STATE OF TASMANIA v ROLAND MATTHEW PROUD AUGUST 2023
COMMENTS ON PASSING SENTENCE PEARCE J
Roland Proud, you plead guilty to assault. On 7 August 2021 you were playing Australian Rules football at Turners Beach. Joshua Baker was playing on the opposing team. You were aged almost 35 and he was almost 24. Early in the game there was some antagonism between you. You grabbed his guernsey. He shoved you in the back. However you then attempted to head butt him and when he dodged your attempt and turned away you punched him to his right eye with a closed fist. All of this occurred behind the play. The punch was so hard that Mr Baker suffered a fracture to his right eye socket, a two centimetre laceration to his right cheekbone and bruising around his right eye.
There is no victim impact statement but that does not mean that Mr Baker does not suffer from any ongoing effects of what happened to him. The only material before me is that he has recovered from his physical injuries. However an incident like this is very likely to have been very upsetting for him. He was taken from the ground in an ambulance and I am informed that he no longer plays football.
It is in your favour that you pleaded guilty but it is not an early plea. It almost two years since the assault occurred and witnesses were cross examined at preliminary proceedings. However the matter has not been prepared for a trial. You do not come before the court as a person of previously good character. In 2005, as a young man you were sentenced to a wholly suspended term of imprisonment for an act intended to cause bodily harm. On that occasion, when intoxicated, you disfigured and severely impaired the sight in one eye of a man you struck with a broken bottle. There has been no serious violence since then. Your record is mostly for alcohol and drug related driving offences, although on one occasion in 2016 you resisted police. In 2017 you were given a short sentence of imprisonment for stealing suspended on condition that you undertake assessment and treatment for alcohol and drug dependency.
As your record indicates you have long standing issues with alcohol and drugs. Material provided by your sister and a former employer indicates that when healthy you are capable of being a responsible member of society. You have a son aged eight and play an important role in his life. You have demonstrated a capacity to be a responsible employee. However you have, on multiple occasions, been a resident at Missiondale. This crime was committed not long before an admission between 30 August 2021 and 20 November 2021. At the time you were abusing illicit drugs including Ice. It is not suggested that you were affected by alcohol or drugs at the time of this assault. Even if you had been it would not have been mitigating. You had not been in any recent trouble for violence, including in the course of your playing football, but it is suggested that an explanation for your conduct, at least in a football context, is that your emotional state and physical aggression levels were adversely affected by the effect on you of alcohol and drug abuse.
Football is a contact sport and those who play consent to the application of force provided it is within the rules. There is an inevitable risk that players might suffer injury, sometimes even serious injury, in the normal course of the game. However players do not consent to is being unlawfully assaulted. Punches struck behind the play are criminal acts. Even though Mr Baker had engaged in a physical exchange with you he had turned away before he was struck. There was no justification for your conduct at all and he, and others who play the game, are entitled to the protection of the law from such violence. Those who might be minded to act as you did must understand that such actions risk criminal sanction. Sometimes, depending on the nature and consequences of the assault and the personal circumstances of the offender, punishment other than imprisonment is appropriate. That is not so here. A report from Community Corrections indicates that your daily use of cannabis, amphetamine and alcohol and your apparent inability to abstain make you unsuitable for community service. It is inevitable that the same considerations would make you unsuitable for home detention. I am informed that a further admission to Missiondale is contemplated. A term of imprisonment is the only available sentence which adequately addresses the need for punishment and general and specific deterrence. The only question is whether you should be required to immediately serve any of it. I have concluded that even though you have twice before been given suspended sentences you should again be given a conditional opportunity to avoid actual imprisonment. Actual imprisonment should only be ordered when it is the only appropriate alternative. Your only prior conviction for violence was for a crime committed now more than 18 years ago. There has been no breach of a suspended sentence and your compliance with community based orders has been generally satisfactory. Fortunately for Mr Baker and for you it seems that he has made a reasonable recovery. You pleaded guilty. I accept that you are sorry for what you did and realise the seriousness of it. You should consider that you are unlikely to be extended such lenience again should there be any further serious offending especially involving violence. For those reasons I will wholly suspend the sentence but conditionally upon you being subject to supervision in the community for a period.
Roland Proud, you are convicted and sentenced to imprisonment for eight 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. I impose a further condition that, for a period of 12 months from today, you are to be subject to the supervision of a probation officer. The conditions which the law imposes on that order include that you must report to a probation officer at 111-113 Cameron Street, Launceston on or before 5.00 pm on 15 August 2023, you must, during the operational period of the order, report to a probation officer as required by the probation officer and comply with the reasonable and lawful directions of a probation officer or a supervisor, you must not, during the operational period of the order, leave, or remain outside, Tasmania without the permission of a probation officer and you must, during the operational period of the order, give notice to a probation officer of any change of address or employment before, or within two working days after, the change. I impose special conditions that you must, during the 12 months that that period of the order is in force, you submit to the supervision of a probation officer as required by the probation officer, attend educational and other programs, undergo assessment and treatment for alcohol or drug dependency, submit to testing for alcohol or drug use and submit to medical, psychological or psychiatric assessment or treatment as directed by a probation officer. If you breach any of those conditions you may be brought back to court and re-sentenced.