Crown v Accused

1 Christopher Allen Bell, on 3 June 2020 in this Court, you pleaded guilty to the murder of Natalia Angok (the 'deceased') in the early morning hours of 24 April 2019 in Melbourne's CBD.

2 The maximum penalty for this offence is life imprisonment, and the standard sentence under the Sentencing Act 1991 (Vic) (the 'Act') is 25 years' imprisonment.[1]

3 Having considered all the evidentiary material and submissions from counsel given during the plea hearing on 16 September 2020, it is now my responsibility to sentence you for this offence.

4 You and the deceased formed a relationship in August 2018 that was punctuated by episodes of violence. One such incident in October 2018 resulted an interim family violence intervention order ('FVIO') being made against you, naming the deceased as the protected person.[2] On 12 April 2019, the FVIO was varied to prohibit all contact between you and the deceased following further reports of family violence. Despite that order, it appears the two of you remained in close contact.

5 In the period leading up to the offence, you had been consuming significant amounts of methylamphetamine and alcohol. Indeed, after one particularly indulgent week-long binge, you were voluntarily admitted to the psychiatric unit of the Latrobe Regional Hospital. Clinical notes following your admission indicate that you were reporting visual and auditory hallucinations. These hallucinations were later determined to be caused by untreated schizophrenia and alcohol withdrawal. You were not, however, treated with regular antipsychotic medication at any stage during your admission nor were you prescribed any upon discharge. That is most unfortunate.

6 While at the hospital, you and the deceased stayed in touch via text message. It is of some significance that, on 11 April 2019, you sent the deceased a text message saying, amongst other things, 'I know you will do nothing but destroy me or try to steal my sole [sic].'

7 You also told a nurse that you were hearing female voices that you identified as belonging to the deceased and another former partner.

8 Despite these ongoing delusions, you were ultimately discharged from the unit on 17 April 2019 to a supported residential service, but you chose to leave there and moved into the Space Hotel in Melbourne.

9 Once back in the community, you resumed your significant alcohol and drug use in the company of the deceased. You apparently continued to experience auditory hallucinations involving the deceased, which said at one point, 'We just want to kill you.'

10 In the early hours of 24 April 2019, you and the deceased were in the CBD of Melbourne and intoxicated. You attended the Exford Hotel bottle shop in Russell Street shortly before 2:00am. Inside, you attempted to steal a bottle of wine but were confronted by a security guard and made to leave. You then attempted to engage the security guard in a physical confrontation outside the hotel until the deceased intervened and led you away.

11 The two of you then travelled by taxi to a gaming venue, known as the Golden Nugget Hotel, in Lonsdale Street. An argument is said to have occurred between you on the way. Once at the Golden Nugget, the deceased played on the poker machines while you interacted with others inside and outside the hotel. By 5:00am, you both left that venue and proceeded through the CBD towards Celestial Avenue. Your path was captured on closed circuit television ('CCTV') footage and, at times, that footage depicts animated conversations between you and the deceased.

12 After one such conversation, at approximately 5:08am, the deceased walked away from you down Celestial Avenue to relieve herself. You followed her shortly after. It is to be inferred that you killed her just moments after you entered the laneway by strangling her. During your attack on her, she scratched at you, leaving a mark on your neck. It is not in contest that DNA testing of samples that were later collected from her body as well as fingerprint evidence revealed that you were the assailant.

13 Dashboard camera footage from a delivery driver shows you leaving the alleyway approximately 30 minutes later. How you spent those 30 minutes is not known beyond what you subsequently told forensic psychiatrist Dr Andrew Carroll, which was that you berated yourself and wept at what you had done. However, it is clear that you did not make any attempt to assist the deceased or contact emergency services.

14 After leaving the deceased in the laneway you walked through the CBD, stopping first to purchase cigarettes before going to the Crown Casino to gamble for an hour. At about 8:15am, you walked back through the city to the Space Hotel and bought food and a bottle of wine on the way.

15 The deceased's body was not discovered until 6:20am, and police were contacted. The investigation quickly identified you as the person that the deceased had last been seen with, and police located you at the Space Hotel. Upon observing a scratch mark on your neck, you were asked by them to attend at the Melbourne West Police Station for a formal interview.

