create the internal conditions needed to face the many challenges that he will confront, but quality therapeutic input and vocational training and supports will assist."
I also received a letter written by you in which you express clearly the thought processes that you have been going through in your time on remand over this matter. You talk about the anger that you felt and how that persisted for a long time, and the slow realisation that it is up to you what you make of each day of your life. You also express an acceptance of the punishment for your actions in taking the life of Eng Lee.
Your personal details present a rather sad and tragic history. You basically led a normal life with school and sport up until the age of about 14, when your life can only be described as going off the rails. You left home at about that age, you left school at 15, and from that time on you really spent a lot of your time in conflict with the law.
Your parents are now divorced and you have very strong feelings of animosity towards your mother. You believe her to have been bi-polar as a result of you having found some medication that was around the house, and the information of your older brother. It appears that your eldest brother is not the biological son of your father which you did not discover until much later. All of this has caused you much trauma.
You became involved in heroin around the age of 14. By the age of 15 your illicit use included alcohol, prescription and non-prescription drugs. You have attempted on numerous occasions to desist from using drugs and initially your parents supported these efforts. You suffer from depression and have been taking anti-depressants for a number of years.
You had a relationship with a young woman who had a child when you were about 18. You described the woman to Ms Warren in her first report as,
"Troy described the young woman as the only single thing that provides motivation to work to solve his problems, or that provides any meaning in his life. He stated the young woman does not use drugs, she has stable accommodation for the past three years in her own flat. The relationship was ongoing and stable, but also ‘on and off’, within the context of Troy living his own life which includes the chaos, unreliability and unpredictability of illicit substance abuse."
It appears that unfortunately living with you ultimately led her to the path of using illicit drugs and she overdosed while you were in prison in 2001.
You have a current relationship with Ms Sharon Hinds that commenced in 2001, shortly after your release from prison. At the time of the killing the relationship had been called off by Ms Hinds as she could not cope with yet another one of your addictions, being gambling, and that was one of the reasons that you were living with Mr Lee at the time. Ms Hinds has three children aged 14, 11 and nine, and she visits you approximately three times a week in prison. The children attended court with her to demonstrate their support for you.
You have an old friend from your area who is prepared to give you employment upon your release, whenever that may be, and he gave evidence to that effect before me. Your older brother was also in court to support you. Disturbingly, you have reported to Ms Warren that you are no longer addicted to any substances including heroin, cannabis, alcohol or other illegal drugs, but that you were still using them at the time. I must say I have yet to see any reformed addict who can use those substances without coming to addiction, but that may be part of what you have to learn in the maturing process.
Mr Lee was a single, solitary man, who it appeared had befriended you to a degree. It appeared to be a mutual dependency. He was entitled, however, to live, and you had no right to take his life in the manner that you did. The truly solitary nature of his life is demonstrated by the fact that there is no one who could put in a victim impact statement saying what his death actually meant to them.
In terms of your prospects of rehabilitation, I accept that you are genuine in your desire to change your life, but with the problems that you suffer I believe that it will be very difficult for you to make such significant alterations. Despite that, because of your age, there will be hopefully a process of maturation that will take place, and if you are provided with the support services and assistance that you so obviously need, then there is some hope that you will be able to achieve that change. It is in the interests of not only you and your family and friends, but all members of the community, that you be rehabilitated. And if any recommendation that I can make can carry any weight with the prison authorities, then I recommend as strongly as possible that at the appropriate stage you should be assisted by being placed in the programs prison to enable that process to occur.
In trying to balance the sentence that I impose, I must take into account the factors in mitigation and the factors in aggravation. The circumstances that I find in mitigation of penalty are:
(1)your plea of guilty;
(2) your expressions of remorse, which I find to be genuine;
(3)your volunteering the information about the killing having occurred to Salvation Army officers;
(4)your still young age, although you are not a youthful offender;
(5)the fact that it was Mr Lee who introduced the knife into the dispute, not you; you removed the knife from him and the injuries and palm print found on the knife are consistent with that occurring;
(6)the support that you have in the form of a partner and future employment;
(7)your serious mental and dependency problems;
(8)the prospects of rehabilitation, somewhat limited as they are, that I have outlined earlier, and, in respect of the circumstances of aggravation, I find that there are two; the severity and savagery of the killing and, secondly, the relative age and size of the deceased and yourself.
Whilst your prior convictions are not circumstances of aggravation, they are relevant matters that I must weigh into the balance in determining the sentence. Your counsel referred me to a decision of R v Celso Cuenco[1], , in which Justice Teague imposed a sentence of six years upon the prisoner in respect of manslaughter and four years for an offence of causing serious injury intentionally, which with cumulation became a sentence of seven years with a five year minimum.
[1][2006] VSC 7.
Whilst it is of assistance in some ways, each case must of course be considered upon its own facts, and each sentence arrived at on the determination of facts and information relevant to that offence. There are some similarities in relation to the Cuenco sentence, but there are some dissimilarities. For example, Mr Cuenco had reached a considerable age without any prior convictions; he stayed at the scene, expressed his remorse and provided assistance.
In light of all of the circumstances to which I have referred, and having regard to the considerations that are set out in s. 5 of the Sentencing Act, I sentence you to be in prison for a term of six years and six months, and I fix a non parole period of four years. I direct that pursuant to s. 18(4) of the Sentencing Act, that you have already served 415 days in custody, including today. I will make the disposal order in respect of the knife and the wood splitter.
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CERTIFICATE
I certify that this and the 7 preceding pages are a true copy of the reasons for Sentence of King of the Supreme Court of Victoria delivered on 9 March 2006.
DATED this ninth day of March 2006.
Associate to Justice King