R v Teuiketei
[2014] VCC 396
•20 March 2014
| IN THE COUNTY COURT OF VICTORIA | Revised Suitable for Publication |
AT MELBOURNE
CRIMINAL DIVISION
Case No CR-14-00135
| DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROSECUTIONS |
| v |
| JOHN DEAN TUIKETEI |
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JUDGE: | HIS HONOUR JUDGE MAIDMENT | |
WHERE HELD: | Melbourne | |
DATE OF HEARING: | 20 March 2014 | |
DATE OF SENTENCE: | 20 March 2014 | |
CASE MAY BE CITED AS: | R v. Teuiketei | |
MEDIUM NEUTRAL CITATION: | [2014] VCC 396 | |
REASONS FOR SENTENCE
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APPEARANCES: | Counsel | Solicitors |
| For the DPP | Mr M. Roper | |
| For the Accused | Mr N. Goodenough |
HIS HONOUR:
1 John Tuiketei, you have pleaded guilty to an indictment charging four offences of armed robbery, the first committed on 5 October 2013 and the other three, one after another, on 3 November of 2013. All of them are offences carrying a maximum term of imprisonment of 25 years. You were armed with a knife in relation to charges 2, 3 and 4 and a knife and a knuckle duster in relation to charge 1.
2 The particulars in charge 1, I note, only refer to a knife, but it seems to be common ground that you did indeed have a knuckle duster with you and were wearing it. That is apparent from the CCTV footage.
3 The prosecution has tendered and relied upon a plea opening which is Exhibit A and that has been read to the court just a few minutes ago. I am not going to go into the detail. Each of these targets were what are commonly known as soft targets. You wore something of a disguise, used the weapon to menace the young store attendant or shop assistant in each case and stole sums of money.
4 When arrested on 3 November, not long after the last of your offences, you were caught in possession of $2000 odd which was the proceeds of the last three offences. You were not in a fit state to be interviewed, it seems, probably because you had ingested drugs, including methamphetamine. Your interview was postponed, but when interviewed you made no comment to the allegations.
5 The prosecution also relied upon a victim impact statement from one of the victims who indicates that he had bad dreams afterwards, and that he still has the long‑term effects because he gets paranoid at work when some customers approach his service desk, particularly when they have hands in their pockets. It is, I think, to be inferred that even though other victims did not provide the court with victim impact statements, that they too were likely to have been frightened by your conduct and are likely to have had ongoing psychological effects from the experience and I am bound to take that into account in assessing an appropriate sentence.
6 Turning to matters personal to you. Counsel has helpfully provided me with an outline of submissions, which is Exhibit 1, and it sets out some history of your background. Having been born in New Zealand, I think you were of Tongan and Maori background. You have not had contact with your father now for four years and no contact with your mother for several years. You have three half sisters and one half brother and you lived with one of your half sisters in Werribee until May of 2013 when you strained the relationship beyond breaking point by becoming involved in further offending conduct.
7 It seems that your conduct has left you bereft of any family supports or any friends to support you and I am told that you have not received any visits whilst you have been in custody.
8 It is, I think, unsurprising that you had difficulty in staying out of trouble. Your education has been fairly meagre. You have a fairly poor employment history and you have been taking one illicit drug or another now for a number of years. You have developed a habit of mixing ice and alcohol, which is almost bound to get you into trouble of one kind or another with the law, and I accept that it is likely that you were suffering from the effects of both alcohol and ice on the occasions upon which you offended in relation to these four armed robberies.
9 You have pleaded guilty at the earliest reasonable opportunity and I accept that you are now sorry for what you did and have insight into the effect of your conduct upon your victims. That is in your favour. You get a discount for utilitarian value, we call it, but it really amounts to saving the court money and the victims the inconvenience and trauma of having to come and give evidence, so you get a discount for that, but you also get a discount for the remorse that you have shown. That all, I think, bodes better for your prospects of rehabilitation. It is difficult to be optimistic about your rehabilitation until you get your drug problems and your alcohol problems sorted out. I see you nodding and I think you are quite sincere as you sit there now, but it is not something you shake overnight. It is going to be difficult for you without the kind of supports that other people are fortunate to have with family and friends and good role models in their lives to help them cope with the emotional difficulties of dealing with substance abuse and I think it is going to be difficult for you.
10 You do have opportunities though through the prison system. I do urge you to explore those opportunities because if you do then two things are going to happen. One is, you give yourself the best chance of actually beating these problems and, secondly, you give yourself the best chance of getting parole. Because if you impress the Parole Board that you are really making efforts then they are more likely to give you the opportunity of parole at an early stage.
11 You undoubtedly have had some psychological problems and it seems that you have probably had a depressive condition of one kind or another for some time. I cannot see that that is such as to reduce your moral culpability for these offences. There is no doubt that you have developed a more severe depression as a result of being incarcerated on remand for these matters and you are being treated for that. I think that that does come into play in the sense that it makes doing your time a bit harder than for people who do not have that sort of condition. But the fact that you were voluntarily taking ice and alcohol in the lead up to these events I do not think can be regarded as reducing your moral culpability, even your blameworthiness for these offences, even if you were suffering from alcohol and drug‑induced psychosis at or about the time of any of these offences. Even if you were, it does not seem to me that that reduces your moral culpability. As I say, I think that your more severe depressive illness now does have some bearing on reduction of sentence having regard to the effects on your ability to cope within the prison system.
12 You are still a very young man. You are only 21. You were 20 at the time of the offences. That is significant. The courts are always reluctant to put young people into prison unless they have to and generally treat the principle of rehabilitation as being the most significant of the sentencing considerations because it is thought that by rehabilitating young people, by trying to ensure that they stay on the straight and narrow and lead an honest and decent life, is better for the community, it is better for the general public, than just putting you inside and throwing away the key. But the courts have recognised that offences such as armed robbery and armed robbery on soft targets, such as these targets the subject of these offences, does require significant regard for the principle of general deterrence, that is deterring other people from committing offences of this kind.
13 Also, I think I have to take into account that you were on bail at the time of the offences and were in breach of a community correction order which had been imposed early in 2013.
14 I need to impose a sentence that tends to deter you from committing further offences of this kind. I do not ignore the need to consider your rehabilitation as a young man and I hope to give that appropriate weight in the sentencing process.
15 Doing the best I can, John Dean Tuiketei, for the offence the subject of charge 1, I convict you and sentence you to imprisonment for a period of three years. On charge 2, I convict you and sentence you to imprisonment for a period of three years. On charge 3, I convict you and sentence you to imprisonment for three years. On charge 4, I convict you and sentence you to imprisonment for three years. These are separate offences and there is some need for cumulation but I must have regard to the principle of totality and for that reason I will moderate what might otherwise have been an appropriate level of cumulation. I order that in respect to the sentence in relation to each of charges 2, 3 and 4, that three months of the sentence on each of those offences be served cumulatively upon one another and upon the sentence on charge 1, making a total of three years and nine months imprisonment.
16 I order that you serve a period of two years and six months before you become eligible for parole.
17 You have been in custody now I think for 137 days, not including today, so I declare that 137 days of pre‑sentence detention be reckoned as time served under the sentences that I have imposed and deducted from the time that you have actually had to serve.
18 I will make the disposal order in the terms of the amended draft, excluding those items of clothing that were items 1, 2 and 3 on the disposal order, and I will sign that in due course.
19 But for your pleas of guilty to these offences I would have sentenced you to a total of four years and nine months imprisonment and ordered you to serve a period of three years and three months before you became eligible for parole.
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