R v Maddox
[2009] VSC 447
•9 October 2009
| Do Not Send for Reporting | ||
| IN THE SUPREME COURT OF VICTORIA | Not Restricted | |
AT MELBOURNE
CRIMINAL DIVISION
No. 1407 of 2007
| THE QUEEN |
| v |
| CHRISTOPHER JOHN MADDOX |
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JUDGE: | KAYE J | |
WHERE HELD: | Melbourne | |
DATE OF HEARING: | 30 September, 1 and 2 October 2009 | |
DATE OF SENTENCE: | 9 October 2009 | |
CASE MAY BE CITED AS: | R v Maddox | |
MEDIUM NEUTRAL CITATION: | [2009] VSC 447 | |
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CRIMINAL LAW – Sentencing – Murder – Guilty plea – Violent killing – Provoked – Accused with mental disturbance – Ingestion of alcohol and cannabis.
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APPEARANCES: | Counsel | Solicitors |
| For the Crown | Mr P. D’Arcy | Solicitor for Public Prosecutions |
| For the Accused | Mr N. Papas | Victoria Legal Aid |
HIS HONOUR:
Christopher John Maddox, you have pleaded guilty to the murder of William Woods at Shepparton on 4 December 2007.
At the time of his death Mr Woods was 26 years old. He was then living in Shearer Close, Shepparton. You were also, then, 26 years of age. You were living in premises at Ford Street, Shepparton with your partner, Donna McKinley, your three young children, and Donna’s father, Donald McKinley.
You had known William Woods for more than one year before his death. On Monday, 3 December 2007, Mr Woods and you spent the day together at your address, drinking alcohol and smoking cannabis. Mr Woods stayed at your home overnight. He and you spent the next day drinking alcohol, smoking marijuana and watching movies. In the evening you went to Lake Victoria together to play music on your car stereo system. A neighbour complained of the noise generated by your stereo, and accordingly you both returned to the Ford Street address. You and Mr Woods went into a spare room called the “bong” room. Together you smoked marijuana, drank Jim Beam whisky, and listened to music until the early hours of the morning.
While you were talking together, Mr Woods said to you words to the effect that he had molested your 11 month old daughter. You asked him to repeat what he had just said, and he did so. In response, you took hold of a samurai sword from the wall on which it was hanging, raised it above your head, and swung it at Mr Woods, resulting in extensive cuts to his head and his torso. You then repeatedly struck Mr Woods a number of other times with the sword. Mr Woods raised his left arm in order to defend himself. However, you continued to strike him with the sword, and he fell from the chair on which he was sitting onto a mattress. Donna McKinley heard Mr Woods scream, and she awakened Donald McKinley. He intervened and seized the sword from you. After Donald McKinley left the room, you then took hold of a ramset gun, which had been altered to fire live .22 bullets, and you shot Mr Woods once in the left temporal region.
After Mr Woods had been shot, Donna McKinley, at your request, telephoned a friend, Brian Lawrence, and requested him to attend at the Ford Street house. After Mr Lawrence arrived at the house, Donald McKinley, Lawrence and you removed Mr Woods’ body from the house and placed it in the rear of Donald McKinley’s utility. You transported the body of Mr Woods to a water channel about 150 metres from the house. There you attached his body to a car gear box using wire. The three of you then threw Mr Woods’ body into the channel. Donald McKinley, Lawrence and yourself then returned to the Ford Street house. Donna, Donald McKinley and you cleaned the house of any sign of Mr Woods’ blood and remains. For that purpose, you removed the carpet and curtains from the room in which Mr Woods had been slain, and you also removed the mattress. Those items, and other items, were burnt.
At the time of his death, Mr Woods, who had an intellectual disability, was living independently in appropriate accommodation. He was regularly visited by a carer, Mr Dewaal. On the day after his death, Mr Dewaal became concerned as to Mr Woods’ whereabouts. On 6 December, he spoke to you at the Ford Street address, and you told him that you had driven Mr Woods home on the Tuesday morning.