16 Although you initially attempted to lie to police, you admitted to killing her shortly thereafter, saying that you had 'choked the life out of her until she breathed no longer'. A later interview was conducted, during which you responded primarily by 'no comment'. You were then arrested and remanded in custody. On your behalf, Mr Lawrence of counsel submitted that you were cooperative with the police investigation, and I am prepared to accept that ultimately that was so.

17 During the plea hearing, the Court received four victim impact statements. Three of those statements were read to the Court by the prosecutor. The statements were from the deceased's family: her cousins, Dut and Aguer Athian and Laade Adel; her half-sister, Sabrina Angok; and Abraham Angok, the eldest brother of the deceased.

18 The victim impact statements outlined the relationship that each person had with the deceased and the shock that was associated with them learning of her death. This family must cope not only with her death but also the horror of the circumstances in which it occurred. The impact it has had on them will be lifelong and while its intensity may lessen over time, the sadness surrounding her death is permanent for them.

19 I have taken the substantial impact that your crime had on these people into account in determining the sentence that should be imposed on you.

20 At the time of committing this offence, you were 32 years of age. You were born on 19 June 1986 and are the only child of your parents. Your parents separated when you were very young, and you were raised by your mother. You had little contact with your father until your teenage years, when you lived with him for a period. As I understand it, you continue to be in close contact with your mother while in custody and have ceased contact with your father.

21 From your teenage years onwards, you suffered from significant issues with depression and anxiety, and also began to abuse substances, particularly alcohol. You began to use illicit drugs, including cannabis, amphetamine, methylamphetamine, and ecstasy, in your late teens and 20s. Reportedly, your drug use has waned in recent years, but you have continued to heavily abuse alcohol. Drug use was occurring at the time you committed this offence.

22 You left school at the age of 16 and went on to undertake training as a chef, although you did not obtain any formal qualification. You have a history of seasonal employment within the hospitality and construction industries on the Mornington Peninsula. During periods of unemployment, you relied on government benefits.

23 You have also had two prior significant relationships, although they were similarly marred by family violence, especially in the context of your consumption of alcohol or drugs. From those relationships, you have four children, aged six through 12. You now have no contact with your children or your ex-partners.

24 As your counsel has appropriately conceded, you have a significant criminal history, which involves recurring incidents of violence and threatening behaviour against partners and is also demonstrative of your history of substance abuse.

25 Your history began in September 2003 when, at 17 years of age, you were fined without conviction for the theft of a motor vehicle. From that point forward, you were regularly before the courts for offences including drink driving, theft, violence and breaches of intervention orders.

26 In November 2007, you received your first custodial sentence in relation to charges of recklessly causing injury, breaches of an intervention order and unlawful assault in relation to one of your partners. Thereafter, a deeply entrenched pattern of perpetrating family violence against your intimate partners emerged and, between 2008 and 2017, there were five convictions for contravening intervention orders; two convictions each for recklessly causing serious injury, unlawful assault and threats to kill; and one conviction for assault with a weapon.

27 From your history, it is clear that you have been a danger to your partners, those who have shared part of their lives with you, for a long time. Your case also raises the unfortunate causal connection between mental illness, substance abuse and family violence, which acted as 'mutually reinforcing risk factors', culminating in your fatal actions on 24 April 2019.

28 Following your arrest in April 2019, your solicitors later engaged the services of Dr Carroll to assess your mental state at the time of the murder. At that stage the question was whether you had the defence of mental impairment open to you. He has since produced three reports, which were provided to the Court, and concluded you met the diagnostic criteria for schizophrenia, moderate personality disorder with a borderline pattern, and mixed substance use disorder.

29 Dr Carroll was of the opinion that your schizophrenic illness first showed signs of emerging in 2013 and was formally diagnosed in 2014. He noted that you have only partially complied with antipsychotic treatment and continued to use illicit substances, despite the fact that your 'acute episodes of disturbance' coincide with the heavy use of, or withdrawal from, drugs and alcohol.

