R v Cameron [2020] VSC 334

3 Murder is a standard sentence offence with a standard sentence of 25 years.

4 Dannyll Goodsell was 33 years old at the time she met her violent death at your hands on 5 October 2018. She had commenced a relationship with you about three months before, and you had moved in to live with her at 1 Kenworthy Place, Mount Pleasant ('the home address'). She was the mother of two children.

5 There was little material before the Court to reveal the nature of your relationship with Ms Goodsell before you murdered her. Such material as there was, touching on events which took place, and things said and done by Ms Goodsell and you in the few days preceding her death, revealed that Ms Goodsell was very frightened of you. Later events proved that she had every reason to be.

6 There are indications that you and Ms Goodsell were arguing in the days leading up to your crime.

7 On the night of Wednesday 3 October 2018, in text messages she exchanged with her friend Christopher Kinna, Ms Goodsell informed him that you were restricting her movements and had damaged her mobile phone by bending it. She told Kinna that she was not able to meet him, and that he should be careful what he wrote to her.

8 On Thursday 4 October 2018, at about 1.00 pm, Ms Goodsell met her friend Taneally Roy at a bus stop close to her home address. She told Roy that she was scared of you and wanted to leave before you returned home as she was scared of what you could do to her. To the observation of Roy, Ms Goodsell appeared nervous and scared.

9 That evening, in a further text message exchange with Christopher Kinna, Ms Goodsell complained that she was not allowed to go anywhere without you, and that you checked up on her. When Kinna asked her why she was with you, she said, 'Cos I'm scared to leave'.

10 Later that night at about 10.30 pm, Ms Goodsell visited her friend Sarah Smithers who lived a few houses away. She was upset and said that she had been fighting with you and wanted to get away for a minute to have some time on her own. On three or four previous occasions Ms Goodsell had shown Smithers messages from you on her phone in which you indicated you would kill yourself if she did not come back to you. After Ms Goodsell had been at Smithers' house for about an hour, you came to the door and asked to speak to her. Smithers heard you tell her that it was time to come home. Ms Goodsell said she was not ready but would come home soon.

11 You then went home to 1 Kenworthy Place. You packed a backpack with clothing and other items and left. You travelled to 37 Webster Street, Ballarat Central. At some time before your arrival there, you repeatedly slashed your right forearm.

12 At about 11.30 pm, Ms Goodsell exchanged some text messages with her friend Jamie Bourchier. She said she was not okay, but when asked to explain, she said she could not, as you would read her messages. After some discussion about the use of secret messaging platforms, she said that she needed to hurry home before you got upset.

13 At 11.42 pm, Bourchier called Ms Goodsell on her mobile phone and spoke with her for about five minutes. During the phone call, Ms Goodsell sounded distressed and out of breath. She told Bourchier that you had put your hands around her throat a week before. She said that she was scared and worried about what you may do to her. Bourchier invited Ms Goodsell to come and stay with her. Ms Goodsell said that she could not leave her house as she had no car, and could not get a lift. She started to cry.

14 In a text exchange with Bourchier at 12.07 am on 5 October 2020, Ms Goodsell told Bourchier that you were not home. Later, at 1.45 am, Ms Goodsell indicated that she thought she would be okay.

15 In the meantime, you had made your way to 37 Webster Street, where you arrived at 12.28 am. You used the intercom to contact your friend Nikolay Abramov. You told him that you had slashed your arms. You asked for help and to be let in. He opened the door and went to the front foyer. He wrapped your wrist in a tea towel and invited you upstairs to his apartment. Abramov later claimed that you showed him a yellow coloured hatchet and a knife that you had in your possession.

16 Between 12.44 and 1.43 am, a text message exchange occurred between you and Ms Goodsell. You told her you had slashed your wrists and wanted to come home. She said she did not want to talk. You said all was okay, and she said, 'It's not all OK'. You claimed to love her, and she said, 'If you love someone you would not harm them or control them'.

17 At 1.41 am, you left Webster Street in possession of your back pack. You returned to the Kenworthy Place property.

18 Between 3.25 and 3.30 am, in a text exchange with Christopher Kinna, in response to his invitation to 'come', Ms Goodsell said that she could not do so. She further said, 'You will get me shot'.

19 Between 3.45 and 5.00 am, Ms Goodsell had a text message exchange with Natalie Pieper about a proposed drug transaction. Ms Goodsell stated she wanted to chat with Pieper's boyfriend Mitch. She said she could not write what she wanted to talk to him about as it was personal. In a message sent at 4.56 am, Ms Goodsell told Pieper, 'I'm scared of Scott'. The last message sent by Pieper in the exchange was sent at 5.03 am on 5 October 2018. Ms Goodsell did not reply. No person other than you saw her alive or spoke to her after that time.

20 Shortly after 4.56 am on 5 October 2018, in circumstances which are unclear, you stabbed Ms Goodsell numerous times to the face, scalp, neck and arms with a red coloured kitchen knife while she was on her bed in the lounge room.[1] Injuries she sustained to her hands and forearms showed that she tried in vain to ward off your repeated thrusts of the knife. One of the many wounds you inflicted was to the left side of Ms Goodsell's neck. This wound penetrated into the deep structures of the neck, in the process severing the jugular veins and the carotid artery. Ms Goodsell would have collapsed and died quickly after your vicious attack upon her.

21 Having murdered Ms Goodsell, you unsuccessfully attempted to clean the scene using a bottle of bleach. You also concealed Ms Goodsell's body in perfunctory fashion by placing it under the bed along with blood-stained linen. You then tried to burn down the dwelling by lighting a fire in a cabinet beside the bed. The door of the cabinet was closed, starving the fire of oxygen, causing it to smoulder.

22 You then left the address and walked about 800 metres to an address in Mount Pleasant where your friend Matthew Coolen lived. You banged on the door, and Coolen, who was in bed, heard you call out, 'Matt, Matty, it's urgent'. He did not let you in.