In the meantime, you observed that Mr Woods’ body had floated to the surface of the channel. Donald McKinley and you then attached large chains to it, in order to sink it. However, subsequently, Mr Woods’ body again floated to the surface of the water channel. Donald McKinley and you removed the body from the channel. Then, using a hacksaw, you proceeded to cut the head and feet from the body of the deceased. Having done so, you covered the torso of Mr Woods with a heavy tarpaulin, and deposited it some ten kilometres from your home on the side of a road. You disposed of Mr Woods’ head and feet in a channel pit on your property approximately one kilometre from the house.
On 10 December, uniformed police began making enquiries as to the whereabouts of Mr Woods. They spoke to you at your home. You informed the police that you had dropped Mr Woods home the previous Tuesday morning.
On the next day, 11 December, the police again attended at your home address, and requested that you attend the police station in order to make a formal statement. You agreed to do so, and later on that day you voluntarily attended at the police station. In the foyer of the station you spoke to a uniformed police member, and admitted to killing the deceased. You were then arrested and taken into custody, and a formal interview was conducted with you in the Shepparton CIU office.
In that interview, you made full, and accurate, admissions as to the manner in which you attacked Mr Woods with the sword, and as to where you initially disposed of his corpse, and later his torso. You also made full admissions as to dismembering Mr Woods’ corpse. You did not tell the police that you had shot Mr Woods in the head with the ramset gun, nor did you tell them that anyone else was involved in the offence with you. Indeed, you sought to protect your co‑offenders by maintaining that at all times you had acted alone. Further, for reasons which are unexplained, you told the police that you had disposed of Mr Woods’ head and feet by placing them in a rubbish bin, rather than by telling them that you had placed them in the water channel.
I do not draw any adverse inference against you from your failure to tell the police about your use of the gun, nor of your failure to tell them where you had disposed of Mr Woods’ head and feet. The evidence relating to your psychological condition, to which I shall later refer, makes it plain that it would be unsafe for me to draw any inference against you in that respect. However, taking your record of interview as a whole, it is clear that you made frank and honest admissions to the police that you had violently killed Mr Woods, and then disposed of his body. You also assisted the police, and co‑operated with them, by taking them on a walk through your premises, to show them where and how you killed Mr Woods, and later on a view of the property to identify where you had disposed of his body in the irrigation channel.
Pausing there, you have pleaded guilty to a particularly serious instance of the crime of murder. The offence of murder is the most serious crime in our legal system, involving the intentional taking of the life of another human being. Your actions in killing Mr Woods were accompanied by a savage degree of violence inflicted on a defenceless and harmless young man. As I have stated, Mr Woods suffered from an intellectual disability. Despite that disability, he was doing his best to make his way in life, and was determined to live independently and outside an institution. Because of his condition, he was also vulnerable, and always at risk of being hurt by other human beings. By your actions, you have taken the life of a young man who, despite his disabilities, was entitled to live a full and happy life, finding his way in the community.
In addition, by your actions you have taken from Mr Woods’ parents, his three sisters and his brother, a much loved member of his family. The victim impact statements of each member of Mr Woods’ family reflect the ongoing grief, suffering and pain occasioned to them as a result of your vicious killing of Mr Woods. Each of those family members are properly regarded as victims of your crime. Their statements are an appropriate reminder of the ongoing anguish and trauma which have resulted from your violent actions.
In the absence of mitigating circumstances, the violence that you inflicted on Mr Woods, and the viciousness with which you did so, would make this a particularly serious instance of the crime of murder. Ordinarily, in the absence of any other mitigating circumstances, I would be obliged to impose on you a particularly substantial term of imprisonment, in order to properly express the condemnation by the Court, and the community, of your outrageous conduct. Further, it would be important that the sentence be of sufficient severity in order to deter other members of the community from venting their rage on their friends and acquaintances in the manner in which you did. It would also be necessary that the punishment be sufficiently severe in order to deter you personally from any further such acts of violence.
On the other hand, there are important mitigating factors attaching to the circumstances in which the crime occurred, and also relating to your background. In particular, as I stated, I accept that immediately before you attacked Mr Woods, he did state to you that he had sexually molested your 11 month old daughter. That finding is not only based on your statement to the police, but also on the evidence of Mr McKinley and Donna McKinley, who, shortly after the attack, heard you say words to the same effect. The spontaneous and explosive nature of the violence inflicted by you on Mr Woods is consistent with you being provoked in the manner in which you say you were. Mr D’Arcy, the Crown Prosecutor, has properly accepted that you were truthful when you told the police that, immediately before you attacked Mr Woods, he had twice told you that he had indecently touched your little daughter.
