STATE OF TASMANIA v BENJAMIN RAYMOND SMITH 3 AUGUST 2026
COMMENTS ON PASSING SENTENCE PEARCE J
Benjamin Smith, you plead guilty to threatening to murder contrary to the Criminal Code, s 162. I also agreed to deal with your plea of guilty to eight counts of breaching a restraint order contrary to the Justices Act 1959, s 106I(1).
The criminal conduct occurred on 3 and 4 September 2025. On 3 September 2025 a restraint order was made by a magistrate for the protection of the complainant, with conditions which included that you not threaten or abuse her and not approach her by any phone or electronic means. That order was made in these circumstances. You met the complainant in early 2024 when you were homeless and she was volunteering for a charity service. She was in her early 40’s and you were 27. You became friends and, after a few months an intimate sexual relationship developed, although she was married. She felt responsible for you and helped you out financially. However later in 2024 she informed you that although you could remain friends she wished to end the intimate relationship. You did not accept her decision. For the next six months or so you pleaded with her to resume the relationship but, at the same time, frequently threatened the complainant, telling her that you would kill her, kill her family and her pets, and kill yourself. You sent her text messages suggesting you were near her house and could see her through the window. On 18 May 2025 you threw a rock through the front window of her home, returning a couple of hours later shouting and screaming. When the complainant’s son opened the door you threw rocks at him, one of which struck him. You were arrested, charged with common assault and destroying property and remanded in custody. On 3 September 2025 you were sentenced by a magistrate for those and other offences, including two counts of assaulting police, to imprisonment for three months from 16 May 2025. On the same day, given that you were about to be released, the restraint order was made.
The term of imprisonment and the order did not deter you from what occurred immediately after your release. On the same day you sent her a text message calling her a slut, asking for an apology and telling her that you were back in Launceston. On the morning of the next day you sent her an email again saying you were back in Launceston and asking to talk with her because she had not replied to your letters sent from prison. You then sent a series of further text messages, initially conversational, but then becoming increasingly aggressive and abusive as she did not respond. The messages included that you were “coming for her” and that there was nothing she could do to stop you, that you had evil thoughts on your mind, and that she had better hope that the police stop you, threatening to punch her head, strike her with a hammer, put a knife to her neck and put your hands round her neck, to burn her alive in her home, to visit her son. You told her that you were willing to put your body and freedom on the line for her and her family, that you were an unwell person with evil thoughts and should have been kept in prison, that the restraint order meant nothing and would not stop you, you had self-harmed in prison and could not stop the violent thoughts. You threatened to bash her husband and children, and to hurt them to get access to you including with a hammer to their heads. One message said that you would love to choke her until she could not breathe, then let her breathe and do it all over. Another message said that you wanted to make her suffer, that you wanted to be caught with blood on your hands. Another message said that you could attack at any time and that you were coming to her house.
At 3.10 pm on 4 September 2025 you phoned the complainant. When she answered you told her that it was good to hear her voice. She immediately hung up. You also sent messages to your mother saying that you were going to seriously injure or kill the complainant, that you would be back in prison soon and that you were evil, the devil was in your soul and there was nothing she could do to stop you. You sent messages to the complainant’s friend saying that you had been planning to kill the complainant, that you were coming to Launceston to cause fear and violence and suggesting there would be a new report of a female killed.
The direct and indirect contact with the complainant was in breach of the conditions of the restraining order. These were not empty threats. You caught the bus to Launceston arriving at 5.20 pm. The police were there to arrest you, but you had with you a folding hunting knife. You admitted to the police that you had sent all these messages, that you told her things you had been thinking about for three months and your intention was as you had said in your messages: to go to her house with the knife and a hammer intending violence and that you were not deterred by the restraint order or the possibility of prison. These events were terrifying for the complainant and she remains psychologically affected.
Until 2024 you had no criminal convictions of any nature. Since then you have been sentenced for numerous summary offences involving alcohol and other anti-social behaviour. Because I regard the crime to which you have pleaded guilty as so serious and extreme, and because you were unrepresented when the sentencing hearing commenced, I ordered the preparation of pre-sentence reports by a probation officer and a forensic psychiatrist nominated by the Chief Forensic Psychiatrist, Dr Akintunde Akinkunmi.
