STATE OF TASMANIA v MICHAEL JOHN COWIE 18 OCTOBER 2021
COMMENTS ON PASSING SENTENCE PEARCE J
Michael, Cowie, you plead guilty to aggravated armed robbery. I am also to sentence you for the summary offences of motor vehicle stealing and driving while disqualified. At about 4.15 on Sunday 20 September 2020 the victim, a 19 year old female, was working in a juice bar located just off Park Street in Launceston. She was in the shop alone and was preparing to close. You walked in and asked for a piece of paper and a pen. Then, as the victim moved between a display cabinet and the wall you lunged at her and grabbed her. You punched her in the face. You stabbed her in the face with something sharp, either scissors you picked up from the counter or a knife later found in your possession. You struck her in other ways. She screamed and struggled but you overpowered her. You threatened to kill her. You threw her in the store room where she was out of the sight of anyone in or outside the shop. She has no clear memory of all of the violence you inflicted. She remembers times of reduced consciousness. However the nature and extent of the attack is revealed by the serious and extensive injuries she suffered to which I will refer in a moment. With her in the storeroom you levered open the till and stole $150 in cash, an IPad and her car keys. You used the keys to open her car which, was parked on the street, and you then drove away.
After committing the robbery you drove the victim’s car to the University car park. You were identified from CCTV and arrested the following day, 21 September 2020. When interviewed you claimed no memory of the crime. You have been in custody since then.
Only after you left did the victim manage to get herself out of the storeroom into shop where her screaming drew the attention of members of the public. She had been very badly assaulted. She was taken to hospital in Launceston by ambulance. Her left lower jaw was broken with the result that her teeth were misaligned and she could not close them together. She had nasal fractures. Her face was badly bruised and swollen, particularly seriously on and around her left eye. She had bruising around her neck. There were deep lacerations to her left cheek and right ear and other lacerations on her face. The hospital notes report bruises and contusions all over her body. She remained an inpatient in Launceston for four days. When she continued to display symptoms of head injury, more medical investigations revealed that she had suffered a left side skull fracture and haematoma on both the left and right sides of the skull. There was also a haematoma inside her skull on the left side at the back. For those reasons she was, on 24 September 2020, transferred to the Royal Hobart Hospital into the care of a neurosurgeon. She spent a night in intensive care and almost a week in the neurosurgical high dependency unit. She was ultimately not discharged from hospital until 12 October 2020, more than three weeks after the attack.
When first admitted to hospital in Launceston the victim required immediate surgery by plastic surgeons to repair the lacerations to her nose and right cheek, the large and deep parallel wounds on the left corner of her mouth and around her ear. Later she required separate surgery in Hobart by an oral surgeon to repair the jaw fracture. Two of her teeth were removed. She was referred to an ophthalmologist to follow up the injuries to her left eye. Fortunately, her doctors were able to manage the fracture to the base of her skull and the bleeding within her skull without the need for further surgery.
The crime has had a profound physical, psychological, emotional and financial impact on the victim and was also highly traumatic for her family, especially her parents who were required to have time away from work to help care for her. For some time after her return home she was almost completely incapacitated. She suffered a moderate to severe brain injury, which resulted in what she referred to as brain fog, more formally a subtle loss in executive thinking and memory skills. Recovery is expected although it may be prolonged. She has facial scarring which will require further surgical revision, but some scarring is likely to be permanent. She meets the criteria for post-traumatic stress disorder and requires intensive psychological counselling. She has upsetting memories, nightmares and flashbacks and reacts both emotionally and physically to reminders of what happened to her. She has become more socially withdrawn, is fearful and apprehensive, has difficulty with sleep and is hyper vigilant. Such effects are to be expected from the trauma of a crime like this. There has been a problem with her eyes and her ability to deal with other health issues which were pre-existing has become more difficult. She has been unable to work and her intention to commence university has been delayed for an as yet undetermined period.