I pause to note that there is no evidence that Mr Woods had indecently assaulted your 11 month old daughter. At the time of his killing, Mr Woods had been drinking, and smoking marijuana, with you over a long period of time. The materials indicate to me that he was the sort of person who, because of his disability, liked to be the centre of attention, and was given to making inappropriate comments in order to attract attention. As I have stated, there is no evidence that Mr Woods had indeed molested your daughter. Indeed, on the evidence I am satisfied that he did not do so. Thus, I am satisfied that, in order to attract your attention, he made to you an untrue admission that he had molested your daughter. That remark, repeated when you asked him to do so, triggered an explosive outburst of rage on your behalf, in which you murdered Mr Woods. In that way I do accept, and am satisfied, that you were significantly provoked at the time at which you commenced to attack Mr Woods.
In this connection, I should observe that the type of remark, made by Mr Woods to you, would be calculated to severely provoke, and indeed outrage, any responsible parent to whom it was made. It is clear, on the evidence, that you have been a loving and protective father to your young children. While provocation is no longer a defence to the crime of murder, nor a sufficient excuse for your violent actions, the type of provocation given to you by Mr Woods would, I consider, have been particularly inflammatory to any parent. For reasons which I shall explain, there are matters, relating to your background and psychological functioning, which made the words, spoken to you by Mr Woods, extremely provocative. For that purpose, it is necessary for me to set out matters relating to your background in some detail.
You are now 28 years of age. You are the third eldest of six brothers and sisters born to your mother. Your mother had three children by your father, Robert Maddox. It appears that when you were about six months of age, you suffered from a neurological episode, for which you were treated in hospital. There is little evidence as to the precise nature of what your medical condition then was. However, Dr Sewell, a paediatrician, who examined you in 1987, expressed the view that you had undoubtedly had a severe neurological insult when you were an infant. That view is shared by Dr Ong of Forensicare, who considers that that event was the cause of the intellectual disability from which you suffer.
Your young childhood, in Tasmania, was very disturbed. Your father frequently assaulted your mother, yourself and your siblings. Because of his repeated violence, your mother left your father when you were three years of age. She then came to Melbourne, where she met and started a relationship with another man, Syd Roberts. Your mother had three further children by Mr Roberts. However, once again, your mother’s relationship with Mr Roberts was characterised by frequent domestic violence including physical abuse of yourself, and the rape and sexual abuse of your sister by Mr Roberts, as a result of which she became pregnant. Despite your difficult upbringing, you remained close to your mother. Tragically, when you were just nine years of age, you were an eyewitness to your mother being struck, and killed, in a motor vehicle accident, in which she was a pedestrian.
After your mother’s death, Mr Roberts obtained lawful custody of all the children, but he continued to inflict violence on them. At one stage, you were placed with Mr Roberts’ sister. In 1992, a Care and Protection application was made in respect of you. Eventually, you became a ward of the State, and were moved from one foster home to another until you were 18 years of age.
During your childhood and adolescence you changed homes on many occasions. As a result you often changed schools. You never settled into any of your schools, and you never developed any long‑lasting friendships. You were frequently in trouble at school. At some stage, you were diagnosed or assessed as suffering Attention Deficit Disorder. Your education suffered, and you have very limited literacy skills. It also appears that you suffer from a mild intellectual impairment, which no doubt affected your progress at school. Despite your learning difficulties, you were promoted each year until you reached Year 11. However, from the age of 13 you were provided with an integration aide to assist you. The fact that the government funded that aide is an objective indication of your lack of progress at school, both in terms of your formal education, and also in terms of your lack of relationships with other children.
