DPP v Mut [2025] VCC 979

1. Details of your offending are set out in the Revised Summary of Prosecution Opening for Plea
2. You and your four co-offenders were known to the police to be Steppa Gang members. They were aged from fifteen to eighteen years of age at the time of the offending.
3. You targeted three members of a rival gang in relation to the attempted aggravated burglary and affray. They were all seventeen years at the time. They were known to the police to be members of another gang.
4. There were also four members of the public who were victims of the attempted aggravated burglary and affray, and a member of the public who was the owner of a stolen white Audi (registration ending 466), which is the subject of the theft charge.
5. That vehicle was stolen from a Beaumaris address between 26 and 27 May. Another Audi was stolen a day or so later from Hampton East.
6. Around 4:20 am on 29 May 2024, there was an aggravated home invasion by a group of males in Cranbourne North. They were looking for one of the members of that rival gang. It is not alleged by the prosecution you were part of this group.
7. But at 7:12 am that day, two white Audi SUVs were parked outside the Bunnings Warehouse at Narre Warren North Road. Five young men got out of the SUVs and entered Bunnings. Others remained in the SUVs. You were among those who got out of the vehicle. You all wore hoodies and face coverings, except for one co-offender.
8. The group asked one of the staff members where the machetes were kept and six minutes later left the store and sat in the SUVs. One was seen putting a metre long axe, with a black and green handle, into one of the SUVs. The SUVs then left the scene.
9. Around 7.35 am that day, there was a collision between a stolen Holden Commodore station wagon and a stolen Maserati wagon, on Narre Warren North Road. It was about 200 metres away from the Shell Coles Express at Narre Warren North. Your fingerprints were found on both the driver's side and the passenger side of one of those cars.
10. At 7:33 am, three members of the rival gang ran into the store at Narre Warren Shell Coles Express. One held a long machete. Two held a gas canister, which they had picked up right outside of the store.
11. When they ran inside, there were reports of them shouting 'lock the doors and call the police'. The staff members and customers called Triple Zero and the staff members pressed the alarm buttons at the counter. One of the staff members brought the customers into an office at the back of the store. They locked themselves in the office, and others locked themselves in the tearoom area behind the counter. The doors to the store were locked. The staff members and customers were terrified.
12. One of the three male victims tried to get into the tearoom, shouting 'open the doors, call the police'. There were noises of glass doors shattering, lots of shoutings, consisting of six or seven voices. What had happened in this period was that a group of six, including yourself, had arrived at the Coles Express. Another car had also arrived.
13. The six of you wore hoodies and face coverings. You were armed with various weapons including a pole, an axe, hatchets, knives, machetes, and a wood plank. You personally were armed with a long machete. One co-offender was armed with a wood plank and a hatchet and another was armed with a pole. Your group repeatedly used these weapons to smash on the glass doors of the store. You lunged at the door with the machete and swung at it multiple times. The group repeatedly kicked the glass doors and also threw a wood plank and a basket at the doors. The group taunted the men inside the store. Two were filming on phones.
14. Meanwhile, one of them fought back with his machete from the inside. This whole attack lasted around two and a half minutes. You then got into the white Audi and drove away. Two minutes later, the Audi returned and rammed the store's glass doors but was stopped by the bollard in front of the doors. It then left the scene. A couple of minutes later, the three rival gang members walked out of the store.
15. Police arrived and arrested them.
16. By this stage the glass doors were damaged with two holes in them, shattered glass was on the ground, there were blood stains on the ground and on the doors. The bollard was tilted because of the ramming.
17. The pole and the wooden plank were left outside the store. The three men inside left the machete and gas cannisters.
18. Around 12:02 pm, five African men, in clothing similar to those who had assailed the store, walked towards Casey Central Shopping Centre and later entered a restaurant called Fat Jak's in the shopping centre. At 12:25 pm police officers attended there and arrested the five men, which included you and the four co-offenders.
19. You were found at the time of your arrest with a large machete tucked into your pants. There was dried blood on it. Of the blood on the blade, there was a mixed DNA profile of two contributors, but statistically, it was 100 billion times more likely that you were the source of DNA. The blood on the underside of the machete's hilt had a single-source DNA profile, and it was a 100 billion times more likely that you were the source of that.
20. The stolen Audi was parked on The Strand. Bloodstains were found on it. Inside there were two hatchets, a saw, two axes, two knives, a machete, a glove and an oral mask.
21. You have been charged on the basis you knew the Audi was stolen when you and the others used it on 29 May. You have not been charged with taking it.
22. The charges you have pleaded guilty to are serious offences, as shown by the maximum penalties for these charges.
23. Your offending was serious and violent. You and your peers repeatedly smashed the glass doors of a store with various objects and weapons, leaving holes. The doors were rammed.
24. You were armed, as I have said, with a long machete which, at the time of your arrest, was found tucked into your pants, with dried blood still on the weapon. You were wearing face coverings and hoodies to avoid detection, along with your peers.
25. Your moral culpability is high. Your offending was deliberate, and involved planning and preparation.
26. The attack at the Coles Express was a terrifying incident. It was directed at three young men who were rival gang members. It was very violent. You and your peers used weapons, and members of the public, who had been innocently visiting the Coles Express, going about their daily business, were caught up in it.
27. You are not charged on the basis that you originally planned the assault on the service station. However, you obtained machetes and you were ready with face coverings in case you met rival gang members. And when you saw the other gang members, your actions were reckless and spontaneous.
28. No victim impact statements were provided to the Court but it is obvious that the group of victims targeted by you and your group, as well as the bystanders caught inside the store, would have been terrified by the attack on the service station.
29. Mr Mut, you are a young offender. You were eighteen years old at the time of the offence. You are nineteen years old now.
30. Your parents fled their home country of Sudan just before you were born. They separated when you were six years old.
31. Your mother works full time, and lives with her new partner in your family home at Cranbourne North, along with your other siblings, aged between one and seventeen. Your mother loves and supports you. She has maintained contact with you three times a week while you have been in custody, to ensure contact between you and her and your siblings.
32. Your father works full time and lives in Endeavour Hill. You have maintained a close relationship with your father. Following the separation of your parents, you stayed with him on a fortnightly basis.
33. You grew up in Australia. In 2021, you were removed from your mother's care and placed on an Interim Accommodation Order to live with a maternal aunt. Prior to the offences there were twelve reports in relation to you and your siblings concerning exposure to family violence, your biological father being the reported perpetrator. The Youth Justice Bail Report says that these reports have included details of inappropriate parental discipline, you absconding from the family home, difficulties in managing your behaviour, property damage, you engaging in offending, and substance use.
34. Your parents and siblings have been the affected family members in

