Darren Bellis, you have for many years suffered under the debilitating mental illness of schizophrenia. The respected psychiatrist, Dr Reid, in his report, which I have read and taken into account, said that you first had contact with psychiatric services when you were aged approximately 16.
You recall being subject to a variety of religious delusions at the time. You explained that you had initially come to the notice of psychiatric services after hearing what you believed to be the voice of God telling you to obtain a new car because you had been a good servant.
You went to a car dealership to attempt to get your car but you were prevented from leaving with it by an employee. This was despite you commanding that person to "Go lame in the legs" as that would ensure your escape. You were then treated at the Geelong Hospital with antipsychotic medication but you thought that there was no medication prescribed upon discharge.
Through the ages of 17, 18, you developed strong suicidal thoughts. Thereafter, you have five, at least that you can recall, admissions to hospital, that is being treated on an involuntary basis. You have been admitted a further three occasions a few years ago in an 18 month period in which you were abstinent from alcohol and attending Alcoholics Anonymous.
You no longer, you say, experience hallucinations or delusions, nevertheless, you are able to recall that some of your symptoms include visual hallucinations of "Jesus" and "Prophets" and associated delusional beliefs that were actually present. You said you had previously experienced the radio and the television talking about you and in public you had persecutory ideas that others were talking about you.
I do not need to go on and on Mr Bellis and I do not mean to, by reference to those matters, embarrass you but the key here is that you are someone who suffers under the debilitating mental illness of schizophrenia and that is the sentencing consideration that is to the fore.
In your earliest years, you suffered significant trauma due to the perverted actions of an neighbour. Again, I will not go into detail but that trauma has had an impact on and has interacted with your schizophrenia.
As you grew up, you used alcohol to excess. You are someone that is probably an alcoholic. You told the psychiatrist that this has resulted in you being kept in police cells for drunkenness over the years but it is of note that you have only rarely been before the Magistrates' Court for criminal offences. Each was due to intoxication and those that are on your prior criminal history that was put before me are many many years ago.
As noted, what has dominated your life has been your mental ill health. As indicated you have had a number of involuntary inpatient stays at the Geelong Hospital Psychiatric Wards.
You lived in Lara and you became well-known in that community. You lived there with your mother until her death in 2015. She left the family home to you and your brother.
In July 2016, you and your brother signed a deed of family arrangement. The effect of this was to transfer the sole ownership of the property to your brother in return for a payment by him to you for $130,000. It is noted that your brother paid significant amounts of money for the improvement of the house renovations over the years.
It was hoped that you could secure accommodation in a mobile home or the like after the sale of the house to your brother but efforts to find you suitable accommodation had come to nulling. $130,000 was in an account with both you and your brother as signatories.
You were having trouble, you thought, getting access to the account. You were developing a real sense of grievance at the sale and what had occurred. On 16 April 2017, your brother, who was not long out of hospital, was at the house briefly with his partner. You told him that you felt like burning the house down but this was a thought earlier in the day and since then you had played your guitar and felt better.
Your brother thought things were in order and he left the house. You stayed, ruminating. You wrote what you called a will distributing the $130,000 and adding to that piece of paper that you would see your brother in hell. You took your prize possession, your guitar, and placed it along with this will outside by the fence. You went back inside and spread petrol and accelerant around the house, especially in your brother's room, it seems, and set the house on fire.
It was your intent to remain inside and die in the fire. At some point, you heard people outside and fearing that they may be hurt trying to rescue you that prompted you to come out. The house was extensively damaged.
You were spoken to at the scene by the police and made admissions to lighting the fire. You asked the police if they were going to take you to the police station or the Swany , that being the Swanston Centre, the psychiatric ward of the Geelong Hospital. You were in fact taken first to the Geelong Hospital and then transferred to the Swanston Centre where you remained for five days.
You have pleaded guilty to the arson of the family home belonging to your brother.
Your crime is a serious one and ordinarily would be punished by significant terms of imprisonment.
