DPP v Mohammadi [2025] VCC 1068

County Court of Victoria|2025-07-28

Sentence: Total Effective Sentence: Two years and four months imprisonment, non-parole period 17 months.

Madhi Mohammadi, you have pleaded guilty before me to five charges on indictment.
- Stalking, which carries a maximum penalty of 10 years' imprisonment.
- Common law kidnapping, which carries a maximum penalty of 25 years' imprisonment.
- Common assault, which carries a maximum of five years' imprisonment.
- Intentionally causing injury which carries a maximum penalty of 10 years' imprisonment.
- Prohibited person possessing a firearm, which carries a maximum of

You were 18 at the time of the commission of these offences. You have no prior convictions. You had been remanded in custody on these charges for 418 days at the time of your plea. You have now served 450 days on remand.
You are now 19 and will turn 20 next week.
The circumstances of your offending are set out in Exhibit A of the Summary of Prosecution Opening for plea dated 25 June 2025, which sets out the pertinent circumstances of your offending in detail which I am not going to recite herein. Exhibit A forms part of these reasons for sentence.
In brief terms, you were involved in a planned kidnapping, which had some very serious aspects to it. It is a very serious offence, kidnapping, it is a Category 2 offence. Your commission of it is very serious given the planning involved and the conduct you and others engaged in during the imprisonment of your unfortunate victim.
The stalking of your victim was constituted by you and your co-offenders conducting surveillance and tracking the victim over 3 and 4 May 2024. You and your co-offenders were in a group utilising a white van to follow the victim.
You were waiting for an opportunity to seize him.
You found your opportunity at 4:20 pm when you and your co-offenders forced your victim, who unbeknown to you at that point in time was not your intended victim, into the back of the white van.
You were directly involved in seizing your victim, tying him up and gagging him with duct tape.
Your victim was held down in the back of the white van and driven to an address in Doncaster Road, Doncaster. You and your co-offenders held him there. You were getting instructions via a Signal chat group. At one stage an image was sent of the victim's head, and it was only then that you and your co-offenders realised that you had kidnapped the wrong person.
The victim was terrorised, assaulted and tormented in a most appalling way during his captivity. He was tied to a chair, his head was shaved, and this was recorded on film and sent to the remote instructors.
Your co-offender placed a sawn-off or cut-down firearm in the victim's mouth. This was also filmed. I was shown footage of this episode. It was terrifying.
The victim was punched during his ordeal, and he received bruising, cuts and scratches during the abduction and assaults.
You are complicit in the intentionally causing of injury, possession of firearm and possession of ammunition.
Your role and criminality is appreciably less than that of Mr Elmarkaz. Elmarkaz threatened the victim, struck him with the firearm, terrorised him and placed a bullet in his mouth.
You were present throughout and replaced the pillowcase on the victim's head once all of this was done.
You were involved in the ultimate release of your victim.
You were arrested along with Hadairi not long after releasing the victim. You made some admissions. A number of recordings of the episode were found on your phone. You have been on remand since arrest.

It is very serious offending, and no doubt has had longstanding and significant impacts upon your victim who was too overwhelmed by the experience and the ongoing sequelae of the offending to make a victim impact statement, as I understand it, but I take into account that it was a terrifying, impactful and traumatic experience for him.
Your role was central to the events, although not as active as Elmarkaz. Some of the acts Elmarkaz was involved in made his commission of the offences objectively more grave than yours.

You were born in Kabul, Afghanistan in August 2005.
You are of Hazara ethnicity, and I accept that this fact subjected you and your family to discrimination, violence and instability during your formative years.
I have had regard to the helpful letters from your father and brother as to the circumstances of your childhood. You were 10 when you first left Kabul.
I accept the matters set out in your Counsel's outline as to the traumas you witnessed and experienced and the general poverty and disadvantage you experienced as a child. I accept the matters raised in the psychological report as to your background.
Your father fled to Australia in search for a better life for him and his family.
During this period of time, you and your siblings lived with extended family who physically and verbally abused and humiliated you. You experienced the brunt of this and you tried to shield your younger siblings from harm.
Upon arrival to Australia in 2016, aged 11 or so, you continued to struggle with trauma and cultural displacement, however, you also flourished in some respects, captaining a soccer team for example.
You also appreciated the significant change in physical security and safety.
In Afghanistan you attended school six days per week. You experienced physical discipline at school from teachers which led to some truancy.
Upon arriving in Australia, you were enrolled in Year 5 at Doveton College and also attended a language school to develop your English skills.
You experienced racism and bullying but as your English skills improved so too did your academic performance and social relationships.
In high school you were informed that you would need to repeat Year 11 and you chose to discontinue your secondary education and seek employment at that point.
You began working in manual labour jobs, including plumbing, bricklaying and rendering. However, you were required to undergo shoulder surgery and spent a year in recovery. That put a temporary end to physical employment opportunities.

You started smoking cannabis at age 14 and benzodiazepines by 16. For around 12 months prior to the offending, you were a regular user of cocaine.
I accept the opinion of psychologist Mr Simmons that your experiences in Afghanistan left you vulnerable to substance misuse. You were drawn to illicit drugs as a means of self-medicating your mental health issues, principally untreated PTSD.