23 At 5.40 am, you used Ms Goodsell's phone to call another friend, Clinton May. You asked May to pick you up from Coolen's. He declined to do so.

24 At 7.50 am, you arrived again at 37 Webster Street, Ballarat Central. Mr Abramov met you near the front of the premises. He noticed you appeared to be upset. When asked what was wrong, you told him, 'I've done the worst thing possible...I've killed Dannyll, I killed Danny'. When Mr Abramov said, 'No, you're kidding?', you told him, 'Yeah I have, I've done the worst evil'. You and Mr Abramov then entered his apartment.

25 Inside, he asked you why you killed Ms Goodsell. You said that she had attacked you while you were asleep, hitting you on the back of the head three times, which caused you to wake up. You did not say what she had hit you with. You said that you defended yourself, although you did not say how. She attacked you again. You said that you retaliated again. You claimed that this happened a few times and then you just lost it and killed her, in a manner upon which you did not elaborate. Mr Abramov claimed that you told him that you poured bleach over her and the scene and set the place alight. You then 'did a runner'.

26 Natalie Pieper, being worried about Ms Goodsell, contacted her mother, Emma Pieper, and asked the mother to transport her and her boyfriend Mitchell Clark to Ms Goodsell's house. The three of them arrived there at about 7.50 am. As they went to the front door they could hear a smoke alarm and smell smoke. In attempting to get into the house, Clark observed blood in the lounge room through the window. Emma Pieper called 000 at 7.54 am.

27 Fire brigade members arrived at the house. They entered the property and found a small smouldering fire in the cabinet in the lounge room. They extinguished the fire. They then located the body of Ms Goodsell under the bed.

28 On their attendance at 1 Kenworthy Place, Mount Pleasant, the police found, amongst other things, a red handled kitchen knife amongst a pile of clothing near the door to the lounge room. The knife was blood-stained. It is alleged to be the knife you used to stab Ms Goodsell to death.

29 On 5 October 2018 at about 6.00 pm, you spoke to your sister Renae via Facebook. When asked by Renae, 'So you didn't hurt her?' you replied in the negative. Later in the conversation, you said, 'I promise I did not hurt her'.

30 At 12.10 pm on 6 October 2018, you were arrested near Ballarat Railway Station and transported to Ballarat Police Station for interview.

31 You were interviewed in an audio and visually recorded interview commencing at 3.21 pm that day. The interviewing members were Detective Senior Constable Riley and Detective Senior Constable Kelly from the Homicide Squad.

32 Early in the interview, upon having been told at the start that you were to be interviewed in connection with the death of Ms Goodsell which was believed to be murder, you said, 'You need to change that from murder to a more like a self-defence sort of thing, mate...Because I was attacked first'.[2] You said that Danny had hit you with a hammer three times, and that you defended yourself. When being examined by a forensic physician Dr Sophie Ping during the early part of the interview, you admitted having used ice on 5 October 2018. You repeated your claim of having been hit to the head by Ms Goodsell and attributed a number of the superficial injuries observable on your head to that supposed attack upon you. You told the doctor that the object with which you had been struck was at your friend Nick's unit.[3] You went on to tell the police that you had taken it with you after the attack. You said, on this score, that you had 'tried to protect her from what happened, because I love her so much'.[4] In relation to the knife, you said that you had picked it up to defend yourself, to stop Ms Goodsell from attacking you. You said, 'I honestly don't remember a whole lot about - it was that quick, what happened'. Straight after this, you said, 'She meant the world to me'. Shortly afterwards, you said, 'I loved that girl so much and she was pregnant with me child. We got engaged and all. I can't believe this is happening'.[5]

33 After a break in the interview, you told the police more about what you claimed had happened. You said:

Well, me and Dannyll, we were having an argument that day and I came back home and we hopped in bed together. I was nearly asleep and she said to me that, 'Oh, we're nearly out of drugs, can you go get more ice?' I said, 'Can't I go get it in the mornin', hun?' and then she flew off her handle, picked - she picked up this little hatchet tomahawk thing, like a hammer. She hit me twice on the front of the head with it. As I turned, she hit me head as I went to get up out the bed, she's hit me on the back of the head with it and she said, 'I'm gunna kill you if you don't go get me drugs'. And as I got out of bed, there was a kitchen knife next to the bed and I picked that up and I said, 'Dannyll, please stop it' and she hit me again and then I've slashed at her I think and that's all I remember about it. I can't remember what happened before it all, it was that quick. And then after it she was bleeding. That's all I really remember about it. Then I left'.[6]

34 You told the police that after you left the house, you went down the street and got some drugs which you used. Then you went to Abramov's house where you watched a story about the killing on the news and used more drugs. You told the police that you picked the hatchet up afterwards and took it with you. You denied using the hatchet on Ms Goodsell. You said that there was blood all over her and she was not moving. You denied having washed yourself or your clothes since the event.[7] You said, 'I love her with all me heart and...I can't believe this shit's happened to me'.[8] When asked about the fire inside the lounge room, you denied knowing about it, and said that you could not remember doing anything after attacking her.

35 In respect of the previous relationship with Ms Goodsell you denied ever having been violent towards her but claimed that she always started fights with you about drugs and you allowed her to hit you.

36 When asked where you struck Ms Goodsell with the knife, you claimed not to remember. In fact, you said you did not even know if you had actually got her.

37 An autopsy was carried out by a forensic pathologist Dr Melanie Archer on 6 October 2018 commencing at 11.00 am. Dr Archer catalogued in excess of 50 incised injuries to the face, scalp, neck and arms of Ms Goodsell. The injuries were mainly clustered over the head, neck and shoulders.

38 One of the incised injuries penetrated the deep structures of the neck on the left side. It travelled upwards and backwards, in the process severing the left internal and external jugular veins and the internal and external branches of the left carotid artery. The injury terminated at the back of the throat. This injury would have caused severe bleeding.

39 Another penetrating stab wound travelled through the right cheek in the area of the back teeth. This injury also ended at the back of the throat.

