ROSSI C B

STATE OF TASMANIA v CHRIS BYERS ROSSI 7 NOVEMBER 2019

COMMENTS ON PASSING SENTENCE                            BLOW CJ

 Chris Byers Rossi, you have pleaded guilty to a charge of assault.  The victim of this assault was your partner’s son. He was 18 years old at the time. You assaulted him by punching him to the face so hard that you broke his nose and dislocated his jaw.  This did not come out of the blue.  You had been drinking for several hours. You were unhappy with your partner over matters that seem fairly trivial now.  You were unhappy with her son. He had been living with your mother. You were not happy with his conduct towards your mother and the accommodation that she provided for him.

This incident occurred on 2 September last year, which happened to be Fathers’ Day.  Because of a tragedy several years ago, Fathers’ Day was a day when you were likely to experience sad emotions.  But in fact you got very angry, first with your partner, and then with her son.  When you confronted him, your partner decided that he needed protection and physically attacked you.  A fight ensued, with not only your partner, but also your mother and your partner’s son struggling with you.  You were in a situation where it was reasonable for you to use to some amount of force by way of self-defence, but you went too far and punched the boy too hard and smashed his nose and dislocated his jaw.  He had to be taken to hospital by ambulance and he had to have surgery.  No doubt that hurt a lot, but he made a full recovery.

This is not the first time you have been before a court for assault.  It is the fourth.  The first time a magistrate in Western Australia fined you $1,000. The second time you were convicted and undertook to be of good behaviour.  I think you got off lightly from what I have heard about that.  The third time you assaulted a friend whom you had been drinking with in Launceston by grabbing him around the throat.  That incident occurred in January of last year.  In June of last year a magistrate gave you a wholly suspended sentence of two months’ imprisonment for that.  And it was less than three months after that sentence was imposed that you did this to you partner’s son.

The Crown has applied for me to activate the two month suspended sentence. I have to do that unless doing that would be unjust.  There is no possible reason for thinking that that would be unjust.  However, after the incident that I am concerned with, you spent 202 days in custody, so you have already spent a little under seven months in custody.  The question for me therefore is whether I should impose a sentence that sees you sent back into custody or one that gives you a chance.

I think you have spent long enough in custody.  What I am going to do is as follows.  I am going to activate the two months, backdated to the day you went into custody, and that leaves 141 days in custody not accounted for. I am going to impose another sentence backdated so that today is day number 141, and I am going to suspend the unserved balance of that sentence.  So you will not go back into custody today, but you will have a few months hanging over your head.  If you re-offend, you can expect to go into custody and serve the suspended portion of this sentence.

I am taking into account the fact you pleaded guilty, and the circumstances surrounding that plea, and I am taking into account the fact that the sentence I am imposing comes on top of the two month suspended sentence.

I order that the sentence of two months’ imprisonment, that was imposed in the Magistrates Court at Hobart on 18 June 2018 and wholly suspended, is activated with effect from 2 September 2018.  On the assault charge, count 2 of the indictment, I convict you and sentence you to eight months’ imprisonment with effect from 20 June 2019.  I suspend the unserved balance of this sentence on condition that you commit no offence punishable by imprisonment for a period of two years from today.