R v Samson
[2021] NZHC 2636
•30 September 2021
IN THE HIGH COURT OF NEW ZEALAND INVERCARGILL REGISTRY
I TE KŌTI MATUA O AOTEAROA WAIHŌPAI ROHE
CRI-2020-425-000037
[2021] NZHC 2636
THE QUEEN v
PATRICIA ELIZABETH SAMSON
Hearing: 30 September 2021 Appearances:
R W Donnelly and M B Brownlie for the Crown D G Slater for the Defendant
Date:
30 September 2021
SENTENCING REMARKS OF NATION J
[1] Mrs Samson, the jury found you guilty of attempting to defeat the course of justice by discarding possible evidence against Samuel Samson, namely numerous items of property, including a knife, taken from a motel unit. And obviously, you must now be sentenced for that offence.
[2] I begin by acknowledging all those who are present in Court for this sentencing. For the family and friends of Azalia Wilson, this is the end of what must have been an arduous and harrowing Court process for you. And, as did the Crown Solicitor, I acknowledge the dignified way in which you have conducted yourselves throughout these proceedings. In doing so, you have shown respect for Azalia Wilson. I acknowledge the immeasurable extent of your loss but also the feelings you naturally have as to the way Mrs Samson has been found guilty of assisting her son in an attempt
R v SAMSON [2021] NZHC 2636 [30 September 2021]
to prevent the Police obtaining what could have been and what was evidence relevant to the murder of a daughter, a sister and the mother of the young baby you are now caring for.
[3] I also acknowledge the presence of members of Mrs Samson’s family who are here to show their support for you. You also have been affected by this tragedy and your involvement in what happened after Azalia was brutally battered by Mrs Samson’s son and a brother.
[4] You need to understand that before today I have received detailed written submissions from Mr Donnelly for the Crown and from Mr Slater for you Mrs Samson. I have read and now listened to the victim impact statements. I have read the pre- sentence report and the numerous references that were provided for you Mrs Samson. I have been referred to and have read and considered a number of other cases which counsel have suggested are an indication of the sort of sentence that might be appropriate for your offending.
[5] I need to begin by briefly summarising the nature of your offending and the circumstances in which it occurred.
[6] On the night of 16/17 November 2019, Samuel Samson and Azalia Wilson were to be at the Bavarian Motel with their baby daughter in their care. Samuel Samson went out on the Saturday evening to socialise with friends. He returned to the motel briefly during the evening but went out again. He went back to the motel at around 1.42 am.
[7] From evidence given at Samuel Samson’s trial, I know that, through Facebook Messenger, he had shown someone else an image taken in his presence of Azalia’s battered body at around 2.30 am. In that image, she was so badly battered around the head as to be unrecognisable. There was no evidence at your trial as to that matter. There was and can be no suggestion, because of that, that you knew of that communication before you went to the motel.
[8] At about 2.43 am, Samuel Samson phoned you and asked you to come to the motel. Your evidence was that you understood he needed you to look after the baby because he and Azalia were going to Nightcaps. You drove to the motel, supposedly to collect the baby. You said in evidence you went only to the door of the motel and could not see through to the bedroom where Azalia must have been lying severely battered and bleeding on a bed. During that time, Samuel Samson brought the baby out to the car and loaded numerous items from the motel into it. These included a garment that Azalia Wilson had been wearing that day, the baby’s bassinette and other items from the motel including items that could have had fingerprints or blood on them. Amongst the items was a knife from the motel which I accept would have been used when Azalia was wounded in the attack on her.
[9] You arrived in your vehicle at the motel at about 3.07 am. Your vehicle moved away from where it had been first parked outside the motel at 3.24 am. You ended up driving with Samuel Samson in your vehicle to Fosbender Park near the Oreti River. You say you remained in the vehicle while items were removed from the back of the vehicle, just long enough for Samuel Samson to take the items out. You then drove away from that area, leaving Samuel Samson there. At some point after that, items which had been taken out of your vehicle, including the knife, were discarded around or into the Oreti River. Your vehicle was at the intersection of Clyde and Tweed Streets, a short distance from Fosbender Park, at 4.03 am.
[10] I sentence you on the basis that you were not involved in taking the items from where they had been first deposited at Fosbender Park and putting them in the river or further away from where they had been initially left in Fosbender Park. You had however assisted Mr Samson in attempting to conceal these items from the Police through driving away from the motel with those items in your vehicle and waiting at Fosbender Park while he took them out of the vehicle.