40 There were multiple defence type injuries on both hands and forearms.

41 There was blood in the oesophagus and trachea, as well as in the stomach and lung tissue, indicative of the fact that Ms Goodsell was both inhaling and swallowing blood before her death.

42 There were bruises observed to the neck, left leg, arms and chest. No skeletal fractures were found. There was no indication that Ms Goodsell was pregnant.

43 In light of the report of a small fire in the house, the pathologist noted that there were no internal signs consistent with Ms Goodsell having inhaled smoke.

44 The cause of death was ascertained to be incised injuries to the neck. The mechanism of death was exsanguination, that is, blood loss, resulting in circulatory collapse. Collapse and death would have occurred within minutes at most. The pathologist who gave evidence at the committal hearing in place of Dr Archer described the injury to the left of the neck as being the major contributing factor in the death. The injury to the right check would also have been a significant contributor and would itself have been life threatening. The other injuries also made a contribution.

45 In your response to the prosecution opening as initially filed, you indicated that it was your position that the physical altercation between you and Ms Goodsell commenced with Ms Goodsell striking you a number of times with the hatchet as described in the police interview. You disputed having put your hands around the throat of Ms Goodsell on an occasion about a week before the murder.

46 In the plea hearing before me, Mr Lewis on your behalf urged me to make a finding on the balance of probabilities that the physical altercation did, indeed, commence as you claimed to the police and others after your crime.

47 In the outline of submissions filed on your behalf and in his oral submissions before me, Mr Lewis detailed the matters upon which he relied in proof of the proposition that what you said to the police about Ms Goodsell having attacked you with a hatchet before you killed her was correct. These matters were:

(a) The fact that you gave similar accounts to this effect to Mr Abramov, to Dr Ping, to the police, and to the psychologist Mr Ball;

(b) The support provided to your account by the physical injuries to your head observed by Dr Ping;

(c) The DNA findings on the hatchet itself, indicative of your blood being on the head of the hatchet and the DNA of Ms Goodsell on the handle;

(d) The finding of the hatchet at the home of Mr Abramov, consistent with the account you gave about where you left it.

48 The position of the prosecution was that there was insufficient evidence to warrant a finding by me in your favour on the question of whether or not Ms Goodsell had attacked you.

49 In respect of the other matter, that is, the question of whether there was an occasion a week or so before her death in which you put your hands around her throat, as claimed by Ms Goodsell in a conversation with Jamie Bourchier, you disputed on the plea ever having done so. It was submitted that your account to the police of never having been violent towards her should be accepted.

50 Dealing with the question of the asserted attack upon you by Ms Goodsell first, one of the important matters of background to this claim by you is evidence showing the feelings of Ms Goodsell towards you at the time of the events in question. In the 16 hours preceding her death at your hands, Ms Goodsell confided in no fewer than four friends that she was scared of you. Some of them actually observed her to appear and behave in a fashion consistent with those statements. In my view, there would have been no reason at all for Ms Goodsell to have said she was fearful of you were it not the case. I am satisfied, therefore, that her statements in that regard were a true reflection of her feelings about you. She was scared of you, and to an extent sufficient to move her to reveal as much to many of her friends.

51 To my mind, that fact renders the very idea of Ms Goodsell having seen fit to attack you out of the blue with a hatchet to be wholly implausible. She would have known that to do so would only serve to inflame you and might trigger a violent reaction from a person of whom she was in fear.

52 Furthermore, had she wielded that dangerous weapon against your head in the manner claimed by you to police and others, the infliction of significant injury would have been inevitable. And yet, such injuries as you had to your head were very minor, and entirely inconsistent with having resulted from your head having been repeatedly struck with the hatchet.

53 The DNA findings on the hatchet do not provide any support for your outlandish claim either. There would be many explanations for those findings other than of Ms Goodsell having used the hatchet to strike you.

54 As for your claim of having removed the hatchet from the scene of the crime to protect Ms Goodsell, that made no sense. Had there really been an attack upon you by her with the use of that weapon, there would have been no reason at all to remove it from the scene. Why you did so is unclear, but one thing you were not doing in any of your actions in connection with these events was protecting the victim of your violence.

55 I am satisfied, and indeed, satisfied beyond reasonable doubt, that your claim of having been attacked by Ms Goodsell was a complete fabrication, made for the purpose of providing at least some explanation for your murder of her. Your claim was hollow, cowardly and completely false. I entirely reject it.[9]

56 In the absence of that explanation for the commencement of your attack upon Ms Goodsell, there is no explanation at all for your shocking crime.

57 As for the second disputed matter, that is, the question of whether there was an occasion a week before the murder when you placed your hands on the neck of Ms Goodsell, she said you did so, and it would have been a strange allegation to fabricate. Also, it is of note that Nikolay Abramov claimed in his second statement that while he was talking to you in the hours following your arrival at his residence after the murder, you told him of an occasion when you strangled Ms Goodsell and derived enjoyment from it. If it was necessary for me to decide the issue, I would be disposed to accept that there was such an occasion as mentioned by Ms Goodsell. In the circumstances, however, I see no need to reach a definitive conclusion on this matter of aggravation as it would have no effect on the sentence I would pass upon you.

Your plea of guilty and the question of remorse

58 You pleaded guilty to this crime when you were arraigned in this Court on 4 February 2020, having communicated your intention to do so only days before. Mr Lewis submitted that whilst this was not a plea of guilty at the earliest opportunity, it should be regarded as one made at a reasonably early stage, given that it occurred not long after your legal representatives received a report from Dr Treeby which had been commissioned amongst other things to explore the question of your fitness to plead.

59 Whilst the appropriateness of your legal representatives exploring all options where your legal position is concerned is unquestionable, I cannot accept that I should view your plea of guilty as having been made at a reasonably early stage. You committed this crime on 5 October 2018. When interviewed by police the next day, you denied that you were guilty of murder, and gave a false explanation for the motivation behind your crime. For the following period of 16 months, you maintained your innocence of this crime, including entering a plea of not guilty at a contested committal on 9 October 2019. Throughout all of this time, the family and other loved ones of Dannyll Goodsell had to live in a state of ongoing anguish and uncertainty.

