STATE OF TASMANIA v COREY LEIGH MILNER 14 AUGUST 2020
COMMENTS ON PASSING SENTENCE BRETT J
Mr Milner, you have pleaded guilty to one count of wounding, two counts of attempting to commit wounding and two counts of assault.
The crimes were committed on 28 April 2020, during a single course of conduct. The complainant is your wife. You and she had been married for about 5½ years, but had lived together since 2007. On the day the crimes were committed, you were both consuming alcoholic drinks at your home prior to the violence. At about 5pm, after you had been drinking for some time, you walked towards the main bedroom of the house. I infer that you were intoxicated and the complainant believed that your intention was to sleep. There was a standing agreement between you and her, that if you had been drinking, you would sleep in a different bed. Accordingly, she attempted to guide you towards the other bedroom. However, you resisted this and you and she quickly became involved in a wrestle. It was then that you committed the crimes.
The first count of assault was committed when you forced the complainant to the floor, held her head against the floor with one hand, and punched her to the face a number of times with the other hand. You then went to the kitchen, took a carving knife from the knife block, and attacked the complainant with it. You attempted to stab her in the stomach by thrusting the blade of the knife towards her stomach. She was able to prevent you from stabbing her by holding your wrist. The knife did, however, penetrate her clothing. Clearly, if you had succeeded in what you were attempting to do, the knife would have caused a serious wound with potentially catastrophic consequences.
After this, you changed your grip on the knife, so as to enable you to use a downward stabbing motion. You stabbed at the complainant in this manner a number of times. You did actually stab her in the back of the right shoulder, causing a wound. You then switched your grip on the knife again, and made another attempt to stab the complainant in the stomach. This was also unsuccessful, but the knife again penetrated her clothing and, this time, made contact with her skin, leaving abrasions.
You continued to wrestle the complainant, overpowered her and pushed her to the floor. You pushed her head down from behind her neck, stood over her and struck her to the back of the head a number of times. She was able to escape shortly after this. She ran from the house and telephoned the police. You were arrested soon after.
The complainant required treatment in hospital for her injuries. In particular, a minimum of five stitches was required to repair the wound to her shoulder. She suffered extensive bruising to her face and eyes, with one of the eyes nearly closed due to swelling. She has provided an impact statement, which describes the ongoing physical, psychological and emotional consequences of her ordeal. Her injuries meant that she was not able to work for a period of time and suffered financial loss as a result. It is clear that the emotional and psychological consequences have been severe and ongoing. I will not go into the details, but I take into account the full impact described in the statement. It is entirely consistent with what I would expect to arise out of family violence of this level of seriousness.
You are 48 years of age. You have not been able to work since 2011, because of an employment related injury. Your counsel concedes that you have had a long standing, serious problem with the abuse of alcohol. This is consistent with your criminal record, and with the fact that you were clearly intoxicated when you perpetrated these crimes. The existence of your alcohol problem is relevant to your personal circumstances, but your intoxication when you committed these crimes does not in any way mitigate their seriousness, nor your moral culpability for them. Your criminal record is concerning, and in recent years consists largely of offences of violence which mostly relate to family violence perpetrated against the complainant. I note your conviction for assaults perpetrated against her in 2009, 2015 and 2018. You have not, however, been to prison before pursuant to a sentence.
Your crimes constitute family violence of a most serious kind. Your attack on the complainant was unprovoked, brutal and sustained. Although she in fact suffered significant injury, you could easily have caused much more serious harm and even inflicted lethal injury. The fact that you acted in this way whilst intoxicated, in my view, aggravates the seriousness of the crimes, because of the effect of the alcohol on your capacity for restraint and judgment. Your use of the weapon to attempt to inflict serious injury and in actually wounding the complainant, is a most serious aggravating factor. The only mitigating factor is that you claim to be remorseful, and have entered a plea of guilty thereby avoiding the need for the complainant to give evidence against you. Your counsel says that you want to deal with your alcohol problem while in prison. Clearly, you need to do this, but quite frankly you should have done something about the problem many years ago. I probably do not have enough information to be able to link alcohol to each of the offences of family violence committed by you against the complainant in the past, but the fact that you have now perpetrated violence against her a number of times, and perpetrated these crimes while drunk, suggests that some consideration needs to be given to the need to protect the complainant and indeed others from the threat posed by you when intoxicated.
Family violence, including violence of this level of seriousness, is of great concern to the community and will not be tolerated by the courts. General deterrence and denunciation of your conduct are the primary sentencing considerations. The only possible sentence is a significant term of imprisonment.
Corey Milner, you are convicted of the crimes to which you have pleaded guilty. I impose a global sentence of imprisonment for a term of 3 years. The sentence will be backdated to commence on 28 April 2020. Having regard to your plea of guilty and your stated intention to rehabilitate, including by dealing with your alcohol problem, I will provide for your release on parole at the earliest opportunity. Accordingly, I order that you not be eligible for parole until you have served one half of the sentence.
Pursuant to s 13A of the Family Violence Act, I direct that each crime be recorded on your criminal record as a family violence offence.