[11] You turned your cell phone off shortly after you left the motel and turned it on again after you got closer to the city after leaving Fosbender Park. Given all the evidence I heard in your trial, the inference I drew was that you did this to make it more difficult for the Police to potentially track the movements of your vehicle while
it was travelling to Fosbender Park where your son was wanting to dispose of items removed from the motel.
[12] Samuel Samson then left that area, obviously with the assistance from others. He was able to use someone else’s car taken from an address in Invercargill during the early hours of Sunday morning. Another in your family, Daniel Samson, pleaded guilty to a charge of being an accessory after the fact to murder through facilitating Samuel Samson’s use of a vehicle to flee Invercargill to avoid arrest.
[13] On the Sunday, Samuel Samson drove to Christchurch. He returned to Southland that night and arranged with a friend to stay the night at an address near Wairio. Mr Samson however left that address during that night and ended up driving to an area nearer to Tuatapere on the Monday night. There his vehicle ran out of petrol. You and your daughter drove to where he was, collected him and brought him back to a motel in Invercargill in the early hours of Tuesday morning where you were all staying. On the Tuesday morning, Samuel Samson went to the Invercargill Police Station, gave himself up and was arrested.
[14] The Police went to the motel around 11.00 am on the Sunday, found Azalia’s battered body and confirmed she had been killed.
[15] In your evidence you said that at Fosbender Park you had been feeling shitty and just wanted to go home. After leaving Fosbender Park, you did drive to your home but were there only briefly. On returning to your home, you found the Police had been there. You then left your home, met with other members of your family at a cemetery, a place you all went to meet in emergencies. Your son Daniel was with you. You dropped him off at a place which you described as “the bro’s place”.
[16] In your evidence at trial, you denied knowing anything of what Samuel Samson had done to Azalia Wilson at the time you drove him to Fosbender Park. There was evidence from a witness that you subsequently told that witness that Samuel Samson told you while you were driving to Fosbender Park that he had killed Azalia Wilson. The jury obviously accepted this evidence, as do I. In evidence, you said you had no memory of telling her that.
[17] The father of the mother of another of Samuel Samson’s children gave evidence that you went to his address on the Sunday morning at around 6.00 am. He said he had been asleep when he heard a knock at the door. He gave evidence of a brief conversation he had with you in which he said you had asked him to look after the grandchild and to make sure she did not see social media, and you told him you thought Samuel might have killed his girlfriend. In your evidence, you denied even having any conversation with that witness at that time. I accept he was telling the truth.
[18] Mr Slater has submitted that your involvement in attempting to defeat the course of justice should be seen as limited to the time between when you were told by Samuel while travelling to Fosbender Park that he had killed Azalia Wilson to the time you arrived at Fosbender Park, a time less than 33 minutes.
[19] I do not accept that submission. There was no evidence to prove you went into the motel to a point where you would have seen Azalia Wilson’s body but, at the very least, at the doorway you would have seen the unruly state of the motel lounge area, suggestive that some sort of struggle could have occurred there. You must have been aware, at least in a general sense, of the number of items that were being taken from the motel.
[20] In your evidence, you claimed there was nothing unusual in being asked to take a grandchild into your care in the circumstances that applied here in the early hours of the morning.
[21] I am satisfied that, when you went to the motel and waited while your son put items in the car and then assisted him in driving him away from the scene, you must have known he would potentially be in serious trouble with the Police and needed to get away from the motel and deal with the situation with your assistance. You would have known he was putting items from the motel into your vehicle with that in mind.
[22] In your evidence you said your son was in a state of angst when you met up with him at the motel. You told the probation officer that, at the time he got into your vehicle with you, he was agitated. I am quite sure that, at the time you were at the
motel, if not earlier, after speaking to Samuel Samson on the phone, you knew he was agitated and needed your help in a predicament he was facing. If you did not ask why, it could only have been because you suspected he was potentially in serious trouble and you did not want to know the details of what he had done.
[23] A number of references provided in your support refer to the love and support you have demonstrated for members of your family, including grandchildren. One of the references described you as the perfect mother-in-law. As such a person, it could have been expected you would want to see the baby’s mother at the time you picked the baby up in the early hours of the morning. If you had been expecting your son and her to be travelling to Nightcaps, you would have asked where she was and why that was not happening. It was your evidence, consistent with a reference provided by your daughter, that you have learnt that, with Samuel Samson, you do not ask questions. If that was why you did not try to find out what had happened at the motel when you were asked to collect the baby at such a time of the morning and to take her away from her mother, then it must have been because you were deliberately trying not to find out what had happened. If that was so, it must have been because, with what you knew of Samuel Samson, it was likely he had been seriously violent to Azalia.
