R v Adams [2012] NZHC 3406 (13 December 2012)

Last Updated: 9 January 2013

IN THE HIGH COURT OF NEW ZEALAND HAMILTON REGISTRY

CRI-2011-109-8886 [2012] NZHC 3406

THE QUEEN

v

ROBERT VERNON ADAMS

Hearing: 13 December 2012

Counsel: R L Mann for Crown

K Tustin for Prisoner

Judgment: 13 December 2012

_{SENTENCING REMARKS OF LANG J}

R V ROBERT VERNON ADAMS HC HAM CRI-2011-109-8886 [13 December 2012]

[1] Mr Adams, you appear for sentence today having pleaded guilty in the District Court to eight charges of sexually inappropriate behaviour. You have also pleaded guilty to 19 representative charges of being in possession of objectionable photographic images.

[2] The District Court declined jurisdiction and remanded you to this Court for sentence so that the indeterminate sentence of preventive detention could be a sentencing option.

[3] There is some doubt as to whether convictions have been entered. To erase that doubt, I now enter convictions on each charge.

The charges

[4] The eight charges of inappropriate sexual activity relate to a single victim, who was 12 years old at the time of the offending.

[5] You have pleaded guilty to two charges of sexual violation arising out of incidents in which you placed your penis in the victim’s mouth. Each of those charges carries a maximum sentence of 20 years imprisonment.

[6] In addition, you have pleaded guilty to five charges of doing an indecent act on the victim. Each of those charges relates to incidents in which you touched the victim inappropriately or got him to touch you in a similar way. Each of those charges carries a maximum penalty of seven years imprisonment.

[7] You have also pleaded guilty to a charge of doing an indecent act with intent to insult or offend. This carries a maximum sentence of two years imprisonment.

[8] Finally, as I have already recorded, you have pleaded guilty to 19 representative charges of being in possession of objectionable material in the form of sexually explicit images involving predominantly young boys and adult males.1 The

_{maximum penalty for each of those charges is five years imprisonment.}

1 Films, Videos and Publications Classification Act 1993, s 131A(1).

[9] The facts giving rise to the charges to which you have pleaded guilty are contained in four separate summaries of fact with which you take no issue. These reveal that you were 69 years of age at the time of the offending.

[10] You and your victim lived in the same neighbourhood, and the offending occurred after you befriended the victim and his younger brother. They had been visiting a neighbour and you first met them through their visits to the neighbourhood. You built up their trust by buying them food and other items, giving them money and letting them play video games at your house. In addition, you took them on outings to places such as the go-cart track, the ice skating rink and swimming pools. You were able to take the boys on these outings because you had formed a friendship with the boys’ parents, and they trusted their sons in your care.

27 May 2011

[11] On 27 May 2011, you took the victim in your vehicle to the Daytona Park Raceway as a birthday present. Whilst travelling there you were sitting in the driver’s seat of the vehicle, and the victim was seated in the front passenger seat next to you.

[12] During the journey, you reached across and placed your hands on the victim’s groin. He tried to move away, but you would not let him. He was eventually forced to climb into the back seat of the vehicle in order to prevent you from having any further physical contact with him.

July 2011

[13] On a date unknown during July 2011, you again took the victim out for a drive in your car. Whilst you were driving along the road, you grabbed the victim’s hand and put it down your own pants so that his hand was touching your penis. The victim pulled his hand away, but you grabbed his hand and pulled it harder, thereby

hurting the victim’s arm. You then placed his hand on your penis, and held it there for an extended period of time.

1 July 2011 to 31 August 2011

[14] On occasions, you would arrange for the victim to spend the night at your house. On one occasion you woke the victim during the night whilst he was sleeping in the lounge. He then agreed to come into your bed. Once there, you removed the victim’s clothing. You then grabbed him by the head and forced his head between your legs. You forced him to give you oral sex by placing your penis inside his mouth.

[15] On another occasion when the victim was staying at your address, he was asleep on a couch in the lounge. He awoke to find you standing in front of him with your penis in his mouth. You then began masturbating in front of him. Not surprisingly, the victim immediately left the address. These two incidents gave rise to the charges of sexual violation by unlawful sexual connection.

27 May 2011 to 25 November 2011

[16] On another occasion, between 27 May 2011 and 5 November 2011, you and the victim were at your home address. He was sitting on a couch in the lounge of the address. You sat down beside him and began touching him on the thigh. This was interrupted when there was a knock on the door which you got up to answer. The victim took the opportunity to run from the address through the back door.

