DPP v Jagroop [2008] VSC 25

2 You chose to suppress from your family both beforehand, your intention to marry, and afterwards, the fact that you had married. Indeed, it was more than suppression. At all times, you deceived your parents. You portrayed Nileshni to them as simply a girl friend. You prepared the papers required by the immigration authorities to apply to get Nileshni a visa to enter Australia from Fiji. An effusive but deceptive reference about you and Nileshni was submitted with those papers. The reference purported to have been prepared and signed by your mother. In fact, it was a forgery. Your mother knew nothing of it.

3 When, in February 2006, Nileshni arrived in Melbourne, you chose not to take her to live with you and your parents. Instead, you arranged for her to live with a friend in Dandenong. In the following month, March 2006, problems between you and Nileshni emerged. You were seen to inappropriately apply physical force to her. She applied to a Dandenong support service for safe accommodation. She applied to the Dandenong Magistrates' court for an intervention order against you. Shortly after that, you and she did reconcile. You then arranged, representing her as a friend in need of a place to stay, for her to move into your parents' home.

4 The night of 9 June 2006 was her 19th birthday. Both you and she were working as employees of Pizza Hut, although at different outlets. You collected her from the Cranbourne shop. You returned to, and finished your shift at, the Dandenong shop. Around 11.30 p.m., the two of you went back to the home of your parents. Just after midnight, there was an argument over a mobile phone of yours which she was using. After words were exchanged, you snatched at the mobile phone, and it broke. Each was left holding a piece. She went to her bedroom. She picked up her handbag. She said that she was leaving. She left the house. You went after her. On the footpath outside a nearby house, the two of you talked. You appeased her. The two of you walked back towards your home. She then said she wanted to make a report to the police that you had been harassing her. That led to further argument. Again she walked off along the footpath heading north.

5 Again you followed her. You came up behind her. You pulled on her and said: "Let's go home." She stood her ground and said: "You can't pull me." You then pushed her with both hands. That caused her to fall onto the concrete footpath. You heard a noise of her head hitting the footpath. You saw that she was shaking. You got no response when you talked to her. You left her and went to your home. You went back to her. Blood was coming out of her mouth. You chose not to call for help. Instead, you dragged her to the other side of the road. On that side there is a slope. You dragged her down the slope. The slope leads down to a body of still water. You took her close to the water. You left her there.

6 When the police spoke to you first later than morning, you chose to deceive them. In your final account later that day to the police, you were to say a number of things. Those things cannot, by independent evidence, be shown to be correct, or not to be correct. I am unable to be satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that there are incorrect. Accordingly I sentence you on the basis that they are correct. One of the things you said in your final account was that you initially laid Nileshni on her back about 2 feet from the water. Another was that you noted that she was not breathing from her mouth, but that her stomach or lungs were pumping up and down slowly.

7 You later went back to where you had pushed her causing her to fall. You took from that place her shoes and handbag, and put them next to her. You went home and cleaned up your shoes, which had got muddy. You took the cleaning of the shoes to be a priority. You told your mother that Nileshni had left the home following an argument with you. You said nothing to your mother as to the pushing, the fall, the dragging to the water, or Nileshni's compromised condition. You went out with your mother purporting to look for Nileshni. The body of Nileshni was then found. She was not close to, but face down in the water and substantially submerged.

8 Nileshni Singh died from upper airway obstruction in association with head injury. From the time you heard the noise of her head hitting the ground after you pushed her, it was obvious that she was in need of medical attention. You should have summoned such attention. You chose not to do so. That choice was grossly negligent. Instead of choosing to get help, you grossly increased the risk of causing an even more serious result. That was because, while aware of her being still unconscious, you dragged her to a position of great danger. You then continued to choose not to seek medical attention. Indeed, you aggravated the situation in how you deceived your mother as to what had happened. In my assessment, yours is a particularly serious case of manslaughter, although far from the top end of the scale.

9 I have read the four victim impact statements that were placed before me on the hearing of the plea. They were prepared by each of Nileshni's mother, father and two sisters. All four have suffered greatly from the death of Nileshni. All four statements make for emotionally powerful reading.

10 I turn to your background. You are now 25 years of age. You were born in Fiji in September 1982. You were educated and have lived most of your life in Fiji. You came here with your parents in late 2003. You have no prior convictions. More details of your background are contained in two sources, which I have found quite valuable, but also disturbing. The first is the report of the psychologist, Simon Kennedy. The second is the multiple references placed before me on the plea. Simon Kennedy's opinions would have carried more weight if there had been placed before him and noted in his report, not just your account, but other information from the brief, including relevant statements as to the non-disclosure of the marriage, the forged application for the visa, the Dandenong applications and what gave rise to them, and the events immediately preceding the death of Nileshni. The framing of several of the references suggests that the writers suffered from a like limited awareness of such matters.

11 I take into account in your favour that you have pleaded guilty. I also allow for your relative youth. Despite several contra-indicative matters adverted to above, I accept that there has been some remorse shown by you, and an acceptance of responsibility for the death of Nileshni. I also allow for the circumstance that your time in prison to date has been, and the remainder is likely to be, served in protection.

12 Considerations of denunciation of your seriously morally blameworthy conduct, and general deterrence must mean that you will have to serve a long prison sentence.

13 I have signed the forensic sample retention order, there being good reason for, and no opposition to, my doing so. I declare at 613 days the amount of pre-sentence detention. I direct that that be entered in the court records. I sentence you to imprisonment for ten years. I fix a non-parole period of seven years.