DPP v Branson [2025] VCC 1585

1. You were born in May 1991 and are currently 34 years of age. You have been in a relationship with your partner Warren for the past 10 years. You have four children, aged 14, 12, 9 and 8. You live in rental accommodation in Horsham.
2. You are the daughter of a non-Aboriginal woman, Judy Anne Westley, and an Aboriginal man, Gerald David Branson, who is a Narangga man from the Point Pearce region of South Australia.[5]
3. Your father was part of the stolen generations, and was separated from his parents and siblings at a young age.[6] He grew up in an orphanage.[7] At some stage, your father and his siblings were able to reunite with their mother. Tragically, she was found murdered in 1982. After this, your father started drinking heavily to cope.[8] When you were aged about five your mother left home, and you did not see her after that time. At that point your father began heavily consuming alcohol again and moved the family all over Australia.[9] You went to too many schools to count, across nearly every state in Australia, and in about grade 4 moved to Horsham. There, you came in and out of the care of your Aunty Pam, who also participated in the sentencing conversation. It is fair to say that you were moved between numerous homes, sometimes into state care, but often with various family members.
4. In 2011 you and your partner at the time, Bryce, had your first child. He is the eldest of the children living with you and Warren at the moment. You had a second child with Bryce; however, in late 2013 you separated from Bryce. In 2014 you and Warren began your relationship, and it continues today.[10]
5. In May 2023 you began working as an administration officer with the Barengi Gadjin Land Council Aboriginal Corporation.[11] Initially this was five days a week, and on the basis that you obtain your driver's licence. One of the reasons you give for falsifying the urine screens was to regain your licence as soon as possible to fulfil your obligations to your employer. You remain employed with the Land Corporation, now working three days per week. Letters of support from your colleagues and the CEO have been tendered.

1. Perverting the course of justice is a serious charge. This much is reflected in the statutory maximum of 25 years. In this case, I consider your offending to be relatively low-level. It occurred in a situation which you explained was to allow you to get back to work. This had been part of your employment conditions. It is obvious that this was front of your mind when trying to obtain your licence. There was very little pre-planning. While it is true you did commission the false screens, and paid for them, it was not a terribly sophisticated enterprise. The prosecution is correct to assert that it took some time to obtain the false documents, and you made a decision to not use the earlier original ones as this would highlight the false documents, so there was a degree of thought which went into what you were doing. However, you did disclose immediately to the doctor's clinic that the documents which you required printed were false. This is evidence that you were not endeavouring very hard to cover up your wrongdoing.

1. It is accepted that the principles in Bugmy[12] are enlivened by reason of your history of intergenerational trauma, and, in addition, your father's very specific alcoholism, and your itinerant disjointed life as a child surrounded by your father's alcoholism.
2. The parties were in some disagreement as to the application of Verdins[13] limb 1. I accept, because of the premeditation involved in this offending, that there is only a slight dampening effect on the moral culpability which ought be attached to your offending by reasons of Verdins limb 1. I understand that reliance is placed on paragraph [33] of Mr Campbell's report, which locates your offending in the context of your history and your psychiatric state as being overly anxious.[14] In those circumstances, faced with losing your job or finding a quick way to resolve the issue of providing a clean screen, you took the option, out of a feeling of pressure caused by your psychiatric state. I can accept this, but the level of premeditation works against it to some extent, and, as I have indicated, only slightly dampens the level of moral culpability attached to your offending.

1. I accept by reason of your very early plea and your participation in Koori Court that this stands as evidence of your remorse and also your taking of responsibility for your actions. Your longtime friend, Shonelle Ritchie, spoke of your fundamental acceptance of your wrongdoing and your willingness to work on your own character flaws and psychological issues in order to make sure you never offend again. I accept that you have demonstrated complete remorse and have taken responsibility for your actions.

1. I accept that there is past criminal history in relation to driving offences, both for failing oral fluid tests and driving whilst not authorised, from 2016 and 2017. These matters were well in the past when this offending occurred some six years later. They bear little on the sentence I will impose.

1. I accept that there must be a real element of denunciation in the sentence I impose because you have falsified documents before a court which had made clear its requirements of you to be relicensed. You had demonstrated clearly that you could obtain such screens, and you chose another path. Behaviour such as this must be denounced. It is relevant in considering this that you have also written a personal letter of apology to Magistrate Sim explaining your behaviour and apologising for it. This is to your credit.

1. There is almost no role for this factor in the sentence.

1. There must be a degree of punishment, given your behaviour. This is because Parliament has decreed such offences to be serious. Further, to permit such behaviour to go unpunished would be to undermine the administration of justice.

1. This looms as a primary sentencing factor in this case. You are only 34 years of age. You have four children. You have work in a very supportive workplace. You have embarked on a number of courses, and you have good support from your employer and family network. All these things would be thrown into jeopardy if you were to spend time in prison. Rather, given your almost unblemished record since 2017 and the fundamental work you are now doing to ensure this does not happen again, you are on the right path, I think, for rehabilitating. This is particularly important in your situation to make sure that intergenerational trauma does not continue by your children seeing you go to jail. That does not serve the community well at all.
2. Synthesising all these matters, I conclude that the most appropriate sentence in your case is a community correction order, as I have outlined above. There are no pre-sentence detention days to declare.
3. As you have pleaded guilty at an early stage, I am required to make a declaration under s6AAA of the Sentencing Act 1991. But for your plea of guilty, I would have imposed a sentence of 3 months imprisonment.

1. Rani Branson, you have pleaded guilty to one charge of perverting the course of justice contrary to common law. The maximum penalty for this offence is 25 years' imprisonment.
2. The primary sentencing principle is rehabilitation. You are only 34 years of age. You have four children. You have work in a very supportive workplace. You have embarked on a number of courses, and you have good support from your employer and family network. All these things would be thrown into jeopardy if you were to spend time in prison. Rather, given your almost unblemished record since 2017 and the fundamental work you are now doing to ensure this does not happen again, you are on the right path, I think, for rehabilitating. This is particularly important in your situation to make sure that intergenerational trauma does not continue by your children seeing you go to jail. That does not serve the community well at all.
3. Denunciation is also relevant. I accept that there must be a real element of denunciation because you have falsified documents before a court which had made clear its requirements of you to be relicensed. You had demonstrated clearly that you could obtain such screens, and you chose another path. Behaviour such as this must be denounced.
4. I have also taken into account evidence of your remorse, as well as your personal circumstances that enliven that principles in Bugmy.
5. Balancing all those matters, I will sentence you to a community correction order of two years in length, with orders requiring you to perform 220 hours of community service and in addition undertake drug and alcohol counselling and maintain your counselling with Mr Campbell.
6. This summary is not intended to be a substitute for the reasons of the County Court or to be used in any later consideration of the Court's reasons.

[1] s320 Crimes Act 1958

[2] Defence Submissions dated 8 October 2025 (exhibit D17) at page 5

[5] Aboriginal Community Justice Report ('ACJR') dated 19 September 2025 (exhibit D2) at [1]

[12] Bugmy v The Queen (2013) 249 CLR 571

[13] The Queen v Verdins [2007] VSCA 102; (2007) 16 VR 269

[14] Psychological Assessment Report of Mr Austin Campbell dated 18 June 2025 (exhibit D1) at [33]