DPP v Hayes [2014] VCC 1532 (12 September 2014)

Last Updated: 16 September 2014

IN THE COUNTY COURT OF VICTORIA

Revised (Not) Restricted Suitable for Publication

AT MELBOURNE

CRIMINAL JURISDICTION

CR 14-00931

DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROSECUTIONS
v
NATALIE HAYES

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JUDGE:	HIS HONOUR JUDGE SMALLWOOD
WHERE HELD:	Melbourne
DATE OF HEARING:
DATE OF SENTENCE:	12 September 2014
CASE MAY BE CITED AS:	DPP v Hayes
MEDIUM NEUTRAL CITATION:	[2014] VCC 1532

REASONS FOR SENTENCE

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APPEARANCES:	Counsel	Solicitors
For the Director of Public Prosecutions	Mr D. Pickering
For the Accused	Mr T. Lavery

HIS HONOUR:

1. Natalie Jane Hayes, you have pleaded guilty to one charge of intentionally causing serious injury and one charge of armed robbery. Those crimes carry maximum penalties of 20 years and 25 years respectively. In this particular situation I regard the intentionally cause serious injury as the more serious of the two and the armed robbery was, in effect, almost incidental to it.
2. You are 35 years of age. You pleaded guilty at a reasonable early opportunity and I accept from the reports before me that you now have appropriate remorse. You must also get the utilitarian benefit of that plea of guilty. You have a teenage child. You do have a significant number of prior convictions and findings of guilt, almost totally from the Magistrates' Court, but they seem to all relate to drug use and to, what might be described as, simply thieving. You have nothing in your prior history of such seriousness as this, although I am aware there are two, what must have been relatively at least, minor assault matters.
3. The summary of the prosecution opening makes somewhat disturbing reading. Your co-offender was a Mr Shane White, who is 43 years of age and who is apparently pleading not guilty. The victim in the matter is an Irene Anastasiatis. She'd known White for about 20 years, having been in a short-term relationship with him, and had seen him around the Box Hill and Ringwood areas since then.
4. In the months prior to the offence White had apparently indicated to her that he was interested in a serious relationship but she said she wasn't. On or about 5 September 2013 he told her that he had a new girlfriend. You, apparently a couple of days before 10 September 2013, had met Mr White at the shopping centre, as I understand it, in Ringwood. You have a long history of drug use and you and White used. What happened after that is to a certain extent anybody's guess.
5. You appear to have very little memory of it and I accept that that is probably correct, due to you having been on an extended binge of alcohol, Xanax and ice. In any event, at approximately 7.00 pm on 10 September

   Mr White contacted Ms Anastasiatis by phone and arranged to meet her outside a church in Box Hill. They then walked to the town hall. At that point she saw you standing near the church. She asked White who you were and he said that he didn't know. You followed them across Whitehorse Road.