The crime has had an adverse effect on your brother. He writes in his victim impact statement that,
[2]
"Since the fire my life has changed in every way. I had been affected in every aspect of my life, emotionally, physically, mentally, socially".
[3]
He said prior to the incident, he tried to improve his health. He had surgery to lose weight and was doing exercises in the pool twice a week and improving in that regard but now when he writes the victim impact statement, he says that,
[4]
He cannot see the point and his general health has deteriorated due to the stress. He sleeps disturbed and he gets tired more easily and he feels like his mind is always full of questions like why and what will happen and what will the future be. He gets frustrated and irritable. He feels unsure, he writes, of the future whereas previously he felt secure, happy, content and organised.
He has had to have frequent visits to his local GP and to his mental health professionals and it has also affected his partner who feels that her emotional support perhaps is not enough to help him cope. He says the future is uncertain.
He had to move out of the community, one that he was much attached to and go to another suburb and he feels at a loss because of that. There are financial expenses that he has had to pay because of all this. He says this,
[5]
"I'll have to try and deal with the feeling of my family home being demolished and with the memories of my mum and dad and the sentimental belongings that could not be salvaged".
[6]
As required, I take into account the impact on the victim of your crime and as I said, ordinarily stern punishment is imposed on arsonists.
However, given you have a chronic mental ill health, many of the usual sentencing purposes have to be moderated, some significantly. It is clear to me on all the material that there is a causal connection between your mental illness and the commission of the crime. This is a case where a defence of mental impairment is not available but it was a close run thing. From the court of Criminal Appeal in this State, the decision of that court in Anderson in the 1970s. Sentencing courts since then must take a different approach to those whose crimes are committed because of their mental ill health but in situation where they do not have a defence of mental impairment.
The approach stated in Anderson and restated in the well-known cases of Tsianis and Verdins in modern times is that the weight to be attached to denunciation is much less as a consequence of your moral culpability for this crime being much less than would be the case if you had the capacity to make rational decisions with awareness of the consequences.
That is not this situation. You were unable to reason properly that burning the house as a suicide attempt had criminal consequences. Thus, the usual heavy weight of denunciation and punishment expressed usually in prison terms must be moderated and significantly so.
Further, the important sentencing purpose of general deterrence is of little weight in your case. By reason of your chronic mental illness, you are not a suitable vehicle to send a message of deterrence to others. The community would be uncomfortable using you as the example to others who are not mentally unwell as you are. So, general deterrence must be significantly moderated.
Also, there is little point in giving weight to specific deterrence given your mental ill health but in any event you do not have as I have pointed out a criminal antisocial background.
On the other side of the equation, I have considered whether your enduring mental ill health makes you an ongoing danger to the community such that protection of the community is to be elevated as a sentencing purpose. On all the material, it is clear that this was a unique set of circumstances and your behaviour generally is docile and you are compliant with treatment including important medication.
Thus, this sentencing consideration of protection of the community, and I note oddly not mentioned in Verdins, does not require a more severe penalty.
The psychiatric material and the very helpful material from your general practitioner has given me confidence that you can be managed in the community. A sentence of imprisonment would be very hard on you, more so than on those without mental ill health to the extent that you suffer from schizophrenia and the like.
Both parties, that is your counsel in a comprehensive plea and the Crown, urged the imposition of community corrections order. I had you assessed and asked for an extended or more comprehensive report which was provided in a timely fashion.
What was indicated was that you would be suitable for a community corrections order and that you could be managed, indeed you could benefit generally from a community corrections order.
Of greatest concern is that you do not have stable accommodation. You are sleeping rough too often. You need to get accommodation. There are good people helping you, especially Ms Kerr. She is to be commended for all that she does. Helping the chronically mentally unwell and the homeless is a thankless but invaluable contribution to our community. But beyond that, there must be institutions, organisations and State provision of housing to someone like you, who is otherwise not a bother to the community who needs to be assisted and punished by a community corrections order.
