STATE OF TASMANIA v CHRISTOPHER BRODERICK 24 SEPTEMBER 2019
COMMENTS ON PASSING SENTENCE BRETT J
Mr Broderick, you have pleaded guilty to one count of wounding. You have also pleaded guilty to the summary offences of disorderly conduct, resisting police officers, using abusive language to police officers and threatening a police officer.
The crime and the offences were committed on 22 July 2017. On the previous evening at about 9 pm, you had gone to the complainant’s house with your stepson and his girlfriend. Your stepson and his girlfriend were friends with the complainant and his partner. It was a social visit, and you all consumed alcohol. This went on for some hours. At about 2.30 am, an argument started between the complainant and you. I infer that by this time, you were both intoxicated. The complainant invited you outside and told you that he intended to assault you. I am satisfied that this was no idle threat and that his intention was to initiate violence against you. You followed him outside, but I also accept that you had no intention to participate in violence. In your drunken state, you did not think he was serious about following through on his threat.
When you arrived outside, you realised that the complainant was indeed serious about his intention to fight you. You decided to leave and called your stepson outside to tell him that you wanted to go. At about this time, the complainant charged towards you, clearly intending to physically attack you. Your stepson stood in his way in an effort to protect you. However, the complainant told him to get out of the way and pushed past him and started to punch you. He is a bigger man than you. I am told that the difference in weight is approximately 20 kg. He punched you to the head a number of times. In self-defence, you struck him to the head with a beer stubby. You had carried the stubby outside with you, not with the intention of using it as a weapon, but simply because you were still drinking from it. I accept that your use of the stubby was a spontaneous act of self-defence. You were also concerned about and acting in defence of your stepson and his girlfriend. As the fight progressed, you struck the complainant with the stubby more than once. At some point, the stubby has smashed as it struck the complainant’s head, and the broken glass has caused a 3 cm wound to the left side of his scalp. Eventually, you removed yourself from the premises.
The summary offences, including those relating to the police, were committed by you after your return to the house about an hour later. It seems that you had, in your intoxicated state, returned with the intention of seeking retribution against the complainant. The police were in attendance because they had been called after the first incident. Your conduct was disorderly and, as a result, you were arrested by police. You committed the remaining offences at the police station. This included pulling your body away from police, referring to them in offensive terms and threatening to kill one of the police officers, if he did not let go of you.
The complainant’s wound was cleaned and sutured at hospital and was expected to heal completely. He has provided a victim impact statement. I treat the claimed impact with a considerable degree of circumspection, having regard to the fact that it was the complainant who initiated the violence and was clearly the aggressor until you gained the upper hand by striking him to the head with the stubby. He alleges ongoing physical consequences, but I have not been provided with any medical evidence to confirm these allegations.
I am satisfied that your actions were completely defensive, although your plea acknowledges, appropriately, in my view, that by using the stubby to strike the complainant in the head, you have used excessive force. It goes without saying that smashing a glass bottle over another person’s head is a dangerous and serious act. However, your culpability is significantly mitigated in the circumstances of this case. As I have already noted, you acted spontaneously and defensively, not only of yourself but also of your stepson and his girlfriend. You had little time for calm reflection. You had not intended to use the bottle as a weapon until you were attacked by the complainant and there was no element of premeditation with respect to your criminal conduct. The broken glass caused a modest wound but I am not satisfied that there have been any significant ongoing physical or psychological consequences.
The offences against the police are also serious. The police concerned were carrying out their duty on behalf of the community in difficult circumstances that were not of their making. Your conduct against them, particularly the threat made against the individual officer, was appalling. Police have a very difficult job to do and deserve the support of the courts in carrying out their duty.
You are 45 years of age. You have an extremely lengthy criminal history, which commenced when you were 12 years of age. You have had significant difficulties in your life. These include a serious and longstanding problem with the use of illicit drugs. This drug problem is reflected throughout your criminal history, in that much of that history consists of serious crimes of dishonesty, clearly related to your attempts to secure funds to purchase drugs. Having said this, your history of violent offending is relatively limited. You committed one count of common assault when you were 16 years of age, and a Criminal Code assault at the age of 27. That latter assault involved you joining in violence against a prison officer which had been initiated by another inmate. There is also one common assault conviction in 2016.
In 2011, you were made the subject of a drug treatment order. As I pointed out during the course of submissions, I was the magistrate who supervised that order for the majority of its life. You successfully completed the program associated with the order. My clear impression derived from supervising that order was that you were genuinely committed to reform and made a real effort to rehabilitate yourself. Those impressions were reflected in your successful completion of the order. Although you were drinking heavily at the time of committing this crime, and have also conceded the ongoing use of cannabis, this criminal conduct is not reflective of your underlying addiction to heavier drugs. You have instructed your counsel that you are still abstinent from those drugs. You have also written a letter in which you express your remorse for this crime and your commitment to leading a better life. You have some significant challenges at the present time. In particular, your daughter has serious health issues and is due to undergo surgery shortly. When I take into account all of the above factors, together with your plea of guilty, I accept what you have said about your commitment to reform. I do not think there is a significant need to emphasise personal deterrence in this sentence.
However, the dangerous and serious nature of the wounding, and the serious nature of the offences against the police, require denunciation and an emphasis on general deterrence. It must result in a sentence of imprisonment. However, when I take into account the mitigating aspects of the case, I am satisfied that it is appropriate to partially suspend the sentence. Suspension of the sentence will, in my view, encourage your ongoing rehabilitation.
Accordingly, you are convicted of the crime and the offences to which you have pleaded guilty and are sentenced to a global term of 10 months’ imprisonment, which will be backdated to 30 August 2019. The last six months of that sentence will be suspended for a period of 18 months from today on the condition that you are not to commit another offence punishable by imprisonment during that period.