R v Mondinos

[2019] NSWDC 677

District Court

New South Wales

Medium Neutral Citation:	R v Mondinos [2019] NSWDC 677
Hearing dates:	22 February 2019
Date of orders:	22 February 2019
Decision date:	22 February 2019
Jurisdiction:	Criminal
Before:	Judge W Hunt
Decision:	The offender is sentenced to an aggregate term of imprisonment for a period of 14 years with a non-parole period of 10 years and 6 months.
Catchwords:	CRIMINAL LAW – Sentence following trial – Sexual assault – Aggravation - Indecent assault - Pre-text call – Adverse psychological consequence – Opportunistic offending
Legislation Cited:	Crimes (Sentencing Procedure) Act. Crimes Act.
Cases Cited:	R v Gavel [2014] NSWCCA 56 R v Johnson [2016] NSWCCA 286 R v MA [2001] NSWCCA 30
Category:	Sentence
Parties:	The Crown James Mondinos
File Number(s):	2017/207370; 2017/207406
Publication restriction:	There is to be no publication of the name of the complainants or any material which may tend to identify the complainants

Judgment

1. HIS HONOUR: James Keith Mondinos is before the Court for sentence in relation to nine offences. On 7 July 2017, he was charged with a number of varying offences of a sexual nature, against SK, who was his foster sister between the years 2000 and 2003, and MB, who was his stepdaughter at the relevant times between 2006 and 2007. The matters proceeded together by way of a jury trial over which I presided here at Nowra District Court on 6 August 2018. On 16 August 2018, the jury returned verdicts of guilty in relation to the nine counts; the three remaining counts on the indictment having been lesser alternatives to offences that the jury found proved.

2. Before I come to recite facts that are consistent with the jury's verdict on my finding, I will just make a number of observations as to matters that are common ground between the parties. It is common ground between the parties that there is no expression of remorse from Mr Mondinos. I ought to say that during the trial, the Crown relied on a pretext call between SK and the offender, which had some communications that were consistent at the time of that call with the accused expressing remorse for offending against her. The accused gave sworn evidence at trial, which the jury clearly rejected and including that he disavowed that those conversations expressing remorse were about any offending upon SK, and said that any expressions of remorse in them were only limited to some later offending by him against a different stepsister, TM. I will return to that issue in due course.

3. It is also common ground between the parties that given the matters were defended, that there is no scope for the Court to consider a utilitarian discount, and there is no other basis for identifying a sentencing discount. Given the date range averred on the indictment in relation to the matters for which SK was the victim, it is common ground between the parties that because the date range straddles a period first where no non-parole period was…