STATE OF TASMANIA v ELIJAH ROBERT JACK O’SULLIVAN 7 FEBRUARY 2020
COMMENTS ON PASSING SENTENCE BLOW CJ
Elijah Robert Jack O’Sullivan, you have pleaded guilty to charges of aggravated armed robbery and wounding. Both of these charges relate to a robbery on Saturday, 9 March last year. You were living in Burnie. You wanted some money to buy drugs. You were also thinking of using any money you could get to pay some outstanding fines, which shows, in my view, some disordered thinking on your part. You knew that a supermarket at Wivenhoe was staffed by young women who would be easy to rob, so you decided to go there and rob them. You took a knife with you. You disguised yourself with a bandana. That counts against you because it makes it more frightening for somebody to be robbed by someone who is wearing something covering their face. You went in. You spoke to a young woman who was working there, asked for the money and threatened to stab her. She got out some money. You stole $420 and ran away with it. That is called aggravated armed robbery because you had a knife, and a knife is a dangerous thing. That is why it is called aggravated armed robbery.
There was a customer in the store who decided to chase you and try to catch you. That was a dangerous thing for him to do. He chased you out across the main road, and across the westbound lanes of the Bass Highway. He caught up with you in the middle of the highway. You wanted to get away from him with the money, so you lunged at him with the knife. You were aiming at his ribs, but you did not get his ribs. You got his arm. He suffered a wound to the arm, but he did not let you go. Other members of the public got involved and kept you there until the police arrived. You were arrested and you have been in custody ever since.
I have received victim impact statements from the shop assistant and from the man that you stabbed. They both have ongoing psychological symptoms. They both have feelings of anxiety. They both fear for their safety. They both changed jobs as a result of what you did, to be in less threatening environments. The young woman is financially worse off because she does not have the income that she was getting at the supermarket. The man who followed you and caught you seems to have made a reasonable recovery from his wound, but they both have continuing psychological symptoms.
You were 20 when you did this, and you are now 21. You have never been to an adult prison before, although you have been in all sorts of trouble and you have been in youth justice detention on a number of occasions. I have received a psychiatric report. It seems clear that you are suffering from schizophrenia, or something like schizophrenia. But the psychiatrist has said that there is not a strong connection between the symptoms that you had and your decision to commit a robbery, and your decision to use a knife. You need continuing psychiatric treatment. But your mental health problem does not excuse what you did. What you did is not a direct consequence of your mental health problem by any means.
It counts in your favour that you pleaded guilty, although there was never really much chance of you getting out of these charges. There are a number of things, though, that I cannot take into account. You are not a first offender. You were not sorry for the young woman that you robbed, or the man that you stabbed. But because you are young, and because you have not been to an adult prison before, I am going to impose the shortest possible non-parole period. And because of the psychiatrist’s comments, I am also going to make a probation order so that there will be a probation officer to help you with mental health treatment after you are released from prison. That will continue after your parole expires, assuming you are granted parole.
These were serious crimes and the only appropriate course for me is to give you a significant prison sentence.
On the two charges, I convict you and sentence you to three years’ imprisonment with effect from 9 March 2019. You will not be eligible for parole until you have served 18 months of this sentence. I make a community correction order to operate for two years after your release from prison, with conditions that, during that period, (a) you must submit to the supervision of a probation officer as required by the probation officer, (b) you must submit to testing for drug use as directed by a probation officer, and (c) you must submit to medical, psychological or psychiatric assessment or treatment as directed by a probation officer. I order that the knife and the bandana seized by the police be forfeited to the State of Tasmania.