R v Beca
[2013] NZHC 3279
•10 December 2013
IN THE HIGH COURT OF NEW ZEALAND NELSON REGISTRY
CRI-2012-042-000741 [2013] NZHC 3279
THE QUEEN
v
MICHAEL WILLIAM BECA
Counsel: J M Webber and S K O'Donoghue for Crown
G H Nation for Prisoner
Sentence: 10 December 2013
NOTES ON SENTENCE OF COLLINS J
Introduction
[1] Mr Beca, on 16 October 2013 you pleaded guilty to murdering Lisa Corbett. You entered that plea after Ronald Young J twice gave you a sentence indication. You accepted the sentence indication, however you entered your plea after the sentence indication had expired. The indication was that you would be sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum period of imprisonment of 14 to 15 years if you pleaded guilty to Ms Corbett’s murder.
[2] The Crown submits that I should sentence you at the top of the range proposed in the sentence indication given by Ronald Young J. In his very comprehensive and very helpful submissions Mr Nation urges me to sentence you to
life imprisonment with a minimum period of 14 years’ imprisonment.
R v BECA [2013] NZHC 3279 [10 December 2013]
[3] In sentencing you, I shall:
(1) explain your offending;
(2) explain your personal circumstances;
(3)explain the requirements for a 17 year minimum period of imprisonment for murder;
(4) explain the starting point that I am going to use when sentencing you; (5) make adjustments to that starting point to reflect:
(a) your guilty plea; and
(b) your personality disorder, and
(6) explain your end sentence.
Your offending
[4] You and Ms Corbett had a relationship for approximately 12 months. To use your term the relationship was “less than a full domestic relationship”. During the final stages of your relationship with Ms Corbett, you became convinced she was supplying information to various gangs about you. You became concerned that you were at risk of being killed because of the information which you believe Ms Corbett was supplying about you to gangs. You therefore decided to kill Ms Corbett.
[5] You contemplated murdering Ms Corbett over a number of days. Your planning included purchasing of equipment to assist with your crime. You purchased cable ties, rope, a large syringe and you crushed up a number of codeine tablets. You thought about a number of methods of killing Ms Corbett. Ultimately you decided that strangulation would be the most effective way of murdering her.
[6] On 6 March 2012 you drove to Nelson and stayed with Ms Corbett and her five year old daughter. On 8 March 2012 you returned to Nelson and persuaded Ms Corbett and her daughter to go with you to Murchison in your van. You appear to have spent the next four nights at a motel in Murchison with Ms Corbett and her daughter.
[7] On 12 March 2012 you drove Ms Corbett and her daughter to a remote bush road in the Spooners Range. You persuaded Ms Corbett that she should allow you to tie her up so as to feign an act of kidnapping. You securely tied her ankles and her wrists behind her back and then, with Ms Corbett’s young daughter still sitting in the front seat, but apparently unable to see what you were doing, you strangled Ms Corbett. Later that day you drove to the Nelson Police Station with Ms Corbett’s body still in the back of your vehicle. At the police station you fully admitted killing Ms Corbett.
Your personal circumstances
[8] You are now 44 years old.
[9] You have a number of convictions for dishonesty, driving offences, possession of an offensive weapon, threatening to kill or do grievous bodily harm and assaulting a female. The Crown accepts that there is nothing in your previous convictions that is sufficiently relevant to impact upon the sentence that I must impose today.
[10] Mr Wilson, a clinical psychologist, has concluded that you are not psychotic. By this he means that you are not suffering a disorder such as paranoid schizophrenia or psychosis associated with mania. However, you do appear to suffer a number of anxiety disorders and you may also suffer from pathological personality disorders.
[11] The pre-sentence report is particularly disturbing. It indicates that you have little true insight into your offending and that you are at high risk of reoffending.
The requirements for a 17 year minimum period of imprisonment
[12] Those who are convicted of murder are sentenced to life imprisonment unless a sentence of life imprisonment would be manifestly unjust. The minimum period of imprisonment for those sentenced to life imprisonment is ten years unless the case is one in which the law says the minimum period must be at least 17 years imprisonment. In those cases, the minimum period must be imposed unless it would
be manifestly unjust to do so.1
[13] Cases which attract a 17 year minimum period of imprisonment include those where:
(1) the murder involved calculated or lengthy planning; and
(2) the murder was committed with a high degree of brutality, cruelty, depravity or callousness.2
[14] In my assessment, these two factors were present in your case:
(1)The murder of Ms Corbett involved calculated and very deliberate planning. You formulated a plan to murder Ms Corbett, which involved alternative methods of carrying out the murder. Your planning included the purchases of items to be used when killing Ms Corbett, and your planning to murder her included the elaborate ruse of persuading her that you were feigning a kidnapping.
