R v Reciszen
[2000] VSC 209
•4 February 2000
| SUPREME COURT OF VICTORIA |
| CRIMINAL JURISDICTION |
No. M00493468
| THE QUEEN |
| v |
| JAMES RICHARD RECISZEN |
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JUDGE: | KELLAM J | |
WHERE HELD: | Melbourne | |
DATE OF HEARING: | 24 January 2000 | |
DATE OF JUDGMENT: | 4 February 2000 | |
CASE MAY BE CITED AS: | R v James Richard Reciszen | |
MEDIUM NEUTRAL CITATION: | [2000] VSC 209 | |
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INTENTIONALLY CAUSING SERIOUS INJURY – plea of guilty – no history of serious prior offences – issues of general deterrence and rehabilitation
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APPEARANCES: | Counsel | Solicitors |
For the Prosecution | Mr Johns | Office of Public Prosecutions |
| For the Defendant | Mr Thyssen | Victoria Legal Aid |
HIS HONOUR:
The prosecution in this case makes application pursuant to s.464ZF of the Crimes Act for the provision by the prisoner of a sample of saliva following upon his conviction.
The matter to which the prisoner has pleaded guilty in this court is a serious offence of violence. He used a weapon, namely a knife. He has a previous conviction for carrying an offensive weapon, namely a pocketknife, and although that matter in the circumstances is irrelevant to the sentence I propose to pass, it is relevant in the exercise of my discretion in respect of this matter.
Furthermore, Mr Thyssen, your counsel, has consented to the taking of a sample of saliva after consultation with you, and I note that the taking of a sample of saliva is a relatively simple procedure without any loss of dignity or pain to be suffered by you.
In these circumstances I conclude it is appropriate in the exercise of my discretion to order that a sample of saliva be provided, in accordance with Sub-division 30A of Part 3 of the Crimes Act pursuant to s.464ZF of the Crimes Act.
Mr Reciszen, I am required by law to inform you that police are entitled to use reasonable force to take such a sample should you not consent at the time of the taking of it.
I now turn to the matter of the sentence.
You, James Richard Reciszen, have pleaded guilty before me to one count of intentionally causing serious injury. The maximum penalty for this offence is 20 years' imprisonment.
This crime arises out of circumstances which took place at Northcote on 10 March 1999. On that date, as admitted by your plea, you, without lawful excuse, intentionally caused serious injury to Tarley Kate Pringle by stabbing her with a knife.
You met your victim in mid-1996 and you subsequently entered into a relationship with her. You lived with her between approximately September 1996 and February of 1999. Your relationship with Tarley Pringle was volatile and punctuated by arguments whereby you often became angry and abusive of her. It would appear your use of drugs including cocaine, LSD and amphetamines, together with your use of alcohol, were related to your behaviour and led to the breakdown of your relationship with your victim.
The breakdown of that relationship finally occurred on 21 February 1999. Apparently you were unable to accept the fact of the breakdown of the relationship and of your separation from her and you continued to see her. On many of these occasions you pleaded with her to resume the relationship.
In the early hours of 10 March 1999 you attended at your victim's residence and you entered the residence through a balcony door. You then entered your victim's room. As you did so you observed a person with whom your victim had recently formed a relationship, one Terrence Rosenfield, leave the room. You went to the bed in the room upon which Tarley Pringle was then situated. At that time you held a container of laundry detergent in one of your hands. A short discussion took place between you and Tarley Pringle about whether or not she had commenced a sexual relationship with Rosenfield. You then produced a knife from your clothing. The materials before me demonstrate that the knife had a three inch blade. You lunged at your victim, who was still on the bed. You put your leg over her body and stabbed her once in the abdomen. You then ran outside and commenced to consume the laundry detergent which you had taken into her room.
Other occupants of your victim's house attended to her and called an ambulance and police. Police attended the scene shortly thereafter and found that you were still present in the vicinity. Indeed, upon their arrival you approached them with your hands over your head.
Your victim was immediately admitted to St Vincent's Hospital where she was found to have suffered a stab wound to the upper right abdominal quadrant. She was admitted for observation. Some hours later she developed tachycardia and a decrease in blood pressure. Her victim impact statement filed with this court graphically describes her feelings at this time and before she was admitted to the operating theatre for surgery. A laparotomy involve midline abdominal surgery and the clamping of the inferior epigastric artery was performed. The surgical findings were consistent with laceration of the abdominal musculature and of the inferior epigastric artery.
Although she made a good recovery from this serious injury your victim suffered significant pain over the next few weeks. Her victim impact statement describes her difficulties during her week of inpatient care. She has suffered an emotional response to the fear you instilled in her that night. She has had counselling in an endeavour to enable her to cope with the effect your attack has had upon her.
The surgical treatment she required has left her with a 12 centimetre scar that runs down her stomach and which may require further surgery to reduce the effect of keloid scarring.
Your despicable conduct has left your victim with a physical reminder of your criminal act. That reminder is unlikely ever to be totally erased irrespective of the success of any reconstructive surgery.
The facts in this case are most serious. There can be no suggestion your victim in any way contributed to your conduct. What she did was attempt to bring an abusive and unhappy relationship to an end. That step, which most would regard as entirely sensible and justified in all the circumstances, could never justify your disgraceful attack upon her.