30 He further indicated that, during these acute episodes, your delusions have centred on perceived wrongdoings by, or threats from, intimate partners. He noted:[3]

Although [your] violence towards women predates the onset of [your] psychotic symptoms, the history suggests that more serious violence ensued when [you] developed a psychotic illness and [your] beliefs regarding romantic partners became delusional, particularly when [you were] subject to the disinhibitory effects of substance intoxication.

31 At the time of meeting the deceased, your schizophrenia was entirely untreated, and you were living an unstable life in a 'persistently psychotic state, which fluctuated in intensity'. Dr Carroll concluded that when you and the deceased embarked on your relationship, she 'immediately became incorporated into [your] complex delusional system and began to regularly feature in [your] hallucinatory experiences'.[4]

32 Dr Carroll concluded his exhaustive report with his assessment of your mental functioning at the time of this offence. He admitted to there being some limitations to his findings on the basis that you reportedly have very little recall of the hours leading up to the murder of the deceased and only scant recollection of the act itself.

33 You did tell Dr Carroll that your attack on the deceased was preceded by an argument, and you went on to acknowledge that you had strangled her to death. The circumstances suggest to me that your actions in killing the deceased were impetuous rather than premeditated and, apart from the conflict in your relationship from time to time, you had no significant motive to kill the deceased. On the other hand, she did figure in your delusions as a result of your illness.

34 Although he did not conclude the defence of mental impairment was available, Dr Carroll identified the three likely factors underlying the commission of the offence: your untreated, severe schizophrenic illness, turbulent relationship dynamics, and disinhibition - the last factor resulting from your underlying personality disorder, relationship conflict, and significant intoxication.

35 Dr Carroll said he could not confidently determine which, if any, of these factors was more causally relevant than the others, and he noted that you and the deceased had a relationship that was characterised by 'turbulence and repeated conflict'. He then said:[5]

On balance, although multiple factors were most likely at play, I consider it more likely than not that the symptoms of his untreated schizophrenia made a significant causal contribution to the offending. It is certainly possible that his delusions regarding the victim were a necessary causal factor in the killing but I cannot be definitive on that point - I note in particular:

• A long history of violence to women that pre-dates the onset of his schizophrenia;
• Prior aggression to [the deceased] when intoxicated that may or may not have been related to delusions;
• Emotional turbulence in the relationship with [the deceased], not all of which can be attributed to his delusional beliefs regarding her; and
• Evidence of [the deceased] berating [you] several hours beforehand, perhaps indicative of a degree of conflict between them that night.

36 Dr Carroll then expressed his opinion, taking into account all of the evidence that he examined, that your schizophrenia significantly impaired your ability to make calm and rational choices on the night in question.

Application of the Verdins[6] principles

37 Your impaired mental functioning, whether temporary or permanent, is relevant to the sentence I impose on you. Your impaired mental functioning may have the effect of reducing the moral culpability of your conduct, as distinct from your legal responsibility. Where that is so, the condition affects the punishment that is just in all the circumstances. It may be that denunciation of your conduct is less relevant to the sentence to be imposed.

38 It is not in contention that you had a significant mental illness, being schizophrenia, when you killed the deceased and that you still suffer from it, though it has responded to treatment. There was some debate in relation to the extent of its effect on your conduct for the purposes of concluding the appropriate sentence to be imposed. There was debate concerning issues of moral culpability and any appropriate moderation of the sentencing considerations of general and specific deterrence.

39 In the prosecutor's submission the presence of the other factors referred to by Dr Carroll, and the inability to entirely disaggregate them to determine the 'cause', means that I ought to conclude that there should be no more than a slight or modest reduction in your moral culpability and in the weight to be given to specific and general deterrence.

40 Your counsel submitted that Dr Carroll concluded that, on balance, there was a significant causal nexus between your untreated mental illness and the commission of this offence. In his submission that should have the effect of some moderation, but not complete elimination, of your moral culpability and, accordingly, the significance of general deterrence, specific deterrence and just punishment as sentencing factors.

41 Whether general deterrence should be moderated or eliminated as a sentencing consideration depends upon the nature and severity of the symptoms exhibited by you and the effect of the condition on your mental capacity at the time of the offending, or at the date of sentence, or both.