[24] I sentence you on the basis that you went to the motel intending to assist your son to avoid arrest by the Police and, as it turned out, to assist him in disposing of potentially evidential material that was put in your vehicle. That material did include items of considerable evidential importance. The knife was of that nature.
[25] The evidence is not sufficient for me to find you knew that item in particular was being taken from the motel but I am satisfied that, in assisting with the transport of those items to Fosbender Park and allowing Mr Samson to take items from the vehicle which he had taken from the motel, you must have known his only reason for doing that could have been to try to keep from the Police material which could have been of evidential value.
[26] I am first required to assess your culpability with the offending you have been found guilty of.
[27] In this case, the Police were ultimately able to recover various items removed from the motel, including the knife which they had located through a Police officer feeling with his feet what was beneath the water at that point of the river. On that knife, there could well have been forensic evidence connecting that knife with the wounding of Azalia Wilson. There were other items from the motel on which there could have been fingerprints or other potential forensic evidence. There was a sports- type singlet which Azalia Wilson had been wearing at some point on the Saturday when she was photographed.
[28] I do however have regard to the fact the Police did recover much of this evidence including the knife. I also have regard to the fact it was not established you knew precisely what had been taken from the motel, as Mr Donnelly in his submissions accepted. Your actions, nevertheless, had the potential to deprive the Police of that evidence.
[29] Your evidence that you did not know Samuel Samson was attempting to dispose of evidence at Fosbender Park was obviously not accepted by the jury. It is hard to see how it could have been. What other explanation could there have been for Mr Samson taking from your vehicle at Fosbender Park items he had taken from the motel, including a bassinette, when your explanation for your involvement was that you had gone to the motel to collect the baby so she could be in your care.
[30] I also accept the Crown submission that, in assisting your son as you did, you were not involved in a fleeting attempt to undermine the Police investigation and subsequent prosecution. The assistance you provided was consistent with what I consider was the evidence as to your assisting Samuel Samson to flee the scene of the crime and to actively conceal from the Police what you knew of his movements in the days immediately afterwards when it was known the Police were looking for him.
[31] Despite what you, at the very least, must have strongly suspected as to what might have happened to Azalia Wilson at the motel and what the evidence established you definitely knew while you were in the vehicle, you did nothing to obtain help for Azalia Wilson or to advise the Police of what you knew of Mr Samson’s movements after he had left the motel. When you knew Azalia Wilson had been killed and the
Police were looking for your son, you told them nothing about where you had been with him after leaving the motel or of the items from the motel which you knew had been left at Fosbender Park near the river.
[32] One of the most fulsome references for you was provided by a person who said she had known you for more than 30 years. In her reference she said, in all the time she had known you, you had never condoned morally wrong or illegal behaviour and you would be the first to phone the Police if you suspected criminal activity in the community. Her assessment of your character has to be treated with scepticism given what the evidence at trial established as to your involvement with Samuel on the night Azalia was killed and in the days immediately afterwards. Another referee referred to you having been brutally honest in all your interactions with her over an association of 14 years. That was not how you acted in the days immediately after you had driven away from the motel.
[33] In assisting your son to initially evade the Police, you were not honest in all your dealings with others. There was particular dishonesty in the text message you sent to him around 12.00 noon on the Sunday, as if you expected him and Azalia to be soon coming to collect the baby and knew nothing then of her death.
[34] There is no guideline sentence from the Court of Appeal as to the appropriate starting point for an offence of this nature. Each case must depend on its own facts. The Crown has referred to me a number of cases they consider are relevant to different degrees in trying to achieve consistency in sentencing.1 Those cases will be listed in my sentencing remarks. Mr Slater has carefully referred to a number of other cases which I will also list.2
[35] The starting point I adopt for the sentencing has to reflect, in particular, the purposes of denouncing the conduct in which you were involved and deterring others from committing the same or similar offences. In Thomas v R, the Court of Appeal said that, when setting the starting point, “the real focus in each case must be on the
1 Clarke v R [2011] NZCA 336; R v Granich [2013] NZHC 2657; Pokai v R [2014] NZCA 356; and
R v Comer [2017] NZHC 3243.