family violence incidents perpetrated by you, dating back to 2018. While your family has been proactive in communicating with Youth Justice in the past, and gives positive support, this has not deterred you from offending behaviour in the past. 35. You and your family were supported by a Targeted Care Package, which expired on 30 June 2023. 36. On 12 December 2023, you were released from youth detention on sentence expiry. 37. On 28 March 2024, you received your most recent Youth Supervision Order, with an expiry date of 27 December 2024. 38. In late April 2024, your family home was firebombed by a rival peer group. The home is still being repaired. The Youth Justice Bail Service Report says that your offending the subject of these current charges is of a retaliatory nature. There are ongoing concerns you will engage in acts of retribution, and that you and your family are in ongoing danger of reprisals. 39. You told the writer of the Extended Pre-Sentence Report dated 27 June 2025 that on the day of, and leading up to, the offending, you had been with your friends, engaging in significant alcohol consumption. 40. That day you were arrested and then remanded in adult custody for the first time. You have been there 407 days. 41. You have a close relationship with your siblings and when you are not in custody, assist with household and carer responsibilities. You are reported to be particularly close with your sister (the second eldest of your siblings) and your seven year old brother, who has Autism Spectrum Disorder. 42. On 2 November 2024, your beloved cousin was killed in a fatal shooting in the Melbourne CBD. You have struggled to manage your grief; you were unable to support your aunt with her loss, attend the funeral or fulfill other cultural practices associated with the grieving process, because you were in remand. 43. According to your counsel, the firebombing attack on your family home, your general household stress, and your helplessness concerning your present life, and your future, are all a combined catalyst in relation to your offending. 44. You have not been diagnosed with any disabilities, and there are no concerns regarding your cognitive capacity but you have been diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. 45. You report struggling to focus at school. You disliked the rigid nature of the formal education system. 46. You were often suspended for problems with teachers or getting into fights with other students. 47. When you were expelled at Year 9 for fighting you did not return. 48. You then had a period of time at home without the structure of schooling or employment, and it was in this time that your engagement with peers already involved in the criminal justice system increased. This was the period of the COVID-19 lockdowns. You report feeling isolated and helpless, which was alleviated by spending time with these peers. Your efforts to engage in further education or employment have been hampered by the negative influence of these peers, a friendship group you have struggled to disentangle yourself from. 49. You had two jobs in this period working on a chicken farm, and some scaffolding work. 50. Between 28 March 2024 and 29 May 2024, you attended eleven of thirteen appointments with Youth Justice. You missed two of them without a valid reason. One within the first week of your release. But your attendance and communication improved significantly until your second missed appointment, which was the day you were arrested for this offending. 51. You were unable to commence the Forensite training prior to your remand and at the time of the Youth Justice Bail Service Report in November 2024, you maintained you had an interest in attending a training course in Hallam to undertake a Certificate II/III in Civil Construction. 52. While on remand, you have secured full time work as a billet and undertaken educational courses. 53. According to the Youth Justice Bail Report, you have historically been highly resistant to discussion of, and treatment for, your historical substance abuse. But when presented with evidence of this, you have attributed your reluctance to discuss to underlying feelings of shame, and the perceived negative impact it would have on the way others perceive you. 54. This substance use is related primarily to consumption of Xanax, cannabis and alcohol. There is an historical link between your abuse of Xanax and your pattern of offending, and it has likely made your offending more violent. 55. Following your earlier release from custody in December 2023, your use of alcohol commenced as a form of social recreation, but also to 'commemorate the losses of several peers over the prior six months', according to the Youth Justice Bail Service Report. Alcohol became a form of self medication for your difficulties with sleep, and to prevent the onset of intrusive thoughts and feelings. You have also reported sporadic use of cannabis as a coping strategy, but deny returning to other illicit substances. 