R v Sonnet

[2000] VSCA 57

SUPREME COURT OF VICTORIA
COURT OF APPEAL	Not Restricted

No. 246 of 1999

THE QUEEN

v

SEAN JASON SONNET

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JUDGES:	WINNEKE, P., CHARLES and CALLAWAY, JJ.A.
WHERE HELD:	GEELONG
DATE OF HEARING:	6 April 2000
DATE OF JUDGMENT:	6 April 2000
MEDIUM NEUTRAL CITATION:	[2000] VSCA 57

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Criminal law – Sentence – Intentionally and recklessly causing serious injury – Sentence imposed not manifestly excessive.

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APPEARANCES:	Counsel	Solicitors
For the Crown	Mr. J.D. McArdle, Q.C.	P.C. Wood, Solicitor for Public Prosecutions
For the Applicant	In person

WINNEKE, P. (delivering the judgment of the Court): 

1. Mr Sonnet, I think I should say this to you, that it is fairly important, of course, when people are being sentenced for offences that they should be sentenced on a factual basis which is as close to the trial as is practicable.  I have listened, along with my colleagues, to your description of what happened in Port Phillip in June 1998 and we are prepared to accept that what did happen is substantially what you say happened and we are also prepared to accept that, for your own part, you perceived that you were being treated unfairly and discriminated against by prison officers in the prison.

1. One of the difficulties that we have as a Court of Appeal, as you probably understand and as I tried to indicate to you earlier, is that in the long run the question is whether the sentence imposed by the judge is too heavy for the accepted circumstances.

1. Prisons, as you know more than anybody, I should imagine, have to run essentially on discipline and I agree with you that discipline is a two-way street, but we cannot have prisoners inflicting serious injury on prison officers any more, I think, than we can have prison officers unlawfully inflicting serious injury on prisoners.

1. We are indebted to you for accepting, as you always have, that you got out of hand and that you were, as you said yourself, acting beyond the pale.

1. Even if the judge had, as you think he did not, got the facts right, he still would have been bound to impose the sort of penalty that he imposed upon you, and the great difficulty that we have is in saying that there is anything about that penalty which deserves or warrants interference by us.  Do you follow?  So that in the long run, although you pleaded guilty to four assaults in March at the Melbourne Custody Centre, they do not seem to us to matter very much because they are all consumed by the more serious offences that were committed against the prison officers at Port Phillip in June 1998.

1. We can understand your problem about the forfeiture of consideration for parole which was going to be given to you in July 1999 but has now been postponed by a little more than two months as a consequence of the judge's sentence.  The difficulty that we have again about that is that we cannot really tell the Parole Board what to do or when to start considering your application for parole.  That is a matter for them.  That is a matter for the executive and the judiciary cannot interfere.  Do you follow?

1. So that I think the simple answer is we will have to dismiss your application for leave to appeal because the sentences imposed by the judge below are not such that warrant interference by a Court of Appeal.  Do you understand?  All we can do is to hope and wish on your behalf that you will come up for consideration by the Parole Board in the very near future and that if and when you are released on parole you will do something to control your drug habit.  OK?

APPLICANT: 

1. Yes.

WINNEKE, P.: 

1. The application will be dismissed.