60 Yours was a plea of guilty entered quite late in the piece, and in the shadows of a second directions hearing in this Court at which, no doubt, a trial date would have been set down for you.

61 That is not to say, of course, that your eventual plea of guilty is not a significant matter in mitigation. It clearly is. Mr Lewis correctly submitted that there is significant utilitarian benefit to your plea. As he put it, not only have the family of Ms Goodsell been spared the trauma of a trial, the community has been spared the expense. In that sense, your plea of guilty has facilitated the course of justice. I accept those submissions, and I give you the benefit of those propositions.

62 The question of remorse, however, is another matter. In some cases, a plea of guilty will be considered to itself be indicative of remorse felt by an offender, and often, the plea of guilty along with other material pointing to remorse may paint a clear picture of remorse which will be to the benefit of an offender in sentence.

63 Mr Lewis submitted on your behalf that I should conclude you are deeply remorseful for you crime. He submitted that I could reach that conclusion from your statements made to Mr Abramov after the crime that you had done the worst evil, the admissions you made in the police interview and your observable distress in that interview, your expressions of remorse and sadness to Mr Ball, the expressions of remorse made to a psychiatric nurse in Port Phillip Prison, the contents of the letter you wrote to the Court, and your plea of guilty.

64 When the totality of your conduct in connection with this crime is considered, I do not believe that there is any real evidence of remorse on your part.

65 A sensible starting point in a consideration of the question of whether you are remorseful for your crime is your conduct immediately following the murder of Ms Goodsell. Having carried out this heinous crime, you made efforts, albeit quite pathetic and ineffective ones, to conceal your crime. You unceremoniously placed the body of your dead partner under the bed upon which you had killed her. You tried to clean up the signs of the crime. You then lit a fire in the cabinet in the room, no doubt intending to set fire to the scene and destroy evidence of your crime. These steps you took were callous and displayed an appearance of indifference to the fate of Ms Goodsell which is disturbing, and not easily displaced by your later protestations of the extent to which you supposedly loved her.

66 Next, you journeyed to the home of Mr Abramov and made, for the first time, what I have concluded was the completely false claim of your victim having attacked you before you launched your attack upon her.

67 Having had further time to reflect on the matter, you chose to persist in that central lie when you spoke to the police. This was one of a number of things about which you did not tell the truth in the police interview. You claimed to have no memory of any of the details of the attack, or of what you did after the attack. These convenient and implausible lapses in memory are explainable by the fact that you knew very well that your extreme conduct in stabbing Ms Goodsell as many times as you did to the neck, face and other vulnerable parts of her body, as well as your conduct in hiding her body, and cleaning and then setting fire to the scene, would clearly reveal the falsity of your claim of acting, initially at least, in self-defence. I am satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that these aspects of your account to the police were lies you chose to tell as you considered them to be in your interests.

68 Your false attempts to blame Ms Goodsell, in part at least, for your attack upon her, represented further heartless behaviour by you which was totally inconsistent with your feeling, at that time, any real sorrow or regret for your terrible crime. Your claims of having loved her rang very untrue in light of what you had done to her and the false claims you made afterwards pointing the finger at her. As for your distressed demeanour in the interview, it is entirely explainable by self-pity and your realisation that you had destroyed your life and that things would never be the same. It is telling that at one point in the interview, you said, 'I can't believe that this shit's happened to me'.

69 Having set up the false story about the trigger for your attack upon Ms Goodsell, you maintained that position, not only throughout the following 16 months before you pleaded guilty, but right up until the hearing of your plea in mitigation on Monday this week.

70 Your claims of remorse to the psychologist David Ball and others since your incarceration to my mind ring as hollow as your repeated assertions of the strong love you supposedly felt for Ms Goodsell.

71 Your plea of guilty, when it came, reflected an acknowledgment by you of the hopelessness of your situation. It did not, however, indicate that even then, you felt any remorse.

72 The question of remorse would be a matter in mitigation, and I could not act on the proposition of your being remorseful unless satisfied on the balance of probabilities that you really were remorseful. I am far from being satisfied of that. Indeed, I do not believe you have any real sign of sorrow for the death of Ms Goodsell, as opposed to sorrow for your own position.

73 You are now aged 37 and were 35 at the time of this crime. You are the oldest of two biological children born to Donna and Charles Cameron. Your parents separated when you were an infant and your mother remarried a man name Richard Lemon. There were a further four children of that relationship. Your father also had two further children from a later relationship.

74 You were largely brought up in the Ballarat area, staying mainly with your mother and her partner, though spending weekends with your father until he died in a motor vehicle collision when you were 13 years old. When you were being cared for by him you were exposed to physical and sexual abuse. In your principal home with your mother, both she and her partner were regular drug users. You witnessed violence between them from time to time. On your account, the children often went hungry. For a period of time, you were in the care of your grandmother when both of your parents were in gaol.

75 In the report of Dr Treeby to which I will later refer in more detail, your upbringing was described as 'marred by adversity in the form of neglect, abuse, and substance misuse in the family home'. Your counsel described that as an appropriate summation.

76 Your schooling was extremely limited. You left school shortly after the commencement of year 9. You exhibited behavioural problems and were disruptive in class, were the subject of bullying, and were frequently involved in fights and the like. At the age of 15, you left home and spent a year homeless and living on the streets of Ballarat.

77 Until 2011, you had a reasonable employment history. After leaving school you worked for three years in your uncle's concreting business, before working for seven years as a tyre fitter for Wheels Australia in Ballarat.

78 In 2011 at the age of 28, you were involved in a serious motorcycle accident, resulting in extensive injuries including a fractured skull and resulting mild traumatic brain injury. You never returned to work after this event, ending up on a Disability Support Pension. You still experience the after effects of your injuries from the accident, particularly lower back pain.

