DPP v Healey [2026] VCC 269

(a) Methylamphetamine: ~ 0.18mg/L;

(b) Delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol: ~ 9 ng/mL;

(c) 11-OH-delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol: ~ 4 ng/mL;

(d) 11-nor-delta-9-delta-carboxytetrahydrocannabinol (THC-COOH): ~ 190 ng/mL.

1. Dr Jason Schreiber, a Forensic Physician with the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine, provided an expert opinion as to the involvement of the drugs found in your blood sample to the events of 31 October 2023.
2. Dr Schreiber opined that:

(a) The accused was driving after using the illicit stimulant methamphetamine as well as cannabis;

(b) That the methamphetamine concentration found in the blood sample taken from the accused was on a biologically significant level at which impacts on driving are expected;

(c) The detected amounts of THC and its active metabolite indicated recent cannabis use and were likely to significantly impact driving;

(d) That the illicit substances methamphetamine, as well as THC and its active metabolite in relation to driving, and their known detrimental effects on the psychomotor skills had created an appreciable risk such that your driving would have posed a significant risk to the public.

1. Shari Orphanos was taken to the Latrobe Hospital. She did not sustain any significant injury, and nor did Riley Jones, who was seated in the rear passenger seat at the time of the collision.
2. The deceased, Anthony Brunt, was aged 24 years and lived in Traralgon. Dr Michael Burke, a forensic pathologist at the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine found his cause of death to be 'multiple injuries in a motor vehicle incident (passenger)'.
3. At approximately 6.15 am on 31 October 2023, Detective Senior Constable Yuxing Zhao, conducted a collision reconstruction examination of the collision scene. He observed that it was cloudy, the temperature was 7ºC, and the road was wet from earlier rain.
4. He noted that the Princes Freeway in the collision area was a two-way, four-lane bitumen road running largely north-south. Opposing directions of traffic were divided by a vegetated centre median. The collision occurred in the southbound carriageway that had two running lanes separated by a broken white line. There were rail barrier systems on the eastern and western sides of the carriageway. DSC Zhao noted that travelling south, the carriageway gently curved towards left whilst running slightly uphill.
5. The road was in good condition, and DSC Zhao did not identify any faults or defects that could have caused the collision.
6. After conducting an examination of the collision scene and the Ford Falcon, DSC Zhao concluded that the vehicle oversteered to the left and lost control. It rotated anti-clockwise swipe-impacting the inside barrier several times before crossing the carriageway into the outside shoulder and swipe-impacting the outside barrier. The vehicle returned to the road and came to rest facing south in the left lane. The vehicle sustained damage.
7. The front tyres of the vehicle were observed on mechanical investigation to be worn and were due for replacement. Sergeant Michael Crane, the mechanical investigator, said that the potential for loss of control would depend on the way the vehicle was being driven, speed and conditions of the road. The vehicle would have less grip in wet conditions, but the grip would be variable, depending on how much it was raining or how inundated the road was with water. His examination did not reveal any other faults, failures, or conditions that could have caused or contributed to the collision.
8. On 31 October 2023, you were arrested and interviewed at the Morwell Police Station. In the interview, you stated that you were not driving and were seated in the front passenger seat at the time of the collision.
9. You were charged on 20 November 2023.

