STATE OF TASMANIA v JADE HAROLD JETSON-SCOTT 9 NOVEMBER 2023
COMMENTS ON PASSING SENTENCE PORTER AJ
Mr Jetson-Scott, the defendant, has pleaded guilty to two counts of assault on a pregnant woman. I am also dealing with his pleas of guilty to two summary charges of injury to property. All of these offences were committed during the one incident on 28 July 2021. The complainant is Paige Louise Hall-Riley with whom the defendant had been in a relationship for about ten years. They have one son who is now nine years old, and at the time of the incident were expecting their second child. However, at that time they were estranged but endeavouring to co-parent the child. A day before the incident the complainant and the defendant argued about who was to be present at the birth of the expected child. Due to pandemic restrictions, the complainant was only allowed to have one person present, and she had nominated her friend and not the defendant. He had a strong desire to be there, and the argument continued to the next day. The two were at the complainant’s home and the defendant raised the issue again. He became angry and, as the complainant describes it, he was “ranting” at her. After punching walls in both the loungeroom and the kitchen, the defendant followed the complainant into a sunroom where he punched her in the stomach with his fist. The complainant says that the punch was not really hard and it “only hurt a bit”. At the time of the punch the defendant was still ranting. He said he hoped that both the complainant and the baby died and he did not want anything to do with them. After that the defendant went outside and broke a light at the front of the house. When the complainant went outside the defendant tried to grab her mobile phone. After wrestling over the phone, the defendant took it from the complainant and threw it onto the roof of the house. The complainant pushed the defendant away. He then grabbed her with both hands around her throat and pushed her on to the bonnet of a car. He was squeezing quite hard and she could not breathe or talk; her head went fuzzy and she was trying to tell him to stop. She was scared and she says it seemed to have gone on for a really long time. At this point the child was present and was screaming at the defendant for him to stop. The defendant desisted but then called the complainant “a dog”. The complainant tried to get her phone off the roof. After telling the complainant that he hoped she fell off, he retrieved the phone and gave it to her but it was not then capable of being used. Police were notified and the defendant was apprehended the next day. When interviewed, he agreed that he had been at the house and there was an argument about who was going to be present at the birth. He denied punching the complainant and said that she threw his phone on the ground, so he grabbed her phone and threw it on the roof. He was detained and ultimately granted bail on 11 August 2021.
I have a victim impact statement from the complainant. She says what happened with the defendant has affected her intimate relationships and how she perceives them. The violence towards her and her unborn child caused significant emotional distress. She is now more distrusting of others and their intentions. She lacks connection with her peers because of a lack of trust and no real desire to pursue friendships. She says that she is easily startled now and has a tendency to flinch if someone is quick to move; generally she is hyper-vigilant. She felt incredibly hurt by what the defendant did and said. She is concerned about the oldest child having been exposed to what happened and she worries that when he acts impulsively and has behavioural issues is partly because of what occurred. She would like to put all of this behind her and to move on.
The defendant is now 27 years old. He has a lengthy recorded history of offending. That record includes a considerable history of family violence offending, mostly but not exclusively involving this complainant. From an early age there was reasonably regular traffic, dishonesty and some minor drug offending. In June 2017, for offences of those types, the defendant was sentenced to two months’ imprisonment wholly suspended and ordered to perform 84 hours of community service. In September 2017, he was convicted of assaults on this complainant and her sister and destroying property, all committed on the one day about two months earlier, and for which he was ordered to perform community service. On five different days in late 2017 he committed breaches of a police family violence order relating to this complainant for which, in January 2018, he was again ordered to perform community service. Further miscellaneous offending followed, and in December 2019 the defendant was sentenced to a short term of imprisonment, with some further imprisonment suspended. That offending included two breaches of a police family violence order and one of an interim family violence order, each committed on separate occasions earlier that year. In May 2020 he was fined for breaching a family violence order in respect of this complainant and injuring property, namely a door, and a further breach of that order by verbal abuse, those offences having been committed on two days in September 2019. In February 2020, he had committed two breaches of an interim family violence order and an offence of damaging property in one incident, again involving this complainant. In June 2021 when being dealt with for those further breaches along with a number of separate matters, he was sentenced to community service. Lastly, although not prior convictions in the strict sense, on 8 September 2023 the defendant was sentenced to a global sentence of three months’ imprisonment commencing on 15 January 2023 for offending which included a breach of a domestic family violence order committed on 12 May 2022. That involved a different woman. There was also a breach of a family violence order involving the possession of a firearm on 22 October 2022. In terms of time in custody, he finished the sentence on 14 April 2023 and has been in custody on remand since 15 April 2023 with that time presently unallocated. It is common ground that any sentence I impose should be backdated to 1 April 2023 to take into account the total period in custody.
