STATE OF TASMANIA v TAMARA JANE DRAKE 7 SEPTEMBER 2020
COMMENTS ON PASSING SENTENCE PEARCE J
Tamara Drake, you plead guilty to assault. On Tuesday 8 October 2019 you were in the bar at the Empire Hotel in Queenstown. At about 10.00 pm you became enraged when you overheard another woman in the bar on her phone. She was visiting Queenstown for work and you thought she was complaining to someone about the town. After speaking with her for some time, you pushed her off her chair. While holding her down with one hand on her neck you punched her about fifteen times. Others attempted to restrain you but you continued to punch her before you were eventually pulled away.
Your assault caused serious injury. The complainant suffered a laceration under her right eye, her face and neck were bruised and swollen and her nose was badly broken. She was initially treated on the following day at the Mersey Hospital. She had no memory of the assault. She required specialist facial surgery in Hobart between 22 and 24 October 2019 to reposition the bones in her nose. The report prepared by the surgical registrar of the medical review conducted three months after the surgery states only that the complainant’s prognosis is good, her scars were well healed and she was “able to breathe and smell through her nose ok.” Her victim impact statement paints a fuller picture of the effect of the assault. She has suffered from the significant physical, psychological and financial impact. The incident and the immediate aftermath was highly traumatic for her. She was embarrassed of her appearance. She was away from work for three months. Her relationship was affected and eventually ended. She has some residual facial scarring and she perceives an adverse change in her overall facial appearance. She became anxious and socially isolated and has difficulty sleeping. I am to be circumspect about the contents of the impact statement but it describes the type of effects which commonly occur from violence of this nature.
You are aged 34. You now live in Burnie and you have sole care of your three children aged 12, 9 and 4. You receive a single parent benefit. You were fined for abusing police in 2005, for a common assault in 2008 and for disorderly conduct in 2019. Otherwise, your record is for traffic offences, although two are alcohol related. You have not offended in such a serious way before. You have had an industrious employment history but you have been troubled by bi-polar disorder and depression for which you are medicated. Your state of mind at the time of the crime was affected by the very recent breakdown of a relationship associated with, you say, violence against you. That does not excuse or mitigate your conduct. You were the aggressor. For no good reason your public alcohol fuelled violence involved repeated blows causing serious injury to a person you did not know. Immediately after the assault you mocked and taunted the complainant. Even 10 days later, when you were interviewed by the police, you demonstrated that you were not sorry at all for what you had done, although you did express some regret that she had been hurt. You falsely claimed that you were defending yourself and tried to shift blame to the victim. You and others must understand that conduct like this cannot not be tolerated. It is in your favour however that you have pleaded guilty. Your plea facilitates justice and carries particular weight when there is no prospect of a trial for such a matter as this in the foreseeable future as a result of the pandemic. A plea of guilty often also indicates remorse and acceptance of responsibility. In your case that claim is to be considered in light of the contents of a report of your suitability for home detention. The author of the report assesses you as unsuitable for such an order for the primary reason that you seem to still not understand the seriousness of what you did. You expressed a reluctance to comply with the conditions with which you would be expected to comply. On your behalf your counsel disputed the assessment but in any event it would not have prevented me from making such an order. Compliance with home detention is not a matter of choice. It is to be treated as an alternative to imprisonment. However there is another reason for your unsuitability. Given your relationship breakdown you have been left with little social support to help with care of your children. You have no-one who can help care for and transport your children when you are subject to such an order. Ordinarily that is a matter you should have considered before committing such a serious assault. However I have decided, instead of a home detention order, to impose a sentence of imprisonment but wholly suspend it on conditions. You should clearly understand that if you commit another offence while the suspended sentence is in place, you will be required to serve it unless that is unjust. In other words, you would very likely go to prison.
Tamara Drake, you are convicted. You are sentenced to imprisonment for seven months. I wholly suspend that term for two years 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, as I have explained, a court must order that you serve that term unless it is unjust. I impose a further condition that, for 18 months from today, you are to be subject to the supervision of a probation officer. The conditions which the law imposes on that order include that you must report to a probation officer at the office of Community corrections in Burnie on or before 5 pm tomorrow, 8 September 2020, you must, during the operation period of the order, report to a probation officer as required by the probation officer and comply with the reasonable and lawful directions of a probation officer or a supervisor, you must not, during the period of the order, leave, or remain outside, Tasmania without the permission of a probation officer and you must, during the period of the order, give notice to a probation officer of any change of address or employment before, or within 2 working days after, the change. I impose special conditions that, during that period, you must attend educational and other programs, undergo assessment and treatment for alcohol or drug dependency, submit to testing for alcohol or drug use and submit to medical, psychological or psychiatric assessment or treatment as directed by a probation officer. If you breach any of those conditions you may be brought back to court and re-sentenced.