6. Upon reaching the car park near the town hall you grabbed the victim by the shoulders and forced her into the nearby bushes, with White apparently assisting you. You held her down and tried to force her to eat dirt and rocks from the gravel, at the same time telling her that she was fucked and not to talk to White. According to her you and White were referring to each other as 'Babe'. You punched her a number of times to the face with a clenched fist while she was on all fours on the ground. As this was happening a Mr Consodine walked into the car park and saw the attack. When he approached he was told by White that you were only mucking around and effectively told to leave.
7. The victim was able to get out of the bushes and had blood on her but you kept trying to drag her back into the bushes where she was punched and kicked again. The victim estimates that that attack went for about 20 minutes. During it you were saying that you wanted to cut her throat and drown her. She was bundled into the back of your car with the assistance of White, who told you to stay with her. She had a big jacket pulled over her head and was told to keep her "fucking head down".
8. Whilst in the car White passed a knife to you and you stabbed the victim repeatedly. Her debit card and pin were demanded and handed over and in the end $190 was obtained. While she had been driven around in the car, she was stabbed again. I am told, and I have seen the photographs obviously, that she was stabbed some 14 times over a significant period of time. It is odd some of the things that you were saying to her, as if you were punishing her, something to do with White. The armed robbery seemed somehow secondary in all this.
9. I could not make a finding as to why all this occurred. I will simply say this. That it is the sort of conduct that is not uncommon with people who have been using ice for an extended period of time. And it makes very clear in my view that that drug is probably the biggest threat, or one of the biggest threats, that our community has faced for a long period of time.
10. The situation here is that Ms Anastasiatis, having been dumped in a street in Box Hill, was taken in fortunately by a local person and an ambulance called. She was taken to the Alfred Hospital, where she remained for four days. She was treated for the approximately 14 stab wounds, lacerations, scratches, facial bruising, arterial bleeding and damaged teeth. As I said, I have seen the photographs and I have read her victim impact statement. She lost a lot of blood and you are very lucky, I think, that you are not being sentenced in another jurisdiction. Be that as it may I sentence you for the crimes you have pleaded guilty to.
11. When arrested you gave a 'no comment' record of interview which of course was your right. You denied knowledge of the car, which shows that you certainly had some wherewithal about you. The injuries in themselves could be described as middle of the range. It is the way in which they were brought about that is the greatest concern. Clearly the woman who had been totally unknown to you until that moment in time - and I have read her victim impact statement - feared for her life. You have caused her great psychological damage and that fear continues.
12. For her to be dragged around in that situation, being stabbed on what would appear to be a regular basis - and I note that there is a number of stab wounds to each knee, which is a bit disturbing - is the reason why people get significant gaol sentences for this type of thing. It could only really be described as a form of torture.
13. The situation is that a very significant custodial sentence is inevitable. Offending such as this, it is trite to say, is serious. Of course, in the normal course of events, for the application of general and specific deterrence, there are the rules of denunciation and punishment. I then look to the matters personal to you that were urged upon me by your counsel.
14. Tendered on your behalf were three reports. One for a neuropsychological report from Germaine Health, one a report from psychologist Warren Simmons, who had apparently seen you some six years ago as well, although I am not privy to that report, and also one from the Merri Outreach Support Service, which dated back to the end of 2012. I conclude from that that they had not seen you since.
15. The reports, as I have indicated to counsel, I find very difficult to reconcile. What is clear, or is brought out through them, is this. You have had a very long history of drug use. You very probably have an acquired brain injury brought about by substance abuse and potentially domestic violence. You went to about Year 7 or 8 and you have very rudimentary literacy, if any. You are reported as having a full scale IQ of 51. As indicated to your counsel I do not accept that. When they get that low you would be incapable of functioning. But I do accept for the purpose of this plea that you have a very significant intellectual disability, at least acquired in later years, and it is hard for me to ascertain how long that situation may have existed.
16. On an overall reading of the reports, which I direct remain on the court file so that any genuinely interested person may have resource to them, would indicate that you had a disadvantaged childhood. You have no family support at the present time and you have lived all over the place. It is a sad thing indeed to see in a report that one of the few times of stability that you have had was living with your daughter in a refuge.
17. You have used drugs but you have previously never, in a serious sense, resorted to violence. The report from the neuropsychologist says that "I believe that Natalie's cognitive weaknesses, anxiety and panic attacks, and history of homelessness" mean that you have difficulties with more complex tasks. "She appears to have managed well with everyday life tasks. Reported anxiety and panic attacks would need to be addressed and managed to support further stabilisation". I would agree with all that.
18. You have now been in custody for just over a year. You have been in gaol before but not for that long. As I go through the psychologist's reports it is clear that - I do not need to go into the detail of it - that since you were young you have been in a string of violent domestic relationships, where it would seem that your lack of self-esteem and need for drugs would cause you to enter relationships that were based pretty much solely on that. You have had a number of other extremely unfortunate experiences.
19. You were in a relationship with one Mr Macken. You were essentially addicted to alcohol and it has been one disaster after another, it would seem. Mr Simmons says that you have genuine remorse for your actions and were concerned about the impact of your behaviour on the victim. I indicate that from where I sit here that is consistent with how you have been in the Dock. He also points out that it is clear that over the years you have entered into dysfunctional relationships to provide support such as accommodation or protection, as well as drugs, and that all of your relationships have been dysfunctional.
20. What the circumstances are with Mr White, I have got no idea and I suspect that you do not either. Whether that was the start of a new relationship of that nature, or whatever it might have been, I have no idea. The words that you spoke at the time of this very serious assault would tend to indicate, as I said before, some sort of punishment to her for something that she may have done to White, but again one is only guessing. I will give you, as best I can, the benefit of the doubt in relation to those matters.
21. The prospects of your rehabilitation are realistically entirely up to you and the Parole Board. I think the risk of you re-offending is dependent very much upon your rehabilitation. It is of some comfort that for the last 20 years of your - since your mid-teens, you have not committed anything like this sort of offending, in terms of the seriousness and the effect on the community. I take all those matters into account. I did not see how Verdins and moral culpability actually applies in this situation but I am well aware of the decision in Bugmy and the decision in Blackrock.
22. I accept that there is a probability that imprisonment for you may be harder than for a normal prisoner. It is also the situation that people in your circumstances do all right in gaol because there is a routine and you do not have to worry about where your next feed is coming from. What I have done is imposed what I consider to be the appropriate sentence, taking into account the very unfortunate circumstances in which your life has been led in the way that I have described.
23. I think in your particular situation that the appropriate thing to do is to give you a longer opportunity for parole than what might otherwise have been the case. It then becomes a matter for the Parole Board. It is indeed a sad state of affairs that you will be sentenced for. I simply say this. That in the victim impact statement Ms Anastasiatis talks about how terrified she is and what happened to her. She gets dragged into a vehicle, "Told I was to be killed so I gave my key card. I got multiple stabbings whilst being told what my pin card was. $190 was stolen". And then she has written in capital letters, "This is horrific fear I have ever, ever experienced". And then rather sadly it is "I can't spell". That is what you have got to be sentenced for unfortunately.
24. Taking all those matters into account, on Charge 1 of intentionally causing serious injury, five years. On Charge 2 of armed robbery, three years. Because of the offence as being almost unable to be looked at individually, I have made six months of the three months cumulative on the five, which gives a total effective sentence of five and a half years. I direct that three years and three months be served before becoming eligible for parole and direct that 366 days be reckoned as having been served under this sentence.
25. Just so that you clearly are aware. In circumstances where you have pleaded with very little memory, of the benefit that you have got from this plea of guilty and thus saving the victim the pain and experience of having to go through a trial. But for your plea of guilty, I would have sentenced you to be imprisoned for a period of eight years with a minimum of six. That differential in the minimum term is to reflect your prospects of rehabilitation and your remorse.

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