5 November 2011

[17] On or about 5 November 2011, you were again travelling with the victim in your vehicle. You took the opportunity to grab the victim’s hand on a number of occasions, and you tried to place it on your groin. On each occasion the victim pulled his hand from your grip.

[18] At about 7 pm on Friday 25 November 2011, members of the public saw you sitting with the victim in your vehicle in a public park. You had taken the victim, his younger brother and another young friend to the park to play touch rugby. Whilst playing touch rugby the victim was injured, and came back to your car in order to recover. You took the opportunity to put your hands down the victim’s shorts on the outside of his underwear, and began rubbing his penis until it became erect. You then told the victim repeatedly to touch your penis, which you had exposed. The victim did as he was told. He grabbed your penis because he did not want you to do anything else to him.

[19] Fortunately, members of the public observed you acting suspiciously in the vehicle. They were sufficiently concerned by your actions to confront you, and to remove the victim from your vehicle. They then telephoned the police. You initially told these people that you were the victim’s grandfather, but you later changed that explanation to say you were his adopted grandfather.

[20] When the police spoke to you, you denied acting inappropriately towards the victim. You told the police he had been kicked in the genital area whilst playing touch rugby, and was sore.

[21] The police executed a search warrant at your home address three days later. Whilst there, they located a number of computers, external hard drives, electronic storage devices and digital cameras. A forensic examination of this equipment revealed 1,120 objectionable images. The police selected a sample of 19 of these as the basis of representative charges. Virtually all of the images depict young boys engaged in inappropriate behaviour with other young boys, or with adult males.

Sentencing Act 2002

[22] In sentencing you, I am required to have regard to the purposes and principles of sentencing contained in the Sentencing Act 2002. The sentence I impose must hold you accountable for the harm done to the victim and to the community by your

offending, it must promote a sense of responsibility in you for that harm and denounce the conduct in which you were involved. It is also necessary to impose a sentence that deters you from future offending, and protects the community from you. The sentence must similarly deter other persons from being tempted to commit offending of this type.

[23] There is no dispute that the only appropriate sentence in your case is one of imprisonment. The real issue is whether I should sentence you to a finite term of imprisonment, or impose the indeterminate sentence of preventive detention.

Sentencing approach

[24] I propose to first fix the appropriate finite sentence to reflect culpability in respect of all of your offending. I will then determine whether or not I should impose that sentence or, instead, sentence you to preventive detention.

Finite sentence

Starting point

[25] I propose to select an end starting point that reflects the culpability of your offending on all charges, and then determine the extent to which that needs to be adjusted to reflect aggravating and mitigating factors personal to you.

[26] In assessing the sentence to be imposed on you, I am required to have regard to the effect that your offending has had on your victims. I have had the advantage of reading measured and restrained victim impact reports from the victim and his family. It is clear that the offending has had a devastating effect upon them. The victim’s behaviour has changed noticeably, and he has become more aggressive towards members of his family and to those around him. The victim’s wider family have also suffered terribly as a result of what you have done. They feel responsible for what has happened here, because they were the people who effectively left their son in your company.

[27] They should not, however, feel any sense of shame or responsibility for what happened here. You portrayed yourself in such a way that they believed you were a person who could be trusted. You, and you alone, were the person who betrayed the family’s trust. The victim and his family should feel no sense of responsibility or guilt in respect of what you have done to them. Those feelings should rest solely, Mr Adams, with you.

[28] I take the lead, or most serious, charges to be those of sexual violation. They carry, as I have indicated, maximum sentences of 20 years imprisonment. The starting point in relation to those charges is to be determined having regard to the principles set out in the guideline judgment of the Court of Appeal in R v AM.2 In that case the Court of Appeal identified bands of starting points for sexual offending, including sexual violation. In setting those bands, the Court identified factors that

render offending more serious, and therefore determine the band of offending in which a particular case sits.

[29] Starting points for cases involving sexual violation by penile penetration of the mouth are to be determined with reference to the bands identified in the AM judgment for cases involving rape.3 The Court of Appeal said that the lowest rape band, band one, was inappropriate for offending involving vulnerable victims such as young persons.4 For that reason I do not consider your offending appropriately falls within band one.