Throughout your childhood and adolescence, you suffered from emotional or psychological disturbances. You had attendances at the Royal Children’s Hospital from the ages of three to seven, in which it was noted that you had significant problems with developmental delay and behavioural difficulties. After you witnessed your mother’s death at the age of nine, you did not receive any support or counselling. Ultimately in 1994, when you were 13 years of age, you were seen by the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service, to which you had been referred by the Department of Human Services Protective Service for long term therapy. I have read the report of Mr John Miksad, your psychology officer, with whom you were placed at that time. That report is contained in the depositions. Mr Miksad said because of the instability of your placements, he was only able to provide you with supportive therapy. In his report he stated as follows:
There is a sense, however, that Chris is a very disturbed child, and will most likely require long term psychotherapy following a complete assessment.
Unfortunately, it does not appear that any such further assessment, or long term psychotherapy, was afforded to you. You seem, somehow, to have “slipped between the cracks” in the mental health system, and to have received little, or no, meaningful treatment for your psychological problems. Indeed, it seems from the witness statements that over the years you have been using large quantities of marijuana, in part in order to self‑medicate yourself.
While you were at school you had commenced using marijuana. Subsequently, you became addicted to heroin. After you left school, it does not appear that you held any regular, or indeed irregular, employment. From the age of about 16 years, you became reliant on the disability support pension. In the following years, you had three long term relationships with different women. You had been in a relationship with Donna McKinley for seven years before Mr Woods’ death. You had three children by Donna McKinley, each of whom were, at that time, under four years of age.
Although you do not seem to have received any therapy or treatment until about 2004, it does seem that, throughout your early adulthood, and indeed until the time of the offending, you were troubled by psychological problems. From early childhood, until the present time, you have described a particular person by the name of “Bert”, who is part of your personality. You have told doctors how you have talked to Bert since early childhood and played games with him. When you are angry, Bert emerges, and, you say, “takes over”. There is independent evidence as to the existence, in your mind, of “Bert”, and of the role that he plays in your psychological functioning.
In 2004, when you were 23 years of age, you consulted a general practitioner in Cobram, Dr Chabboud. You were experiencing agitation, problems with impulse control, and other related symptoms. Dr Chabboud apparently diagnosed you to be schizophrenic, and he commenced you on a combination of antipsychotic medications, including Olanzapine and Modecate injections. You suffered a severe reaction to the Modecate, which caused you to experience acute muscle spasms. As a result, you sought treatment both from the Goulburn Valley Base Hospital, as well as the Austin and Repatriation Medical Centre.
In December 2005, you were referred to the Crisis Assessment Treatment Team of the Goulburn Valley Area Mental Health Service, following the attempt by Dr Chabboud to treat you with antipsychotic medication. At that time, you were found, by the service, to be suffering significant adverse effects of the depot antipsychotic medication, which had been prescribed for you. As a result, the medication was ceased. The Service found that there was no evidence that you suffered a mental illness, and you were discharged from the service in December 2005.
Almost two years later, on 10 September 2007, you presented again at the Service. You were accompanied by Mr Brian Lawrence, and were seen by a registered psychiatric nurse, Ms Sharon Peters. You told Ms Peters that Dr Chabboud had refused to treat you, because of the adverse effects you had suffered with the medication in 2005, and he had also refused to send your records to a new doctor. However, when Ms Peters tried to discuss your symptoms with you, you became agitated and abusive, and left the building. After you left, Mr Lawrence told Ms Peters that you had problems with anger management and violence towards physical objects.
Later on the same day, you and Mr Lawrence presented yourselves again at the service. Mr Lawrence requested that you be reviewed, and that you be provided with Ritalin, or other medication, to calm you down. However, you were told that you would not be permitted to have these medications without a formal assessment. Again you left the service. You and Mr Lawrence then apparently went to the Community Liaison Officer of Goulburn Valley Health, and made a complaint. It would seem, however, that from that point, until the date of the death of Mr Woods, you did not receive any further treatment. Thus, you had been without any medication for your psychological distress for some period of time before the events which have brought you before this Court.
On your admission to prison after your arrest, you were assessed at the Acute Assessment Unit of the psychiatric wing of Melbourne Assessment Prison between 14 December 2007 and 16 January 2008. You were seen during that time by Dr Bell, a consultant psychiatrist. Dr Bell diagnosed you as having an acute post traumatic stress reaction secondary to the events of December. He also diagnosed that you suffered an adjustment disorder with depressed mood. However, according to Dr Bell, there was no indication that you suffered a psychosis. He did not regard your hallucinations of “Bert” as being indicative of any mental illness. You were initially treated in the Acute Assessment Unit with Olanzapine and antipsychotic medication, as well as antidepressant medication.