1. Moving Victim Impact Statements were tendered and read in court from Mr Brunt's mother, Lisa Henning, his father, Michael Henning, and his sister, Candice Henning, and his former partner, the mother of his daughter, Jenna Ramsay.[2] Their loss is immeasurable. They all speak of their close relationship to Mr Brunt and the devastating impact of his death on them was very clear.
2. Ms Henning describes her life now as different. Her life has gone downhill and it is empty and most days there is a feeling of numbness. She says every morning she wakes up and realise it is still the same nightmare, nothing changes, but she and her husband, Michael Henning, describe how they have become scared when they hear ambulance sirens and the impact on them when they were told of their son's death. Ms Henning also refers to the fact that Mr Brunt's younger brother, Jaeger, misses him and still talks about him on a regular basis.
3. It has affected her social life, which she says is now the bare minimum.
4. Michael Henning spoke movingly about the impact on him of losing his son, and the impact on the whole family. He says mentally it has been a big challenge, 'I had a lot of trouble sleeping, especially at the start. I would wake up around 3.30 am, about the time of the crash'. He had vivid dreams that his son was still alive. Memories of his son come up all the time for him and says that seeing Mr Brunt deceased and having to identify him was 'the most horrific thing [he] has ever seen'.
5. Cadence Henning, Mr Brunt's sister, also speaks movingly of the impact on her of Mr Brunt's death. She was pregnant when Mr Brunt died, and she mourns for the relationship he might have had with her child.
6. Ms Jemma Ramsay also speaks of what she and her daughter have lost because of Mr Brunt's death in detail. She spoke about the close relationship they had, and how her grief weighs on her every day. The daughter she shared with Mr Brunt has begun vocalising the absence she feels of her father. She says, '[their] daughter will spend the rest of her life wondering what her dad was like, how he sounded, what it felt like to hold his hand'.
7. Nothing I say or do, and no sentence I impose can bring Mr Brunt back or alleviate the pain and suffering of his family. I cannot undo what happened that day. The sentence I impose is not to be taken as a measure of his life; no value can be placed on it. Rather, my duty is to impose an appropriate and just sentence at law taking into account all relevant matters and the applicable sentencing practices, but one significant matter which includes the impact of his death on those close to him.

1. You pleaded guilty to this matter relatively late in proceedings on 19 February 2026. Your plea offer to dangerous driving causing death came after mobile phone analysis evidence strengthened the prosecution case that you were the driver, a fact that had been contested by you from the outset. There had not been an early plea offer to dangerous driving; however, I was told by your counsel, and the prosecution did not dispute, that at the time of the committal the prosecution was intent on a culpable driving charge. In assessing the stage at which you pleaded guilty I must take into account that the plea came after the prosecution accepted a plea to the lesser charge of dangerous driving causing death and withdrew the more serious charge of culpable driving. However, given that the main fact in issue had been whether you were the driver, I cannot characterise your plea as an early one or indicative of remorse. On the other hand, I would not describe it as a late plea, given the resolution in this matter and the withdrawal of the major charge.
2. It has taken a long time to get to the point of a resolution in this case, and that has denied closure to the family of Mr Brunt at an earlier stage.
3. Your plea of guilty has utilitarian value and is consistent with the willingness to facilitate the course of justice. You spared the prosecution, the police and the court the use of the resources required for a trial and you spared the witnesses the experience of having to come and give evidence and relive these events. These are significant matters.

1. You have substantial criminal history. You have a prior conviction on 22 March 2023 at the Latrobe Valley Magistrates' Court for refusing a breath test, which occurred in October 2019. For some reason it took a long time to finalise that offence. I do not understand why your licence was not disqualified.
2. You were placed on a Community Correction Order. Other offences were dealt with on that day. That Community Correction Order was in force at the time of this offending. The Community Correction Order included a condition for drug treatment, as well as mental health conditions and some community work. Presumably you will have to face a breach of that correction order. You also have a prior conviction for unlicensed driving and several priors for driving in breach of your learner permit conditions. There are several offences in respect of that type of offence, and one for unlicensed driving.
3. You have other priors which indicate ongoing criminality, with some gaps, over a significant period. As early as 2018 you received a Community Correction Order with a condition to address your drug problem, a condition imposed on subsequent Community Correction Orders. You have contravened several Community Correction Orders over the years.
4. You are not to be punished again for your pervious offences, but your prior convictions, particularly the prior conviction for refusing a breath test, are relevant to your moral culpability, the assessment of your prospects of rehabilitation and the need for specific deterrence; that is the need to send a message to you that continued offending, and particularly offending after using drugs, will be met with significant punishment by way of prison sentences.

