Police v Cochrane [2021] NZDC 8224 (10 March 2021)

Last Updated: 28 April 2022

EDITORIAL NOTE: CHANGES MADE TO THIS JUDGMENT APPEAR IN [SQUARE BRACKETS]

IN THE DISTRICT COURT AT DUNEDIN I TE KŌTI-Ā-ROHE KI ŌTEPOTI

CRI-2020-012-000812

[2021] NZDC 8224

NEW ZEALAND POLICE

Prosecutor v

TAHLIA ALOMA COCHRANE Defendant

Hearing:	10 March 2021
Appearances:	D Tod for the Prosecutor A Leonard for the Defendant
Judgment:	10 March 2021

NOTES OF JUDGE K J PHILLIPS ON SENTENCING

[1] Ms Cochrane, you are appearing for sentence on a number of charges, four of which have given me considerable angst in attempting to arrive at an appropriate level for sentencing. I must apply the provisions of ss 7, 8 and 9 of the Sentencing Act 2002 in emphasising denunciation and deterrence; emphasising your concentrated efforts to destroy the sanity of the victim of your offending; but also make the allowance that I am required to make for a person who appears at your age and with your difficulties. It is not easy task to attempt to balance all those conflicting things as they all fly around. Since the Harmful Digital Communications Act 2015 came into effect, I have dealt with a number of people who have offended against those provisions, but the case against you is the worst in my recall of any of these cases. Primarily, by the very nature, its vindictiveness, and the way in which you steadfastly continued along the

NEW ZEALAND POLICE v TAHLIA ALOMA COCHRANE [2021] NZDC 8224 [10 March 2021]

path of attempting to destroy your victim. The point that I have to make clear in sentencing and I think has also troubled your counsel is, that when I prepared and read two or three pre-sentence reports (which in my view did not place the offending at the level which it was required to be placed at); reading conflicting statements about your endeavours in Wellington as regards to housing and recommendations as to sentence, I am left in a situation of where I either send you to prison for a period a year to 18 months, or I put you onto a pathway of community detention and design a sentence that will hopefully give you the tools to prevent this type of thing occurring at all.

[2] It is of moment from [the victim]’s victim impact statement is that she says she said to you in Court here today, “I hope from this Tahlia will get given the help that she needs and I hope she never puts anyone else through what she has put me through over the past two and a half years”. She shows a degree of compassion that your offending against her could very well have resulted in her demanding the utmost penalty from the Court, so she has shown mercy in what she has said. I congratulate her on her bravery in facing you and reading the victim impact statement today, and the way in which she phrased what she said can only have been a major problem for her.

[3] You face the Court on a charge that you, between 1 April 2019 and 30 April 2020, posted communications on Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook and TikTok with intent that they would cause harm to [the victim] where posting it would cause harm to an ordinary, reasonable person in her position and the communications caused serious emotional distress. There is a matter relating to 14 August, then the exacerbation by you stealing items of her clothing and property. The 14 August charge under charging document 2491, relates to you being involved in establishing a Trade Me profile and entering into an auction for a jacket that [the victim] had placed on Trade Me for sale. You entered into that auction, won it, but never intended to follow through with the purchase at all and it was never completed. What you then did was, you put on that medium the comments such as, “I'm appalled. I paid for my purchase today”, which was a lie, “...the day I won it and then received an extremely hateful email from [the victim] which implied I have to pay extra before I could pick up my purchase”. All lies. That caused distress to [the victim]. You just said, “Well I was frustrated and when the opportunity came up to target her, I took it”.

[4] You were on bail for offending against her and apparently you stayed at the same address she was staying at. When everybody had left the house the following morning leaving you there, you went into her room in this house, went through her clothing, took a top and a jersey. She, [the victim], discovered they were missing, contacted the police, and finally through contact with people, you returned the clothing through a third party. That occurred in July. In August, you were in the same property and you did the same thing, taking a cardigan, tights, and make-up. You took a pair of scissors to her hair straighteners cutting the cord and when the police were involved, you returned all the items.

[5] You stated your behaviour stemmed from a long-standing dislike between her your victim, and you and you get urges to upset her. No question raised there of any psychological issues or whatever, but a planned programme of ensuring harm to her, and then you began the tirade of posting.

[6] Last night in looking at your file, in preparing for the sentence, I went through the copies of the messages you put on these various programmes and platforms, and they are nothing short of absolutely appalling. That anybody could actually say or do things in a public arena knowing that it would be read by people who knew your target, the victim, [the victim]. You called her, “Ugly mutt”. You called her, “Fat”. You sent a comment, for example, “Hey Pig. How are you? How’s your mental health?”, with a laugh emoji, and little pigs’ heads’ on it. You sent comments to her and put it this way on Instagram,

“Howdy. I'm [name of the victim] and I'm a grozza slut ... I don't know how to fix the mess of my face. Why are my browsers fucked? Here are some photographs. I hate myself. Ugly pig. Ugly bitch. Hey, ugly bitch”.

Appalling does not really describe it, does it? And, on, and on, and on, as [the victim] described in her victim impact statement, and that is why I considered that the only way, really, of bringing you to task would be to send you to prison so that you, and people like you, people like-minded to use hate as a base for their involvement in social media, see what happens to them. Hold you out as an example, but again I come back to what the victim has said to us today.

