R v Leggett
[2002] VSC 164
•16 April 2002
| IN THE SUPREME COURT OF VICTORIA | Not Restricted |
AT MELBOURNE
CRIMINAL DIVISION
No. 1458 of 2001
| THE QUEEN |
| v. |
| GEORGE EDWARD LEGGETT |
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JUDGE: | COLDREY J | |
WHERE HELD: | MELBOURNE | |
DATE OF HEARING: | 15 APRIL 2002 | |
DATE OF SENTENCE: | 16 APRIL 2002 | |
CASE MAY BE CITED AS: | R. v. LEGGETT | |
MEDIUM NEUTRAL CITATION: | [2002] VSC 164 | |
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CATCHWORDS: Sentence – Recklessly cause serious injury - Offender stabbed son while in a rage - Violent attack within home in context of domestic dispute – Potentially by threatening injury inflicted - General deterrence relevant – Plea of guilty – remorse – Elderly offender (age 75) – No prior convictions – Good work and community record - Imprisonment of two and a half years, with one year three months suspended.
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APPEARANCES: | Counsel | Solicitors |
| For the Crown | Mr Geoff Horgan | Office of Public Prosecutions |
| For the Accused | Mr Joseph Kaufman | Victoria Legal Aid |
HIS HONOUR:
George Edward Leggett, you have pleaded guilty to recklessly causing serious injury to Raymond George Leggett at Kerang on 19 June 2001, and I must now sentence you. In order to do so, it is necessary to briefly summarise the circumstances surrounding the commission of this offence.
In June 2001, you and your wife Ariel were residing at Lower Loddon Road, Kerang with your son Raymond Leggett, the victim of this offence. In September 2000, you had sold your Jacana home in which you had lived for 40 years. You gave your son Raymond $90,000 of the money realised from that sale in order to buy a share for your wife and yourself of the Kerang property. The house itself comprised two self-contained flats joined by a common laundry and you took up residence in your section in October 2000.
Although you and your wife had been married for in excess of 56 years, your marriage had been a turbulent one. Your wife and son regarded you as having a domineering personality and both spoke of you subjecting them to verbal abuse. It was said that your alcohol and gambling dependence had led to problems throughout your marriage. It was not, however, alleged that you were prone to physical violence against your family. It is fair to say that this assessment of your personality was not shared by your niece and her husband, Jean and Neil Tiernan, who, while conceding that there had been a longstanding incompatibility between you and your son, regarded you as a pleasant, even jovial person with a love of gardening. Nonetheless, the preponderance of the evidence clearly indicates that your marriage was beset by difficulties. This is exemplified by intervention orders taken out by your wife at Broadmeadows Magistrates' Court in July 1992 (after you had kicked her keg) and at Kerang Magistrates' Court on 7 March 2001 (after threats and abuse). Both orders were in a standard form prohibiting you from assaulting, harassing, molesting, threatening, intimidating or damaging the property of your wife. Under these strictures you continued to live together, although, towards June 2001, your wife complained about your intimidating and frightening demeanour.
In relation to your 56-year-old son Raymond, there were altercations in about November 2000 and about the beginning of March 2001. In the first of these incidents you sought to fight him on the way home from a commercially sponsored golf competition. You were intoxicated and apparently angry at being left in the family car while your son and grandson attended the presentation of the golf trophies. Blows were exchanged and you received a blood nose before being wrestled to the ground. In the second incident, after an argument about your use of threatening and abusive language towards your wife, you menaced your son with a beer bottle from which you were drinking, desisting when he held you at bay with a plastic garden chair.
It was in the context of this emotionally unstable atmosphere that the offence of 19 June was committed. I should stress, however, that you are not being sentenced for any of this preceding conduct; it merely provides a background to understanding this offence.
Like many such incidents, it had a trivial beginning. In summary, you requested (your wife uses the word demanded) that your wife prepare your lunch. She declined to do so, indicating that she was not your slave. Further words were exchanged, but it seems clear that you sliced a tomato in the course of making yourself a sandwich. You told the police that thereafter you turned on the gas heater and your wife turned it off. An argument erupted which included exchanges about the payment of the heating bill. I think it probable that this argument occurred and it was the catalyst for subsequent events.
Your angry response to your wife's actions caused her to leave your section of the house with the expressed intention of telephoning the police. The telephone was situated in your son's kitchen. You followed your wife, carrying the knife you had used to cut the tomato. It had a blade of approximately six inches in length. Apparently you associated your son with your wife's conduct because you stormed past your wife and, according to your son, you were yelling: "what do you fucking bastards think you're doing? I'll fix you fucking bastards." your son got up from the couch in his loungeroom and asked what was going on. You threatened to fix him and, having walked towards him, you moved your right arm in an upwards motion stabbing him to the chest in the area of the left nipple. A second thrust was parried by your son pushing you away. Not surprisingly, at this stage he was fearful of being killed.