It would appear that initially, in particular, you had difficulty adjusting to prison life, so much so that on one occasion you attempted to take your own life. However, your mood has settled with the assistance of the medication prescribed for you. You are currently in the Chilwell Unit of the Metropolitan Remand Centre. You have managed to complete some programmes, but there are only a limited number of programmes which are available to you. You continue to suffer from flashbacks about the killing. Currently, you are on a moderately high dose of the antipsychotic medication Seroquel, of which you take 200mg twice per day. You are also on an antidepressant, Avanza.
There has been some debate, between the psychiatrists who have examined you, as to the precise nature of your psychological condition. Dr Lester Walton, who saw you in July 2008 and June 2009, was of the view that, on a fine balance of probabilities, you suffer from schizophrenia, and he considered that at the time of the killing you were probably mentally impaired pursuant to s 20 of the Crimes (Mental Impairment and Unfitness to be Tried) Act 1997. However, he acknowledged that the diagnosis of schizophrenia was a borderline issue. On the other hand, he expressed the view that, in a broader sense, he was well satisfied that you are, and at the time of the murder were, seriously mentally disturbed. He also assessed that you have been mildly intellectually disabled throughout your life.
On the other hand, Dr Kevin Ong, who has had responsibility for treating you since October last year, does not consider that you suffer, or have suffered, from a psychotic illness such as schizophrenia. Nevertheless, like Dr Walton, he considers that you suffer from a marked personality disturbance, which is consistent with, and may well be, a borderline personality disorder. He considers that your attachment to “Bert” is not a sign of psychosis, but rather is a continuation of an imaginary friend, who you had during childhood, and who, because of your intellectual disability, you have retained. Dr Ong expressed the view that because of your personality disturbance, you have suffered a significant dysfunction in your psychological wellbeing.
Both Dr Walton and Dr Ong expressed the view that the consumption by you of both alcohol and cannabis operated to aggravate your condition at the time of the killing. Because of your disturbance, you have a problem with impulsivity. It was explained to me that the effect of the alcohol was to exacerbate your impulsivity, and to disinhibit you. The consumption by you of cannabis would have increased your paranoia and your mood disturbance. As I have already stated, during your childhood years both you and your siblings had been subjected to dreadful abuse, which is detailed in the documents contained in the depositions, including the rape of your sister by your stepfather over a period of almost one year. As Dr Ong explained, the false confession to you by William Woods, that he had molested your 11 month old daughter, was the very sort of provocation calculated to ignite your temper. Your underlying psychological disturbance is such that you are not equipped with the controls and inhibitions of ordinary, well‑adjusted people. The effect of the alcohol and the cannabis was to inflame your reaction to what you were told. Simply put, the joint confluence of your underlying psychological disturbance, the provocation of what was said to you by Woods, and the consumption of alcohol and cannabis by you, was a toxic mix, calculated to cause the type of explosion of uncontrolled rage, in which you viciously murdered William Woods.
The question, which then arises, is whether your psychological condition, and the ingestion by you of alcohol and marijuana, is a mitigating circumstance in determining the level of your culpability, or blameworthiness, for your offending. I turn, first, to your underlying psychological state. As I have already stated, while Dr Walton and Dr Ong disagree as to your proper diagnosis, nevertheless there is a consensus between them that, on any view, you suffer, and have suffered, from a marked psychological disturbance in the broader sense. I am satisfied that that disturbance itself played a significant role in your offending in this case. In my view, that is an important factor in determining the level of culpability, or blameworthiness, of you for your crime. The law, as a matter of plain justice and humanity, recognises that those who are psychologically or psychiatrically disturbed, and who thus do not have the same level of adjustment to handle the stresses of life, are not as blameworthy for actions, such as those performed by you, as would be a person who was well‑adjusted, and who had come from a far less disadvantaged and less disturbed background as yourself. I also accept that as part and parcel of your disturbance, your impoverished and abusive childhood and adolescence played a role in disposing you to react violently to the type of provocation, which Mr Woods gave to you before you lost control of your temper and killed him. While I stress that none of these factors excuse your crime, nor alter the fact that you have violently and cruelly murdered Mr Woods, nevertheless the law, as a matter of humanity, imposes a heavier sentence on the cold blooded violent murderer, than on a person like yourself, who commits such crimes while in a disturbed or impaired mental state.
