Sentence (Emery-Mitchell): 32 months' imprisonment, non-parole period 19 months; s 6AAA:42 months, non-parole period 25 months
[2]
Sentence (O'Farrell): 16 months and 14 days' imprisonment, in combination with an 18-month Community Correction Order; s 6AAA: 36 months, non-parole period 20 months
[3]
Tyler Emery-Mitchell and Terrence O'Farrell, you have both pleaded guilty to armed robbery, occurring on 26 October 2024.
Tyler Emery-Mitchell, you have also pleaded guilty to a theft occurring during the same incident.
The agreed basis for your guilty pleas are set out in the Summary of Prosecution Opening dated 3 November 2025.
In short, during the evening of 25 October 2024, an adult woman friend of yours, PA, and the victim, KC, met at a party. They started to send each other Snapchat messages which quickly became sexually charged. Indeed, she offered to send him sexual images of herself for money and he agreed. He paid and she sent at least one image. They agreed to meet at his house the next day around midday.
On that day, 26 October, soon after PA left KC's home, you two both arrived and approached him. He recognised you, Mr Emery-Mitchell, but not you, Mr O'Farrell. In fact, you introduced yourself by a false name, James. After a cigarette together outside you all entered his home together.
Once inside however, things turned nasty. Mr Emery-Mitchell, you pulled out a hammer and you, Mr O'Farrell, pulled out a knife. You stood over and demanded money and his phone from KC. When he refused to do so, you, Mr Emery-Mitchell, hit his shoulder with the hammer and punched him in the head. You, Mr O'Farrell, held the knife to his face, threatening to 'slice him'.
You, Mr Emery-Mitchell, took KC's phone from his pocket and demanded his PIN, which he provided under threat. You then transferred money from his bank account to PA's, emptying his account (Charge 1, armed robbery).
You threatened him with worse if he contacted police, before you both walked away together with PA.
On your way out you, Mr Emery-Mitchell, stole KC's jacket (Charge 2, theft).
In spite of your threats, he reported the matter to police but has declined to make a victim impact statement.
Some days later, police came to your property, Mr O'Farrell, on 31 October 2024 and arrested you. You admitted to them that you went to KC's home on the day in question but denied any offending. You have remained in custody since.
Police came to your property, Mr Emery-Mitchell, on 10 November 2024 and arrested you. You admitted to them that you had attended and assaulted KC but not with a weapon, and without stealing from him. You were remanded in custody also, where you have remained.
You both conducted a contested committal on 13 May 2025 involving cross-examination of the complainant and police. Having sought then a listing for both a trial and a sentence indication, you both finally settled the matter on 20 November 2025 without an indication having been given.
Your guilty plea came at a late stage of the case but it nevertheless shows that you have taken responsibility for what you did and your willingness to facilitate the course of justice. It has also saved the cost and inconvenience of a trial, especially for the victim.
[4]
Mr Emery-Mitchell you were 20 at the time of the offending, you are now 21. You were born in Queensland. You are the eldest of two children to your parents. Your parents separated due to family violence that your father carried out against your mother. You lived with your mother and younger brother.
At about age four or five, your mother brought you and your younger brother to Victoria to avoid the violence. Your father ultimately followed and has continued to be a cause of fear to you and your family. You reconnected with him during your teens, but sadly he died in 2024.
Your mother has re-partnered and you describe your stepfather in positive terms.
As for schooling, you completed school in Victoria up to Year 10 after some difficulty with suspensions due to disruptive behaviour.
In 2019 you started a relationship with your now ex-partner, with whom you have an 18-month-old daughter, but you remain on positive terms with your ex and intend to maintain a close relationship with your daughter.
[5]
Mr O'Farrell you also grew up in the setting of alcohol abuse in the home, as well as drugs, and there is a suspicion, indeed an opinion that it is likely that your mother was an alcohol drinker during her pregnancy with you. Whilst it cannot be ascertained to a high degree of likelihood, it is considered likely that that alcohol consumption affected you in utero.
In accordance with her recent report, Dr Laura Anderson, clinical neuropsychologist, reviewed a wide range of material including records of public health services that have assisted you and your family, a previous assessment reports of Clinical Neuropsychologist Dr Yasmin Baliz, speech pathologist Enaksha Garde. She stated that whilst you performed somewhat above the cut-off scores recognised by the department responsible for disability services as indicating an intellectual disability, you nevertheless have a mild to moderate intellectual impairment.
It is not for me to determine whether or not you fall within the category of intellectual disability with respect to the Department of Families Fairness and Housing. If it was for me, I would have done so.
I accept that you have significant impairments to your cognitive and functional capacities. So much is explained by Dr Anderson's report that you suffer from foetal alcohol spectrum disorder and have likely suffered with that condition for life. So much is reflected in the difficulties you found at school and also it is relatively unsurprising to find that it has arisen in the circumstances of your early upbringing.
You have lived throughout your years with a severe language disorder that required support and special treatment during schooling, and another psychologist, Dr Aaron Cunningham in a report in 2020, also opined that you suffered post-traumatic stress disorder. That is an ongoing and significantly detrimental condition that has affected the way you have been able to live in the community and react to those people around you.
Over the years, you have both had difficulties using illicit substances including methamphetamines. Both of you have criminal histories. You, Mr Emery-Mitchell, have a criminal history involving burglary, dishonesty, theft and driving offences which I accept are likely to be related to your history of drug abuse. You, Mr O'Farrell, have a slightly more concerning history including those types of offending, but also a history of assaults, weapons offences and others.
Both of you have spent time in custodial settings for those prior offences and both of you were released earlier in 2024, prior to this event occurring.