I accept the diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder, and cannabis, cocaine and Benzodiazepine use disorders. Your experiences in your homeland as a child, witnessing and suffering traumatic events, have contributed to nightmares, flashbacks, panic attacks during sleep, emotional numbing and suicidal thoughts. Your trauma stems from cumulative and extreme early life exposure to violence.

Your plea of guilty has substantial utilitarian value, it has reduced the expense of a criminal trial. It avoided the inconvenience to witnesses and facilitates the course of justice. I accept the plea also demonstrates an acceptance of responsibility and some contrition and remorse.
Your matter proceeded by way of straight hand-up brief on 16 October 2024. I accept it was always going to be a resolved plea, however, there were some delays accepting one of the charges.
It is unfortunate in your case that there was delay in resolving the matter as you have spent a significant period on remand in circumstances where you would, in all likelihood, have been suitable for a Youth Justice Centre order had this matter been resolved at an earlier time.

I have had to have regard to the principle of parity, of course, given the disparate sentences I imposed upon Mr Hadairi and Mr Elmarkaz. The breadth of your offending is more in line with the circumstances of Mr Elmarkaz's offending, however, weighing up your role and personal circumstances places you closer to Mr Hadairi in terms of parity.
Mr Hadairi was 20 at the time of sentence and found suitable for a youth detention order. He had prior matters, unlike yourself, he was slightly older than you at the time of the offending.
As noted, your offending stretches beyond Mr Hadairi's. Mr Hadairi had the risk of deportation as a sentencing factor. Other than that matter, your personal circumstances are roughly similar.
I have weighed up the similarities and dissimilarities across all relevant considerations in respect of Mr Hadairi and Mr Elmarkaz in applying the principle of parity.

I accept that your traumatic background gives rise to significant mitigation by way of application of the Bugmy principle. I assess your moral culpability through this lens.

I also accept that due to your PTSD your experience in custody has been, and will be, more difficult than for another who does not suffer from PTSD.

You are entitled to significant mitigation due to the factor of youth and all that that entails. As I have stated, you were only 18 at the time of the commission of the offence. You will turn 20 next week, as I understand it.

You have a strong and supportive family standing by you. You have no prior convictions. You have a work history. At your young age I regard your prospects of rehabilitation as good with some reservations given some of the matters raised in the Suitability for Youth Justice Centre Order pre-sentence report.
I had you assessed for suitability for a YJC order. Given your young age and lack of criminal history, this appeared to be a suitable disposition. I had some reservations given the length of time you had spent on remand. The reason for reservation was, having regard to parity, any YJC sentence I imposed would see you eligible for youth parole immediately upon entry. A period of time, probably months, would be required, nonetheless, for parole planning.
The pre-sentence report recommendation is that you are not suitable for a Youth Justice Centre order, and I have heard Mr Casey address me in relation to some aspects of that report. I am not going to summarise the reasons for your unsuitability. In all of the circumstances, I would still have considered a Youth Justice Centre disposition despite the adverse recommendation if you had not been on remand for so long, and a longer period of time in Youth Justice Centre was available for you to work with Youth Justice.
In circumstances where you have already served some 15 months, or thereabouts, of the sentence I am about to impose, and in light of the recommendation from Youth Justice, I have decided that a jail term is the appropriate sentence in your case.
I have weighed up the importance of imposing a sentence that adequately reflects the importance of general deterrence, denunciation and specific deterrence, and has due regard to your youth and prospects of rehabilitation.

I sentence you as follows, Mr Mohammadi:
In relation to Charge 1, the charge of stalking, you are sentenced to four months' imprisonment.
In relation to Charge 2, kidnapping, you are sentenced to 20 months' imprisonment.
In relation to Charge 3, you are sentenced to six months' imprisonment.
In relation to Charge 4, intentionally causing injury, you are sentenced to four months' imprisonment.
In relation to Charge 5, a prohibited person possessing a firearm, you are sentenced to nine months' imprisonment.
In relation to the relevant summary offence of possess ammunition, you are fined $600.
The sentence imposed in relation to Charge 2 is the base sentence.
I direct that two months of each of the sentences imposed on each of Charges 1,3, 4 and 5 be served cumulatively upon the base sentence. The sentences are otherwise to be served concurrently.
That makes a total effective sentence of two years and four months' imprisonment.
I set a non-parole period of 17 months.
I declare that pursuant to s18 of the Sentencing Act you have served 450 days as pre-sentence detention.
Pursuant to s6AAA, were it not for your pleas of guilty, I would have sentenced you to a period of three and a half years' imprisonment with a non-parole period of two years and three months.
Mr Mohammadi, on my calculations you will be eligible for parole within a couple of months, so you need to start giving thought to how you prepare for that and how you apply for that.
Any other orders were sought.
MR CASEY: No, Your Honour.
HIS HONOUR: Thank you, Mr Casey, and thank you Mr Grant.

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