(2)Your murder of Ms Corbett also involved a high degree of callousness. There are two reasons why I have reached this conclusion:
(a) Your murder of Ms Corbett was “insensitive” and “unfeeling”,3
which are definitions of “callous” in the Oxford Dictionary. To that I would say that your murder was also chillingly unemotive.
1 Sentencing Act 2002, ss102-104.
2 Section 104.
3 Shorter Oxford Dictionary, definition of “callous”.
(b)The murder took place in close proximity to Ms Corbett’s five year old daughter who, at all times was in the van while you murdered her mother. Although Ms Corbett’s daughter was apparently unable to see your actions, she would have been able to hear the sounds that would inevitably have occurred in the back of the van.
[15] Considering these features and the sentences imposed in comparable cases,4 I start on the basis that a 17 year minimum period of imprisonment would be appropriate in this case.
Reductions to the starting point
(1) Your guilty plea
[16] I propose to give you a provisional discount of 18 months’ imprisonment because I believe in the circumstances of your case it is desirable to recognise and give some credit for your guilty plea, despite the strength of the Crown case against you and despite the delays which have occurred in you actually finally entering your guilty pleas. You did, however, go straight to the police after you committed the murder and indicated a willingness to plead guilty.
[17] In setting this level of discount for your guilty plea, I have borne in mind the policy that underpins the requirements of a 17 year minimum period of imprisonment for certain classes of murder.5
[18] In my assessment, the desirability of giving you some credit for your guilty plea and the purposes of the 17 year minimum period of imprisonment is best
addressed in your case by an 18 month provisional discount for your guilty plea.
4 R v Aporo HC Palmerston North CRI-2005-054-2872, 20 October 2006; Thurgood v R [2012] NZCA 23.
5 R v Williams [2005] 2 NZLR 506 (CA) at [72]-[73].
(2) Your personality disorders
[19] You do not have a psychotic illness. However, Mr Wilson’s report is particularly illuminating. He explains how you have characteristics of a number of anxiety disorders and that you possibly have pathological personality disorders.
[20] In your case, your personality disorder, and in particular your fixation on your belief that Ms Corbett was providing information about you to gangs and thereby putting your life at risk was a factor that contributed significantly to your offending.6
[21] I propose to recognise the contribution of your personality disorders to your offending by providing a further six month discount to reflect this factor.
Overall assessment
[22] Having reached a provisional sentence of 15 years’ imprisonment I must now determine if it would be manifestly unjust to impose the 17 year minimum period of imprisonment that I would otherwise be required to impose.
[23] In my assessment, because it is important to recognise your guilty plea, and your personality disorder, it would be manifestly unjust to impose a 17 year minimum period of imprisonment.
[24] A sentence of 15 years’ imprisonment is also entirely consistent with the sentence indications that Ronald Young J gave you on 11 April 2013 and 29 August
2013 and is the sentence which the Crown has urged me to impose upon you.
Impact of your offending on victims
[25] Before concluding my sentencing of you, I wish to acknowledge the horrendous impact that your offending has had on Ms Corbett’s parents, brother, and
her surviving daughters. You say you understand the impact of your actions on
6 See R v Skilling [2011] NZCA 462.
Ms Corbett’s family. I do hope that for the rest of your life you reflect on the impact that your offending has had upon their lives.
Conclusion
[26] Mr Beca, can you now please stand.
[27] I am sentencing you to life imprisonment with a minimum period of imprisonment of 15 years for the murder of Ms Corbett. You must serve at least
15 years’ imprisonment before you can be considered eligible for parole. It will be for the Parole Board to determine when you may eventually be released, if ever. Currently you are assessed as being at a high risk of reoffending. I am sure the Parole Board will be concerned about that and look for a significant change in the likelihood of you reoffending before you are considered for parole. If there is no change to the risk that you currently pose to reoffending you may find yourself spending much longer than 15 years in prison.
[28] Stand down.
Solicitors:
Crown Solicitor, Nelson
Wynn Williams Lawyers, Christchurch for Prisoner
D B Collins J