PYKE D R

STATE OF TASMANIA v DANE RONALD PYKE 15 NOVEMBER 2019

COMMENTS ON PASSING SENTENCE                           PEARCE J

 

Dane Pyke, you plead guilty to aggravated robbery. At about 9.50 am on 25 September 2018 you went with another man to the unit in Devonport which was the home of the complainant, a man aged 21. One of you knocked on the door. When the complainant answered the door one of you punched him in the face causing him to stumble backwards. That first offender forced his way into the unit. The second offender, followed, locking the front door behind. The first offender was not wearing a disguise, but the second offender wore a black hooded jumper and his face was covered by some type of balaclava. Once inside, the first offender repeatedly punched the complainant to the face. Both men demanded the complainant’s wallet. The second offender searched the unit for the wallet and other things to steal. The complainant’s wallet fell from his pocket as he was being punched. The second offender picked up the cash which spilt on the floor, while first offender wrestled the complainant for his mobile phone. The first offender continued to repeatedly punch the complainant and choked him with his hands and arms. At some point during the struggle the second offender struck the complainant at least once and was involved in the wrestling. You and your co-offender then ran off with the phone and $5,000 in cash. In all the complainant had been punched between ten and twenty times.

The complainant summoned help from a neighbour and was taken to hospital. His face was badly swollen and bruised and his nose had been bleeding. There were no facial fractures. There was a petechial rash on his neck consistent with having been strangled. The complainant did not immediately identify either of his attackers. However about two weeks later he partly identified you from a police photoboard, which suggests that you were the first offender. Your DNA was found on a swab taken from the complainant’s neck. No compensation order is sought because the Crown asserts that the money which was stolen was the proceeds of drug trafficking.

You were arrested in January 2019. You made no admissions during the interview and you did not disclose who your co-offender was. He has not yet been identified. Your plea of guilty is in your favour, but it is not a particularly early one, and came only after an initial plea of not guilty and a preliminary proceedings order which was ultimately abandoned without the complainant having to be cross-examined.

The State accepts it cannot prove beyond reasonable doubt that you were the first offender, that is, the person directly responsible for most of the violence. You claim that you are not that man and that your associate kept the stolen money. However it is properly conceded by your counsel that, whatever is the case, you and your co-offender are both criminally responsible and share blame. Your presence at the unit was plainly part of a joint plan to rob the complainant of cash evidenced by the use of a disguise and the way you acted. While one man inflicted violence, the other locked the door, demanded and looked for the wallet, picked up the cash and then joined in the violence.

You are aged 22. You are still relatively young. You have held limited employment. The jobs you have had are mostly seasonal or casual. You were raised primarily by your mother after she and your father separated. Your behaviour deteriorated, you became unwilling to accept authority and you fell into bad company. You began to regularly use illicit drugs, first cannabis and then methylamphetamine. On 11 June 2013 you were made subject to a partially suspended detention order for numerous summary offences of dishonesty, breaching bail and common assault committed in 2011 and 2012 when you were 15 and 16. In 2014 you breached that order by re-offending including by committing two aggravated assaults and one common assault when you were 17. You served a further period of detention. Although there has been no further violent offending since then, in July 2018 you were given a short suspended sentence for bail and drug offences. This crime was committed not long after the suspended sentence was imposed. That is an aggravating factor. The sentence has already been activated and served because you committed more bail offences and in March this year you were imprisoned for a total of about a month. You have been subject to two probation orders. The most recent expired in July this year, but you did not comply with the conditions of the order and you were assessed as unsuitable for more community based orders.

Although you have the support of your mother, this crime was committed at a time when she was overseas, and your accommodation with your former partner no longer became available because of a family violence order. You were left without anywhere to live. That provides little mitigation for a crime of this seriousness. You, in company, committed a planned invasion of the home of another young man for a dishonest purpose in the course of which serious violence was inflicted. There is no victim impact statement. There is no evidence of any lasting injury but crimes of this nature have the potential to have a significant impact on victims. When a serious crime is committed, the protection of the public demands a custodial sentence of sufficient length to reflect the importance of both general and personal deterrence, denunciation and punishment. When reasonably possible, criminal courts give priority to the rehabilitation of youthful offenders. You now have an encouraging and supportive relationship with your mother. However, a sentence of imprisonment is certainly required. I considered whether the sentencing aims may be balanced by some other form of sentence, and so I had you assessed for suitability for the making of a home detention order. You have been assessed as unsuitable for such an order. The author of the assessment report had several concerns, most importantly, to my mind, that you continue to use illicit drugs and that you did not seem to understand the seriousness of the restrictions to which you would be subject if such an order was made. You did not attend the appointment to review the report and you did not answer calls or respond to messages after that. The author doubted that you would comply with a home detention order. Your counsel today submitted that you should be given the opportunity to re-engage, but, in light of the report and what has happened since, I share the author’s opinion. You were to be sentenced on 5 October 2019 but you did not appear. A warrant was issued for your arrest. You handed yourself into the police on 29 October 2019 and you have been in custody since then. You spent three days in custody following your arrest in January 2019. You spent some of 15 August 2019 in custody while I considered whether to seek an assessment report. I will also take those four days of custody into account.

Dane Pyke, you are convicted. You are sentenced to imprisonment for 20 months from 25 October 2019. I order that you not be eligible for parole until you have served half that sentence.