STATE OF TASMANIA v JOSHUA DEAN STEPHENS 23 MAY 2019
COMMENTS ON PASSING SENTENCE BLOW CJ
Joshua Dean Stephens, you have pleaded guilty to a charge of assault. You have also pleaded guilty to two charges of contravening the conditions of a notice. Those are summary offences that I am dealing with under s 385A of the Criminal Code. On 16 November 2016 you were short of money. You wanted some, and you decided to try to get some from your mother. You went to her place. She was unwilling and I think also unable, to give you cash. You reacted by assaulting her. This is not the first time you have been brought before a court for assaulting her – it is the fifth.
The other charges relate to a notice that you were given under the Police Offences Act. The notice said that there were various things that you were not allowed to do. You were not allowed to go to your mother’s place, but you broke that condition of that notice by going there. It also said you were not allowed to assault her. The other charge is a charge of breaching another condition, once you got there, by assaulting her. This is not the first time that you have disobeyed some sort of order by going and assaulting your mother – it is the third. In the past you have breached an interim restraint order by assaulting her, and you later breached a restraint order by assaulting her.
You did not do her any physical harm of any significance, but she feared for her life. And this happened in her own home where she had a right to feel safe. It was not just one act of violence that you did against her. It was several. First, you took hold of her arm and pulled her from one room to another. Next, you grabbed her around the throat with both hands and squeezed her throat. A little after that, you grabbed her from behind and pushed her to the ground. When she was trying to get up, you pushed her head into the seat of a couch and held it there before you let her get up. Then you went and got a knife and pointed it towards her throat. You did not touch her with it. You did not cut her with it. But you held it towards her throat. The final thing that you did was to grab her by the back of the neck and spit in her face. When all of this was going on, she knew that you were in a dreadful violent state. You were talking about killing yourself, and she was scared you were going to take her with you. It is clear from her victim impact statement that she loves you and wants to do the right thing by you, but knows that that is going to involve a danger to her. So, it was terrible for you to go there and do all those things.
This was not just an assault. It was also a series of events that involved disobeying the notice that said that you were supposed to keep away. When people go to gaol for driving while disqualified, they do not just go there because there is something wrong with their driving. They go there because of disobedience and because they need to be taught that they have to obey court orders or notices, and so that is a very important part of what I am going to have to punish you for today. You did not just commit a dreadful assault, or series of assaults, that were a terrible experience for your mother, but it also one of many times that you have broken the law by doing things that you have been ordered not to do.
You are 25 years old. You were 23 then. Drugs seem to be what has been getting you into trouble. There have certainly been times when there have been indications that you have some ability to control yourself and stay out of trouble. But the only appropriate penalty in this case is a significant sentence of imprisonment. Since 28 November last year, you have been in custody in relation to this matter alone. Earlier, you spent 50 days in custody on this matter alone, so I am going to impose a sentence that starts 50 days before 28 November. I will be a sentence that starts from 9 October.
Because this comes on top of other sentences of two months and of 14 days, that is a reason to make it a lighter sentence than it would otherwise have been. The fact that you pleaded guilty is another reason to make your sentence shorter than it would otherwise have been. You pleaded guilty at a late stage when your case was ready for trial, and your mother and your brother must have been expecting that they would have to come to court and give evidence. But, by pleading guilty, you have saved the State the cost and inconvenience of a trial, and you have saved your mother and your brother the ordeal of having to come to court and give evidence. So, I think that your plea of guilty is worth about a 10 or 15% discount.
What you did was terrible. It was not just terrible for your mother. It was terrible for your brother who felt helpless, and embarrassed because he had a friend there. As I say, the only appropriate penalty is a significant sentence of imprisonment.
I convict you and sentence you to 12 months’ imprisonment with effect from 9 October 2018. Because you are young and there is some chance that you might be able to reform to some degree, I will make provision for parole. You will not be eligible for parole until you have served eight months of this sentence. As required by s 92A of the Sentencing Act, I specify that the first 36 days of this sentence were concurrent with the sentence of two months’ imprisonment imposed on you by a magistrate on 25 October 2018; that the following 14 days of the sentence were concurrent with the sentence imposed on you by a magistrate on 17 April 2019; and that the balance is cumulative with those sentences.
3 JUNE 2019
[An application was made for the sentence to be varied because the time spent in custody by Mr Stephens prior to 28 November 2018 on this matter alone was 23 days, not 50 days.]
I make an order varying the sentence imposed on 23 May 2019 by changing the commencement date of the sentence to 5 November 2018 instead of 9 October 2018, and by changing the proportion of the sentence specified as concurrent with the sentence of two months’ imprisonment imposed on 25 October 2018 to nine days instead of 36 days.