1. Dangerous driving causing death is an inherently serious offence involving the death of another human being. The sentencing principles a court must have regard to in relation to cases of dangerous driving causing death and serious injury have been considered by the Court of Appeal in numerous cases.
2. It was clear from the sentencing authorities before the enactment of s5(2H) of the Sentencing Act that offences of dangerous driving causing death or serious injury would attract a significant term of imprisonment, except in exceptional cases involving momentary inattention where the offender's moral culpability is assessed as low. This is not one of those cases. In your case general deterrence, denunciation, just punishment and specific deterrence are all important sentencing principles.
3. In the case of DPP v Neethling_[3]__,_ the Court of Appeal identified a range of considerations relevant to the assessment of the objective seriousness of an offence of dangerous driving causing death,[4] which I do not need to list.
4. Most of the Neethling factors are not relevant here. In your case the prosecution relies on the presence of methylamphetamine and cannabis in your system as creating a significant risk of death or serious injury. Whilst the absence of some of common aggravating features has some relevance to the assessment of the driving and the objective seriousness of the offence, the gravity of your offence is underpinned by your deliberate decision to use illegal drugs and then drive whilst under their influence.
5. In Ritchie[5] the Court of Appeal said:

It is trite that moral culpability for an offence is not to be assessed by identifying aggravating features that could have been present but were not; the seriousness of offending must be assessed by reference to all of the conduct and circumstances of the particular case.[6]

6. You are a person with a prior conviction for refusing a breath test and you were on a Community Correction Order at the time of offences, which included drug treatment. You were also unlicensed. You had no business driving a motor vehicle on a public road at all.
7. Given your history, you must have well understood that it was serious and irresponsible in the extreme to drive after using drugs and yet you decided to take the risk. Mr Brunt lost his life because of the decisions you made on that night, and your other passengers were put at risk. The number of persons put at risk is a relevant matter for me to consider in assessing the objective gravity of the offending.
8. In my opinion, your moral culpability is significant because of the deliberate decisions you made to take drugs and then drive.
9. However, there is no evidence of some additional feature of poor driving that contributed to the collision beyond the oversteer; but it is, of course, the prosecution case that the dangerousness involved in driving whilst under the influence of drugs was a causal factor in the collision.
10. Assessing only the objective features of the driving, I accept this case falls into the lower middle range of such offences, but your decision to drive that night must be considered in light of the other aggravating factors I have mentioned: your elevated moral culpability due to your prior conviction for refusing a breath test; that you were on a Community Correction Order at the time; and that you were unlicensed.
11. Nor can I ignore that until quite recently you were disputing that you drove the vehicle, nominating Mr Orphanos as the driver. There is no evidence of remorse and the path you took in blaming one of your passengers was a cowardly response to the catastrophe for which you were responsible.

1. You were born in January 1997, and you were 26 years old at the time of the collision. You are now 29 years old.
2. You grew up in Gippsland as an only child. You were raised by your mother. Your father spent lengthy periods in prison or otherwise he was interstate. He died when you were 14 years old. You never saw him outside of gaol and met him only a few times.
3. Your mother worked at a cleaner at a local university but was mostly at home raising you. Your family lived in Churchill, Morwell and Traralgon. You mother now lives in Churchill. She re-partnered when you were around four years old and you witnessed serious family violence towards her during this relationship. The police were called to the house at times and your mother's partner was imprisoned for assault and property damage offences. He also used illicit substances.
4. Your mother was diagnosed with serious health conditions during your childhood. She contracted lymphoma and had melanomas removed. She has most recently had a stent put in her heart. You remember she was often in pain with circulation problems.
5. You attended Churchill Primary School. You were a good student 'in the early days' but started to have difficulties learning in Grades 2 and 3. Your behaviour at school deteriorated about this time. You were diagnosed with dyslexia and ADHD. You struggled with reading, writing and spelling. You can 'just get by' when required to read documents. You ask people to assist you to read documents in prison.
6. You had health problems in your childhood. You had a non-cancerous 'tumour' cut out of your shoulder, which you understand was because of an overproduction of white blood cells. You were in the Children's Ward at hospital for an extended period and you missed a significant amount of school. When you went back, you could not participate in sports because of the risk that an impact could cause internal bleeding.
7. You went to Kurnai College in Churchill for part of Year 7. However, you were quickly removed from mainstream schooling and attended Berry Street from part‑way through this first year. You did not want to leave mainstream schooling, but you eventually agreed. You found Berry Street to be a good school, but you did not last long. By your mid-teens, you had left school and was using drugs.
8. Your compliance with your ADHD medication was inconsistent. You say you first used methamphetamine when it was given to you at 14 years old by a friend. You became dependent within a few years.
9. You left home at a young age and lived with a friend 'couch surfing'. At the age of 17, you moved in with a family friend and lived with him for two years in stable house. You went to TAFE, worked milking cows and studied boiler making and fitting and turning. When this house fell through because your housemate moved to a farm, your housing became unstable and you returned to using drugs.
10. You met your former partner during this time. You share a son who was born in 2019. You separated from your partner when your son was two years old. Your son has spent significant periods in your care and that is when your life has been at its most stable.
11. You lived with him in a house in Traralgon and worked as a house manager for a freight company, receiving a parenting payment and for a time you stopped using drugs. However, as your son spent more time with his mother, you would 'binge' on drugs with your friends. This is what was taking place on the night of this offending.
12. Mr Pyne, your counsel, submitted you were raised by a single mother, only ever knew a father in gaol, witnessed serious family violence and fell out of school early because of behavioural problems, dyslexia and early introduction to substances. He submits the principles in Bugmy[7] are engaged in a general sense. I accept this. Your unstable upbringing explains how you lapsed into a lifestyle of drug use and criminality and is relevant to the assessment of your moral culpability, which is reduced to a degree by the instability of your formative years. I cannot judge you as I might a person that had not been through the instability and chaos of your childhood.
13. On the other hand, your problems are entrenched and of longstanding and rehabilitative orders have not succeeded which is relevant to the assessment of your prosects of rehabilitation and the emphasis to be given to community protection.

