DPP v Kodituwakku [2026] VCC 222

1. You indicated your intention to plead guilty to those charges on 31 October 2025, and you were arraigned on 6 November 2025.
2. There are co-offenders in this matter are Kuach Agany ("Agany") and Junior Hamonfore ("Hamonfore"). They face an offence of aggravated carjacking, a more serious offence than you in respect of that incident, and their pleas are listed later this year.
3. The charges arise out of a series of incidents on 21 December 2023, 22 December 2023 and 23 December 2023.
4. The full circumstances of the offending are described in the Prosecution Opening dated 12 December 2025, which was read in open court by the prosecutor,

Mr Mallia and tendered as an exhibit on the plea.[1] I will summarise the circumstances.

Charge 2, Robbery, and Charge 3, Common Law Assault

1. On 21 December 2023, at around 12.15 am, Mr Vakalahai 'Jimmy' Faoa, was walking to his home in Footscray. He turned from Albert Street into Barkly Street, and he was approached by two men. He was punched to the face multiple times by one man, who then forcibly removed the jacket he was wearing which contained his wallet with his cards in it. The offenders in respect of this incident are Agany and Hamonfore. CCTV footage shows that you, Mr Kodituwakku, were present at the time of the offending, but it is not suggested that you were complicit in the robbery of the jacket and you are not to be punished for that.
2. Spencer Graham was working as a bartender across the road from where this incident occurred. He was told about the incident and walked outside and saw a male he knew as 'Jimmy' sitting against a wall. Jimmy told Mr Graham he had been hit and his jacket and wallet stolen.
3. While Mr Graham was speaking with Mr Faoa, you, Mr Kodituwakku, along with the other two offenders, rushed at Mr Graham. He was punched to the mouth, causing him to drop his mobile phone. One of the males then punched Mr Faoa to the face and he dropped to the ground. This is the basis of Charge 3 of common law assault, based on your complicity in the incident.
4. Mr Graham was further punched to the top of his head and the three of you demanded that he unlock his phone. You, Mr Kodituwakku, grabbed Mr Graham by the shoulder and demanded he come into a nearby alleyway. He tried to run and he was able to get loose. He ran into the Sloth Bar and locked the door.
5. Mr Graham asked another staff member to call the police. After this, you,

Mr Kodituwakku, and the other two males left the scene, taking Mr Graham's phone with you. The robbery of the phone is Charge 2 on the indictment.

1. At about 12.25 am, Mr Yonatan Abte had his car, a Hyundai Getz, stolen from him at knifepoint, in a carpark in Donald Street, Footscray.
2. On 22 December 2023, at about 2:00 pm, this Hyundai Getz was involved in an incident at an Ampol Service Station in Maidstone. You, Mr Kodituwakku, were driving the vehicle, a stolen vehicle. This is the basis of Charge 4 of theft.
3. Hamonfore and Agany were also at the service station in a Nissan X-Trail which had also been stolen in Footscray at the same carpark in Donald Street on 21 December 2023.
4. At the Ampol Service Station, the red Nissan X-Trail driven by Agany was involved in a collision with a Toyota Camry taxi. At around that time you,

Mr Kodituwakku, were filling the Hyundai Getz with petrol.