56. Following your release from custody in March 2024, you engaged in ongoing discussion with Youth Justice around harm minimisation, psychoeducation and relapse prevention planning. 57. On 3 October 2023, you were assaulted during a riotous incident at Malmsbury Youth Justice Precinct. You were seriously injured. You were later diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and according to the Youth Justice Bail Service Report, this incident 'complicated [your] sense of safety being in youth detention and in custody in general and [rendered your] time in custody more deleterious and onerous for [you]'. You have reported resulting sleeping difficulties, and attempting to see a medical practitioner to recommence medication, without success. 58. Limited references for you have been provided to the Court. 59. Your father has provided a letter indicating his ongoing support for you. His letter says you have expressed your remorse to him, and that you know you have done the 'wrong thing'. He has expressed his willingness to support you by offering alternative accommodation when you are released. He also describes your affection for your siblings. 60. Your mother and aunt were in court to support you at your plea hearing, and your mother gave a letter in support of your bail application. 61. Another letter in support of your bail application was received from Ms Selba-Gondoza Luka OAM, the CEO and founder of Afri-Aus Care, dated 5 June 2025. She proposed that she would work directly with you to conduct a mental health assessment, and provide counselling, and referrals to a GP for further assessment; and connect you with a psychologist and/or mental health social worker for further support. She also described employment and volunteering opportunities her organization would offer. She had a meeting with your mother, who described you as a vital support for the household, particularly in relation to caregiving and household responsibilities. 62. An Extended pre-sentence report was prepared for the purposes of this sentence. 63. You have expressed a desire to be a good role model for your brother and to support your mother. According to the Youth Justice Bail Service Report, when you are released you will be able to return to the family home to live with your mother, your stepfather, and your younger siblings. 64. The prosecution conceded you pleaded guilty at the earliest possible opportunity. In doing so you avoided the need for a trial, saved witnesses the stress of giving evidence in court, and avoided the use of public resources that would have otherwise been spent conducting a trial. I take the utilitarian value of your plea of guilty into account. 65. I accept that you have shown some remorse. In his letter to the Court for your plea, your father referred to that. 66. Your counsel submitted I should take into account your elevated vulnerability as a youthful offender, which means you experience adult custody in a more pronounced way. He says that Verdins limbs 5 and 6 are enlivened. That is, that you have impaired mental functioning, whether temporary or permanent, that is relevant in at least these two ways. That the sentence will weigh more heavily on you than it would a person in normal health. And that there is a serious risk that imprisonment has a significantly adverse effect on your mental health. These are factors tending to mitigate punishment. 67. I accept that these two limbs apply. I take them into account in your sentencing. 68. As I have said, you were eighteen when first remanded in custody for these offences. You have now just turned nineteen. You have contracted Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, and this has complicated your sense of safety in custody, making it more deleterious and more onerous for you. 69. Your beloved cousin was killed, and you were unable to grieve with your family. 70. This is your first time in adult custody, and you have reported it to be confronting and distressing. 71. I accept you have prospects of rehabilitation. 72. Your counsel submits that general deterrence must be weighed against your capacity for rehabilitation as a youthful offender, and indeed it must. Your youthfulness is a primary consideration for the Court. 73. Due to the negative impact on you of your co-accused, your rehabilitation will depend on your decision not to associate with them in the future. You have previously described them as your 'good friends', and you said you would not associate with them in the future as much, but when a non-association condition was discussed with you, you said you would be confident you would dissociate with your co-offenders, saying you 'don't want to do crime anymore'. I consider that there is a risk of reoffending and if you continue to associate with your