42 Dr Carroll's reports lead me to the view that but for your schizophrenia, it is unlikely that you would have murdered the deceased in the circumstances you did. Your untreated schizophrenia was one of three factors 'underlying the offence'. I note that the second of these factors, which is described as 'turbulent relationship dynamics', itself contained as an element your underlying borderline personality disorder. Whilst your schizophrenia was not the only factor 'underlying' the offence, in my opinion there should be some moderation in the assessment of your moral culpability because of it and because of your personality disorder as a further impairment of your mental functioning.[7] That also operates to reduce the weight given to general deterrence and denunciation as sentencing factors.

43 In relation to specific deterrence - that is, persuading you by this sentence not to commit further offences in the future after your release - again the nature and severity of your symptoms are relevant and the conclusion from Dr Carroll that there were also other factors involved. In addition, any moderation of specific deterrence arising from your mental illness must be balanced against your prior convictions involving violence against female partners over an extended period - some of which were before the onset of symptoms of your schizophrenic illness.

44 It was also not in dispute that, on the basis of Dr Carroll's report, a custodial sentence would weight more heavily on you, given your diagnosis of schizophrenia and ongoing psychotic symptoms, than it would on a person without your psychiatric conditions.

45 Dr Carroll also indicated the view that your continuing detention in prison would have an adverse effect on your mental health as opposed to detention in a long-term secure forensic hospital bed. That is because your mental health and rehabilitative needs cannot be adequately met in prison based on the considerations outlined in the report. In particular, Dr Carroll noted:[8]

[Your] psychosis has remained in clear evidence following [your] incarceration. [You have] commenced various antipsychotic medications, but [have] not always complied with them... [and you have] remained profoundly psychotic and insightless... [Your] current prescribed antipsychotic medication regime is below the recommended dosage for schizophrenia... [and] a higher dose... has been declined by prison-based psychiatric services.

46 Dr Carroll, in dealing with the requirements for your rehabilitation, said in his report that your needs exceed what is available in prison even within the mental health facilities housed within the 'prison estate', as he called it. He therefore recommended that consideration be given to a Court Secure Treatment Order pursuant to s 94B of the Act.

47 While neither counsel on your behalf or the prosecutor suggested that a Court Secure Treatment Order was an appropriate disposition, it was submitted on your behalf that the Court should still consider that there is a serious risk that imprisonment would have a significant adverse effect on your mental health, given Dr Carroll's concerns. Your counsel did concede, however, that your condition has improved whilst in custody, as your substance abuse has abated and that your treatment is more likely to be regimented and your compliance monitored.

48 I propose to sentence you on the basis that your mental illness at the time of the offending had a significant connection with your offending, as Dr Carroll concluded. It is therefore appropriate to moderate those sentencing factors, to which I have referred, to some degree. However, I do so in the knowledge that your mental illness was not the only factor with some causal connection to your actions.

49 In determining your prospects of rehabilitation from a psychiatric point of view, Dr Carroll employed a standardised method of classifying criminogenic risk factors to predict risk of recidivism and treatment needs. From this, Dr Carroll concluded that you presented as a high risk of reoffending and would require a significant level of treatment.

50 He expressed the opinion that you presented as a very complex rehabilitative challenge due to your schizophrenic illness, history of serious violence to women that pre-dates the onset of your schizophrenia, personality disorder, substance use disorder, and criminogenic risk factors. Dr Carroll also concluded that your schizophrenic illness must be adequately treated to benefit from any rehabilitative programs or interventions. As I have said, Dr Carroll seemed dubious about whether the treatment you will receive in custody will be sufficient.

51 At present, your condition has improved somewhat since you have been in custody. Your counsel has told me that your mental health has stabilised, though you are still prescribed antipsychotic and antidepressant medications. You now contemplate and understand the need to take antipsychotic medication for the rest of your life. However, I do note that Dr Carroll was of the opinion that you have poor insight into your illness and need for pharmacological treatment.