1. As to your time in prison on remand for these matters, you have kept in contact with mother, and you have seen your son. You have been at Fulham prison and then Western Plains prison. I have not been provided with any certificates in relation to courses that you have done during the remand period.
2. I assess your rehabilitative prospects as guarded but not without hope, and I have not lost sight in sentencing you of the need to facilitate your rehabilitation and ultimate reintegration into the community.
3. I have had regard to current sentencing practices for these offences. I was referred to the decision of Ritchie and other cases. In Ritchie, in paragraph 57, the Court of Appeal summarised several different cases that were submitted as comparatives on that appeal, and I have had regard to those sentences.[8] This is in fact a relatively similar case to Ritchie in a lot of regards. On analysis, one might say Ritchie's actual driving was objectively more serious perhaps; however, her prospects of rehabilitation were assessed as more favourable than the findings that I have made, and she was said to have exhibited genuine remorse; and there was an early plea of guilty- so there are some distinctions. Of course, no two cases are ever the same and current sentencing practices are a guide, but not a controlling factor in deciding the sentence.
4. In fixing the non-parole period in this matter, which is the minimum period justice requires you to serve before becoming eligible for parole, I have had regard to the need to facilitate your rehabilitation. The non-parole period mitigates punishment in favour of rehabilitation, but it must be consistent with the objective gravity of the offending.
5. It can be said that for mid-range cases such as this where there are relevant prior convictions, the sentences tend to fall within the three-to-four-year range, and that is what I have decided in this case.
6. Balancing the factors in mitigation against the serious aspects of this offending, and your history, which I tried to outline, the sentence I impose is as follows.
7. For the offence of dangerous driving causing death, you are convicted and sentenced to a period of three years and eight months' imprisonment. I fix a minimum non-parole period of two years and six months. I order that any licence you hold be cancelled and you are disqualified from obtaining a further licence for a period of three years from today's date.
8. I indicate that but for your plea, the sentence imposed would have been five years with a minimum of three and half years. I allow presentence detention which I believe is 837 days, and that will be deducted under s18 of the Sentencing Act from the sentence that I impose, which means that you will be eligible for parole in a few months. Whether you get parole or not is a matter for the Adult Parole Board. They will make that decision.
9. Are there any other orders I need to make? I think I did the disposal order last time. Nothing further from your perspective, Mr Pyne?
10. MR PYNE: No, Your Honour, if the court pleases.
11. HIS HONOUR: Thanks to counsel. I will adjourn.

[3] [2009] VSCA 116 ('Neethling').

[5] Ritchie v The King [2025] VSCA 154 ('Ritchie').

[7] Bugmy v The Queen [2013] HCA 37; 249 CLR 571 ('Bugmy').

[8] Director of Public Prosecutions v Browne [2023] VSCA 13; Director of Public Prosecutions v Harvey [2023] VSCA 234; Younis v The King [2024] VSCA 64; Director of Public Prosecutions v Ziro [2021] VCC 1187; Hall v The King [2024] VSCA 255.