It is also necessary to say something about your ingestion of alcohol and marijuana, and the effect which that had on your wrongdoing. The Court of Appeal has, in a number of recent decisions, dealt with the question whether the consumption by you of alcohol and marijuana, before you exploded with rage, either mitigates your criminality (that is makes it less serious), or aggravates it (makes it more serious). For that purpose, I have been referred by Mr Papas, your counsel, to the decisions of the Court of Appeal in R v Martin;[1] R v Arvanitidis;[2] and R v Shafik-Eid.[3] Without cluttering these sentencing remarks with a legal analysis of those decisions, it is sufficient for me to note that the principle, formulated in those cases, is that the ingestion by an offender of excessive quantities of alcohol, or of a narcotic substance, may be a mitigating circumstance, provided that the offender could not have foreseen that the consumption by him of those substances might have caused him to behave in a dangerous or violent manner.
[1][2007] VSCA 291, [20] – [30].
[2][2008] VSCA 189, [34].
[3][2009] VSCA 217, [27] – [30].
In this respect, it is significant that although you have been before the criminal courts on five previous occasions between 1999 and 2004, there is little, if any, evidence that you have a disposition to be violent to other people, when affected by alcohol or drugs. The only qualification to that statement is that in May 2004 you were convicted at the Shepparton Court on charges for offences involving dishonesty, and also on charges of assault and resisting police. I note that you were sentenced to a Community Based Order, with a special condition that you attend for assessment and treatment for alcohol and drug addiction, and that you submit to medical or psychological or psychiatric treatment and assessment. That record satisfies me that, notwithstanding that you have, over a long period, abused drugs, and consumed excessive quantities of alcohol, you are not a man of violent disposition to others, when you are under the influence of alcohol or drugs. That conclusion is reinforced by the statement of Mr Donald McKinley, that you have been a good father to your children, and that he has never seen you hit Donna. Mr McKinley has noted that if you are angry you punch the walls to take out your frustrations. In her statement, Donna McKinley made similar comments, stating that you had never raised your hands to her or to anyone else in the house, and that if you became upset, you would punch holes in the walls or would take your anger out on physical objects, but not on people.
Thus, I am satisfied that it could not have been foreseen by you that the ingestion by you of cannabis and alcohol would have caused you to fly into a murderous rage, if you were sufficiently provoked. I also accept that, given your background history, Mr Woods’ claim to have sexually molested your infant daughter was calculated to ignite your temper, and to cause you to lose self‑control. In those circumstances, I do accept that, given your background, your underlying psychological state, and the ingestion by you of alcohol and cannabis, your culpability for reacting in the way in which you did to Mr Woods’ provocation is substantially less than that of an ordinary or normal person. I therefore accept the submission, made on your behalf by Mr Papas, that on that basis, notwithstanding that the physical acts carried out by you were very serious, and would ordinarily warrant a long term of imprisonment, nevertheless you should be sentenced on the basis that you were not as culpable for carrying out those acts as an ordinary, undisturbed person would have been.
Apart from punishing you for your level of culpability for the crime which you have committed, it is also necessary, generally, that a sentence is sufficient so as to provide an appropriate lesson to other persons who might be like‑minded to commit similar offences, and thus to discourage (in other words, deter) those other persons from committing those offences. This principle is referred to, by lawyers, as the principle of general deterrence. However, in a series of cases over the last thirty years, the Court of Criminal Appeal, and the Court of Appeal, of this State, have each recognised that the concept of general deterrence, to which I have just referred, should be given less weight in the case of an offender who suffers from a mental disorder or abnormality. This is because it is recognised, as a principle of law, that such an offender is not an appropriate medium for making an example to other persons. Ordinarily, it would be necessary for me to sentence you to a long term of imprisonment, in order to provide an appropriate lesson to other persons, and to uphold the sanctity of human life. However, in accordance with that legal principle, it is necessary for me to sensibly moderate the sentence, which would otherwise be imposed on you for the purposes of general deterrence.
