STATE OF TASMANIA v NATALIE AIREY 2 AUGUST 2019
COMMENTS ON PASSING SENTENCE PEARCE J
Natalie Airey, you have pleaded guilty to wounding. The crime was committed on 15 February 2019 against your then partner Clinton Boag. You had been in a relationship for about five years and were travelling around Australia in a van. After arriving in Tasmania in November 2018 you were camping at the home of your sister and her husband in Smithton.
During that evening there had been some celebrations and you and Mr Boag were both heavily intoxicated. In the early hours of the morning you returned to your caravan and an argument about financial matters developed. He not only said hurtful things to you, but he pushed you onto a bench seat. When you got up he attempted to throw you onto the bed, causing you to strike your head on a bench as you fell. He went to leave and sleep somewhere else. As he did so you picked up a kitchen knife, approached him, warned him about manhandling you and, around his body as he faced you, you stabbed him to the rear of his left upper thigh. His leg immediately began to bleed heavily. You put down the knife and tried to assist him by putting a tea towel over the wound. With the assistance of your sister’s husband he got himself to hospital where he received treatment.
After he had gone you phoned the police and admitted what you had done. Mr Boag received a five centimetre laceration to his leg which required five stitches. He was discharged within an hour. His victim impact statement indicates that the wound caused him discomfort for about four to six weeks but appears to have resolved without complication other than some residual pain at the site of the scar.
You are 45. Your relationship with Mr Boag has now ended and he has returned to Queensland. You have worked for many years a chef and you intend to resume employment in September. You have no relevant prior convictions and you have pleaded guilty at a very early stage. You immediately attempted to help Mr Boag and co-operated with the police. This case gives rise to the sometimes difficult issue of the appropriate sentencing response to violence committed by women who have suffered family violence at the hands of men. The blow which you suffered when you fell was serious enough to cause a mild concussion. Mr Boag’s conduct in applying force to you was unacceptable and it should be strongly condemned. However, it was not suggested on your behalf that what Mr Boag did was part of a course of prolonged or repeated violence or abuse. As serious as his conduct was, the threat to you had passed and he was leaving. You were not acting in self-defence. What you did was to retaliate by stabbing him as a warning never to touch you again. It is plain that you intended to wound him, you were badly affected by alcohol and there was a risk that the consequences could have been far more serious. In the circumstances of this case, I think the appropriate course is to take a lenient approach while making it clear that resort to use of a knife to inflict serious unjustified violence cannot be condoned.
The crime of wounding generally requires a sentence of imprisonment. I have decided, taking into account everything I have already said, that such a sentence is required, but I will wholly suspend it and order community service.
Natalie Airey, you are convicted. The knife is forfeited to the State. I direct that the offence be recorded on your criminal record as a family violence offence. You are sentenced to imprisonment for five months. I wholly suspend that term for 18 months from today. It is a condition of that order that while it is in force you do not commit any offence punishable by imprisonment. If you breach that condition then a court must order that you serve that term unless it is unjust. In addition, I make a community corrections order for a period of 18 months from today. The core conditions of that order will be specified in the order you will be given and include that you not commit an offence punishable by imprisonment, that you report to and comply with the directions of a probation officer, that you must not leave Tasmania without permission and that you must notify of any change of address. I impose a special condition that you must, within the operational period of the order, satisfactorily perform 84 hours of community service, as directed by a probation officer or a supervisor. If you breach any of those conditions you may be brought back to court and re-sentenced.