STATE OF TASMANIA v JORDAN MARK O’BRIEN 2 SEPTEMBER 2019
COMMENTS ON PASSING SENTENCE BLOW CJ
Mr O’Brien, you have pleaded guilty to two charges of assault. These charges relate to a single incident. They involved domestic violence. You lost your temper with your then partner. You grabbed her by the throat. That was an assault. You applied pressure to her throat to such an extent that you left bruises and grazes that were photographed by the police afterwards. Then she retaliated by getting a baseball bat and hitting you to the hand with it. She has been prosecuted for assault and conditionally discharged as a consequence of that. But you then grabbed her by the throat a second time. The two of you struggled with the baseball bat, and on the second occasion she had difficulty breathing.
The reason that this is in the Supreme Court and not the Magistrates Court is that the Director of Public Prosecutions has decided that there are too many cases involving people grabbing their partners by the throat and perhaps attempting to strangle them. The strangulation and grabbing by the throat are now regarded as so serious that the charges are brought here to the Supreme Court.
However there are a number of matters that I take into account in your favour. You were only 19 when this happened, and you are still 19. You are in steady employment. You understand that there was a problem about you bottling things up and then losing your temper, so you have insight into the anger problem that you have. You remain friends with your former partner. You are no longer living together. You seem to have kept the peace towards her over the last 10½ months since this incident occurred. You have no significant prior convictions. You have pleaded guilty. Apparently you always wanted to plead guilty, but you had a lawyer who did not tell the Crown that. By pleading guilty, you have saved the State the expense and inconvenience of a trial.
I think that this is a little bit too serious for the case to be disposed of in the same way as the charge against the woman in question. But, because of all the circumstances, including your good record, I do not think this warrants anything more serious than a fine.
I convict you of both charges. I order you to pay a fine of $300 within 28 days. I direct that the convictions be recorded as family violence convictions.