[6]
The maximum penalty for Charge 1, armed robbery, is imprisonment for 25 years. For Charge 2, it is 10 years.
Charge 1 is a category 2 offence under the Sentencing Act1991, because an injury was caused during the armed robbery. Accordingly, I must sentence each of you to a term of imprisonment and not one combined with a CCO unless a limited legislative exception applies.
Objectively speaking, the armed robbery offence is quite serious. It was committed in company, that is by both of you, perhaps in the presence of PA as well, inside the victim's home, with two different weapons, causing actual harm to the victim, and accompanied by threats of further violence if he did not comply with your attempts to steal from him, or if he reported you to police.
Further, the offending is all the more serious because you, Mr Emery-Mitchell, were on a community correction order, and for you Mr O'Farrell, because you were the subject of youth parole order at the time.
As to your roles, while you, Mr Emery-Mitchell, were the one who hit KC with your weapon, you Mr O'Farrell were present and threatening him with a knife at the time. I do not see any great difference in your role or perhaps more importantly your culpability on this basis.
Mr O'Farrell, your counsel, Ms Lamovie, relied on neuropsychological reports of Drs Baliz and Anderson to submit that your cognitive functioning in the context of likely foetal alcohol spectrum disorder should lead to a reduction in your blameworthiness for what you did, in accordance with the principles in Verdins.
The prosecutor did not dispute the opinions and conceded that this was a matter that satisfied one of the exceptions in s5(2H)(c) of the Act. I accept this and have accordingly moderated the weight to be given to general and specific deterrence.
Your counsel, Mr Emery-Mitchell, submitted that no relevant exception applied to you under s5(2H), but submitted that your blameworthiness is somewhat reduced because you grew up in the midst of family violence, and so your moral judgement about such violence was diminished to a degree. Your counsel, Ms Hart, submitted that while your impulse control may not have developed properly in that setting, the need for community protection may of course need to attract some weight.
It must be said that neither of you offered any satisfactory explanation for your offending other than that you were attacking a man who had sexualised contact with a friend of yours, an adult.
Such violence in my view must result in a sentence that deters others from engaging in such entirely unjustified violence. It must clearly denounce what you did and exact just punishment of you each personally.
Imprisonment, in my view, looms large in such circumstances. Each of you has a criminal history of some significance. You, Mr Emery-Mitchell, having previously been sentenced in the way I have described and that you were on a CCO at the time. You, Mr O'Farrell, have a history including similar offending as Mr Emery-Mitchell, but also as I have said in relation to weapons and violence.
I have had regard to totality for you, Mr Emery-Mitchell, because both offences arose in the same incident, but I am satisfied that parity does not apply between you both based on the disability that Mr O'Farrell lives with.
I find that you both have relatively reasonable prospects for rehabilitation in the full context of what I have set out above, including your young ages. I have taken all of those matters into account both in relation to the total sentence and the stage at which you should be able to return to the community.
I note formally that in your plea, Mr Emery-Mitchell, you relied on:
Exhibit 1, the report of Burrows
Exhibit 2, certificates of programs and courses you have done in custody
Exhibit 3, the urine drug screen to prove that you are not using
Exhibit 4, subpoena material from the Department of Families, Fairness and Housing
Exhibit 5, a reference from Melanie Mitchell.
For you, Mr O'Farrell, you relied on:
Exhibit F1, the report of Dr Anderson
Exhibit F2, information from the Department of Families and Housing, particularly in relation to your housing
Exhibit F3, references
Exhibit F4, Child and Adolescent Family Services in Ballarat, material in relation to Better Futures support that you have
Exhibit F5, the remand report about where you have been held in custody
Exhibit F6, historical report from Aaron Cunningham in 2020
Exhibit F7, historical report from the speech pathologist, Ms Garde in 2019
Exhibit F8, historical report from Dr Balise
Exhibit F9, the Department of Families, Fairness and Housing closure summary as to investigations of Child Protection with your family
Exhibit F10, a letter from Better Futures about the support they will continue to provide you upon your release
In all the circumstances, I will sentence you both as follows.
[7]
On Charge 1, armed robbery, 30 months' imprisonment.
On Charge 2, theft, 6 months.
Two months of the sentence on Charge 2 is to be served cumulatively upon the sentence on Charge 1. That makes a total effective sentence of 32 months.
I fix a non-parole period of 19 months.
I declare that you have served 470 days and direct that this be reckoned as a period already served under this sentence.
In accordance with s6AAA of the Sentencing Act1991, but for your plea of guilty I would have imposed 42 months and fixed a non-parole period of 25 months.
[8]
On Charge 1, armed robbery, 16 months 14 days combined with a CCO for 18 months.
I declare that you have served 480 days and direct that this be reckoned as a period already served under this sentence.
In accordance with s6AAA of the Sentencing Act1991, but for your guilty plea I would have imposed 36 months and fixed a non-parole period of 20 months.
It will be apparent to you both that one of the differences between your sentences is that you, Mr Emery-Mitchell, must apply for parole if you wish, and the Parole Board will determine whether you are released at the 19-month stage or later.
Whereas for you, Mr O'Farrell, you will be released on the date at which you have served 16 months and 14 days. You will have two days within which you must report to Community Corrections. You are to be supervised. You are to engage in assessment and treatment for drug abuse. You are to be assessed and engage in treatment by way of programs.
If I had the capacity to impose a Justice Plan condition on your CCO, I would have done.
With your agreement, I will provide the report of Dr Anderson to Community Corrections, so that they might understand and be assisted in their planning for how they manage your CCO.
I make the forfeiture order for the hammer, unopposed.