2 Hamiora v Police [2013] NZHC 98; R v Boskell [2015] NZHC 286; R v McKenzie HC Christchurch CRI-2005-009-6159, 10 March 2006; and R v Afamasaga [2014] NZHC 2142.
intention behind the attempt and on its potential effect. Deterrence and denunciation are the overriding principles.”3
[36] I must take into account the gravity of the offending. Of particular importance are the degree of your culpability, the desirability of achieving consistency with appropriate sentencing levels and sentences imposed on similar offenders in similar circumstances, and the imposition of the least restrictive outcome that is appropriate in the circumstances, in accordance with the hierarchy of sentences and orders set out in s 10A of the Sentencing Act 2002.
[37] The Crown, in written submissions, suggested the starting point adopted for attempts to defeat justice following homicides fall generally within the region of 15 months to more than two years. The Crown submitted, with reference today to the starting point that was adopted in dealing with Daniel Samson, that an appropriate end sentence would be in the region of two years’ imprisonment.
[38] Your counsel suggests that an appropriate starting point should be no more than 10 months’ imprisonment and the ultimate sentence should be one of home detention.
[39] The Crown submitted the case most similar to your situation was R v Granich.4 There, the offender had taken shoes worn by one of the group involved in an alleged murder to a neighbouring property and thrown them away. The sentencing Judge adopted a starting point for the sentence of 15 months’ imprisonment, noting that deterrent sentences were normally required in such circumstances, that this was especially serious because, in that case, Mr Granich had been an accessory after the fact to an alleged murder, and that he had helped one of those charged with murder to hide potential relevant forensic evidence. It was however significant to the Judge that, when approached by the Police about the matter, the offender was remorseful and took the Police to where the items had been disposed of. Such a feature was not present in your case but I note also, in your case, there is no evidence that you knew precisely what items had been taken from the motel or that you knew those items included the knife.
3 Thomas v R [2020] NZCA 257.
4 R v Granich, above n 1.
[40] Mr Slater referred to the starting point of 10 months’ imprisonment adopted in R v Boskell for the offender McCormack, emphasising the sentencing Judge’s description of the level of assistance provided in that case as being comparatively limited and its duration short-lived, although enabling the principal offenders, to some extent, to evade Police capture for a period sufficient to assist them in the destruction and discarding of a significant amount of incriminating evidence.5
[41] Mr Slater also referred to R v Afamasaga, where another offender, Mr Edgar Laloni, was sentenced as an accessory after the fact on the basis he had driven the offender, who was guilty of murder, away from the murder scene.6 The sentencing Judge however accepted that, on the basis of the jury’s verdict, Mr Laloni had likely not been told of the shooting which had occurred until he was in the car, that he had arranged to drive the other offender away from the scene before he knew there had been a death or of what had happened during the incident which had resulted in the victim’s death.7 There was nothing in the Judge’s sentencing remarks to suggest Mr Laloni should have known before driving the offender away from the scene that there could have been a homicide.
[42] Your son, Daniel Samson, pleaded guilty to a charge of being an accessory after the fact to a murder. He admitted that, knowing Samuel Samson had been a party to the murder of Azalia Wilson, he assisted Samuel Samson by facilitating the use of a vehicle for him to flee Invercargill in order to avoid arrest, and he also assisted Samuel by purchasing various items for him in order to enable him to avoid arrest over a two day period beginning on the day of the murder. The maximum sentence for being an accessory after the fact to a charge of murder is the same as the potential penalty for the offence you face. Sentences imposed for such an offence are often considered relevant in arriving at an appropriate starting point for the offence of attempting to defeat the course of justice, the charge you faced.8 The starting point for Daniel Samson’s sentence was 16 months’ imprisonment. With his offending, there was less potential for his actions to ultimately impact on the Police investigation and
5 R v Boskell, above n 2, at [104].
6 R v Afamasaga, above n 2.
7 At [70].
8 R v Daikee [2006] HC Christchurch CRI-2005-009-11878, 27 July 2006 at [12]; R v Scanlon
[2018] NZHC 3376 at [8]; and R v Green [2019] NZHC 1481 at [16].
the evidence that might be available at the trial of Samuel Samson. Your involvement with Samuel Samson on the night Azalia Wilson was killed did have that potential.