co-accused, it is a high risk. 74. Mr Mut, you have an extensive prior criminal history. You have admitted it (it is Exhibit C). 75. This is, however, the first time you have been charged as an adult. 76. All your previous offences were heard in the Children's Court. There is a succession of them: aggravated burglary, attempted aggravated burglary, burglary, home invasion, aggravated carjacking, robbery, reckless conduct endangering serious injury, affray, assault of an emergency worker on duty, possessing a controlled weapon without excuse, intentionally damaging property and repeated thefts of motor vehicle. 77. It does not get very much more serious than that series of offences. 78. You have spent periods on remand, you have had three Youth Supervision Orders, you have had three Youth Attendance Orders, and three Youth Justice Centre Orders. You have continually breached different orders. 79. Specific Deterrence is therefore particularly important here. It is important that my sentence deters you from engaging in similar offences in the future. 80. I take into account your prospects for youthful rehabilitation, and the steps you have taken to rehabilitate yourself while remanded. 81. I take into account that, as was said in Azzopardi v The Queen [2011] VSCA 372, by Redlich JA in the Court of Appeal:

34. There are a number of considerations which underlie the general primacy of an offender's youth as a sentencing consideration. Firstly, young offenders being immature are therefore 'more prone to ill-considered or rash decisions'. They 'may lack the degree of insight, judgment and

self-control that is possessed by an adult'. They may not fully appreciate the nature, seriousness and consequences of their criminal conduct...

1. ... courts 'recognize the potential for young offenders to be redeemed and rehabilitated'. This potential exists because young offenders are typically still in a stage of mental and emotional development and may be more open to influences designed to positively change their behaviour than adults who have established patterns of anti-social behaviour...