Having you in stable accommodation is likely to mean that the community corrections order is successful. It is hoped that those that have the task of assisting people who are homeless do something and quickly to assist you in this regard.
My concern is that if you are without accommodation, you may fall back in to the abuse of the alcohol which is a demon in your life. It is hoped that you are able to remain firm and stay away from alcohol and I will ensure that one of the tasks for the Office of Corrections is that treatment and rehabilitation in the sense of rehabilitation for your alcohol abuse.
So, I have come to the conclusion that in these unique circumstances, a community corrections order is the just and appropriate sentence for the serious crime of arson. It allows for a proper moderated measure of punishment, denunciation and deterrence while endeavouring to help you to rehabilitate.
Mr Bellis, the community corrections order that I impose will be read out to you formally once the document is produced but what that community corrections order will involve is that it will go for two years and you will have the following conditions that apply to you.
You will be under the supervision of the Office of Corrections for two years. You will have to engage in judicial monitoring, that means you will come back and see me and I will endeavour to ensure that you are compliant with the community corrections order, making adjustments if they are needed, warning you if you are falling off the rails or going off the rails so, it is important that you understand that I will keep a very close watch over you.
Further, you will undergo assessment and treatment for alcohol abuse. You will undergo assessment and treatment for mental ill health, that will dovetail with your current general practitioner.
I will also require that you undergo programs that are directed at your risk of reoffending.
Those are the conditions that apply to you. They are mandatory conditions that apply to everyone and I will read them out to you shortly.
That community corrections order is with conviction.
Are there other orders, Mr Goodenough?
MR GOODENOUGH: There was an application for a forensic sample order.
HIS HONOUR: What do you say about that?
MS HURST: I am taking instructions that is not opposed.
HIS HONOUR: So, he does not have some sense, delusional perhaps, that taking his sample could cause some sort of delusional problem to him about what it is going to be used for or anything?
MS HURST: I would only be speculating.
HIS HONOUR: Yes. But he did not raise, "Look
MS HURST: No, no, nothing is raised.
HIS HONOUR: I don't want my DNA sample to be used by or for other things".
MS HURST: No, he did not
HIS HONOUR: All right. Thank you.
MS HURST: The aspect of schizophrenia - the paranoid aspect
HIS HONOUR: Yes.
MS HURST: yet could - and thank you for asking, could contribute to that but
HIS HONOUR: That is why I am concerned.
MS HURST: Yes.
HIS HONOUR: But you do not?
MS HURST: I have not been instructed that it will
HIS HONOUR: Thank you. Mr Bellis, what is being requested by the Crown, an application has been made and that is you provide a forensic sample. That means the scraping from your mouth, that is all, and from that they will obtain your DNA and keep it on a database.
Considering the seriousness of the offence, you have some, although dated and minor, prior matters. Having discussed it with your lawyer, you do not stand in the way of it and in the end, I think, it is in the interest of justice that you provide such a sample. So, I am going to grant that application and I will explain to you how that ought be done when a document is produced.
Is there anything else?
MR GOODENOUGH: No, Your Honour.
HIS HONOUR: Thank you. There is no community corrections office out of Lara, is it?
MS HURST: No, not that I am aware of.
HIS HONOUR: All right. It is hard to know which is the appropriate one because it just depends on where he is staying but at the present stage, he is sleeping out the back of a Lara Anglican Church, is he not?
MS HURST: He has just had a couple of days staying with friends but that ends today.
HIS HONOUR: It is Geelong where he will have to go. The judicial monitoring - what about October 1st, is that as good as any? It is a Monday. Are you likely to be around?
MS HURST: Possibly. I can be.
HIS HONOUR: Well, you do not have a booking somewhere at the moment where you are away from work or got a trial at Western Australia or something?
MS HURST: Not off the top of my head. Yes, no, nothing exciting like that.
HIS HONOUR: All right. I would be grateful if you are able to attend.
MS HURST: Yes, I will do my best.