The following comes from information provided by your counsel and in the probation officer’s report. You are now aged 28. You were educated to grade 12. You are literate but you undertook no further training or education. Since leaving school you have held only occasional unskilled employment and for the most part you have been in receipt of social security benefits. Prior to being taken into custody you were homeless. You denied the use of illicit drugs and your physical health is good. However, in the community, you were a heavy user of alcohol. You have a complicated and extensive history relevant to your mental health, involving a treatment care team with the Hobart Adult Community Health Service between August 2022 and February 2023. You reported a diagnosis of autism, anxiety, depression, suicidal ideation and alcohol abuse. During the period I referred to you were administered anti-psychotic medication by injection, and other medication for emotional dysregulation. The records outline a history of obsessive thoughts, anger and impulsivity. When asked by the author of the report about your attitude to this crime, you admitted your plan and intention to murder the complainant and willingness to do so in the presence of her family, and to harm them if the situation required it. You demonstrated little apparent insight into the seriousness of your conduct.
Dr Akinkunmi conducted an interview with you on 29 June 2026. He also had access to details of your crime, the pre-sentence report and to the records of the Tasmanian Health Service including an extensive review conducted by Dr Kylie Lloyd, a consultant psychiatrist, at Risdon Prison on 1 July 2025. Dr Akinkunmi recorded your turbulent and traumatic upbringing which included early exposure to domestic violence and a very unstable family situation. As to the crime, you told Dr Akinkunmi that your thoughts of wishing to kill the complainant stemmed from your feelings of anger and rejection when she said she wanted to stop having sex with you, that you intended to carry out your threats although, when asked if this included killing the complainant, you said that you were not sure you could have done that.
Dr Akinkunmi found no evidence of major mental illness, and no evidence of psychotic symptoms which required treatment with anti-psychotic medication. He was satisfied that the principal diagnosis is an emotionally unstable personality disorder, borderline type, with marked anti-social personality traits. He considered the diagnosis to be consistent with your reaction to the end of the intense and unstable relationship with the complainant. Your anti-social traits were demonstrated by your planned approach to the threats and the plans to carry them out, even if it included harming her family. Dr Akinkunmi recorded the diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder but did not consider that the condition was a significant factor in this crime. In Dr Akinkunmi’s opinion, your mental health conditions are not relevant to sentence. You were not mentally impaired at the time the crime was committed. Your moral culpability is not reduced. Imprisonment will not impair or harm your mental health. There is no reduction in the need for general or specific deterrence and no reason to think that prison may weigh more heavily on you as a result.
Some mitigation arises from your relatively early plea of guilty. The delay in sentencing arises from the time it has taken to obtain the reports. The result of the plea is that the need for the complainant to give evidence is avoided. The plea has facilitated justice.
You informed the author of the pre-sentence report that you had engaged in a period of reflection and changed your mindset. You professed to Dr Akinkunmi that you had thought about what you had done and that your mindset had changed, and that you accepted responsibility for your behaviour. In February this year you wrote to the complainant, apologising in non-threatening terms, indicating a concern for her. That letter was of course written in breach of the restraint order. Nevertheless, the probation officer’s assessment, based on the assessment tools available to her, is of you still pose a risk and have high needs. It is Dr Akinkunmi’s opinion that, despite some engagement with therapeutic services while you have been in custody, and the possible benefit of future therapy, you present a continuing clear risk to the complainant and her family, as well as anyone else with whom you may enter a relationship in the future. The experience of courts is that it is difficult to reliably predict the risk of re-offending posed by a particular offender, but the nature and circumstances of this crime lead me to conclude that protection of the public by your incapacitation is a very important sentencing factor. The risk you pose is controlled to some extent by the terms of the family violence order which will be in place for five years from your release and imposes a restriction from you going within 100 km of Launceston and requires the fitting of an electronic monitoring device. The sentence I impose must not be disproportionate to your crime. However I regard this crime as a serious example of the crime. The gravity of it arises from the apparent genuineness of your intention when you made the threat to kill and your indication at the time and since then of the lengths to which you were prepared to go to carry it out. You were remanded in custody on your arrest on 4 September 2025. You have served a short sentence since then. The sentence I impose will commence on 4 October 2025.
Benjamin Smith, you are convicted on complaint 35516/25, counts 1 to 9 inclusive. I impose one sentence. You are sentenced to a term of imprisonment of two and a half years from 4 October 2025. I order that you not be eligible for parole until you have served 18 months of that term.