R v Williams

[2017] NZHC 427

IN THE HIGH COURT OF NEW ZEALAND AUCKLAND REGISTRY

CRI-2016-044-4605 [2017] NZHC 427

THE QUEEN

v

STEPHEN ROGER WILLIAMS

Hearing:	14 March 2017
Appearances:	S McColgan and SP Farnell for Crown Defendant, self-represented
Sentence:	14 March 2017

SENTENCING NOTES OF TOOGOOD J

R v Williams [2017] NZHC 427 [14 March 2017]

[1]      Stephen Roger Williams, you appear for sentence having pleaded guilty to attempted murder.1  The maximum penalty for that is 14 years’ imprisonment.

[2]      When you last appeared you were warned that the Crown would ask the Court to sentence you to the indefinite sentence of preventive detention.   I have obtained psychiatric and psychological reports to assist me to decide whether such a sentence is appropriate.   I begin my consideration of that issue by setting out the background to your offending.

The offending

[3]      You are serving a sentence of life imprisonment at Auckland Prison, for murder. Your victim in the present offending, Mr Nikki Roper, was a fellow inmate.

[4]      On 11 December 2016, Mr Roper came to your cell to get some tattoos on his back.  You did the tattooing while he sat in a chair with his back to you.  At some point, you put down the tattoo gun and picked up a piece of a long florescent light tube that you had broken and hidden in your cell.  You stabbed it into Mr Roper’s neck so that shards of glass became lodged inside the wound.

[5]      You then put Mr Roper into a ‘choker hold’, pressuring the carotid artery in his neck with your arm.  He struggled against you, just making it outside the cell, where the CCTV camera captured the ongoing assault.

[6]      Mr Roper lost consciousness but you continued to attack him by stomping on his head.  You then picked up a broom and struck Mr Roper across the head so hard that the broom broke.  At this point, you stabbed Mr Roper in the back of the neck with the sharp end of the broken broom handle.

[7]      Mr Roper remained in an unresponsive state while you continued to attack him.  It was only the arrival of Corrections officers which ended your assault.  He was transported to Auckland Hospital in a serious condition, where he received

emergency surgery for  his  injures  which  were  severe  and  life  threatening.    He

1      Crimes Act 1961, s 173.

received two lacerations across the back of his head and neck.  One was 30 cm long, and required 34 staples.  The other required stitches.  You also fractured Mr Roper’s left-eye socket, and he received cuts and bruising to both of his hands, and a cut on his left shoulder.

[8]      The intervention of Corrections officers, Mr Roper's resilience and the expert work  of  medical  specialists  saved  your  victim’s  life.    That  was  a  remarkable outcome.  You were annoyed when you were told Mr Roper had survived.  When you  spoke  candidly to  the Police  about  your  attack,  you  said  you  did  not  like Mr Roper because you believed he had “narked” on you.  You admitted planning the assault for months, making it clear that you intended to kill Mr Roper, and you said you could not believe that he was still alive.   Indeed, you expressed regret and disappointment that he did not die.   The brutality of your attack and your callous indifference to Mr Roper’s injuries and their ongoing impact is chilling and disturbing.   The attack has left Mr Roper with physical and emotional scars. [REDACTED].

[9]      In  terms  of  the  aggravating  and  mitigating  factors  to  your  offending,  I

endorse the submissions which have been made on behalf of the Crown:

(a)      The level of violence was brutal and severe.2    You persisted in your attack even after Mr Roper lost consciousness.

(b)Your offending involved a high degree of premeditation.3    You have admitted planning Mr Roper’s murder over many months.  You built a false level of trust in him by tattooing him on earlier occasions.  And on the day of your attack, you removed, broke and hid the fluorescent tubes before inviting Mr Roper into your cell.

(c)      Your attack caused serious injuries.4    Your victim suffered life- threatening injuries and will be left with significant physical scarring.

