STATE OF TASMANIA v DAMIEN JOHN MASON 7 FEBRUARY 2020
COMMENTS ON PASSING SENTENCE PEARCE J
Damien Mason, you plead guilty to assaulting Samuel Jack on 9 August 2019. You suspected that Mr Jack had taken up with your ex-wife and had seen your children. You sent him a message inviting him to meet you at a park at noon on that day purportedly so you could talk with him about it. However, when he arrived, and began to speak with you, you struck him. You punched him to the left side of his face. As he turned to run away you grabbed his jumper and punched the back of his head between 10 and 15 times. He dropped to his knees and you kicked him in the mouth. As he stood up you punched the back of his head again and threatened to shoot him if he did not stay away from your former wife. He took himself to the hospital. Only a short time later you sent him a text message containing threats of further serious violence.
The blows you inflicted, particularly the kick, caused serious facial and dental injuries. Two teeth from the front of his mouth were lost. Two more were cracked. Later examination revealed a fractured jaw, multiple lip lacerations, one of which required five stitches. His face and head were swollen and bruised. He required and continues to require extensive dental surgery to repair and replace four teeth. The treatment has included and will include root canal surgery and false implants all of which may cost up to $20,000. The impact on his life has been significant and the physical and psychological effects are likely to be long lasting.
You are aged 31. You have prior convictions for driving offences but not for violence. It is in your favour that you have pleaded guilty at an early stage. You have full time stable employment. In 2018 your marriage broke down. You had been with your wife for nine years, and married for five, and you have two children. At about the same time you were badly affected by the death of a close friend. You began to suffer from depression. Your violent conduct in this case was motivated by antagonism and ill feeling arising from the breakdown of your relationship, and your anger that Mr Jack had associated with your wife and children. Although circumstances of family breakdown inevitably provoke strong feelings, a resort to violence is to be strongly condemned by the courts and the community, and a sentence must be imposed which makes clear to you and others that such conduct will not be tolerated. To repeatedly strike Mr Jack, and then kick him with such force while he was down, was spiteful and vindictive, and deserves to be punished. Mr Jack did nothing to warrant violence of any nature, particularly violence of this level of seriousness. The text message you sent him soon afterwards discloses the absence of immediate remorse although you entered a very early plea of guilty and have since come to appreciate the wrongfulness and impact of what you did and you are sorry for it.
I accept that the combination of circumstances to which I have referred caused you to act in a way which was out of character. However it is not asserted that any mental condition reduced your blameworthiness in any way. The nature and level of violence you inflicted, and the impact of it, requires imposition of a sentence of imprisonment. Because you do not have a record for violence, and because you have not been to prison before, I will wholly suspend the sentence to give you an opportunity to redeem yourself. However I will order a significant number of hours of community service and make a compensation order to ensure, as far as the Court can achieve, that you are responsible for all of the medical and dental expenses that Mr Jack will incur. Of course, that does not make up for the physical and psychological impact caused by such serious injuries. The law imposes a condition on the suspended sentence that, while it is in operation, you do not commit any other offence punishable by imprisonment. You should clearly understand that, if you breach that condition in any serious way, it is almost inevitable that you will serve the sentence I am about to impose.
Damien Mason, you are convicted. I make a compensation order in favour of Samuel Jack and adjourn the further terms of that order to a date to be fixed. You are sentenced to imprisonment for ten months, wholly suspended 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 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 12 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 140 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.