79 You have two sons aged 12 and 17 from different mothers. You also have two daughters aged 10 and 11 with your former wife Natasha.

80 You have a substantial history of drug abuse, turning to the use of methylamphetamine when you were 26. At the time of your offending, you were regularly injecting or smoking that drug.

81 Since being incarcerated, you have been in a somewhat distressed state. No doubt, this would not be helped by the fact that you apparently receive no visits. Both of your parents are deceased and you are not in contact with any of your siblings or any of your children. You are very isolated. You have a tendency to depression and anxiety. I take this sad situation into account. As for the claim made on your behalf that you experience ongoing and unresolved grief in relation to the death of Ms Goodsell, if that is so, it would be very much in your interests to fully acknowledge and accept the true enormity of what you did. You will gain nothing by continuing to lie to others and yourself about why you committed this crime. Perhaps the memory of the victim impact statements read out in Court will assist in this process.

82 It is at least encouraging to hear that you have a job, and have tried to pursue a number of courses in prison. I also note the letter from Rod Wise of Corrections Victoria thanking you for assistance provided by you to a correctional officer injured in an attack upon him in Ravenhall Correctional Centre.

83 You have an extensive criminal history for matters of violence, dishonesty, weapons and driving stretching from when you were 18 years old. You have been imprisoned on a number of occasions and have received numerous community based dispositions, often with drug treatment conditions. You frequently breached such sentences.

84 The Court was provided with a neuropsychological report of Dr Matt Treeby. Dr Treeby administered a number of tests upon you including the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale - 4th Edition and two tests designed to determine whether you were making genuine attempts to properly respond to questions. In respect of those tests, Dr Treeby stated:

Taken together these findings indicate that Mr Cameron was purposely providing incorrect answers during the assessment, was applying less than genuine effort, and was not performing to the level of his true cognitive ability. It follows that the findings of the current neuropsychological assessment are considered to be mostly invalid due to Mr Cameron's suboptimal effort. It is therefore difficult to comment on his true level of intellectual function.

85 Whilst Dr Treeby was unable to express a view as to your true level of intellectual function, he said that he could state with confidence that you do not have a longstanding intellectual disability, have sound literacy skills, and that on a number of other measures, your level of functioning was within normal limits. If you have any cognitive impairments due to your previous accident, these would be subtle and mild.

86 He went on to refer to your criminal history, and made the point that it would appear that you have a longstanding propensity for violence and aggressive behaviour preceding your accident in 2011. He opined that your offending in this case cannot be explained by the mild traumatic brain injury you suffered.

87 He also noted his impression that you have antisocial personality traits, satisfying the DSM-5[10] criteria for a diagnosis of antisocial personality disorder. You have 'consistently failed to conform to social norms with respect to lawful behaviour during the past 18 years'.

Mr Cameron presents with multiple historical risk factors for recidivism including early maladjustment, a history of violence, substance use problems, mental health difficulties, and antisocial personality traits. He also presents with a poor ability to cope with stress and I note that there is a documented history of anger-regulation difficulties. It would appear Mr Cameron has an enduring propensity for violence and his risk of recidivism can be considered high.

89 The Court was also provided with a report of David Ball, a forensic psychologist. He noted your presentation to be consistent with someone with an IQ in the dull normal range. He said you impressed him as a man with impairment to his capacity for generally good judgment. He spoke of your long term history of depression and anxiety that 'presents as comorbid with severe borderline personality features'.

90 Mr Ball found you to be a poor and unreliable historian, noting the divergence between the account you provided to him and those which appeared in previous reports.

91 You gave Mr Ball an account of the offending, marked by your repetition of the false claim that you attacked Ms Goodsell in response to her attack upon you, an assertion that you would not have attacked her had she not attacked you first, and a claim that you 'did not mean to kill her'. You claimed to be traumatised about the events, resulting in bad dreams and other effects.

92 Mr Ball stated that you satisfy the DSM-5 diagnostic criteria for antisocial personality disorder and borderline personality disorder. Given your age, the prognosis in respect of those disorders is poor. He asserted both of those conditions were present and operating during the murder of Ms Goodsell.

93 He stated that you also satisfy the DSM-5 criterial for post-traumatic stress disorder ('PTSD') relating to your murder of Ms Goodsell and to a lesser extent, your childhood sexual abuse.

94 Mr Ball noted that testing conducted by prison clinicians:

points to a probable diagnosis of PTSD in relation to the murder. Testing by prison clinicians found that (sic) Mr Cameron's experience of childhood sexual abuse to be a far lesser contributor to his PTSD.

95 Mr Ball asserted that your time in custody has been, and will continue to be, more onerous for you than would be the case for other inmates. Mr Ball did not, however, relate that claim to any condition from which you suffer. Rather, he tied it to the bullying to which you have apparently been subject in prison, with what he described as your impaired level of functioning supposedly making you an easy target for bullying.

96 Mr Lewis submitted that the fifth limb in R v Verdins ('Verdins')[11] is enlivened in this case on the basis of the condition of PTSD diagnosed by Mr Ball. In Verdins, the Court of Appeal stated:

Impaired mental functioning, whether temporary or permanent, ('the condition') is relevant to sentencing in at least the following six ways:

...

5. The existence of the condition at the date of sentencing (or its foreseeable recurrence) may mean that a given sentence will weigh more heavily on the offender than it would on a person in normal health.[12]

97 He submitted that there would be a basis for the PTSD condition experienced by you to enliven that limb in Verdins, albeit that it was largely said to be related to your actual crime and its aftermath. Following the hearing of the plea, Mr Lewis provided a number of authorities to the effect that a mental condition that arises as a consequence of the offending should receive its full measure as a mitigating factor in spite of that fact.[13]

98 Mr Glynn disputed that you should receive any reduction in sentence on account of the supposed PTSD. He submitted that there were both factual and legal reasons why this was so. In respect of the former, Mr Glynn noted that the diagnosis of the condition depended on information provided by you to Mr Ball. Given the lack of reliability of statements made by you to professionals sent to assess you, I should not be satisfied on the balance of probabilities that you even suffer from the condition. Even if you do, there was a lack of clear evidence pointing to such a condition making imprisonment more burdensome for you.