1. In sentencing you, I must have regard to a range of matters such as the seriousness of your offending, your culpability for it and your personal circumstances. I must balance the interests of the community in denouncing criminal conduct with the interest of the community in seeking to ensure as far as is possible, that offenders are rehabilitated and reintegrated into society. I must impose a sentence which is proportionate to the gravity of the offences, considering the circumstances. It must be no more than is necessary to satisfy those various objectives of sentencing.
2. General deterrence and protection of the community are very important. Your actions, and those of your peers were terrifying indeed for the victims involved.
3. The principles of just punishment and denunciation are also relevant. My sentence must communicate society's condemnation and disapproval of your conduct, but it must also acknowledge the potential for youthful rehabilitation.
4. Your decision to plead guilty at an early opportunity is indicative of remorse. Your decision to work during your remand and to take educational courses speaks well for your prospects of rehabilitation. It is tempered however by your startling criminal history, and the previous chances you have had to rehabilitate yourself, which you have squandered.
5. Your counsel submits that you should be sentenced to a CCO with therapeutic conditions, without formally reckoning time served; submitting in support of this that you have never previously had an opportunity to undertake a CCO.
6. The Prosecution submits that a combination of imprisonment and a CCO is appropriate, given the seriousness of the offending.
7. I take into account the relevant sentencing principles under s5 of the Sentencing Act 1991, and the current sentencing practices for the offences you have pleaded guilty to.
8. I take into account the Extended Pre-Sentence Report. You have been deemed suitable for a CCO. You are considered to be at high risk of re-offending, and the report recommends there be conditions - if a CCO is imposed - of treatment and rehabilitation for drug abuse and dependency, alcohol abuse and dependency, mental health assessment, and for you to be placed on any program that addresses factors related to your offending.
9. Mr Mut, you are still young. You have spent much of the last four years of your life involved with the justice system. You have spent the first year of your adult life in prison, adult prison, and found that difficult and traumatic. You have been assaulted on remand, which resulted in your being hospitalised and returned to that environment with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. You are constantly afraid of being assaulted again, you have been struggling to sleep, with a sense of hypervigilance. You were unable to grieve with your family when your cousin died. You have had a long time away from your family.
10. Your history does not have to be your future. You can make different choices going forward. You have a family who loves you and friends who are not involved with crime. There are many people who turn their backs on lives of crime and I encourage you to do that, Mr Mut, and take advantage of the rehabilitation and treatment that you will get. Do not do things that will send you back to prison. Have a life in the community, with your family and friends.
11. So then, turning to the sentence.
12. I sentence you as follows:
13. On Charge 1, attempted aggravated burglary, you are convicted and sentenced to fourteen months' imprisonment. This is the base sentence.
14. On Charge 2, affray, you are convicted and sentenced to eight months' imprisonment. That eight months will be served concurrently with the sentence on Charge 1.
15. On Charge 3, theft, you are convicted and sentenced to six months' imprisonment. One month of that sentence will be served cumulatively on the sentence on Charge 1.
16. That is a total effective sentence of fifteen months' imprisonment.
17. You are also convicted and sentenced to a community corrections order for fifteen months which will commence upon your release from custody.
18. The conditions of this order are:

(a) You must attend at Cranbourne Community Correctional Service within two clear working days of the order commencing.

(b) You will be under the supervision of a Community Corrections Order for

fifteen months, which means you are required to be supervised, monitored and managed as directed;

(c) You must undergo assessment and treatment (including testing) for:

• alcohol abuse dependency as directed;
• drug abuse dependency as directed;
• mental health as directed; and
• programs to reduce your risk of re-offending.

(d) I order you be subject to a Supervision condition.

(e) And to judicial monitoring.

(f) I order that you be subject to a non-association condition. You cannot contact or associate with any of your four co-offenders,[1] directly or indirectly.

(g) You must not commit an offence punishable by imprisonment during this order.

(h) You must not leave Victoria without permission of Community Corrections.

(i) You must let your Community Corrections Officer know within two clear days of changing your address or job.

(j) You must comply with any lawful direction given by a Community Corrections Officer that is necessary to ensure you comply with the order.

(k) If you contravene this order by either committing further offences, or by failing to comply with the conditions, you can be brought back before this Court, fined and resentenced. This may mean you have further gaol for these offences.

1. You are also disqualified from obtaining a driver's license or permit for three months from today.
2. Pursuant to s8 of the Sentencing Act 1991, 407 days of pre sentence detention is hereby declared as having been already served in respect of this sentence. I order such declaration and its details be entered in the Court records.
3. Pursuant to s6AAA of the Sentencing Act 1991, I indicate that had you not pleaded guilty and been found guilty after trial, I would have sentenced you to a term of one year and eleven months' imprisonment.

[1] Names have been omitted from these remarks as the co-offenders were dealt with in the children's jurisdiction.