[43] I note that it was only with your evidence at trial as to your having driven Samuel Samson away from the scene of the murder that the Police had clear evidence you had assisted him to evade the Police in that way. You are to be sentenced only for the offence of attempting to defeat the course of justice. Nevertheless, the assistance you provided to Samuel Samson after you knew of the offence he had committed, in assisting him to flee the scene and, as I found, with the evidence as to all your movements on the morning after you had left Fosbender Park and in the days immediately afterwards, the assistance you provided in allowing him to evade the Police over that time, that evidence is relevant in assessing your culpability and arriving at an appropriate starting point for the charge on which you were convicted.
[44] I have taken account of what might be considered aggravating features of the offending in assessing your culpability as to the offence and the seriousness of that offence.
[45]The starting point sentencing I adopt for you is 14 months’ imprisonment.
[46] I must then consider any aggravating or mitigating features relating to you personally.
[47] Your counsel suggests I should treat as a mitigating feature of the offending the way in which, in conducting the defence, you took steps to shorten the Court proceedings through agreeing to admissions of facts, obviating the need for a number of witnesses to be called and agreed to a number of witnesses reading their evidence at the trial rather than it being given through them having to appear in Court in person. There was a degree of cooperation in this regard but this trial was necessary because you denied being criminally involved in the way you were charged with and gave a detailed narrative which, in its essence, was clearly rejected by the jury. You obviously cannot receive the discount your son Daniel did through the way he acknowledged what he had done with his guilty pleas. The fact you went to trial on the charge you faced, as you were entitled to do, is not to be treated as an aggravating matter but
neither is the way there was some cooperation over the way the trial was conducted to be treated as a mitigating matter for which you should be given credit.
[48] Mr Slater suggested you should be given some credit for the fact that, together with your daughter, you encouraged Mr Samson to surrender to the Police on the Tuesday morning. I acknowledge you did that, but, perhaps fortunately for you, you were not charged with being an accessory after the fact through assisting him to evade the Police after the homicide. What you did on the Tuesday morning does not reduce the seriousness of what you did in assisting Samuel Samson in his attempt to dispose of potential evidence against him. As I have already referred to, you never told the Police that items from the motel, potentially relevant as evidence, had been left at Fosbender Park on the morning Azalia Wilson was killed.
[49] As to any aggravating or mitigating features relating to you personally, it is not suggested that you should receive a credit for previous good character. You do have convictions for offences of dishonesty but they relate to offending in 1988 and 1995, so they can be considered historic. Although you are not seeking a credit on account of previous good character, I acknowledge the way in which your ability to care for others and show empathy for the predicaments they face has been recognised in numerous references provided by people you have cared for or worked with over recent years, particularly when you were working in an aged care facility. You cannot be given any credit for remorse given your decision to take the matter to trial.
[50] In the pre-sentence report, the probation officer says you told him that you maintain your innocence. You told the probation officer that Samuel had asked you to come to the motel to collect your granddaughter. You told him “when I got there he threw some stuff in the car and he said he was going to stay [at the motel]. I went into the room.” That was not the account you gave at trial. At your trial, it was your evidence that you understood that, when asked to come and collect the baby, Samuel Samson and Azalia Wilson were both going to Nightcaps. You told the probation officer you had seen nothing to give you the impression that your son had committed a violent act but at the same time said, when you were about to leave, Samuel Samson jumped into the car, told you to drive, that he was agitated and you had learnt in such circumstances that you did not ask any questions about what had happened.
[51] You have been on bail with some restrictive conditions for some 18 months. You were on a 24-hour curfew from 24 March 2020 until 6 April 2020 but were then on a curfew from 9.00 pm to 7.00 am daily.
[52] I am acknowledging the particular way in which you have helped others who have been in your care and the restrictions you faced while on bail awaiting trial in the sentence I am going to impose. At this point, the starting point sentence is one of 14 months’ imprisonment.
[53] Probation suggested the ultimate end sentence should be one of home detention and said you would be able to serve such a sentence at your home. Probation have advised the Court that both you and your residence are suitable for home detention. The Court of Appeal has stated that home detention is a sentence that carries a considerable measure of denunciation and deterrence and that it can supplant a short term of imprisonment.9
[54] The Crown accepts that a sentence of home detention is punitive and can potentially be sufficient for deterrent purposes, but have clearly and strongly in their submissions before me submitted that the nature of your involvement in what you did and the seriousness of this sort of offence requires, for deterrence and punitive purposes, to be recognised through a sentence of actual imprisonment.