The defendant seems to have had a stable family structure but there were frequent moves when he was young due to his father being relocated in work. He was not able to settle properly into any particular school and had disengaged from the education process by the time the family settled in Tasmania in about 2010. He left school in about grade seven or eight and now struggles with literacy. That is something that he is working on since being in custody. He was able to find employment with his father in building “handyman” type work. Regrettably his father died when the defendant was 21. This had a very significant impact on the defendant. He was not able to continue working on his own, lost his way and started to use illicit drugs. The complainant was very strongly against this and it is something which no doubt contributed to the end of the relationship. Following the commission of these offences, the defendant was subject to strict bail conditions which meant he was not able to return to the town where is family lived. Because of this offending and that situation he seems to have lost some family support, and I was told that his emotional state and general behaviour deteriorated even further. As to the present offences, I was told that there had been underlying tension over co-parenting issues for some time. The particular trigger was the complainant’s choice as to who should be present at the birth. On that day there had also been an issue relating to the care of the son in that the defendant’s sister had gone to school to pick him up but he was not there, the complainant not having sent him to school on that day. As to the first count of assault, I was told, without dissent, that the complainant first slapped the defendant to the face and he reacted. This is not put as an excuse but to illustrate that the violence was not premeditated, although he admits having ranted at the complainant beforehand. The damage to the phone seems to be another retaliatory action in that the complainant first threw his phone onto the roof. Counsel did not address the second count of assault. The complainant has a new partner, a situation with which the defendant is quite comfortable. He gets on well with this man and feels that he is good for his son. The defendant’s family has now gathered around him and he is able to live with his sister when he has his liberty and his mother has arranged labouring work for him at a factory in Launceston.
Although not together as a couple, the defendant and the complainant were in the relationship of actual and pending parents. And because of the definition of “partner” in the Family Violence Act, the defendant’s conduct amounts to family violence. All unlawful violence is unacceptable but violence within relationships and family violence is a particular matter of great community concern. It is often difficult to detect, frequently involves vulnerable victims and is an insidious problem. It involves, as this defendant’s conduct did, a breach of trust within the relationship.
Courts need to strongly condemn this sort of conduct and take steps to deter others from engaging in it. There is nothing in the facts of the offending to really justify any leniency. On any view it was quite appalling and inexcusable behaviour. The law makes the presence of the child during the second assault, an aggravating factor. I must also into account the defendant’s history of breaching family violence orders most of which of course relate to this complainant. I infer from the record and from what I was told, that the breaches seem not to have been constituted by personal violence but by way of proximity and contact; but some also involved damage to property and abuse, and these show anger management issues. The defendant’s general history of offending shows a broad disregard for court orders and he seems to have been immune from their effect. I take into account the pleas of guilty which obviated the need for the complainant to give evidence and which have some utilitarian value. However, in all the circumstances I am not able to accept the submission of the defendant’s counsel that any further period in gaol be suspended.
Mr Jetson-Scott, I have set out the facts of the matter, your personal circumstances and what I see to be the relevant considerations. You have paid little heed to court orders in general, and to family violence orders in particular, even though those breaches may not have involved actual personal violence. More importantly perhaps, your conduct on this occasion was, as I have said, appalling and inexcusable. Although the blow the subject of the first count is said not to have been a hard one it may be fortunate that the complainant and the unborn child were not injured. The second assault involved choking which is common in domestic violence and is a dangerous and violent act of domination. You are convicted of all matters and sentenced to 18 imprisonment to commence on 1 April 2023. There seem to be some opportunities for you to reform and I order that you not be eligible for parole until you have served 10 months of that sentence. I make a family violence order in the same terms as that made on 8 August 2022 which will remain in force for a period of five years.