[30] The Court of Appeal also said that band two would be appropriate for a scale of offending that was, in relative terms, moderate.5 The band was designed to cover offending involving a vulnerable victim, and is appropriate for cases having two or three of the factors increasing culpability to a moderate degree.6

[31] In your case, several of those factors are present. First, your offending involved a young person. Secondly, it obviously involved a significant degree of

_{planning and grooming behaviour. This occurred over a reasonably significant}

2 _{R v AM [2010] 2 NZLR 750.}

3 _{Ibid, at [76].}

4 _{Ibid, at [93].}

5 _{Ibid, at [98].}

6 Idem.

period of time. In effect, you bribed the victim to spend time with you by buying him treats. This grooming behaviour was obviously designed to gain the trust, not only of your victim but, also, of his parents. It worked, because his parents trusted you to the point where they were prepared to allow the victim to stay with you overnight.

[32] Your victim was obviously vulnerable because of his young age, and the gap between his age and yours. For reasons already given, the offending also involved an element of breach of trust. In addition, it occurred on more than one occasion.

[33] I therefore consider your offending falls at the bottom of rape band two identified in R v AM. Offending within this band calls for a starting point of between seven and 13 years imprisonment. I therefore take a starting point of seven years imprisonment on the charges of sexual violation. I add to that an uplift of one year to reflect the remaining sexual offending, which involved touching the victim inappropriately on several occasions and inducing him to touch your genital area.

[34] The charges involving possession of objectionable materials were obviously serious in their own right. On their own, I consider they would attract a sentence of around three years imprisonment. Having regard to totality principles, however, I would add a cumulative sentence of one year to the starting point of eight years imprisonment I have already identified. This leaves an effective end starting point of nine years imprisonment prior to taking into account aggravating and mitigating factors personal to you.

Aggravating factors

[35] There is one significant aggravating factor, and this relates to previous convictions for similar offending. You received a sentence of three years six months imprisonment in July 2005 for that offending which occurred in 2003. I will refer to it in greater detail later in these remarks, but for present purposes, I propose to take your previous convictions into account by adding an uplift of 18 months to the end starting point on the sexual violation charges.

[36] This is not to punish you twice for the same offending. Rather, it reflects the fact that your present offending is made that much more serious by the fact that you were prepared to become involved again in sexual offending against a young boy relatively shortly after being released from a sentence of imprisonment for similar offending. This shows you have not learnt your lesson as a result of the sentence you received on the previous occasion. You knew how the court would respond to offending such as this and yet, for your own gratification, you were prepared to become involved in it again regardless of the consequences.

[37] This leaves an end sentence of 10 and a half years imprisonment before taking into account mitigating factors.

Mitigating factors

[38] The only mitigating factor I can give you credit for is your guilty pleas. I certainly do not give you credit for remorse, because the reports prepared for sentencing today make it clear that you believe your victim had some role to play in encouraging this offending. That shows both lack of insight and lack of remorse. It also reduces the accountability and responsibility you have accepted for your offending.

[39] In Hessell v R, the Supreme Court held that the maximum credit to be given for a guilty plea is 25 per cent.7 The Court also emphasised that sentencing courts must consider all relevant circumstances when allowing a credit for a guilty plea. This includes not only the timing of the plea, but also the strength of the prosecution case.8

[40] Although your guilty pleas did not come at the earliest opportunity in some cases, they were certainly entered relatively early. Importantly, however, the pleas saved your victim the trauma of having to relive these events by giving evidence at a

_{defended trial. On the other side of the coin, it is necessary to recognise that you had}

7 _{Hessell v R [2011] 1 NZLR 607 at [75].}

8 Ibid, at [74].

no prospect of defending the charges of being in possession of objectionable materials.

[41] I propose to allow a credit of just over 20 per cent across the board to reflect your guilty pleas. This means that I reduce the starting point I have identified by two years two months to arrive at an end sentence of eight years four months imprisonment.

Minimum term of imprisonment

[42] In any case involving such serious offending, particularly when it is repeat offending as is the case here, the Court is entitled to impose a minimum term of imprisonment. This may be done when the usual parole provisions are insufficient to properly reflect principles of denunciation, deterrence, accountability and the need to protect the community. All of those factors are present in your case.

[43] The need to protect the community means you should not be considered for parole unless and until you have undergone further specialist therapeutic treatment designed to ensure you do not offend again in a similar way in the future. For that reason, in the event that I was to impose a finite sentence, I would impose a minimum term of imprisonment of five years.