[55] There have been cases where appropriate sentences of imprisonment for attempting to defeat the course of justice or for being an accessory after the fact to murder have been commuted to a sentence of home detention or other community- based sentences.10
[56] One of those cases concerned the defendant McCormack in R v Boskell which I have already referred to.11 Gendall J there considered that the issue of whether she should receive a sentence of home detention was finely balanced, even when, in that
9 R v Iosefa [2008] NZCA 453 at [41]; Fairbrother v R [2013] NZCA 340 at [29]-[30].
10 For example Clark v R, above n 1; R v Boskell, above n 2; as to Mr Comer Junior in R v Comer, above n 1; R v Vaux-Phillips [2012] NZHC 1119; R v Cullen HC Tauranga CRI-2008-070-2188, 23 April 2008; and R v Moala HC Auckland CRI-2006-092-461, 12 December 2007.
11 R v Boskell, above n 2.
situation, he held her involvement in assisting other offenders to flee from the scene of a murder and thereby to dispose of evidence had been brief, she had accepted responsibility for what she had done, was remorseful and was youthful.12 Not all those features are present in your situation.
[57] In R v Comer, Paul Davison J arrived at an end sentence for Mr Comer of 21 months’ imprisonment, including taking into account a starting point sentence of 15 months’ imprisonment on an accessory after the fact to a murder charge where Mr Comer had actually disposed of and destroyed items of evidence relevant to a murder charge.13 And, in my sentencing remarks as recorded I will refer to what Paul Davison J said about the seriousness of that sort of offence:14
The active destruction of evidence and the provision of knowingly [providing] false information to the Police are activities which strike at the heart of our system of criminal justice, and those responsible for offending in that way can only expect to face stern penalties which are intended to denounce the offending, hold you accountable, and operate as a clear deterrent to both you and any other persons in the community otherwise minded to engage in that sort of conduct.
[58] I however have to sentence you on the basis you did not know the knife was one of the items that had been removed from the motel at the time you went to Fosbender Park or that you were actually involved in throwing it into the river.
[59] An offender’s denial of culpability and the absence of remorse can be strong factors pointing against home detention. To the probation officer, you did still maintain your innocence.
[60]For you and for the Court, the matter is finely balanced.
[61] In his closing address for the Crown, Mr Donnelly identified ways in which, in attempting to help your son in the days after Azalia Wilson was killed, you were dishonest in your communications, even with people you were closely associated with. He referred to the way you had encouraged Samuel Samson to try and conceal the vehicle he had been driving when he was travelling near Tuatapere on the Monday
12 At [100]-[116].
13 R v Comer, above n 1.
14 At [64].
night. The evidence at trial established you had done nothing to obtain help for the mother of your grandchild, even after you knew she had been killed. You did nothing to assist the Police with their enquiries or to locate Samuel Samson when you knew they were looking for him until the Tuesday morning.
[62] A jury has clearly found you were dishonest as to essential aspects of the evidence which you gave at your trial. In these circumstances, and particularly with regard to what was said about you in the references that were provided in your support, a conviction for the charge of which you have been found guilty is, in itself, a significant penalty. It will affect the reputation which you have in your community.
[63] Through facing that charge, you were unable to continue in the employment which, it would seem, you had previously been held in high regard. For significant periods, you have been under bail constraints and a curfew. The pre-sentence report informs me that you do have some significant health problems.
[64] The victims of your son’s offending might understandably see anything short of a sentence of imprisonment as being inadequate to recognise the callousness of the way you acted in assisting Samuel Samson, as the jury found you did, in attempting to dispose of potential evidence.
[65] However, by a fine margin, in the particular circumstances of the case, it is appropriate to commute your sentence to one of home detention. In the particular circumstances of this case, as with the case of Ms McCormack in R v Boskell, it would not be appropriate to fix the term of home detention at simply half of what would otherwise have been an appropriate sentence of imprisonment.15
[66]The appropriate sentence for you is one of nine months’ home detention.
[67] Mrs Samson, please stand. On the charge on which you are convicted, you are sentenced to home detention for a period of nine months, that sentence to be served at your residence. That sentence is imposed with the standard conditions and the further special conditions referred to in the pre-sentence report. You are to travel directly to
15 R v Boskell, above n 2.
that address and await the arrival of a field officer. You are to reside at that address and not move to any new residential address without the prior written approval of a probation officer.
[68]You can now stand down in custody for the time being.
Solicitors:
Crown Solicitor, Invercargill
David Slater, Barrister, Invercargill. Preston Russell Law, Invercargill.
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