99 Mr Glynn further submitted that even if those thresholds were cleared, taking account of the applicable authorities, it would be an affront to justice to allow you to benefit from the savagery of your attack upon Ms Goodsell, and the effect of that upon you.

100 I do not see the need to dwell on the relevant authorities on that particular matter. Bearing in mind that the onus of establishing the factual basis for reliance on a limb in Verdins is upon you, and the rigor that the authorities more generally dictate must be applied to the process, I do not consider that the principle enunciated in the fifth limb of Verdins is enlivened in your case.

101 Dr Ball did not indicate the matters upon which he relied in reaching the diagnosis of PTSD. Insofar as he indicated that testing by clinicians in prison had pointed to a probable diagnosis, no material was placed before me of how and when that 'probable diagnosis' was reached, and upon what material. In your conversation with Mr Ball, you made much of your claim, which I have found to be false, of having awoken to the shock of being attacked by Ms Goodsell with the hatchet in hand, and the fear this engendered in you. I think it is highly likely that any account you gave to any other clinician, upon which the far from firm diagnosis of PTSD was reached, was likewise infected by your dishonest story.

102 I am not satisfied that you actually suffer from a condition of PTSD. Even if you do, and assuming that such a condition resulting from the horror of the crime you committed could be the foundation for reliance on the fifth limb of Verdins, there is no evidence before me that such a condition would have the result that any term of imprisonment would weigh more heavily on you that on a person in normal health.

103 I therefore do not consider that that limb of Verdins has any application in your case.

104 For completeness, I note that Mr Lewis did not submit that any of the other limbs in Verdins have application. He did urge me, however, to consider that your moral culpability for the offending is reduced as a result of your tragic childhood environment as summarised by Dr Treeby. This would not enliven the first or any of the other limbs in Verdins, Mr Lewis acknowledged. Rather, I should take the matter into account as part of your general background.

105 Emotional, indeed, quite heart-rending victim impact statements were compiled by a number of the many victims of your crime. The victims were as follows:

Donna Goodsell Mother of Dannyll

Sonya Solomou Partner of Donna Goodsell

Kayla Goodsell Sister of Dannyll

Sandra Dowsent Grandmother of Dannyll

Claudya Goodsell Daughter of Dannyll

James Brown Son of Dannyll

106 Donna Goodsell and her partner Sonya showed the considerable courage required to not only put their inner-most, tragic thoughts down in writing, but to stand before me and you in Court and spell them out. That is not to minimise the courage shown by the authors of all of the reports in trying to explain the almost unexplainable grief and devastation that your crime has caused to them, and permitting those thoughts to be aired in open court.

107 The respective statements were replete with heart-felt statements trying to illustrate the incredible pain and loss. There were extraordinary poems, one of which was written by Claudya, the daughter of Dannyll who was only 13 when her mother was murdered. She wrote:

Each day when I wake up I feel the same old pain

My heart is empty and full of hurt and I don't think it will ever end

The day that man stole my mum was the day I stopped living life

And there is nothing in this world that I can do that will ever bring her back to me

My children will never see her smiling face, she won't share my happy days

I have to walk this planet alone, knowing I won't hear her voice again

I miss her being around me and just having a hug

I wish you were here with me, I love you so much mum xxx

108 James Brown, the 12 year old son of Dannyll Goodsell, compiled a statement including the last photograph taken of him with his mother. That happy scene is described by him as the last memory for him to hold in his head.

109 The mother of Ms Goodsell stated, 'I'm afraid my family will never heal from this. It will be something that we will carry for the rest of our lives'.

110 The truthfulness of that statement by Donna Goodsell can be readily accepted.

111 The victim impact statements are a clear and compelling illustration to me, to you, and to everyone, of the terrible toll your crime has wrought upon this family. I have had regard to these statement in arriving at an appropriate sentence for your crime.

112 Your crime having been committed after 1 February 2018, the standard sentence scheme applies to this offence. The standard sentence for murder is 25 years.

113 Pursuant to s 5A(1)(b) of the Sentencing Act 1991 ('the Act'), the period of 25 years is the sentence for an offence of murder that, taking into account only the objective factors affecting the relative seriousness of that offence, is in the middle of the range of seriousness.

114 Section 5(2) of the Act requires me to have regard to a number of specified matters in sentencing you. One of them, pursuant to part (ab), is the standard sentence. In addition, s 5B(2)(a) requires me in sentencing you to take the standard sentence into account as one of the factors relevant to sentencing.

115 The standard sentence scheme was the subject of consideration by the Court of Appeal in the decision of Brown v The Queen ('Brown').[14] The Court stated:

For the most part, the provisions are clear and the approach required is not in dispute. The key new requirement is that a judge when sentencing for a 'standard sentence offence' must 'take the standard sentence into account as one of the factors relevant to sentencing'. This requirement:

• is to be treated as a 'legislative guidepost', having the same function as the maximum penalty;
• does not affect the established 'instinctive synthesis' approach to sentencing;
• does not require or permit 'two-stage sentencing'; and
• does not otherwise affect the matters which the court may, or must, take into account in sentencing.[15]

116 The Court noted that the only area of uncertainty concerned the judge's assessment of the seriousness of the offence before the court, in light of the definition of the standard sentence contained in s 5A(1)(b) of the Act. The Court indicated that the question explored at the hearing of this and two related appeals was whether the new scheme required, or permitted, the sentencing judge to assess the seriousness of the subject offence 'taking into account only the objective factors' as defined in s 5A(3). The Court concluded that the question should be answered in the negative. The Court held:

In our opinion, the standard sentence provisions do not have any bearing on the judge's obligation to assess the seriousness of the subject offence. That assessment remains a necessary part of the process of instinctive synthesis and it is not constrained by the legislative definition of 'objective factors'. Those constraints are referable only to the assessment which gives content to the hypothetical offence as an offence 'in the middle of the range of seriousness'. [16]

117 I have had regard to the standard sentence for murder as one of the matters to be taken into account in arriving at the appropriate sentence for you by the process of instinctive synthesis. In doing so, I have applied the law as recently explained in Brown. I note that in the submissions he made, Mr Lewis acknowledged some of the aggravating and mitigating circumstances of your crime. He did not seek to place it at any particular level relative to the standard sentence.