2      Sentencing Act 2002, s 9(1)(a).

3      Section 9(1)(i).

4      Section 9(1)(d).

(d)You tried to kill Mr Roper using multiple weapons5 – the broken glass tubes, the broom, and the broken broom handle.

(e)      The layout and nature of the prison environment meant that  your victim was vulnerable when you attacked him.6   He was locked in the same landing as you, and Prison staff could enter the landing only when a sufficient number were present, for their own safety.   Until then, Mr Roper was completely at  your mercy.   For part of your attack, as I have said, he was also unconscious.

(f)      Given that you admit to being motivated by a belief that Mr Roper “narked” on you, I accept that your attack involved some degree of vigilantism and retribution.

(g)      I agree also that there are no mitigating features of your offending.

[10]     When these matters are viewed together, it is clear that your offending was very serious and that a stern response is required to reflect the need to hold you accountable for your actions.   In considering what finite sentence would be appropriate, I would adopt a starting point of 11-12 years’ imprisonment.7

Personal matters

[11]     You are 42 years old and you have a long history of offending, the most serious of which is that in September 2003 you murdered your 6-year-old step- daughter.     For  that  crime  you  were  sentenced  to  life  imprisonment,  with  a

requirement that you must serve at least 17 years.8

5      Section 9(1)(a).

6      Section 9(1)(g).

7      See R v Steeman CA105/03, 5 June 2003; R v Johansen HC Auckland CRI-2004-083-1849, 2

June  2005;  R v Vincent HC Auckland  CRI-2006-044-285, 2 April  2008;  R  v Shepherd  HC Auckland CRI-2007-044-9145, 19 October 2010. A cross-check of the offending with the bands set out in R v Taueki [2005] 3 NZLR 372 (CA), would place it within band three, which would indicate a starting point of between nine and 14 years’ imprisonment.

8      R v Williams [2005] 2 NZLR 506 (CA).

[12]     In 2014, you were sentenced to five years and eight months’ imprisonment for wounding another fellow inmate with intent to cause him grievous bodily harm; you stabbed him in the neck with a sharpened toothbrush.9    In that case also, you expressed disappointment that your victim did not die. You may have been fortunate not to be convicted of attempted murder on that occasion.

[13]     A study of your childhood reveals the unsurprising information that you were frequently exposed to violence and substance abuse in your home environment.  You started using alcohol around the age of 10, and cannabis when you were 12.  In your teenage years, you became involved with biker gangs and white supremacist groups. This embedded you into a life of crime, which later escalated from vehicle thefts and serious assaults.

[14]     You have a history of substance abuse, for which you have never received proper treatment.   A methamphetamine binge featured prominently in the terrible killing of your step-daughter.  Your use of methamphetamine has severely impaired your ability to maintain relationships; it has alienated those close to you, and I do not doubt that it has contributed to an escalation in your violent behaviour.

[15]     You have two children.  At one point you were motivated to seek parole so you could spend time with them, but you no longer want to be released.  You have become, it seems, completely institutionalised and you say you do not wish ever to have a life outside prison.  The pre-sentence report reflects that in saying that you have a low motivation to attend rehabilitation programmes.   Violence has become the norm for you, and you lack any consideration for the consequences of your actions, either on others or for yourself.  In your interview with the probation officer, you took some delight in describing yourself as “The Smiling Assassin”, meaning that your future victims would not be aware of your intent to harm them until it

happens.

9      Crimes Act, s 188(1); maximum penalty, 14 years’ imprisonment (wounding with intent to cause

grievous bodily harm).

[16]     It is unsurprising that the writer of your pre-sentence report assesses you as presenting a very high risk of reoffending.  Similarly, your risk of harm to others is assessed as very high.

[17]     In terms of personal aggravating factors, I accept the Crown’s submission that a two-year uplift to your starting point is required to reflect your 96 previous convictions, 16 of which are for violent offending;10  as well as the fact that you

offended while in prison.11    That would take the sentence to one of 13-14 years’

imprisonment before personal mitigating factors are considered.  You are not in the least remorseful, but your early guilty plea means that you should receive a full

25 per cent discount.