HIS HONOUR: Can Legal Aid get involved in that? 1 October at 9.30. No, it will be in Melbourne. Can you get to Melbourne for that?
MS HURST: Yes, of course.
HIS HONOUR: Need be I will have been here on a CCTV that
MS HURST: Thank you.
HIS HONOUR: see what is best. I do not want to put Ms Kerr's extra burden, if it is easy for - if she is looking after him still to bring him here then he will come in.
MS HURST: It would be, I think so.
HIS HONOUR: So, Mr Bellis, the community corrections order, as I have told you, it will last two years. It starts today and it ends on 30 May 2020. These conditions are those that apply to everyone on a community corrections order.
Firstly, you must not commit another offence for which you get imprisoned during the time that the order is in force. So, you cannot commit any offences. None. You must comply with any obligations or requirements under the sentencing regulations. They will need to be able to take a photo of you to know who you are and so on and so forth.
You must report to and receive visits from the Office of Corrections, you must report to the Community Corrections Centre here in Geelong. That is the State government offices at Little Malop Street, Geelong. The address is here and you got to do that within two clear working days. That is tomorrow or Monday and you must let a community corrections officer know within two clear working if you change your address or your job. Now, if you get an address you tell them. If you have to change because it is temporary housing, you have got to tell them where you are.
You must not leave Victoria without getting permission to do so and you must obey all lawful instructions from the Office of Corrections.
Now, the conditions that are specific to you and targeted to you are these. You must be under the supervision of the community corrections office for two years. You must undergo mental health assessment and treatment. You must participate in programs and courses that address your offending and you must attend for judicial monitoring or review on 1 October 2018 at 9.30.
Now, there is just one condition that is not here that will have to be added in and that is treatment for alcohol abuse which is critical so, I will just get this document recast and we will sign that and then the matter will come to an end.
MS HURST: It is alcohol abuse and mental health, as well, is it not so?
HIS HONOUR: Yes. The mental health is on it but we
MS HURST: Yes. Thank you.
HIS HONOUR: just have to - so, it is 48(d)(3)(b), 48(d)(3)(e) and 48(d)(3)(f). So, that condition to undergo assessment and treatment for alcohol abuse and dependency is directed. If you sign this document, Mr Bellis, I will sign it and that will bring the matter to an end.
The other thing you will have to understand is, and Ms Hurst will help you here, is that you have got to provide this forensic sample. So, what happens is that a window is going to be open up in four weeks so, once four weeks is passed, then you have got another four weeks to get to the police station here in Geelong and have you sample taken so, it is within that period of time.
You have got to understand that if at the time that they ask you to undergo the forensic sample, if you do not cooperate, then they are authorised to use reasonable force to get the sample so, the way through it is just to cooperate.
Mr Bellis can come out of the dock and come up to the Bar table here.
MS HURST: Thank you.
HIS HONOUR: Thank you. One last thing. Plea of guilty in this matter is important in all the circumstances. Had he pleaded not guilty to the offences and been found guilty of them, it would have been a combined gaol and community corrections order.
MR GOODENOUGH: If it please the court.
MS HURST: As Your Honour pleases.
HIS HONOUR: I will just to sign that document. Thank you. I see you have signed that document Mr Bellis which indicates that you consent to it, you understand it, it is explained to you by Ms Hurst. You have got to do it. All right? You have got to do everything that you are told, then come and see me in October and I will see how you are going. Thank you. Is there anything further?
MS HURST: No, Your Honour, thank you.
HIS HONOUR: Thank you for your considerable assistance in this case. Mr Bellis will get a copy of this done and so on and he is ready to go. Mr Goodenough, thank you for your assistance today. I have alluded everything, I am sure but it could not have happened or worked if there was not some prosecutor willing to just go with it as it went. So, thank you for that.
MR GOODENOUGH: If it pleases, Your Honour.
HIS HONOUR: But tomorrow is looking equally as tight.
(At this stage the court proceeded with another matter.)