DPP v Lamont [2025] VCC 376

County Court of Victoria|2025-03-28|Before: Mr J

Stephen Lamont, you have pleaded guilty to one charge of attempted armed robbery, one charge of intentionally causing injury and one charge of theft. The facts of your offending are set out in Exhibit A, the prosecution opening. I was informed by your counsel that I could treat that document as an agreed statement of fact and I incorporate it into these reasons for sentence and sentence you on the basis of the facts set out therein, together with the exhibited material of photographs and CCTV footage.
On 2 July of last year, 2024, at about 1.12 am in the morning, you went to the 7-Eleven shop on the corner of Separation and Thompson Road in North Geelong. Whilst you were there, you stole four sausage rolls, four or five donuts, five bags of chocolates from the shelves and a cup of coffee. You then departed from the store without paying for them. That act is the basis of

Charge 3, theft, to which you have pleaded guilty. 3. On the same day, but later in the night at 8.15 pm, you returned to the same shop where at this stage 19-year-old Namra Patel was working as a console operator. He watched you pick up a couple of puff pastry items and put them on the service counter of the shop. You grabbed his arm through the wire around the counter and held onto him and he pulled away from you. He immediately rang Triple 0 asking for help. He tried to run away from you by going into the rear storeroom, but you jumped over the wire barrier onto the counter and followed him, forced your way into the storeroom where you assaulted him by headbutting him and punching him and holding him to the ground. 4. You then took from your pocket a metal object, a photograph of which was tendered to the court, which had a sharp metal edge and holding it in your hand, you stabbed Mr Patel on multiple occasions to his neck, side and his body. You were demanding money and the keys to Mr Patel's motor vehicle whilst you continued to assault him. You had him by the throat, preventing him from leaving. Later in the assault, which was protracted, it goes for some 19 minutes according to the CCTV footage, you grabbed an iron bar that was on the floor and hit the victim with that, holding it against his throat for a period of time. 5. The police responding presumably to the Triple 0 call, entered the scene and the police located you fighting with your victim and arrested you and took possession of the weapon that was on the floor. As a result of what you did to him, Mr Patel sustained bruising to his neck abrasions to his left ear and scratches to his face and neck. 6. You have admitted a criminal record. 7. On 23 May 2024 you were before the Geelong Magistrates' Court on charges of intentionally damage property, burglary, criminal damage and failing to answer bail. That apparently related to your entry into a footy club's clubrooms, damaging the property and stealing items. In any event, you received a community correction order with 100 hours of unpaid community work for a period of 12 months. 8. Six weeks later you committed this offending, barely starting your community correction order. It is an aggravating feature of your offending that you were on a community correction order at the time you offended.

Turning to your personal circumstances, your history is set out in your counsel's submissions and in the psychological report of Jane Bidjossian. You are now 23 years of age; you were 22 at the time of your offending.
You have three siblings, each from apparently a different father. Your father and your mother had a relationship briefly. He was from Honduras and was living in the USA working there. He had returned to America before your mother found out she was pregnant. You have maintained a close relationship with your mother over the years. When you were about five, she re-partnered, and your stepfather abused substances and was violent to both you and your mother. You claim that your stepfather introduced you and your mother to cannabis and then methylamphetamine when you were very young.
You attended school finishing at Year 11. You had difficulties at school, being suspended for drug use and poor behaviour.
You took work at various trades, tiling, scaffolding and bricklaying, but from

17 onwards you were mostly homeless. Both you and your mother were couch surfing and homeless for a period of time. Your drug use escalated. Your counsel indicated that in the last 12-18 months of your life, your life spiralled out of control. You lost your job as a groundskeeper. Your use of drugs escalated, and you became regularly homeless. 5. In the end of 2023 and the start of 2024, you went to the USA to meet your father for the first time and travelled with him as I understand it to Honduras where you met your extended family. When you came back to Australia you were homeless again, you had lost your job, and you were living in temporary accommodation and in the streets. You were using methamphetamine on a daily basis and had used it on the day you committed this offending. 6. Obviously, your offending is objectively serious. Your prolonged and vicious attack on Mr Patel caused numerous, but fortunately relatively minor, injuries to him, but observing you on the CCTV, your stabbing him was frenzied and nasty. On the other hand, your offending was unsophisticated and in a lot of ways totally nonsensical. Your weapon was a crude weapon indeed, but it was not at least a firearm or a knife which could have caused a lot for damage than what you did. 7. The courts in this State have indicated that offending against soft targets such as you did, is an aggravating feature of assessing the offence when I assess the gravity of your offending. Justice Vincent has said:

The court on a number of occasions emphasised the seriousness with which offences committed against persons who work in isolated an unprotected environments will be viewed. Persons such as taxi drivers and those who work in service stations, convenience stores or small family businesses are extremely vulnerable and are entitled to the full protection of the law. That protection of the law means that the principle of general deterrence assumes considerable significance[1].

