Plaintiff v Defendant

Plaintiff v Defendant - [2007] VSC 348 - VSC 2007 case summary — Zoe

[8]

6 As she continued along the path alone, you rode your BMX bike up to her. You alighted from your bike and placed the bike across the path thus blocking her way. You said "Lady I need you to help me". She said "I don't have any money". She then attempted to walk around your bike. As she did this you moved your bike in front of her so that she could not get around and you said "I think you can help me". Your victim again tried to sidestep you but you grabbed her body. You placed both your hands around her back pinning her arms to her sides. You then kissed her on the mouth. Your victim pulled away from you but you grabbed her and kissed her on the mouth more aggressively. You then commenced to drag your victim towards the bank of the adjacent Bendigo Creek. You did this by keeping your arms around her and pulling her. As will become apparent later in these sentencing remarks your victim is a deeply religious person. She said "Help, Lord Jesus, help me. Lord God help me". She said that as loudly as she could. She resisted your endeavours to pull her down the bank of the creek by grabbing hold of a tree and putting her feet against it. You were too strong for her. You dragged her down the embankment and she lost her footing. As you dragged her down the embankment you continually punched her in the head. Your victim continued to say "Lord Jesus, help me" to which you responded with words similar to "Well we'll see about your Lord Jesus later, but you can help me now". You continued to pull your victim down the bank. There was not much water in the creek at the time, the creek consisting of slush and mud. You pulled your victim into the slush and pushed her down on to her back. She was yelling "Help, help me, help". At this time you said "I'm going to fuck you till you die". You ripped her jacket open and at the same time you pulled down her tracksuit pants and underwear. You lay on top of her. She endeavoured to knee you in your testicles with her right knee. You said "If you knee me in the balls again I'm going to kill you". This together with your earlier threat forms the factual basis of count 4. You then lay back on your victim and put two fingers inside her vagina. That is the factual basis of Count 2. You then put your flaccid penis in her vagina. You were not wearing a condom and you did not ejaculate. That is the factual basis of Count 3. You then put your hand around your victim's throat and tried to strangle her. She fought back by struggling and tried to remove your hand from her throat. You continued to punch her to the face throughout the entire time. You then dug your fingers in her left eye. As you did this you called her a "cunt". She pushed you away but you continued to gouge at her left eye. Then you inserted four fingers of your right hand in her throat so far that she could not breathe. You told police that you did that for "about 2 minutes". Believing she was going to die your victim said a prayer to herself, "Lord God into your hands I commend my spirit". About this time you grabbed the exposed left breast of your victim, stretched it out as far as you could and then bit it. When asked by police what you expected to achieve by doing this you said " I don't know. Blood to pour out. Something like that." That is the factual basis of Count 5. You continued to punch her to the head as you had done throughout the whole attack. You told police that your final punch was the hardest of all the punches to her.

[42]

Ms Innes enquired of you how you felt about your victim. You said "Very bad. If I could turn back time I wouldn't have done this. Have you heard that song?" You agreed that you were referring to a song by Cher called "If I could turn back time". Ms Innes' report gave consideration to factors affecting your offending behaviour. Ms Innes observed that your family has a history of abuse and that you have spent significant time sharing accommodation with troubled peers. She concluded that you did not fear discipline from your parents. She observed that you had little social or academic success at school. In relation to your friendships she stated that you have had no identifiable stable relationships over the time span that you have been known to her. Your relationships have focussed on those people who are around you or sharing accommodation services with you. You have had a limited range of recreational interests. She concluded that you have an over-simplistic view of interpersonal and family relationships and little insight into relationships, let alone psycho-sexual behaviour or abuse. Your lack of interpersonal skills and understanding of reciprocity in relationships and your egocentricity may have made it difficult for you to have successful and meaningful relationships with others. Ms Innes concluded that in her opinion there are a number of factors that may have influenced your offending behaviour: "Marked impulsivity and disinhibition, his lack of responsibility for the crime [ie 'it just happened'] and some limited expressed concern for his victim, a larger emphasis on the consequences for himself". In addition she said that your history indicates a family history of victimisation in relation to abuse, no stable prosocial friendship group, much exposure to anti-social peers, poor school history, a significant history of quite extreme offending from a very early age, early exposure to pornography and "therapy interfering behaviours". There was evidence of distorted thinking patterns about yourself, others and getting your needs met along with poor interpersonal relationship skills and lack of psychosexual insight. She considered that possible contributing factors which were more immediate to the offence may have included the ending of your relationship with your then girlfriend and your consumption of alcohol.

[51]

37 The second report obtained pursuant to my order of 20 April 2007 was a report prepared by the deputy manager of the Sex Offender Program of Corrections Victoria, psychologist Ms Lopez. With Ms Lopez you were co-operative at the beginning of the interview. She stated that you became increasingly restless throughout the interview but did not appear disinterested. She stated that you seemed willing to consider all questions put to you and responded in an apparently candid manner although some questions were met with answers of "I don't know" or "I don't want to talk about it". However she said that further prompts resulted in your giving due consideration to your answers. You did not report any psychiatric symptomatology nor was any detected by her at interview. You described the offences committed by you in a manner "mostly consistent with official records". Ms Lopez noted that you did not make attempts to deny, justify or rationalise your behaviour. You stated that you "knew it was wrong" and that you "felt really bad afterwards". You were unable to give any reason as to why you had committed the offences and you told her you could not remember what your thinking had been prior to or during the commission of the offences. Ms Lopez said that, nevertheless, discussions with you revealed a number of "problematic attitudes and behaviours which are likely to have contributed to their commission". She observed that you lacked an appreciation of the level of harm caused to your victim as a result of the offences. Indeed you told her that you thought "she may enjoy it" although you acknowledged this was not your motivation and you denied any sexual attraction towards your victim. You told her that you did not think the sexual assault would "hurt her". You described sexual relationships that you had had around the time of offending. These appeared quite superficial to Ms Lopez. You told her that you had a girlfriend at the time of the commission of the offences but that you also had sex regularly with another female of similar age. Ms Lopez considered that your attitudes about sex had been influenced significantly by pornography, your having been first exposed to adult pornography at the age of approximately 10 to 12 years. Ms Lopez noted that you have a history of inconsistent relationships with your family as well as with your peers and that you have struggled to establish friendships throughout your childhood and school years. Your pattern of conflict resolution appeared to her to be impulsive and likely to involve aggression. She formed the opinion that you fall into the high risk category of recidivism. That conclusion appears to me to be entirely justified.

At a glance

Court

Decision date

Before

Source

Judgment (83 paragraphs)

Parties

Legislation Cited (2)