R v Webb
[2006] VSC 43
•16 February 2006
| IN THE SUPREME COURT OF VICTORIA | Not Restricted |
AT MELBOURNE
CRIMINAL DIVISION
No. 1511 of 2005
| THE QUEEN |
| v |
| GREGORY ROBERT WEBB |
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JUDGE: | OSBORN J | |
WHERE HELD: | MELBOURNE | |
DATE OF HEARING: | 13 FEBRUARY 2006 | |
DATE OF SENTENCE: | 16 FEBRUARY 2006 | |
CASE MAY BE CITED AS: | R v WEBB | |
MEDIUM NEUTRAL CITATION: | [2006] VSC 43 | |
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Criminal Law – Sentence – Murder – Plea of guilty – Sentence of 15 years – Non-parole period of 11 years.
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APPEARANCES: | Counsel | Solicitors |
| For the Crown | Ms G. Cannon | Office of Public Prosecutions |
| For the Accused | Ms J. Sutherland | Victoria Legal Aid |
HIS HONOUR:
Gregory Robert Webb you have pleaded guilty to the murder of Jason Michael King on 3 February 2005. You are aged 26 having been born on 30 January 1980 and were barely 25 at the time of the offence.
At that time you were employed as a builder's labourer by a family home renovation business operated by Wayne and Tina Leftley.
You lived at factory premises occupied by your employers for storage purposes.
You attended work on the day of the killing and during the course of your work that day you felt that you had let your boss down and were disturbed by some adverse remark made by him.
After work you consumed some alcohol and then drove to the deceased's home unit after sending two SMS text messages to him at around 6.45 p.m.
The deceased was a 43 year old man. He had initiated a homosexual relationship with you commencing about two years previously. During the course of that relationship he had first offered you companionship and entertainment and then engaged in oral sex with you for money which it seems you accepted in order to pay for drugs.
You had however ceased seeing the deceased some eight months prior to his death because of resentment on your part that he had video recorded some of your sexual encounters.
During the break in this relationship you had obtained employment as a builder's labourer with the Leftleys. It is apparent that employment with them established a relationship within which you felt you had a chance for a stable and positive future. As a result you were able to give up habits of substance abuse which had, for a number of years, involved the use of both soft and hard drugs.
On the night of the killing you went to the deceased's home intending to confront him. In your record of interview you told police that you could not handle the build-up of embarrassment at having engaged in sexual acts with another man. You felt particular anger that he had video recorded you engaging in such acts. In your own words he had jeopardised a secret. At one point you told police:
"I just felt really sick … like, cos I was moving on with my life and I just – I felt real bad and … and dirty and – and bad inside about it. And I just – I couldn't – couldn't live with it any more …"
Once at the deceased's house you drank alcohol and watched pornographic videos together with him.
You then led him on to think you were willing to engage in sexual acts with him. When the deceased knelt before you and commenced foreplay apparently preliminary to oral sex you lunged at him and strangled him around the throat with both hands. The deceased struggled and asked you not to do it. He fell to the ground and you applied your knee to his back and then strangled him from behind initially with both hands for about five to 10 minutes and then as he struggled you utilised a cord attached to a key ring to continue the strangulation. He stopped struggling after about eight minutes or so but you continued strangling him for another five minutes to ensure he was dead. You told police that the strangling lasted some 15 minutes or so in total. You also told police that you applied what you referred to as "a fair bit of force" in strangling the deceased, that you wanted to kill him and that in the course of the struggle you hit him twice to the head.
Although some of the estimates of time you gave police are somewhat inconsistent, I am satisfied that the strangling was protracted and deliberate, that you attacked the deceased when he was in a vulnerable position, that you subdued him in part with blows, and that you persisted despite his apparent distress, his struggles and requests to desist. Indeed you escalated the form of strangulation by utilising a cord and persisted in its use until you were absolutely sure that you had killed him.
You then dragged his body to your car and subsequently disposed of it by dumping it naked in a roadside ditch.
You also took from his unit a number of the deceased's belongings, including a compact disc bearing your name, other compact discs, a video recorder, a DVD player (which you subsequently pawned) and a mobile phone in which you subsequently placed your own SIM card.
You were arrested some days later and when arrested made full and frank admissions of your responsibility for the killing and the circumstances of it. You also expressed sickness and remorse at what had occurred.
There are a number of serious aggravating factors in the circumstances of your crime.
(a) the abuse of your victim's hospitality and trust;
(b) the deliberate and protracted viciousness of your attack;
(c)the terror, pain and distress which it can be inferred your victim suffered during the protracted strangulation;
(d) the contempt with which you disposed of his body; and
(e) the callous selfishness with which you stole his possessions.
As against this it may be said:
(a)that I am not satisfied the killing was premeditated before you entered the deceased's home;
(b)the killing arose out of a complex of emotions produced by a pre-existing sexual relationship;
(c)you were, in all probability, affected to some degree by alcohol;
(d)when arrested you made full and frank admissions to the police and expressed remorse for your actions; and
(e)you have pleaded guilty to the crime of murder.
Victim impact statements have been filed on behalf of the deceased's mother, father and aunt. They reflect the lasting severe loss and emotional pain you have inflicted upon the deceased's family. They also demonstrate that whatever his other faults, the deceased was capable of loving behaviour within the context of his family.
I turn then to your personal circumstances. It is apparent that you had a troubled childhood. Your parents separated prior to your birth. They then reconciled and lived together until a further separation when you were eight years old. At that time your mother took you away from your father. Prior to the separation you witnessed a violent relationship between your parents including an occasion of assault with a firearm upon your mother. Despite that, it appears that you were close to your father and the separation of your parents and the subsequent breakdown of the relationship with your father affected you badly. You grew up with feelings of inadequacy and worthlessness.