Preventive detention?

[44] It is now necessary for me to consider whether I should impose, rather than a finite sentence, the indeterminate sentence of preventive detention.

[45] The purpose of preventive detention is to protect the community from those who pose a significant and ongoing risk to the safety of its members.9 The Court may only, however, impose a sentence of preventive detention when three qualifying

_{pre-conditions are met.}10

9 _{Sentencing Act 2002, s 87(1).}

10 Ibid, s 87(2).

[46] First, the offender must have been convicted of a qualifying sexual or violent offence as defined in s 87(5) of the Act. There is no dispute in this case that the offences to which you have pleaded guilty are qualifying offences. Secondly, the offender must be 18 years of age or over at the time of committing the offence. It is common ground that this condition has also been met.

[47] Thirdly, the Court must be satisfied that the offender is likely to commit another qualifying sexual or violent offence upon release. That is an issue of some dispute in the present case, but I have reached a clear view that this condition is also satisfied. I say that because of your past history. As I will shortly outline in greater detail, you were convicted in 2005 and sentenced to three and a half years imprisonment for offending that has very similar hallmarks. The present offending occurred relatively shortly after release from prison on those charges. Secondly, the reports prepared in anticipation of today’s hearing make it clear that there is a moderate to high risk of you offending again in a similar way in the future.

[48] I will deal with this issue in greater detail later in these remarks, but I record for present purposes that I have no doubt that there is a real risk that Mr Adams will commit another qualifying offence upon release.

[49] In determining whether or not to impose a sentence of preventive detention, the Court is required to take into account the following factors:11

(a) Any pattern of serious offending disclosed by the offender’s history;

(b) The seriousness of the harm to the community caused by the offending;

(c) Information indicating a tendency to commit serious offences in the future;

(d) The absence of, or failure of, efforts by the offender to address the cause or causes of the offending; and

11 Ibid, s 87(4).

(e) The principle that a lengthy determinate sentence is preferable if this provides adequate protection for society.

a) Any pattern of serious offending

[50] In 2005, you were convicted on three charges of indecent assault and a charge of unlawful sexual connection. This related to offending against a 13 year old male victim in 2003. He pleaded guilty on the basis of a police summary of facts. This recorded that you befriended your victim over the period of approximately a year after meeting him initially whilst fishing. The victim would visit your house and play computer games with you. You would have your victim sit on your lap and you would touch the boy’s genitals and rub yourself against him. You also fondled the victim’s genitals when you assisted him to use a slingshot and a fishing rod. In addition, you performed oral sex on the victim in a car.

[51] The circumstances surrounding the present offending are such that, in my view, a pattern has been created of sexual offending against adolescent boys. It involves primarily touching, but also advances on occasions to oral sex. It is obviously a serious matter when, so shortly after being released from prison, you were prepared to offend again in such a similar way in the present case.

b) The seriousness of the harm to the community caused by the offending

[52] Offending of this type causes incalculable harm to the community. First, it causes direct harm to the victim. As I have already indicated, he has suffered significant effects as a result of the offending. Secondly, it harms the victim’s family in the ways I have described. Thirdly, it sends a ripple throughout the whole community because it destroys the sense of trust parents have in strangers. Offending such as this means that parents become less and less prepared to entrust the care of their children to strangers. In addition, young people lose all sense of trust in those older than them. The level of harm that the offending creates is, therefore, serious.

c) Information indicating a tendency to commit serious offences in the future

[53] In preparation for sentencing today, two reports have been received from health professionals. First, there is a report from a psychiatrist, and secondly, there is a report from a clinical psychologist.

[54] Both reports contain a very detailed account of the salient events in your life. It appears that you had a reasonably close relationship with your father, but he died when you were just seven years of age. From that point on, it seems that you lived in a somewhat cloistered environment in which you were looked after by your mother. Both reports record your early sexual experiences with a young girl that led to you being punished. From that point on it seems that your sexual predilection was for males. You have now been a practising homosexual for many years. You told the psychologist that you had had approximately ten partners during that time, although you have not been involved in any significant long-term relationship.

[55] A feature arising out of both reports is that you live in what may be described as an isolated environment in which you have little contact with other people. Your mother died some time ago and your only sibling, your sister, is also now dead. This means that over the last few years you have had an extremely limited support network to fall back on.

[56] You have resorted to viewing pornographic internet images as a means of escaping your isolation. The reports suggest, however, that this has assisted to strengthen latent desires within you.