1. On 22 December 2023, at about 11.40 am, the three of you attended the BWS Store at Southern Cross Station. The three of you stole vodka to the value of $420, two bottles of Vantage Infused Botanical Spirit valued at $128, and a bottle of Midori valued at $42. This is the basis of Charge 6 against you, Mr Kodituwakku, of theft.
2. Then, on 22 December 2023, at about 2.50 pm, Mr Sting Phan was sitting in the driver's seat of his car, a Hyundai Sonata, with the window down, on the corner of Queensberry and Howard Streets in West Melbourne. He was waiting to collect his wife. One of your group came to the window of his taxi, held a knife to his neck and asked him for his car keys. He described a kitchen knife with a blade 30 to 40 centimetres long. The male grabbed Mr Phan's left hand and held his wrist, cutting his finger, after he said he did not have the keys to the vehicle. The male said that 'they were not bullshitting', and to give them the keys. Again, a knife was placed against Mr Phan's neck.
3. All three of you then entered the vehicle. You, Mr Kodituwakku, were seated in the back seat. Mr Phan handed his car keys to the male with the knife, which was either Hamonfore or Agany, who were in the front seat. Mr Phan was also told to hand over his Apple iPhone 12, which he did. He was told to get out of the car. The knife was still being held to his neck. He complied and the three of you drove off.
4. Mr Kodituwakku, in respect of this incident, you are charged with carjacking, not aggravated carjacking, which is a concession by the prosecution that they were not able to prove beyond reasonable doubt that you knew of the knife during the course of this incident, otherwise you too would have been charged with aggravated carjacking.
5. On 23 December 2023, at around 1.10 am, a witness, Mr Shaqrir, noticed a male wearing a Covid mask standing at the driver's side of a black car, possibly a Hyundai. This occurred in Michael Street, Brunswick. The prosecution case is that this male was you, Mr Kodituwakku, and the vehicle was the Hyundai Getz stolen from the carpark in Footscray, over which you pleaded guilty to motor vehicle theft.
6. Mr Shaqrir noticed another vehicle which he thought may have been a Volkswagen. Standing next to that vehicle was another African male, which the prosecution say was Agany. No charges arise out of this incident, but it was relevant to the overall investigation.
7. The Hyundai Getz was recovered on 25 December 2023 in Michael Street, Brunswick. Mr Faoa's wallet was found in the vehicle. Police also located a driver's licence in the name of Yonatan Abte. A black Telstra phone was seized and that phone contained photos of you, Mr Kodituwakku. Your DNA was on a facemask also seized from the vehicle, as well as a Coke can in the vehicle.

1. Mr Phan made a Victim Impact Statement.[2] He did not want it read in court so I will not go into the precise details of it. He says his sense of security was shattered by this incident. He says that after this incident, his mental health deteriorated. He suffered an acute stress response (as assessed by a professional counsellor) characterised by worry, restlessness and difficulties in concentrating.
2. The trauma affected his home life. He says his wife suffered vicarious trauma.
3. He was without his car for a period of three months and had to rent a vehicle at his own expense. The car was not fully repaired for eight months. He says his sense of safety has been permanently diminished and he is now hypervigilant.
4. It is obvious that the impact of your offending against Mr Phan has been substantial and enduring. Offences such as these are psychologically life changing. The impact on Mr Phan is a significant matter to be considered in sentencing, particularly in informing just punishment for this serious offending.

1. You have a substantial criminal history. On 14 November 2022, at the Melbourne County Court, you were sentenced to 16 months in a Youth Justice Centre for armed robbery and attempted robbery by Her Honour Judge Gwynn. I have been provided with the sentencing remarks for those offences. On that occasion in 2022, you and a co-offender robbed an 18-year-old on the street using a machete.
2. On 17 February 2023 for burglary, theft, committing an indictable offence on bail, contravening a bail condition, wilful damage, robbery, attempted robbery, failing to answer bail and contravening a Family Violence Intervention Order, you were sentenced to five months in a Youth Justice Centre, at a time when you were undergoing the sentence imposed by Judge Gwynn.
3. You were apparently released on youth parole in around May 2023. You completed that parole in August 2023, but committed these offences in December 2023, not long after your youth parole had finished. In November 2023, you were remanded in custody for approximately a month before being bailed for breach IVO, persistent breach IVO, proceeds of crime offence and possess cannabis. These offences, for which I must sentence you, occurred when you were on bail for those offences.
4. These prior convictions are obviously highly relevant. They are for similar offences. They are relevant to the assessment of your prospects of rehabilitation and to your moral culpability for this very serious offending. Notwithstanding that you had been placed in a Youth Justice Centre for this type of conduct, and you were on bail, you were again involved in a robbery offence, and the carjacking. You must have understood the gravity of such conduct given that you had been sentenced to a Youth Justice Centre order for similar offending.
5. Your prior convictions are also relevant to the weight to be given to specific deterrence and to the need for community protection.