Nature and gravity of the offence and your culpability and degree of responsibility

118 What I have said thus far should amply illustrate that your crime of murder is a very serious example of that always serious crime. In the context of an ongoing domestic relationship which left your partner strongly fearing you, at least in the days leading up to her death, for reasons which have not in any honest way been explained by you, you took to her with a dangerous knife while she was in the sanctuary of her own bed in her own home. You stabbed her repeatedly and viciously to the head, neck and shoulders. You inflicted dreadful injuries upon her which quickly led to her death. You ignored her futile and desperate attempts to ward off your blows. Having killed her, you showed your lack of regard for her by hiding her under her bed, conducting a cursory clean-up, then setting the fire in the cabinet intent on burning the crime scene. Then you left her, dead on the floor, covered in blood.

119 In respect of your conduct immediately after the killing in hiding the body, cleaning the scene and lighting the fire, Mr Lewis acknowledged that these were aggravating circumstances, but submitted that they should be regarded as 'only slightly so'. I cannot accept that submission. The fact that those steps taken were ineffective and likely to be so does not take away from their significance as features which further aggravate the seriousness of your crime.

120 Mr Lewis submitted that in your case, there were factors which reduced the objective seriousness of the offending. He referred to the lack of premeditation, the proposition, which I have rejected, that Ms Goodsell was armed and struck the first blow, amounting to provocation, and the contention that the offending itself involved a spontaneous and catastrophic loss of self-control.

121 It is true that there was no planning or premeditation as far as the Court can tell, but that does nothing to reduce the obvious seriousness of your crime. Yours was no spur-of-the-moment lashing out. Yours was a sustained and outrageously violent attack upon a helpless woman. That your crime would have been even more serious had you planned it says nothing about its seriousness in the absence of a plan.

122 As for the other matters relied upon, I have rejected your claims of Ms Goodsell having attacked you first. Yours may well have been a spontaneous and catastrophic loss of self-control, but if that is so, there is no material before me indicating what could have triggered such conduct.

123 Dannyll Goodsell was your partner. You were in a position of trust where she was concerned. She should have been able to look to you for love and protection. You chose, however, to kill her by extravagant, protracted and shocking acts of violence. Each single act of stabbing her entailed serious danger to the welfare of your helpless victim. You carried out many such individual acts.

124 As the Court of Appeal stated in Felicite v The Queen:[17]

The taking of a domestic partner's life undermines the foundations of personal relationships and family trust, upon which our society rests. The sentence must reflect both the sanctity of human life and society's abhorrence of violence towards vulnerable and trusting partners, who could legitimately have expected the offender to be the protector from, not the perpetrator of violent abuse. An outburst of homicidal rage in such contexts is totally unacceptable. The community expectation is that the punishment assigned to such conduct must be condign so as to denounce in the strongest terms the abhorrent nature of domestic murder and to deter others from taking a similar course. Accordingly, the principles of general deterrence, denunciation and just punishment will ordinarily be given primacy in sentencing for the murder of a partner in a domestic setting even where there are present, circumstances of provocation or great emotional stress.[18]

125 Your plea of guilty is an acknowledgment of the existence of all of the elements of the crime of murder. One of those is that at the time of carrying out the fatal acts, you intended either death or really serious injury to be the result. Not that it would necessarily make any difference to the sentence I pass were I to reach a different view,[19] but I am satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that at the time of this attack, you intended to kill Ms Goodsell. Mr Lewis did not seek to argue against that conclusion. Why you arrived at that awful state of mind is a complete mystery.

126 In my view, your moral culpability is exceedingly high. Your sad background does little if anything to detract from that obvious proposition.

COVID-19 considerations and other aspects of your incarceration

127 I take into account the fact that you are at the present time being held as a protection prisoner, as a result of an assault upon you. Prior to the onset of the COVID-19 situation, however, the conditions under which you were being held were not as onerous as would have been the case for protection prisoners in the past.

128 In recent times, conditions in all prisons have become more onerous as a result of steps taken, successfully to date, to prevent the spread of the virus within the prison system. Personal visits have been stopped, although in your case, sadly you were receiving no visits in any event. There have been partial lockdowns. In those and other respects, conditions have for some months been more onerous and restrictive than usual, and that will be the case for an indeterminate time into the future.

129 I take that matter into account, although I note and accept the submission of Mr Glynn that the current restrictions brought about by the pandemic will be unlikely to be in place for a significant proportion of the sentence you will be required to serve.

130 Mr Lewis acknowledged that the Court is 'likely to be certainly guarded and circumspect about' your prospects of rehabilitation given the seriousness of your offending and your criminal history. He pointed to some matters that he said were relevant to this question, including the assistance you gave to a prison officer following a prison assault mentioned in the letter from Rod Wise, the courses you have completed within prison, the fact that you are now conscious of the need to deal with your drug addiction issues, your plea of guilty, your asserted acceptance of responsibility, your claimed remorse and your positive attitude. Mr Lewis urged me not to conclude that there is simply no prospect of rehabilitation in your case.

131 I consider that in your case, the prospects of your turning your life around and rehabilitating yourself are exceedingly dim. That is not to say that they are non-existent, but they will be unless you can honestly acknowledge your crime and deal with your drug and other issues.

132 In the circumstances of this case, the purpose of rehabilitation will necessarily have little part to play in the sentence I pass.

133 The requirement in s 5(2)(b) of the Act for me to have regard to current sentencing practices remains, but section 5B(2)(b) dictates that I:

must only have regard to sentences previously imposed for the offence as a standard sentence offence in relation to the sentencing for which this section applied.