In the course of the ensuing struggle, both you and Raymond crashed against a drinks bar in the loungeroom before you finally became wedged between the edge of the couch and the wall. During this altercation you repeated your threat to fix your son. At one point he grabbed the knife blade, cutting his right hand. He ended up leaning over the top of you and squeezing your neck while repeatedly exhorting you to "drop the knife". Eventually you loosened your grip of the weapon and your son grabbed it from your hand. He immediately went to a neighbour's house and called the police. Your wife was attempting to do the same thing, but her efforts were thwarted by you pulling the telephone connection from the wall as you made your way to a garden shed. You remained at that location until your arrest.
You described yourself to investigating police as being in a rage and berserk at the time of this incident. You also told police that you now felt terrible about the whole episode. There is no doubt that this was a terrifying experience for your son Raymond. Fortunately, the knife wound, which was 8 mm in width and 5 cm in depth, did not penetrate any vital organ, although the site of the wound was over the apex of the heart and according to the treating doctor, Dr Lindsay Sheriff, the knife may have been deflected by a rib. The wound required two stitches but no hospitalisation.
In accepting your plea of guilty to the charge of recklessly causing serious injury, the Crown have conceded that you did not intend by your actions to cause your son Raymond serious injury. However, your plea involves the admission by you of a state of mind in which you foresaw that serious injury was the probable result of your stabbing your son, but you took that risk by nonetheless performing the act of stabbing him.
This was a serious assault, occurring as it did in what should have been the safety of Raymond Leggett's home. Further, as I have often remarked, the courts must seek to deter persons who resort to violence and the use of weapons as a technique for attempting to solve domestic problems. The courts must also seek to deter those who might contemplate such a course of action. It should also be stated that violence inflicted by an elderly person is no less terrifying or potentially incapacitating.
Your actions on this day have had repercussions both for yourself and your family. Your son Raymond has experienced great anxiety since this incident and has undergone psychological counselling. He experiences significant sadness at the low ebb his relationship with you has reached. He is also concerned about the effect of this incident on his mother - your wife Ariel Leggett. Mrs Leggett has also received counselling for depression. Understandably, it is difficult for her to come to terms with the stabbing of her son by her husband. The effective destruction of her marriage of some 57 years (strained and difficult though it was) has left her feeling alone and redundant in the final stanza of her life. In short, these events have had tragic results for the family unit.
Despite their own emotional trauma, your family have taken a compassionate view of your situation. Having been consulted by the Crown, they agreed that this matter should be resolved by your plea to the lesser offence of those with which you were originally charged.
In determining the appropriate sentence to be imposed, there are a number of matters personal to you to which I should have regard. You are presently 75 years of age. You were born in Fitzroy being one of fifteen children, of whom only three are still alive. You left school when you were about 15 years old and initially did labouring-type work in shoe factories in the Collingwood area. Ultimately you became a truck driver. For a considerable period of your working life you drove a truck for Carlton and United Breweries delivering barrels. You also participated in sport, being captain/coach of an amateur football team in Kew for many years. You married in 1945 and your son Raymond was born in 1947. Although it was beset by problems, your marriage lasted over five decades. It is not suggested that you did not provide for your family during this period and it was partly to help out your son (who had financial problems relating to a matrimonial settlement) that you sold the Jacana house and moved in with him at Kerang. Your advanced age is a very significant factor to be taken into account. Not only are you 75 years old, but during these 75 years you have not acquired any convictions. You have apparently been a hard worker throughout your life. You have contributed to the community through your sporting activities. These are all matters for which you must be given great credit.
I note that in 1990 you suffered a heart attack resulting in double by-pass surgery. It was not, however, suggested that you currently experience ill health. You have exhibited remorse and indeed offered to plead guilty to this offence as early as August 2001. These are also matters which I must take into account in your favour.
It would appear that through your actions you have brought your relationship with your close family to an end. That, in itself, must be a considerable punishment for you in your final years. You are, however, fortunate that Mr and Mrs Tiernan are willing to have you live in their home where you will also have the company of your sister (Mrs Tiernan's mother), with whom you have a very close association.
In light of all these circumstances, the Crown has submitted that a sentence of two or three years partially suspended is an appropriate disposition of this case. I agree with that view. The question is what length of sentence and partial suspension should be imposed.
Balancing as best I can the various principles enunciated in the Sentencing Act, I have concluded that the appropriate sentence in your case is one of imprisonment for two-and-a-half years. However, I order that 15 months of that sentence should be suspended. I fix the period during which you must not commit another offence punishable by imprisonment at 20 months. I further declare that the period to be reckoned as already served under this sentence is 308 days inclusive of today's date. I direct that there be noted in the records of the court the fact that such declaration is made and its details.
Mr Leggett, that will leave you with approximately five months of imprisonment yet to serve, and you must not commit another offence punishable by imprisonment during the next 20 months. Do you understand that?
PRISONER: Yes, Your Honour.
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