1. The maximum penalty for carjacking is 15 years' imprisonment, and robbery also carries a substantial maximum penalty of 15 years' imprisonment. These maximum penalties reflect the inherent seriousness of such offences. Moreover, carjacking is a Category 2 offence, and a custodial sentence must be imposed unless one of the exceptions set out in s5(2H)(a)-(e) of the Sentencing Act 1991 exist. In my view there is no basis to so find.
2. Your offending was objectively serious.
3. I accept the prosecution's submission that the carjacking offending in this case, and the robbery offending against Mr Graham, involves the following aggravating features:

(a) the robbery and the carjacking were committed in company;

(b) the victim of the robbery, Mr Graham, was simply trying to assist the victim of a previous robbery committed minutes earlier;

(c) the presence of three offenders in Mr Phan's vehicle during the carjacking was a terrifying experience for him; and

(d) you were on bail at the time of the offending.

1. The behaviour of you and your co- offenders across both incidents was thuggish, brazen and violent conduct in public against innocent members of the community. Mr Phan was simply sitting in his car in the middle of the afternoon when he was accosted in the way described in the prosecution opening.
2. Having regard to the circumstances of the offences in this case, and considering your prior convictions, I regard your moral culpability for these offences as substantial, notwithstanding some reduction based on Bugmy[3] principles, to which I will later refer.
3. General deterrence, that is the need to deter other like-minded offenders from committing such offences, must be given substantial weight in deciding the appropriate sentences. The expression of denunciation on behalf of the community via the sentence I impose is also an important sentencing purpose for such brazen offending committed in public.
4. As I have already observed, you have relevant prior convictions and, therefore, specific deterrence (that is the need to send you the message that such conduct will not be tolerated) is also highly relevant; and community protection against such violent offending in public must also be emphasised as well. Just punishment has a significant role to play, given the substantial impact of the offending.

1. You were born in August 2002. You are 23 years old and were 21 at the time of the offending. You are the oldest child in your family. You have a younger brother, Oliver, aged 22, and another younger brother, Ryan, who is 12.
2. Your parents separated approximately eight years ago.
3. You were born in Melbourne, and you have lived in Australia, Malaysia and

Sri Lanka because of your father's employment in the Australian Army and relocations in that employment. Your father is of Sri Lankan background. 4. Your childhood was marred by exposure to domestic violence. Reportedly, your father had abused alcohol and was physically abusive towards your mother. 5. Your mother had a mental illness which added to the stress of the home environment. I have been provided with documents which confirm your mother's psychiatric illness. You describe having to live in refuges on occasion to escape your father's violent conduct. 6. You attended several secondary schools, including at an international school in

Sri Lanka. You finished school before the end of Year 10 when you were expelled for drug use. Truancy had been an issue before that. 7. Your upbringing made it difficult for you to find stability and had an impact on your education and your ability to form friendships and supportive relationships. 8. Once you left school you worked as a roof tiler for around five months and you have also worked as a picker and packer. 9. You stated drinking alcohol when you were 16 years old. You also began smoking cannabis at the age of 15 and suffered an episode of drug induced psychosis when you were 19. 10. At the age of 16 you spent some time in Sri Lanka due to problems at home. You also spent some time in foster care, after which you experienced some homelessness. 11. From 2021 you had limited contact with your mother who suffers from schizophrenia. I have been told that you had a phone call with her at the beginning of your remand period for these offences, but you have had no contact with her since then.