Clearly, the objective gravity of both Charges 1 and 2 is such that a substantial term of imprisonment is warranted. However, that term of imprisonment is tempered by some of the mitigatory factors that exist in your case. That was a concession made fairly in my view by the prosecution.
Your counsel relied on a number of matters in mitigation. Firstly, your early pleas of guilty. You have spared the community the time and expense of a criminal trial and, despite this being a very strong Crown case, you are nonetheless entitled to a reduction in the penalty for the sentence I would otherwise impose to reflect your pleas of guilty.
Secondly, your remorse. That remorse is evidenced by your pleas of guilty, by your cooperation with the police upon your arrest and is attested to in the character references tendered on your behalf.
Significantly, your relative youth. You were only 22 when you offended. Your rehabilitation represents a significant community interest. Your offending was also linked to your immaturity.
Fourthly, your counsel relied upon your disputed and deprived childhood and submitted that the principles in Bugmy[2] are relevant to you. It is no surprise that you ended up using drugs and then have offended in the way you did given your background as set out in the material.
Fifthly, your post-traumatic stress disorder which the psychological report refers to will mean that custody is more onerous for you than it would be for someone without your conditions and indeed custody may well exacerbate your mental health issues.
Sixthly, your prospects of rehabilitation. At 23, you have a limited criminal record and have the opportunity to really turn your life around. You enjoy the support of your mother and your brother, and you have the ability and capacity to work and will have stable accommodation in your brother's home, with your mother as I understand it, when you are released from custody. You have completed courses while you were in custody and if you rid yourself of the scourge of methylamphetamine abuse, you can be a valuable member of the community. The issue for this court is to assess how your rehabilitation can be best promoted together with ensuring that other sentencing principles are recognised.
You have served 269 days on remand. It is clear that principles of general deterrence, just punishment and denunciation require the imposition of terms of imprisonment for Charges 1 and 2.
The prosecutor very fairly and, in my view, properly conceded that a further period of imprisonment together with a properly structured community correction order could meet sentencing requirements in your case. Your counsel submitted that I should impose such a combination sentence. Not without some hesitation, I propose to impose a combination sentence. The combination of mitigatory factors to which I have referred has convinced me that you can be adequately punished, and your rehabilitation prospects enhanced by such a course.
On all three charges you are convicted and sentenced to an aggregate sentence of 19 months' imprisonment together with a community correction order to commence upon your release from custody. That order will run for three years. You are to perform 300 hours of unpaid community work.
Apart from the core conditions, you should undergo treatment and rehabilitation for drugs, treatment and rehabilitation for mental health, you are to do programs to reduce reoffending, and you will be under supervision. I order that 50 hours of any programs you perform can count against the unpaid community work.
Do you agree to such a disposition?
OFFENDER: Yes.
HIS HONOUR: All right. You need to understand that if you do not comply with the order or you reoffend in the course of the three years that you are on the order, you will be brought back before the court and resentenced in relation to these offences, and in those circumstances nothing but a head sentence and a minimum would be appropriate.
I declare that 269 days of the sentence I have just imposed has been served by way of presentence detention.
I declare pursuant to s6AAA of the Sentencing Act 1991[3], that but for your pleas of guilty, I would have imposed a term of imprisonment of four years with a

non-parole period of two years and six months. 17. Will you go down with my associate and have him sign the order please? 18. MR BARREIRO: I will, Your Honour. 19. HIS HONOUR: Are there any ancillary orders? 20. MR DE VIETRI: There's a draft disposal order for the black metal item. 21. HIS HONOUR: I will make the disposal orders. 22. MR BARREIRO: It's not opposed, of course. 23. HIS HONOUR: I will make that order. 24. MR DE VIETRI: Thank you, Your Honour. 25. HIS HONOUR: As I calculate it, he's got just under 10 months to go. 26. MR DE VIETRI: That is correct. 27. HIS HONOUR: When you are released from custody, the author of the report notes that you should report by I think 2 April this year. That is not going to happen. You have got to report within 48 hours of your release from custody to Level 5, 30 Little Malop Street, Geelong. That is the local Community Corrections office. That will be on the order you get anyway. All right? 28. OFFENDER: Yep. 29. HIS HONOUR: Nothing else? 30. MR BARREIRO: No, Your Honour. 31. MR DE VIETRI: Nothing from me.

At a glance

Court

Decision date

Before

Catchwords

Source

Catchwords

Judgment (9 paragraphs)

Parties

Cases Cited (1)