You commenced using marijuana at an early age and moved on to abuse alcohol and then use first heroin and then crystal meth-amphetamine in your late teens. You left technical school at 18 and have had a variety of jobs since then but have also had periods of unemployment and homelessness.
Between February 2000 and June 2004 you came before the courts on five occasions and were convicted on a series of charges of dishonesty, failure to answer bail, aggravated burglary, recklessly causing injury (two counts), indecent assault, carrying a controlled weapon without lawful excuse (being a knife), causing wilful damage, and possessing a dangerous article.
Although I accept that you both sought work and applied yourself to work during this period of your life as an young adult, it is apparent that you were in recurrent trouble and much, if not all, of it was related to substance abuse.
It was during this period that you met the deceased and he struck up a relationship with you which appears to have involved initial elements of companionship and a subsequent arrangement to engage in oral sex for money.
At this time you had no continuing relationship with your mother or father.
In October 2004 you obtained employment with the Leftleys and it is apparent that they accepted you both personally and as an employee and your life became significantly better directed. As a consequence you idealised the Leftleys and placed great weight on the importance of your relationship with them. The offence occurred when you believed there had been a breakdown in your relationship with the Leftleys, and it appears that after drinking you transferred feelings of guilt, anger and inadequacy at your own situation into aggression towards the deceased.
Evidence was called on your behalf from Mrs Leftley to confirm the history of your application to work and good behaviour during the period leading up to the offence. You continue to have their support and they have supported your decision to face up to your crime and maintain a plea of guilty.
Evidence was also called from Mr Geoffrey Cummins, a forensic psychologist. He states you are not unintelligent and a letter written by you to your mother and tendered on your behalf confirms this opinion in my view.
Mr Cummins also states that in his opinion you do not suffer from any anti-social personality disorder. In his view you were at the time of the killing suffering from a chronic adjustment disorder and possibly post-traumatic stress disorder, as a result of your dysfunctional family background, and the exaggerated importance of your relationship with the Leftleys in your own mind.
In his view the killing was accompanied by a cathartic outpouring of repressed emotions. You transferred anger at yourself and your situation onto your victim by way of violent aggression. You then subsequently felt sick as to what you had done. In his view your subsequent remorse is genuine and your prospects for rehabilitation are good.
I am prepared to accept that you were emotionally vulnerable at the time of the offence, and that the savagery of your actions stems to some real extent from a transfer of anger at your own feelings of failure and inadequacy into aggression towards your victim. It also seems to me that whether or not your psychological condition is fully and adequately described by Mr Cummins, the reality is that your childhood and early adulthood gave you little basis for the formation of an adequate capacity for moral and sensible adult behaviour.
I also accept that your expressions of remorse since your arrest are genuinely felt. As the letter to your mother tendered to me confirms, you recognise that you have made a horrific mistake. Further, the evidence of both Mrs Leftley and Mr Cummins supports the view that there are reasonable prospects for your long term rehabilitation. Your work history and good behaviour while working for the Leftleys, your efforts to educate yourself while in custody, your attitude towards professional help and support, the fact that you have re-established a relationship with your mother and that you have the ongoing support of the Leftleys, all tend to support this conclusion.
The following matters arising from your personal circumstances may be said to count in your favour:
(a) your age;
(b) your emotional vulnerability at the time of the offence;
(c)your full and frank acknowledgement to investigating police of the circumstances of your crime;
(d) your expressions of remorse to investigating police;
(e) your plea of guilty; and
(f) your prospects of rehabilitation.
In the eloquent plea made on your behalf your counsel placed particular emphasis upon your plea of guilty. I accept her submission that this must result in a demonstrable discount of the sentence I would otherwise impose.[1] Your plea has minimised the emotional trauma which the victim's family would otherwise have had to endure if the matter had gone to trial and has also minimised the cost of this proceeding to the people and State of Victoria. Your plea also reflects a significant acceptance of responsibility for your crime.
[1]See e.g. R v Doran [2005] VSCA 271 at [14] per Buchanan JA.
As against the above matters your prior criminal history suggests that you have little respect for the rights and persons of others. This fact is further confirmed by the brutal malice of the assault which you perpetrated on the deceased, the manner in which you disposed of his body, and the theft of his property.
In my view your history means that despite your plea of guilty there is a need for the sentence I impose to reflect considerations of specific deterrence.
Moreover, my sentence must also reflect the gravity of your offence which violated the sanctity of human life, and raises consequent considerations of general deterrence.
Having regard to the above matters I have come to the following conclusions. It is incumbent upon me to express the condemnation of the community with respect to your conduct and to punish you to an extent which is just in all the circumstances. You killed your victim by way of a brutal and vicious strangling. In so doing you abused his trust and hospitality and inflicted pain and terror upon him. After so doing you robbed his home and disposed of his body as if it were rubbish.
Whilst I accept that you acted whilst affected to some extent by alcohol and at a time of emotional stress which in all probability released deep-seated feelings of personal inadequacy and anger, the community cannot tolerate, and the Court cannot be seen to condone, a savage and deliberate killing.
Having said this, I accept that you are relatively young, you have expressed genuine remorse, there are reasonable prospects for your long term rehabilitation and that your sentence must be demonstrably discounted for your plea of guilty.
Having regard to the above matters and the considerations set out in s.5 of the Sentencing Act 1991, I sentence you to a term of 15 years' imprisonment for the murder of Jason Michael King on 3 February 2005. I fix a non-parole period of 11 years. I declare pursuant to s.18(4) of the Sentencing Act that you have already served 353 days in custody.
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