[7] She is not saying it because she wants you hung, drawn and quartered. She is saying it because you need understand how you have tried to destroy her. Her mental health deterioration. Living life in constant fear every day when entering into her pursuits to wonder whether there would be some appallingly bad post made by you about her. As a result her health, her own relationships began to fail. Her self-assurance began to fall and as she put it, “the self-hatred” ignited about your comments about her began to work its way through her. A young person involved with people, had to deactivate her social media platform. What did you do? You pick on her sister and you begin to send her messages, screen shots to her, disgusting remarks all over them. You found [the victim]’s cellphone number, calling her. She had to deactivate that account as well. Over the time, 120 accounts over social media using fake names just to harass her. Seven accounts, one day, in 45 minutes. None of that appears to me to be activated by all these matters that are described in the psychologist’s report. Rather, you either thought it was funny to destroy a person in this way, or you had such feelings of hate, that this is the way you set it out. So in the end it comes down to what can I do at the end to bring home those matters I mentioned at the outset in the terms of the sentencing legislation?

[8] I note you appear to be remorseful from what is set out in the PAC Report. You have written letters. I go back and say what I said to Ms Leonard earlier; you did it all to [the victim] before, and then as soon as that had been said, “Oh, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, mea culpa, mea culpa” you just did again. And again, so I do not really accept that you are sorry about it. For you to say to the pre-sentence report writer of the report in December that your actions were a response to [the victim] initiating posting on social media comments, is an absolute nonsense. It was not retaliation and if you believe it to be so, then you certainly need to see a psychiatrist. That is what you told the report writer. “The victim began the campaign of harassment”, using the same comments you used to her. Just a nonsense!

[9] I think sending you to prison would destroy you. You would not survive it for the first week and I have to ask myself whether your attempt to destroy [the victim] should result in the Court and the justice system destroying you and your life, and when I balance that up I do not think it is justifiable. I think in the end that, the starting point here for these charges would be in the vicinity of a year to 15 months’ imprisonment at the top end for sentencing of such matters, but you are entitled to a number of credits in any period of home detention would be cut back by that factor. I consider overall, after having considered the victim impact statement, the matters that I have discussed, the psychological report which Ms Leonard arranged to be prepared upon you, and the recommendations that Ms Harrison, (who I know) has made in that report, I consider that it is appropriate that I leave you within the community to suffer your penalties accordingly, and to provide for the duty I have for your rehabilitation after allowing for your age and the matters detailed in the psychologist’s report.

[10] Accordingly, I sentence you in the following manner on the basis of what I have said. The maximum sentence of community detention I can impose is six months’ community detention.

• (a) You are sentenced to six months’ community detention starting tonight, curfew address being [deleted], Dunedin, and for the next period of six months, you will be there each night between 7 pm and 7 am each day of the week.
  
• (b) After having considered the matter and heard from the in-court probation officer today, I am sending you to intensive supervision for 12 months. I direct that the psychologist’s report that is available in the court file is to be sent to Probation for the purposes of that sentence. Special conditions of that sentence are will be as per the conditions in the recommendation paragraph of the memorandum from Probation dated 8 March and under the heading, “Supervision”.
  
• (c) You are not to have any contact or association with your victim direct or indirectly without the prior written consent of the probation officer.

• (d) You are not to access any social media sites for the duration of your sentence of intensive supervision.
  
  • (e) Upon request, you will make available to a probation officer or his or her agent, any electronic device capable of accessing the internet that is used by you or is in your possession or control for the purpose of monitoring your use of the device.
    
  • (f) You will undertake and complete appropriate treatment, counselling with a youth services agency to the satisfaction of a counsellor and a probation officer. The details of the treatment or counselling will be determined by a probation officer.
    
  • (g) You will complete an assessment for alcohol and drug abuse, complete such counselling, treatment, education, threat amended by the assessment, to the satisfaction of the probation officer and the service provided.
    
  • (h) You will pay reparation as per the schedule that I have, of which no doubt Ms Leonard has given you a copy of in the sum of $1,057 and you will make that payment no later than 30 April 2021, recognising that you are on a benefit.
    
  • (i) You will pay emotional harm reparation to the victim of your digital offending in the sum of $2,000 by a lump sum payment no later than 31 July of this year, again, that period is allowed taking into account the fact you are on a benefit. You need to find a job.
    

[11] In relation to all of the other charges, you are sentenced to the same sentence of 12 months intensive supervision.

[12] I should add that the Otago Daily Times had applied for, under the ‘In Court Media Coverage Guidelines,’ for an order for the taking of your photograph during this sentencing exercise. I heard from Ms Leonard, your counsel, opposing that application. I accept her submissions on the basis that you, at the age you are, could have serious psychological and mental health issues arising from the publication of

your photograph and I do not see that it is warranted in the circumstances of this type of offending involving one victim, albeit, at the higher end of seriousness.

Judge K J Phillips

District Court Judge

Date of authentication: 06/05/2021

In an electronic form, authenticated pursuant to Rule 2.2(2)(b) Criminal Procedure Rules 2012.