[57] The psychiatrist is naturally reluctant to attempt to predict future behaviour. He points out that any endeavour to predict what human beings may do at any period in the future is fraught with risk. Relevantly, however, the psychiatrist has this to say:

[Mr Adams’] victims have been boys under the age of 14 years who appear to have been from an impoverished background and needing material support. Such circumstances appear to have prepared context for grooming behaviour and his offending has occurred in the context of living in isolated conditions whereas contact with young boys was unsupervised. Re-exposure

to such circumstances would increase his risk of committing a qualifying sexual offence. The general dictum that risk of committing sexual offence decreases with increasing age does not appear to apply to Mr Adams. He started engaging in extensive grooming behaviour soon after his release from the prison and targeted an almost identical victim as his previous offence. His offending on both occasions appears to have escalated with time as will be evidenced by their occurrence in public places such as car parks and while driving where risk of detection would be higher.

[58] The psychiatrist goes on to express further concern at the fact that offending has occurred relatively shortly after release from prison and after completing a therapeutic programme whilst in prison. He says:

Mr Adams, despite gaining an understanding of the risk factors that could potentially increase his risk of offending against children does appear to have placed himself in circumstances where reoffending could and, indeed, did, occur. Such a behavioural pattern may indicate that there may be an absence of, or failure of, efforts by him to address the cause or causes of the offending.

[59] The psychologist suggests that you are at high risk of reoffending in a sexual way following your release. He points out that you have already undergone an extensive therapeutic programme for sex offenders, and that your present offending has occurred notwithstanding graduation from this programme. He says that you exhibit multiple dynamic risk factors that suggest you are at risk of further sexual offending. He observes that both your previous criminal history and your remarks to him demonstrate a pervasive predilection to young males aged 12 to 15 years of age. Both sets of offending appear to be primarily sexually motivated, and he points out that increasing age does not appear to be a protective factor for you.

[60] He also says that the prospect of you significantly reducing your risk of sexual offending by way of further psychological treatment is uncertain. Before that can occur you will need to acknowledge that your offending was not caused solely, as you have claimed, by your anxiety and low self-esteem. The psychologist considers your sexual proclivity towards pubescent and adolescent males has significantly contributed to you behaving in inappropriate and harmful ways towards your victim.

[61] The psychologist also concludes that, if you were to be released, community- based programmes would not be sufficient to assist you to mitigate your risk of

sexual reoffending. Rather, you would require very close external monitoring including consideration of an extended supervision order with close monitoring of your compliance.

[62] The psychologist also used a number of instruments in an endeavour to assess the risk that you would offend further in a sexual way upon release. Some of these were of limited utility given your particular circumstances.12 Nevertheless, he found that you were in the high risk group using the STABLE 2007 instrument. Using the ASRS instrument, he considered your risk to be medium to high. Medium to high risk offenders in this category tend to reoffend at a rate that is approximately twice

that of the average.

[63] The psychologist concludes:

52 Mr Adams is estimated as being at a high risk of re-offending with serious sexual offences in the five years following release into the community. His pattern of offending, stable deviant sexual interest over time, and re-offending following treatment, suggests that Mr Adams’ risk of sexual re-offending may remain relatively stable.

53 Mr Adams will need to address his sexual offending through an intensive programme for child sex offending, such as with the Te Piriti-Special Treatment Unit (TP-STU). Consultation undertaken with TP-STU staff confirmed that Mr Adams will be accepted into the unit and his treatment will be carefully considered. The length of his incarceration will need to be of adequate duration for programme completion. However, Mr Adams’ capacity to benefit from further treatment to mitigate his risk of sexual re-offending is uncertain given his offending subsequent to intensive treatment on his prior custodial sentence for sexual offending.

54 Mr Adam’s risk of further sexual re-offending is not considered to be currently manageable in the community.

[64] As outlined earlier, these observations persuaded me beyond any doubt that you are at high risk of reoffending in a sexual way upon release.

12 Including the ACUTE 2007 instrument.

4. The absence of, or failure of, efforts by the offender to address the cause or causes of the offending
   

[65] As will already be apparent, you undertook and completed an intensive course of therapeutic intervention whilst you were last in prison. This occurred at the Te Piriti Special Treatment Unit that caters for child sex offenders. You were compliant whilst undergoing treatment, but an incident occurred in which you were warned about inappropriate behaviour towards younger male inmates. The most concerning aspect about this is that despite undergoing intensive therapy, you offended again so shortly after release. This means either that therapy has had no effect, or you have deliberately decided to put to one side all of the material you learned whilst undergoing that therapy.