52 It is very difficult to assess your rehabilitative prospects at this moment as you face a significant custodial sentence and, as Dr Carroll noted, your risk will need to be thoroughly re-evaluated closer to the future date of your release. I remain guarded as to your prospects of rehabilitation. That is so notwithstanding your performance in custody to date, coupled with the expectation that your compliance with mental health treatment will be consistently monitored and your abstinence from alcohol and illicit drugs continued.

53 As previously stated, murder is a 'standard sentence offence' under the Act and has a standard sentence of 25 years' imprisonment. The standard sentence for an offence is properly viewed as a 'legislative guidepost'[9] that provides the appropriate sentence for an offence in the 'mid-range' of objective seriousness.[10] Those objective factors are to be determined wholly by reference to the nature of your offending and without consideration of your personal circumstances.[11]

54 In summary, the objective factors that go to the seriousness of your offending include the fact that the offence was committed in the context of an intimate relationship with the deceased, Ms Angok. Her death was the culmination of a history of family violence that you had perpetrated against her (and in earlier years, against former partners) and for which, in this case, an interim FVIO had been obtained to protect the deceased from you. The offence itself was committed in circumstances of extreme violence by strangling the deceased with your hands. Afterwards, you did nothing to assist her and left her for dead in the laneway. The offending is thus very serious.

55 That is not, however, the end of the sentencing decision, as the imposition of the standard sentence is not mandatory in any sense. Rather, it is only one more factor to which the Court must have regard in the instinctive synthesis approach to sentencing,[12] which requires the simultaneous balancing of many factors, including the nature and seriousness of the offending as well as your personal circumstances.

56 Section 5(2)(b) of the Act further provides that I may only have regard to sentences previously imposed under the standard sentencing scheme, which has the effect that I must disregard established sentencing practices and work from a 'clean slate'.[13]

57 Finally, s 11A of the Act states that I must fix a non-parole period of at least 70 per cent of the sentence imposed unless it is in the interests of justice not to do so. The sentence I will impose will give effect to this direction.

58 Counsel on your behalf indicated that you communicated your intention to plead guilty to this offence by 29 May 2020 and that plea was ultimately entered on 3 June 2020. Although it cannot be said that you pleaded guilty at the earliest opportunity, as your counsel identified, you have always accepted responsibility for the deceased's murder and the cause for delay was the investigation into whether you had the defence of mental impairment available to you. When it became clear that such an outcome was not supported by the forensic psychiatrist, you then entered your guilty plea to the charge of murder.

59 I accept there is significant utilitarian value to your plea. The family of the deceased has been saved the extreme discomfort of a trial and have been brought some measure of finality. This Court has also considered that the utilitarian benefit is further increased as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and the substantial disruptions it has occasioned to the lists in this Court (and other courts for that matter).[14]

60 During the hearing of the plea, you gave sworn evidence, which in my view may not have been necessarily in your best interests as you began by maligning the deceased. However, you described the relationship with her from your point of view and eventually apologised to the family and friends of the deceased.

61 You expressed that you felt regret for what you had done almost immediately after you had done it, but you were unable to answer as to why your regret did not cause you to obtain assistance for the deceased or turn yourself into police. You could only say that you were frightened and wanted to escape from the situation.

62 As your counsel put on your behalf, you have demonstrated your remorse by ultimately making admissions to police, pleading guilty in this Court, and discussing your significant regret with Dr Carroll. Those matters count in your favour.

63 I am willing to accept that your acknowledgment of responsibility for the death of the deceased is, at least in part, the product of remorse. I am also willing to accept that you have some feelings of regret for the wrong you have done, though I consider they are overtaken by your concern for your present situation.

64 As a result of your previous convictions and consequent terms of imprisonment for making threats to kill in 2009 and 2017, you are to be sentenced as a serious violent offender for the offence of murder.[15] Section 6D of the Act provides that, in such a case, the Court must consider community protection as the paramount sentencing purpose. The prosecutor did not contend that, in order to achieve that purpose, a disproportionate sentence ought be imposed on you as would otherwise be open under the Act.

65 Taking into account the seriousness of this offence as I have outlined, you fall to be sentenced on the factual basis that your actions, in causing the death of the deceased, were spontaneous, unplanned and immediately followed a brief and acrimonious conversation with her.