You are aged 38. Your childhood was characterised by parental neglect, abandonment and violence. At age 10 you were taken into State care where you stayed until you absconded a few years later. From your early teens you have effectively been homeless. You began using cannabis at age nine and methylamphetamine at age 11. Heavy drug use has continued since then whenever you are in the community. However most of your adult life has been spent in custody and you are effectively institutionalised. You have a very long criminal record which commences in your early 20’s. It is mostly in Tasmania but you also have a record in other States. You have committed many offences involving dishonesty and violence, principally driven by the use of or need for drugs. Whenever you are released you almost immediately re-offend in serious ways. I do not intend to refer to all of your record, only to some crimes of particular relevance. On 10 November 2012 you committed an aggravated robbery and aggravated burglary. You broke into a home in Launceston intending to steal. You entered the bedroom where the female occupant of the home was sleeping. You punched her as she woke and badly lacerated her nose. You were sentenced for those and other offences to imprisonment for two years, extended by two separate sentences of six months and five months respectively, imposed by magistrates for numerous summary offences of dishonesty, and two assaults, committed during 2012. Following your eventual release you continued to offend. In September 2015 you were sentenced to imprisonment for 12 months for more summary offences, including two common assaults, three counts of burglary and stealing, one count of aggravated burglary and five counts of motor vehicle stealing or attempted motor vehicle stealing. On 1 May 2016, only two weeks after your release, you committed an aggravated robbery of the TRC Hotel. You entered the hotel in the early hours of that day. Two female staff members were working. You struck one of them forcefully to the head, causing serious physical injury. The robbery had a terrible psychological impact on both of them. On 27 October 2016 you were sentenced to imprisonment for three years, with eligibility for parole after two years. You were released on parole in November 2018 but continued to offend. About a year later, on 3 December 2019, you were sentenced to another 12 months from 14 October 2019 for a series of offences of dishonesty committed in October 2019. You were released on 13 July 2020. This crime was committed only two months later. It was not the only offence you committed following your release. On 21 November 2020 you were sentenced to imprisonment for four months from 21 September 2020 for more dishonesty and driving offences. They are not prior convictions but are relevant to totality. The sentence I impose should commence on 21 January 2021, the day of the completion of that four month sentence.
It is in your favour that you pleaded guilty. the victim knew from a relatively early stage that she would not have to face the additional trauma of having to give evidence at a trial. Your sentencing was delayed so that mental health reports could be obtained in relation to a dangerous criminal application made by the State. I have comprehensive reports from a psychiatrist and a clinical psychologist. You have no mental illness or cognitive impairment. You fulfil the criteria for anti-social personality disorder, although not psychopathy. No specific treatment is indicated apart from measures to address your abuse of substances, which is the principal reason for your crimes and the main risk factor in the future. You use violence to obtain funds to maintain your substance abuse. Before committing this crime you had used methylamphetamine and you give that as a reason for your lack of memory of it.
You say that you are sorry for what you did but that is little consolation for the terrible harm suffered by the victim. You are to be sentenced for a grave crime. It is a very serious example of the crime of aggravated armed robbery. You committed a violent and terrifying attack on a young vulnerable female motivated only by your need for money for drugs. The nature and extent of the violence you used is especially troubling. Your victim had no chance of resisting you, but you stabbed her to the face in a completely unnecessary way and inflicted blows to her head with such force as to break her jaw and fracture her skull. Such blows could only have been inflicted with an intention to cause serious injury. The physical and psychological consequences for her will be lifelong. The effect on victims of crimes like this had been pointed out to you before, but that did not deter you. You are not to be punished again for your earlier crimes, but they demonstrate a long lasting disregard of the law, shed light on your moral culpability for this crime and illustrate a dangerous propensity for violence. The dangerous criminal application is no longer pursued, but that does not mean that the need to protect the community from the risk that you pose is not a very important sentencing consideration. You have been engaged in some programmes while in prison but there has otherwise been little, if any, indication of rehabilitation. I will allow for parole so as to allow for some supervision before your unconditional release into the community. However it is necessary that you serve a long term so as to adequately address the need for punishment, retribution, general and specific deterrence and protection of the public.
Michael Cowie, you are convicted on each charge. I make compensation orders in favour of the victim and the owner of the store, whose names will be specified in the formal order, and adjourn the further terms of those orders to a date to be fixed. On the summary charges you are sentenced to imprisonment for four months from 21 January 2021 and disqualified from driving for two years from your release. For the crime of aggravated armed robbery you are sentenced to imprisonment for eight years also from 21 January 2021. I order that you not be eligible for parole until you have served six years of that term.