1. Your counsel, Mr Mortley, told me that after you were paroled in May 2023 under Youth Parole, you lived with your father for a period of approximately three months. Youth Parole finished in approximately August 2023. It was after your Youth Parole finished that you reoffended. You were then remanded in custody in November 2023 and your father moved overseas. You were released on bail on 4 December 2023, and you had nowhere to live and you met up with old acquaintances, couch surfed and started drinking every day. This offending occurred some 19 days later. Your counsel told me you have limited memory of the offences, and you say you were consuming alcohol, cannabis and Xanax at that time.
2. You only have one support in the community and that is your father, Saman. He is present in court today and he was present at the plea hearing via a video link. It seems that notwithstanding the difficulties of your upbringing you have managed to maintain a relationship with him. Your father came back to Australia to support you in respect of an unsuccessful bail application you made at the end of 2025. He has returned today. I have been told this morning that your father is living in a one-bedroom unit in Ivanhoe, and that when you are ultimately released you will be able to live with him, and he sees no difficulty in transitioning to a larger unit, so you will have some accommodation.
3. At the last hearing I told Mr Mortley that I needed some certainty about your accommodation to even contemplate a combined sentence of imprisonment with a Community Correction Order and that I would like to hear evidence from your father. Your father has not been called and although I accept he is living in Ivanhoe, that is clearly not a satisfactory situation for you to be released into at the moment. In any case, I have ultimately decided that the gravity of this offending requires a head sentence and a non-parole period, a matter I indicated to your counsel this morning.

1. You pleaded guilty to this matter after a contested committal. I was told that identification was an issue at that committal, but that the aggravated carjacking was the main stumbling block to resolution; and, of course, that has been withdrawn and you have pleaded guilty to carjacking simpliciter. Mr Mortley sought to characterise your guilty plea as at the earliest opportunity. Whilst I accept that I must take into account resolution discussions and the withdrawal of the most significant charge, in circumstances where all charges were contested at committal, I do not accept your guilty plea was at the earliest opportunity; rather I would characterise it as an early opportunity.

1. A psychological report from Ms Gina Cidoni was tendered.[4] In his written submissions, Mr Mortley has set out in detail how he relies on that material.
2. Ms Cidoni described your insight as fair and that you have an understanding that substance abuse and homelessness contribute to your offending, and that obtaining housing and employment would be important to prevent further offending.
3. You have symptoms of severe and persistent anxiety. You meet the formal diagnosis for major depressive disorder with anxious distress. You have symptoms consistent with ADHD. You also have symptoms of PTSD in the severe range. You meet the formal diagnosis for both ADHD and PTSD.
4. You have a high range risk score for violent reoffending. Ms Cidoni says that without active relapse prevention, ongoing support, and psychological treatment you remain vulnerable to your previous coping patterns when stressed, particularly if you have no accommodation or social stability.
5. You also meet a formal diagnosis for alcohol use disorder.
6. Ms Cidoni describes your prospects of rehabilitation as limited but achievable if treatment is provided for the factors that have directly contributed to your offending. Having regard to that prognosis, and the frequency of your offending over the last few years, I can take no more than a guarded view of your prospects of rehabilitation.
7. She says that your mental state means you will have a more burdensome experience of imprisonment than someone without your psychological conditions.
8. Ms Cidoni said that you had a traumatic and fractured childhood, which has been followed by adulthood of limited support and housing instability. There is a history of sustained adversity beginning in childhood, including exposure to family violence and unstable and disrupted caregiving, including periods of refuge accommodation, removal from the family home and placement in out of home care.
9. Your counsel submitted whilst this is not a background of profound deprivation, there are applicable Bugmy considerations. I accept that your formative years were chaotic and unstable and that this has contributed to your lifestyle of criminality and alcohol dependence, as well as drug use, and that I should assess your moral culpability as lower than someone without such instability in their formative years. Of course, these factors are also relevant to the assessment of your prospects of rehabilitation and the considerations of community protection against your continued offending.
10. Mr Mortley also submitted that limb 5 of Verdins[5] is enlivened, having regard to

Ms Cidoni's opinion about imprisonment being more burdensome and I have also taken this into account as a mitigating factor.