5. The principle that a lengthy determinate sentence is preferable if this provides adequate protection for society
   

[66] This principle really speaks for itself. A lengthy determinate sentence will be the preferable option, but only if this provides adequate protection for society.

[67] The factors to which I have referred make it clear that you are currently at risk of sexual offending in a sexual way and that that risk appears to be stable and that there are doubts as to whether it will decrease even after further extensive therapeutic intervention. For that reason, the sentence of preventive detention is certainly an option.

Exercise of discretion

[68] It is necessary, finally, for me to stand back and determine whether I should exercise my discretion in favour of the sentence of preventive detention, or whether I should, instead, impose the finite sentence I have foreshadowed.

[69] Several factors influence me in making this decision. First, the fact that you have already undergone intensive treatment, but have reoffended again a relatively short period after being released from prison. Second, your interviews with the

psychiatrist and psychologist make it clear that you have not yet obtained true insight into the nature and effect of your offending. Both reports indicate that you were somewhat evasive when discussing both the present offending and your earlier offending.

[70] Secondly, and this is a matter I consider to be extremely concerning, you still appear to minimise your own involvement in the offending. In particular, you appear to attribute responsibility for the offending, to some extent at least, to your victims. I consider this is a serious issue, and one that means that you are at very great risk of reoffending unless drastic steps are taken to change your outlook.

[71] Third, I have real doubts whether the imposition of an extended supervision order will be sufficient to protect the community. Your offending does not occur within the home environment. Rather, it occurs through friends you meet in the wider community. This means that the protection that an extended supervision order may not be sufficient to guard against future offending. It may be impossible for the authorities to monitor you sufficiently closely to guard against the prospect that you will meet and befriend young boys again in the future. I consider that type of behaviour could easily occur notwithstanding the existence of an extended supervision order.

[72] In addition, there is the undoubted fact that you are an isolated individual. You have no support network within the community. This means that, before you can safely be considered for release, the parole authorities will need to know that you will be released into a safe environment. In my view, release in any other circumstances is not an option.

[73] The difficulty with a finite sentence is that you could easily serve the whole sentence without any guarantee that there will be a stable environment into which you can be released. Should that occur, the prison authorities will have no option but to release you into the community regardless of the risk. I do not consider that is a risk that can be taken.

[74] For these reasons, I have reached the clear view that the only way in which the community can properly be protected from you is by the imposition of a sentence of preventive detention.

Minimum term

[75] The next issue is the minimum term that must be imposed.

[76] In any case where the Court imposes a sentence of preventive detention, it must impose a minimum term of imprisonment of not less than five years.13 In setting the minimum term, the Court must have regard to the minimum term necessary to reflect the gravity of the offending and the minimum term necessary to protect the public.14 I consider that the minimum term to achieve both of those purposes is the same minimum term as I would have selected had a finite sentence been imposed. For that reason I consider a minimum term of imprisonment of five years is warranted.

Sentence

[77] On the charges of sexual violation, you are sentenced to preventive detention and ordered to serve a minimum term of imprisonment of five years.

[78] On all remaining charges, you are sentenced to 12 months imprisonment. All of those sentences are to be served concurrently with the sentence of preventive detention.

Three strikes warning

[79] Mr Adams, you have now been convicted on charges that bring into play the “three strikes” legislation. All of the charges to which you have pleaded guilty are relevant in this context, other than the charges relating to being in possession of

_{objectionable materials.}

13 _{Sentencing Act 2002, s 89(1).}

14 Ibid, s 89(2).

[80] I am now going to give you a warning of the consequences of another serious violence conviction. You will also be given a written notice outlining these consequences which lists these serious violent offences:

1. If you are convicted of any serious violent offence other than murder committed after this warning, and if a Judge imposes a sentence of imprisonment, then you will serve that sentence without parole or early release.

2. If you are convicted of murder committed after this warning, then you must be sentenced to life imprisonment. That will be served without parole unless it would be manifestly unjust for that to be the case. In that event the Judge must sentence you to a minimum term of imprisonment.

_{[81] Stand down.}

Lang J

Solicitors:

Crown Solicitor, Hamilton

Counsel:

K Tustin, Hamilton