134 This change in the law does not preclude me from having regard to sentencing principles established in previous cases.[20]

135 Only a relatively small number of sentences have been passed in respect of murder as a standard sentence offence. A number of these were drawn to my attention by Mr Lewis[21] and there is another sentence of which I had knowledge that I also considered.[22] It may be said that it is still too early to conclude any meaningful sentencing practices have emerged. However, I have considered the circumstances of those cases, and noted the sentences passed.

136 If I sentence you to a head sentence of 20 years or more, I am required by s 11A(4) of the Act, unless I consider it is in the interests of justice not to do so, to fix a non-parole period of at least 70 percent of the head sentence. The head sentence I impose will be one of 20 years or more.

137 No submission was put to me that I should fix a non-parole period lower than 70 percent of the head sentence.

138 Taking into account all of the circumstances of this case, I do not consider that it would be in the interests of justice for a non-parole period of less than 70 percent of the head sentence to be fixed. Indeed, the non-parole period I will fix will somewhat exceed 70 percent of the head sentence. The assessment of the length of a non-parole period will depend on all of the circumstances of each case. In this case, I will fix as the non-parole period the shortest term of imprisonment which, in my view, would meet the needs of justice in this case.

139 As I have already indicated, this is a very serious example of the crime of murder. Dannyll Goodsell was a young woman with much of her life in front of her, a life to share with her loving children, other family, and friends. She spent her last days, at least, in a relationship with a male partner who frightened and unnerved her. That is an exceedingly sad thing. No person should ever be required to endure such a relationship.

140 For reasons which have not been honestly explained, but which are perhaps to be found in the tendency to violence and lawlessness that you have demonstrated throughout your adult life, your ongoing drug use, and your refusal to modify and control your behaviour, you murdered this helpless woman in a terrible way. Your breach of trust and lack of normal human decency are simply stunning.

141 To my mind, the important reasons for which sentence must be passed in your case are just punishment, denunciation, general deterrence, specific deterrence, and protection of the community. You must be punished in a way which reflects the shocking seriousness of your crime and amounts to an appropriate response to it. The sentence of this Court must make it perfectly clear that the Court deplores violent crimes of this sort, especially against a domestic partner. The life of Dannyll Goodsell was precious. You took it away for no good reason, but in the clear knowledge of the severity of your actions. You were a mature adult of normal intelligence, suffering no mental impairment that clouded your reason or judgment. In respect of general deterrence, the sentence I pass must bring it clearly home to any person who might be minded to inflict extreme violence upon a domestic partner, for whatever reason, that such conduct will be met with strong punishment. You yourself must be deterred from any future violent actions to which you may be disposed. As for the protection of the community, that does not cease to be important merely because you will be of relatively advanced years by the time you become eligible for parole. You committed a crime of extraordinary and irrational violence, and there is the need for the community to be protected from any repetition of your conduct in future.

142 Scott Cameron, for the murder of Dannyll Goodsell, you are sentenced to be imprisoned for 29 years. I fix a period of 23 years during which you will not be eligible to be released on parole.

Section 5B(5) statement

143 Section 5B(4) of the Sentencing Act 1991 requires a court that sentences an offender for a standard sentence offence to state its reasons for imposing that sentence. Sub-section (5) requires me to refer to the standard sentence for the offence and explain how the sentence imposed by me relates to that standard sentence.

144 As I understand it, the applicable law does not require me in complying with the requirement of s 5B(5) to 'attribute particular mathematical values' to matters regarded by me as significant to the formation of a sentence that differs from the standard sentence.[23] It does, however, require me to 'identify fully the facts, matters and circumstances' which bear upon the judgment I have reached as to the appropriate sentence.[24] I have endeavoured to do that in some detail during these reasons for sentence.

145 The sentence I have passed is higher than the standard sentence for the offence of murder. I have taken into account all of the matters I am required to consider under s 5(2) of the Act, including the standard sentence for murder. I have taken into account any mitigating factors which apply to your crime. By the process of instinctive synthesis, I have arrived at the sentence I have just announced.

146 I declare a period of 608 days up to and including yesterday, 4 June 2020, as being a period already served under this sentence. I direct that the fact of the making of that declaration and its details be noted in the records of the Court.

Section 6AAA declaration

147 I indicate pursuant to s 6AAA of the Sentencing Act 1991 that, but for your plea of guilty, I would have sentenced you to be imprisoned for 34 years with a non-parole period of 27 years.

148 I will make the forfeiture and disposal orders sought by the prosecution, subject to agreement between the parties.

[1] This was the bed in which the two of you regularly slept.

[3] A yellow hatchet was found by police at the premises of Abramov.

[7] There was evidence indicating that you showered and changed your clothes whilst at Abramov's residence, and that you washed the clothes which you had been wearing.

[9] In reaching this conclusion, I have acted on the basis that the hatchet was, indeed, at 1 Kenworthy Place at the time of the crime.

[10] Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th Edition.

[11] [2007] VSCA 102; (2007) 16 VR 269.

[13] R v RLP [2009] VSCA 272; HAT and Ors v R [2011] VSCA 427; R v Harris [2009] VSCA 287; Nguyen v R [2010] VSCA 127.

[14] [2019] VSCA 286 ('Brown') (Maxwell P, Priest, Kaye, T Forrest and Emerton JJA).

[17] [2011] VSCA 274; (2011) 37 VR 329.

[19] Kelson v The Queen [2020] VSCA 112.

[20] R v Brown [2018] VSC 742 (Champion J) [111].

[21] R v Brown [2018] VSC 742; R v Robertson [2019] VSC 145; R v Leigh [2019] VSC 378; R v Willis [2019] VSC 398; R v Marshall [2019] VSC 601; R v Munn [2020] VSC 251.

[22] R v Pozzebon [2019] VSC 631.

[23] Muldrock v R [2011] HCA 39; (2011) 244 CLR 120 [29].