1. Mr Mortley submitted that the period you spent in custody in November 2023 until you were released on 4 December 2023 should be taken into account as Renzella[6] time because when those offences were dealt with in October 2024 you were convicted and discharged. It seems to be highly unlikely that you would have received that disposition unless there was a background of time having been spent in custody, namely the period in November/December 2023. I am not prepared to draw the conclusion that the time you spent in custody was not a factor in the ultimate disposition. Therefore, I do not regard this one month as Renzella time to be taken into account. However, given its proximity to your remand in this matter, I have had regard to it broadly in applying the totality principle.

1. Mr Mortley relied on the principles relating to the sentencing of youthful offenders. You were 21 years old when you committed these offences. The youthful offender principles dictate that ordinarily rehabilitation of a young offender is the primary sentencing purpose. However, it is well established that in cases of involving serious offending, those principles may have to surrender ground to more punitive sentencing purposes. This is such a case in my opinion. Furthermore, you are a person with substantial prior convictions, and you have previously been sentenced to a period in the Youth Justice Centre for similar offending. Therefore, the youthful offender principles have less forceful application than they would if you had a less significant criminal history.
2. None of that is to suggest that for a person of your young age I should abandon the objective of rehabilitation. In fixing the sentences in this matter I have had regard to your age as a moderating influence on the sentences to be imposed, and I consider that the need to facilitate your rehabilitation remains an important sentencing objective.
3. These offences were committed on bail and therefore s16(1A)(e) of the Sentencing Act, which reverses the ordinary presumption of concurrency and provides that prison sentences are to be cumulative unless otherwise ordered.
4. This provision modifies but does not exclude the operation of the totality principle, which requires the overall sentence to be just and proportionate to the total criminality of your offending. To comply with the totality principle, substantial concurrency is necessary.
5. The non-parole period mitigates punishment in favour of rehabilitation, but it must be consistent with the objective gravity of the offending. In fixing the non-parole period, I have placed significant weight on your age at the time of the offending, and the youthful offender principles.
6. Turning then to my sentences in this case: in relation to Charge 2, robbery, you are convicted and sentenced to a period of imprisonment of 20 months. In relation to Charge 3, common law assault, you are convicted and sentenced to a period of imprisonment of 12 months. In relation to Charge 4, motor vehicle theft, you are convicted and sentenced to a period of imprisonment of eight months. In relation to Charge 6, theft of alcohol, you are convicted and sentenced to a period of imprisonment of four months. In relation to Charge 8, carjacking, you are convicted and sentenced to a period of imprisonment of two years and eight months.
7. Nine months of the sentence on Charge 2, three months of the sentence on Charge 3, and three months of the sentence on Charge 4, and one month of the sentence on Charge 6, are cumulative on the base sentence, and on each other, which makes a total effective sentence of four years. I fix a non-parole period in this matter of two years and two months.
8. I allow presentence detention of 658 days, and for the summary offence you are convicted and discharged, having regard to the fact that I have taken that into account as an aggravating feature in this matter.
9. Pursuant to s6AAA[7], I indicate that but for your plea of guilty, the sentence imposed would have been five years and six months, with a non-parole period of three years and six months. Are there any other orders, Mr Mallia?
10. MR MALLIA: No, thank you, Your Honour.
11. HIS HONOUR: Mr Mortley, any clarification required?
12. MR MORTLEY: No, Your Honour.
13. HIS HONOUR: Thanks to both counsel, those are the orders that I make in this matter.

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

[5] R v Verdins [2007] VSCA 102; 16 VR 269 ('Verdins').

[6] R v Renzella [1999] VSCA 85; [1997] 2 VR 88 ('Renzella').

[7] Sentencing Act 1991 (Vic) s 6AAA.