However, as has been pointed out by your counsel, Mr Thyssen, in the course of your plea, there are a number of mitigating factors. First, you have pleaded guilty. You are entitled to have that fact taken into account in your favour and I do so.
Although it cannot be said that you recognized the full criminality of your actions at an early stage, you have entered a plea of guilty before the trial has commenced and the community has by your plea been spared the time and the cost of a trial. Of more significance, in my mind, is the fact that your victim will now not have to suffer the ordeal of reliving the events of your crime by giving evidence against you in the witness box.
Notwithstanding the apparent strength of the prosecution case, I accept that your plea of guilty does reflect a clear acceptance by you of the seriousness of your crime and of the very substantial effect it has had on a person you once loved.
Although you at first maintained to police that the stabbing of your victim was accidental, I note that you were in all other ways co-operative with them.
You are now aged 23 years, having been born on 29 September 1976. You were 22 years of age at the time of the commission of this crime.
Although you do not fall into the definition of a young offender within the meaning of the Sentencing Act, you are nevertheless a young man with no significant criminal history. Indeed, the two matters which appear on the further presentment reflect your unstable childhood and adolescence and are not of any consequence in the task of sentencing you today.
At the age of 15 you left home and went to live with a relative in Adelaide. You completed Year 10 in Adelaide and returned to Melbourne where you he completed Year 11. Unfortunately you left school at the end of Year 11.
You have used cannabis since the age of 12. After that time you commenced to use heroin. You have been a user of cocaine, amphetamines and alcohol over the years leading up to the commission of the crime which now finally, and perhaps inevitably, brings you before this court.
Not surprisingly, your employment since leaving school has been sporadic, although you have worked as a silk screen printer and in nightclubs.
You have been assessed by psychologist Bernard Healey and IQ testing reveals a full scale IQ of 123. That fact is a powerful indication of the manner in which you have wasted the early years of your life. You are a young man with high intellectual potential but you have spent more than ten years of your life abusing drugs.
In addition to your academic potential you have some talent as a musician and you have an interest in the music industry. Regrettably you have not made any use of the opportunities these talents have presented to you. Your drug abuse, as is so often the case, has led to disruption of schooling, sparse employment and difficult and abusive relationships. In your case your drug abuse has led to you standing in a criminal dock charged with a very serious offence. That is a tragedy for any young person. It is all the more regrettable in circumstances where you have the intelligence to achieve and undertake almost any academic study possible, and yet at age 23 you have achieved very little. Indeed, the academic results you have obtained have been achieved whilst in prison. I observe that whilst on remand awaiting trial you have achieved a good deal. You have undertaken group counselling in drug awareness and other relationship programmes. You have undertaken study at the Kangan Batman TAFE in general education, mathematics, ceramics, horticulture and information technology. You have been in no trouble in prison and you have been throughout that time tested as drug-free.
Mr Bernard Healey, to whom I have already referred and who is a clinical psychologist, assessed you in prison in June 1999 and again in January of this year. Mr Healey gave evidence that you had formed a new relationship whilst in prison and that you have resolved your feelings of loss over the breakdown of your relationship with your victim. Mr Healey considered you were now a more mature person than you were when he first examined you in June 1999.
Your father gave evidence before me and informed me that you have employment available to you working with your uncle in Ballarat when you are released from prison.
A number of members of the community have prepared testimonials on your behalf and provided them to the court. I have taken the matters raised in those testimonials into account.
I am satisfied on the material before me that your rehabilitation has commenced. It is apparent that you led a troubled life in the time before the commission of this offence. You abused drugs and alcohol. On several occasions you overdosed on medication; on one occasion to the point of requiring your stomach pumped out in a casualty ward.
Paradoxically, it would appear you have achieved more in prison whilst on remand than you did in the years leading up to the commission of this serious crime. However, as well as matters personal to you such as the chances of your rehabilitation, I am required to take into account other considerations in the process of imposing an appropriate sentence. The issue of general deterrence is to my mind a significant issue of importance in this case. Regrettably it is far from uncommon for the courts to have cause to sentence young people who have inflicted serious harm on others by carrying knives which are then used in the course of some altercation or some personal dispute. Those who are so inclined must understand that the use of violence, and in particular the use of weapons, to resolve personal problems will not be tolerated by the community and that such actions will attract significant penalty.
The issue of specific deterrence is also important in this case. Although, as I have said, I am satisfied that your rehabilitation has commenced, you must understand that your behaviour was shameful and deserving of severe punishment.
Finally, I am called upon by the Sentencing Act to manifest the community's denunciation of your conduct and generally to impose a just sentence.
In the circumstances of such a serious offence I see no alternative, notwithstanding your youth and previous reasonably good record, but to impose a sentence of imprisonment. I propose, however, to impose a sentence which, as the prosecution has submitted is appropriate, has a larger than normal gap between the head sentence and the term to be served before you became eligible for parole. This will enable the Adult Parole Board to monitor your conduct over a sufficient period of time to ensure that your rehabilitation, which I found has commenced, does indeed continue, if the Board comes to the conclusion that you should become eligible for parole at or shortly after the completion of the period I propose to fix before you become eligible for parole.
I sentence you to a term of imprisonment of 36 months. I fix a period of 13 months to be served before you became eligible for parole.
I declare pursuant to s.18 of the Sentencing Act that you have served 332 days in custody and I direct that such matter be placed upon the record.
The forfeiture order I have signed.
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