[18]     That would bring the finite sentence, if one was imposed, to around 9½ to

10½ years’ imprisonment,12  and a minimum period of imprisonment of two-thirds would be appropriate.

[19]     But  I turn now to consider whether an indefinite sentence of preventive detention is appropriate.

Preventive detention

[20]     Before I can sentence you to preventive detention, I must be satisfied that you would  likely  commit  another  “qualifying  violent  offence”  once  you  would  be released from prison at the end of a finite sentence.13   Two qualified health assessors have provided reports to help me with this task.  Their opinion is the same as that of the probation officer, that you represent a high risk of committing further serious violent offences.   The Sentencing Act 2002 requires me to take into account five particular factors as part of my assessment, and I have considered them in light of

the health assessors’ reports:14

10     Section 9(1)(j).

11     Section 9(1)(c).

12     Hessell v R [2010] NZSC 135, [2011] 1 NZLR 607.

13     Section 87(2). The other two factors are not contention: Mr Williams is over 18 years of age, and he has committed a qualifying violent offence (attempted murder).

14     Section 87(4).

(a)      The first factor is whether a pattern of serious offending is disclosed by your offending history.  That factor clearly is easily satisfied.  You have 16  violence-related  convictions  for  violent  offending.    Since your  imprisonment  for  murder,  you  have  continued  to  engage  in violent offending, including the attack on the inmate in 2014.

(b)The  second  factor  is  the  seriousness  of  the  harm  your  offending caused to the community.   Acts of serious violence done with murderous intent are undoubtedly harmful to New Zealand’s social fabric.   Your attacks also undermine the disciplined and safe environment in which New Zealand prisoners should be expected to live.  Further, I have no doubt that your offending was traumatic for Mr Roper.

(c)      The third factor for me to consider is whether there is information indicating a tendency to commit serious offences in the future.  You have made it clear that you intend to act violently and even, if you can, to kill in the future.   Even putting aside those statements and those threats to kill, it seems to me that you are a very disturbed individual.  You continue to justify your recent attacks, and the tests conducted by the health assessors resulted inevitably in the conclusion that your risk of reoffending violently is high.

(d)Fourth, I am required to consider the absence or failure of your efforts to address the causes of your offending.   You have received little treatment since you were imprisoned in 2003.  That may be because you say you do not want to leave the prison environment.  In part that is because you say you are fearful of what you would do to others if released from the constraints of prison.   You have been unable to persevere   with   counselling   for   post-traumatic   stress   disorder following the murder of your step-daughter.  I accept that you feel a considerable level of guilt for that offending, and that you have a desire to punish yourself by remaining in prison for the rest of your life.    You  very  recently  expressed  some  motivation  to  engage  in

treatment.  But unless and until you start putting intensive effort into that, you will remain in a very dark place of self-loathing.

(e)      Last, I must consider the principle that a lengthy determinate sentence is  considered  preferable  if  this  provides  adequate  protection  for society.   The threat  of  further imprisonment  for violent  offending obviously imposes  no  deterrent  in  your case.    It  is  clear that  the community cannot afford the risk of your being released so long as you remain in that present troubled state of mind.  You have told your health assessors that your intention is to kill again so that you will be sentenced to life imprisonment without parole.   I have to tell you, Mr Williams, you do not need to do that to achieve your objective of remaining incarcerated.  The sentence of preventive detention which I find must be imposed means that you will never be released until you are no longer a threat to community safety.

[21]     I am required to impose a minimum period of imprisonment,15  and I agree with the Crown that a minimum period of 10 years is necessary.  I emphasise that that does not mean that you are likely to be released after 10 years.

Sentence

[22]     Would you please stand, Mr Williams.

[23]     On the charge of attempted murder, I sentence you to preventive detention.

You are to serve a minimum term of 10 years’ imprisonment.

[24]     Please stand down.

.................................................

Toogood J

15 Section 89(1).