STATE OF TASMANIA v MATTHEW JAMES SEGGIE 22 OCTOBER 2025
COMMENTS ON PASSING SENTENCE PEARCE J
Matthew Seggie, you plead guilty to assault. I also agreed to deal with your plea of guilty to a charge of breaching a police family violence order arising from the same circumstances. The crime was committed on 10 December 2022. The victim is your former wife who is now called Rose Bowen. You were then aged 46. She was 37 and you had been married for 11 years. There were no children of the relationship. On Friday 9 December 2022 you drove from Launceston to attend a concert at a licensed establishment in Hobart. After the concert you stayed in a bar until well after midnight. By that time you were heavily intoxicated. Your wife had also had a lot to drink. After returning to the hotel you began to argue. The argument escalated to shouting. When she pushed you away you responded by pushing her onto the bed with both hands. When she stood you pushed her again by grabbing hard on her arms. This time she landed on her back on the floor. When she got up you grabbed the right side of her neck with one hand, applying pressure so as to force her to the ground. Her necklace broke which caused some bruising and a fine linear abrasion. She stood again and you struck her to the right ear with your open hand. She tried to run out but you tripped her and she fell. You kicked the back of her head several times as she lay on the ground.
She left the room and, in a distressed and highly emotional state, informed the hotel staff and the police were called. She was taken to the Royal Hobart Hospital where examination revealed bruises on both sides of the back of her head, small bruises to the front of her neck more pronounced on the left side, scratch marks around her neck and subtle bruising to her right eyelid with tenderness over her right cheek, ear and jaw.
You were arrested at the hotel, still heavily intoxicated. You were interviewed the following morning and claimed to not remember the argument becoming physical and denied the details of the violence you now admit. You were charged with strangulation but that charge was not proceeded with. As a result, you are not to be sentenced for that crime. It follows that the force which you applied to the complainant’s neck area was not the type of force which was capable of interfering with her breathing or the flow of blood to or from her head. Although it is now near enough to three years since this crime was committed, at least some of the delay was caused by disagreement about the strangulation charge. That disagreement resolved in your favour and you pleaded guilty soon after then. It is in your favour that you have pleaded guilty. The plea facilitated justice and removed the need for the complainant to be exposed to the additional trauma of having to give evidence.
You are now aged 49. You have no prior convictions for violence. For all of your adult life you have been employed as a chef and you now have considerable responsibility, seniority and experience in that profession. References provided by two colleagues attest to your otherwise good character, the high regard in which you are held. Neither of them has ever observed you to have been violent or aggressive. I also have a reference from your mother to the same effect. I accept that you acted out of character and are very sorry for what you did. The excessive consumption of alcohol is likely to have played a part but that does not excuse or lessen the seriousness of your conduct.
Since this crime you have contributed to the community in other ways by devoting many hours of your time to a not for profit organisation which provides meals to homeless persons. Regardless of the sentence I impose this crime has had an impact on you. You spent three days in custody before being released on bail. You separated immediately from the complainant and have not been together since then. You were correctly precluded from the home you shared with the complainant and were forced to live with friends until divorce proceedings were concluded more than 18 months later. There have been a bail conditions which prevented your use of alcohol and which have reduced your ability to attend food industry events in case the complainant was present.
As is frequently pointed out, the prevalence and devastating impact of violence perpetrated against women within relationships is well recognised across Australia by criminal courts and the community. Family violence is an insidious, prevalent and serious social problem. There had been tension in your relationship during 2022 and you had been made subject to a police family violence order on 31 May 2022 with conditions not to threaten or assault the complainant. I have not been made aware of the circumstances which led to the making of that order. However, its existence aggravates the seriousness of the assault, even though the crime you committed does not, as far as I have been made aware, form a part of a pattern of violence. Whilst all of the violence was serious, it seems to me that the kicks to the complainant’s head while she was on the ground were a particularly dangerous form of assault. It is fortunate that she was not more seriously injured but her victim impact statement describes the devastating psychological impact that can be expected to accompany an assault like this. Violence is a breach of the trust inherent within relationships. Punishment and general deterrence are powerful sentencing factors.
Nevertheless, I have concluded that a sentence falling short of actual imprisonment is appropriate. Initially you were assessed as unsuitable for home detention because of the possible effect on your mental health. That assessment has changed but the only form of order for which you are suitable and which would enable you to retain your employment, which I consider to be a desirable outcome, given the hours demanded of you, is not sufficiently punitive. Instead I will order a term of imprisonment but wholly suspend it on condition that you perform community service. You will also be fined.
You are convicted on the indictment count 2 and on complaint no 9972 of 2022 count 2. I impose one sentence. You are sentenced to a term of imprisonment of 10 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 within the operational period of the order you perform 105 hours of community service. 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 5.00pm on Monday 27 October 2025, 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 or remain outside Tasmania without 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.
If you breach any of those conditions you may be brought back to court and re-sentenced.
I also impose a fine of $5000. That sum is payable within 28 days but you may apply to enter into a repayment arrangement.