Thus, the sentence, which I am to impose upon you, takes into account your lower culpability, because of the significant provocation which you received, because of your underlying psychological state, and because of the effect of the alcohol and cannabis on you. The sentence also takes into account the need by me to sensibly moderate the weight ordinarily given to the concept of general deterrence.
On the other hand, I accept the evidence of Dr Ong and Dr Walton that, provided you receive appropriate treatment in prison, it is unlikely that a term of imprisonment would bear more onerously on you by reason of your underlying psychological condition. At the moment, it would seem that you are receiving appropriate care and treatment in the Chilwell Unit at the Metropolitan Remand Centre. Dr Ong stated that if you are transferred to Port Phillip Prison, you should be placed in the care of the St Paul’s Unit. While I am confident that the prison authorities will take every step to ensure that your psychological needs are appropriately addressed during your term of imprisonment, nevertheless I am mindful that you have, as I have said, “slipped between the cracks” of the system before. For those reasons, I shall direct that a copy of these sentencing remarks, together with the reports of Dr Ong and Dr Walton, the evidence of those two psychiatrists, and the submissions made on your plea, be forwarded to the Director‑General of Corrections, to the Parole Board and to Forensicare.
As I stated, you do have some previous convictions. However, the nature of them, and the sentences imposed on you in respect of them, indicate that they were not for particularly serious offending. Given your disturbed upbringing and your underlying psychological state, and particularly given the fact that you have received little, if any, appropriate treatment for your problems over the years, those previous convictions are, in my view, of little significance, in determining the sentence to be imposed upon you.
On the other hand, I do take into account the statements made by both Donald McKinley and by Donna McKinley that you have been a very good and caring father to your three children, and that you have been a protective and loving partner to Donna. I accept that prison will be difficult for you, because of your separation, for a long period of time, from your three children, who you love very much. I understand that in fact Donna is now living in South Australia with two of your children, which is a source of grief to you. For those reasons, life in prison will be more difficult for you.
Finally, I take into account, of course, your plea of guilty, which has not only saved the community the expense of your trial, but, more importantly, has spared Mr Woods’ family the trauma and anguish of such an ordeal. While you pleaded guilty at a late stage, nevertheless you made admissions to the police, one week after the murder, which were a sufficient confession of each of the elements of the crime of murder. At all times, the only issue which lay unresolved between yourself and the Crown was the question whether you were mentally impaired at the time of the murder. That issue was a matter for proper assessment by expert psychiatrists, and was a matter over which you had, in a sense, only limited control. Clearly, if a mental impairment defence had been available, the high likelihood, if not certainty, was that in any event you would have been subjected to a custodial supervision order for a long period of time. I also take into account your admissions and your co‑operation with the police, although the latter aspect is somewhat modified because you did not truthfully state to them where you had deposited Mr Woods’ feet and head.
For the purpose of completeness, I note that you are a Yorta Yorta man on your mother’s side. There is no evidence, nor was it put to me, that your Aboriginality played any role in the underlying factors which caused your criminality in this case.
Accordingly, taking into account the matters which I have referred to, at some length, in these sentencing remarks, I sentence you as follows. Christopher John Maddox, I sentence you for the murder of William Woods to a term of imprisonment of 16 years. I fix the period of 12 years during which you will not be eligible for parole. Pursuant to s 18(4) of the Sentencing Act1991, I declare that the period reckoned as already served under the sentence to be 669 days, and I shall cause that declaration to be noted in the records of the Court.
As I stated, I have imposed a less severe sentence than I would otherwise have imposed on you because you have pleaded guilty. Accordingly, s 6AAA of the Sentencing Act requires that I state the sentence, and the non‑parole period, which I would have imposed but for your plea of guilty. In your case that exercise is somewhat artificial. Your plea of guilty is very much interconnected with your co‑operation and admissions to the police. It does not stand alone as an independent mitigating factor, but, rather, adds weight to the other mitigating circumstances, to which I have referred at some length in these remarks. Bearing that qualification in mind, and doing the best I can, if you had not pleaded guilty, I would have sentenced you to a term of 17 years’ imprisonment, with a minimum non‑parole period of 13 years.
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