Frantzetis v The Queen - [2015] NZHC 710

IN THE HIGH COURT OF NEW ZEALAND NAPIER REGISTRY

CRI-2013-020-2122 [2015] NZHC 710

BETWEEN
ANNETTE-MARIE FRANTZETIS

Appellant

AND

THE QUEEN Respondent

Hearing: 1 April 2015

Counsel:

E J Forster for Appellant
Z R Hamill for Respondent

Judgment:

15 April 2015

JUDGMENT OF THE HON JUSTICE KÓS (Appeals against conviction and sentence)

[1] Mrs Frantzetis mistreated three foster children placed in her care. As a result she was convicted in the District Court on three representative counts of assault with a weapon,1 and three representative counts of ill-treatment,2 of the children. Her husband was convicted on a single count of ill-treatment.

[2] These were children who desperately needed a loving and nurturing environment. That environment was denied first by original mishap in parentage, and later by Mrs Frantzetis’s wilful misconduct as a foster parent. These essential facts must not be lost sight of in this appeal, given that the ill-treatment convictions remain uncontested.

[3] Mrs Frantzetis appeals the assault convictions only. She appeals also the 16

months’ imprisonment sentence imposed in respect of the offending as a whole.

1 Crimes Act 1961, s 202C(1)(a). The relevant weapons were a wooden spoon and, in one case, a hearth brush.
2 Crimes Act 1961, s 195.

FRANTZETIS v THE QUEEN [2015] NZHC 710 [15 April 2015]

Evidence

[4] The children I will call J, S and K. J was placed with Mrs Frantzetis and her husband in October 1998 when he was five. S, his sister, on the same date when she was six. K was 12 when she was placed with the family in August 2004. J left the appellant’s care in 2007. S and K in 2008.

[5] As there is no appeal against the ill-treatment convictions, it is appropriate to start with the evidence on those unchallenged convictions. They provide context for the more specific, contested convictions for assault.

Ill-treatment

[6] The evidence of S was that conditions were “okay” when she and J first came to stay with Mr and Mrs Frantzetis. But after departure of another foster child from the house “everything just started to go downhill”. At that point, when S was about nine or 10 years of age, she was required get up at 6.00 am to do household chores. She was chastised for failing to meet Mrs Frantzetis’s standards. She had to clean up after the other children, and prepare meals for the household. Her evidence was that the children were given only jam sandwiches and an apple for lunch. If their lunch was discovered uneaten, they would be forced to eat it, even if several days old. She was required to attend to Mrs Frantzetis’s personal hygiene, including assisting with hair removal and bathing. Her evidence was also that when her brother J was about
10 years old he was sent by the appellant to live outside in a caravan because of a bed wetting problem. When they moved addresses, about a year later, he was largely shut outside, not allowed inside, not allowed…

Grounds of appeal

[14] The appellant contends that the primary judge erred in finding that the respondent had discharged the onus of establishing the matters required under the relevant provision.

[15] It was submitted that his Honour failed to give adequate weight to the evidence of the second witness, and that the findings of fact were not reasonably open on the material before the Court.

[16] The respondent, for its part, submits that no error is disclosed, and that the conclusions reached were well within the range of outcomes available to the primary judge.

Consideration

[17] It is convenient to deal first with the question of construction, as the resolution of that issue informs the remaining grounds advanced by the appellant.

[18] For the reasons that follow, we are of the view that the appeal should be allowed in part and the matter remitted for further determination.

Continue reading Frantzetis v The Queen

Details

AGLC: Frantzetis v The Queen [2015] NZHC 710
Case: [2015] NZHC 710
Decision Date: 15 April 2015

CaseChat Overview and Summary

In the case of Frantzetis v The Queen, the High Court of New Zealand heard an appeal against conviction and sentence. The appellant, Annette-Marie Frantzetis, was convicted in the District Court of assaulting and ill-treating three foster children under her care. The appeal concerned the assault convictions and the sentence imposed. The legal issues were whether the trial judge erred in failing to subdivide the charges temporally around the amendment of the relevant legislation, and whether the trial judge should have considered the parental discipline defence despite the appellant's denial of any physical chastisement. The Court found that while temporal subdivision would have been preferable, the judge's analysis did not result in a miscarriage of justice. Furthermore, the Court held that the judge was not obliged to consider the parental discipline defence as there was no credible or plausible narrative to support it. The sentencing appeal also failed, as the Court found that the sentence imposed was appropriate and aligned with other cases of similar offending.

The appeal against conviction and sentence was dismissed.

Orders