66 However, you have killed a woman with whom you were having a relationship and for whom you claimed to care. It also occurred in circumstances where you were actively in breach of an FVIO by being with her at all. Having killed her for reasons you yourself do not comprehend, you abandoned her; left alone and dead in an alleyway.

67 Like so many similar cases, this case is a tragedy. So many men feel the need to inflict violence on women - sometimes fatally as in this case - although, in this case, that need was, at least, in part based on the delusions that arose from your schizophrenia. In such circumstances the scales of strength and power are always unequal, even in your mentally impaired and intoxicated state. Natalina Angok's death was futile except to the extent that it may once more draw the community's attention to the often-fatal outcomes of male violence against women for whatever reason it occurs.

68 However, I am satisfied that the principles arising from Verdins, and later developed in subsequent authorities dealing with the same issue, mean that your moral culpability for this offence is reduced to a significant degree by reason of your untreated schizophrenia and delusional symptoms you were experiencing, almost certainly exacerbated by alcohol and drugs. Whilst there should be some moderation of general and specific deterrence, I reach my conclusions conscious of the other factors underlying this offence that Dr Carroll has referred to as well as your criminal history and the pattern of violence against your former partners. Unlike some other cases, whilst it may be the most prominent, your serious mental illness is not the only contributing factor to your conduct.

69 I am further satisfied that, as I have described, your time in custody will weigh more heavily on you than it would on someone in normal health.

70 In my view, the appropriate sentence to be imposed on you for the offence of murder is a sentence of 21 years' imprisonment, and that is the sentence I impose on you. I further direct that you serve a term of 15 years before you become eligible to apply to be released on parole.

71 In sentencing you, I would urge the relevant authorities to continue to ensure that your mental health be treated as required so that by the time you are released, your prospects of rehabilitation and living a law-abiding life thereafter are enhanced.

72 I declare that the pre-sentence detention is 535 days, including today, and direct that that period be reckoned as time already served. I direct that those matters be entered into the records of the Court.

73 Pursuant to s 6AAA of the Act, I declare that had you not pleaded guilty to the charge of murder and been found guilty by a jury, the sentence that I would have imposed on you would be one of 24 years' imprisonment with a minimum of 18 years to be served before you would have been eligible to apply for release on parole.

74 Section 5B(5) of the Act directs me to refer to the standard sentence for the offence of murder in this case and explain how the sentence I have imposed on you relates to the standard sentence. For good reasons, which I have identified, the sentence imposed on you is lower than the standard sentence, and those reasons have been spelt out by me in detail.

75 You have been sentenced as a serious violent offender for a relevant offence, namely, murder. Pursuant to s 6F of the Act, I direct that the fact that you have been sentenced as a serious violent offender be entered in the records of the Court.

76 I have already made the disposal order sought by the prosecution.

[1] Sentencing Act 1991 (Vic) ss 5A, 5B ('Sentencing Act'); Crimes Act 1958 (Vic) s 3(2)(b).

[2] The FVIO was made final on 22 January 2019.

[3] Report of Dr Andrew Carroll dated 30 August 2020, 61 [427].

[6] R v Verdins; R v Buckley; R v Vo [2007] VSCA 102; (2007) 16 VR 269 ('Verdins').

[7] Brown v The Queen [2020] VSCA 212; (2020) 62 VR 491.

[8] Report of Dr Andrew Carroll dated 30 August 2020, 64 [445].

[9] See, e.g., Explanatory Memorandum, Sentencing Amendment (Sentencing Standards) Bill 2017, 6-7 ('Explanatory Memorandum'); Brown v R [2019] VSCA 286; (2019) 59 VR 462.

[10] Sentencing Act s 5A(1)(b).

[11] Ibid s 5A(3).

[12] Ibid ss 5B(2)(a), 5B(3)(b).

[14] See, e.g., DPP v Bourke [2020] VSC 130; R v Nolan [2020] VSC 416; DPP v Williams & Godfrey [2020] VSC 483; R v Rivett [2020] VSC 563.

[15] Sentencing Act ss 6B(1)-(2), 6C, sch 1 cl 2(a), 2(c)(iv).