R v Dupas [2004] VSC 281

Supreme Court of Victoria|2004-08-16|Before: KAYE J.

CRIMINAL LAW - Sentence - Murder - Serious offender - Sentenced to imprisonment for life - No minimum term fixed.

Peter Norris Dupas, you have been found guilty by the jury empanelled upon your trial in this Court of the murder of Margaret Josephine Maher on 4 October 1997 at Somerton.

The functions and purposes of sentencing are not confined to questions of punishment and deterrence of you as the offender. Importantly, they also include the denunciation by this Court of your conduct, and in particular the public condemnation of the intentional taking by you of the life of Margaret Josephine Maher. Secondly, the process of sentencing involves the imposition by this Court of a just punishment for what is a very serious offence, and the vindication of the rights of the victim, who is deceased, and of those who are left behind to struggle with the grief and trauma occasioned by her violent murder. Thirdly, in a case such as this, the principle of general deterrence is an important consideration in the determination of an appropriate sentence.

The Crown case against you was circumstantial. It is not therefore possible to draw conclusions as to the precise circumstances in which Margaret Maher met her end. It is clear from the verdict that the jury accepted that Margaret Maher was last seen alive when she departed from the Safeway supermarket at Broadmeadows Town Shopping Centre at 12.20 a.m. on 4 October 1997, and was seen walking in the direction of Pascoe Vale Road. The circumstances in which her body was found located by the side of Cliffords Road, Somerton shortly before 2.00 p.m. on the same day indicate that you had murdered her at a different location, and then dumped and left her mutilated body where it was found.

The evidence was that you commenced work on that day at 6.38 a.m. The pathologist who attended the scene and later conducted the autopsy, Dr Lynch, placed the likely time of death between 9.00 p.m. on 3 October and 7.00 a.m. on 4 October. It is therefore apparent that you murdered Margaret Maher in the early hours of 4 October after you either met her or intercepted her, probably while she was travelling along or in the vicinity of the Hume Highway, as she often did.

The evidence of Dr Lynch was that there were three possible causes of death, namely, drug toxicity, advanced coronary artery disease, and the application of compression to the neck. By its verdict the jury accepted that death resulted from compression of the neck. The jury came to that view based on injuries which were found on the neck, considered in the context of other injuries to the deceased, including a wound caused by blunt trauma over the right eyebrow and lacerations to the right arm. In addition, either shortly before or immediately after death, there was a stab wound inflicted to the deceased's left wrist with a sharp implement.

Whatever the precise circumstances, it is clear that the jury accepted that you compressed the deceased's neck with the intention either to kill her or to cause her really serious injury. There has been no suggestion that there was any legal justification for you killing Margaret Maher.

After you murdered her, you then mutilated the deceased's body in the manner which has already been described to the jury, and left it by the side of a road, in a desolate place, as a disgusting display of loathing for the deceased and contempt for her dignity. Not content with what you had done to her in life, you robbed her of her dignity in death. Those actions are, I consider, an eloquent insight into the unmitigated evil which actuated you to kill Margaret Maher and to behave as you did.

The offence for which you have been found guilty is the most serious crime known to our legal system. It involved the intentional deprivation by you of the life of another human being. You have violated the most sacred and unique right any person has, namely, the right to live his or her life as they wish. Margaret Maher had the same right to life as each and every other member of our community. You have taken that from her, and have thereby done the greatest wrong known to our law. Your act has also deprived those who loved her of their daughter, sister and mother. Victim impact statements have been produced to me and I have read them. Those statements are a salutary and specific reminder of the trauma, grief and anguish your actions have caused, and will undoubtedly continue to cause for the indefinite future, to those left struggling with their bereavement for the woman you so cruelly murdered.

You have an appalling background of previous criminality. The hallmark of your previous convictions involves wanton and despicable acts of violence to defenceless women. I have had the opportunity to read the reasons for sentence in three of those cases, as they have been appended to the sentence pronounced by Vincent J when he sentenced you, in August 2000, for the murder of Nicole Patterson (R v Dupas [2000] VSC 356). They are a chilling account of some of your criminal history. It is relevant for me to briefly summarise some of the details of your record. In short, your history reveals the following:

(1) On 25 July 1974 (30 years ago) you were convicted at the County Court at Melbourne of rape, housebreaking with intent to commit a felony, and housebreaking and stealing. A total effective sentence was imposed on you of nine years' imprisonment with a minimum term of five years. The sentencing judge described it as "one of the worst rapes that could be imagined". You broke into the house of a defenceless young married woman, threatened her with a knife, tied her up with cord, and when she tried to resist, threatened to harm her baby. The offence was clearly well planned by you. I note that the eminent psychiatrist, the late Dr Alan Bartholemew, reported in 1974 that you had a serious psychosexual problem, and that he considered you to be potentially dangerous.

(2) Shortly after your release you offended again. On 28 February 1980 you were convicted at the County Court of rape, assault with intent to rape (3 counts), malicious wounding, assault with intent to rob, and indecent assault. The reasons for your sentence have not been located. However, at your next appearance, the judge noted that the court which sentenced you in 1980 was persuaded by a psychiatrist to impose what might be regarded as a merciful sentence in the hope that you had some prospects of rehabilitation. Accordingly a sentence of six years and six months was imposed with a minimum of five years.

(3) The hope for your rehabilitation proved to be forlorn. Within one month of your release from prison, you offended yet again. On 28 June 1985 you were convicted at the County Court of aggravated rape and indecent assault with aggravating circumstances. The court imposed upon you a total effective sentence of 12 years' imprisonment with a minimum term of ten years. The offences occurred when you drove to a beach near Blairgowrie, got out of the car, and took a knife with you. You noticed a girl, followed her for some time, attacked her, forced her to the ground, threatened her with a knife, and raped her. The sentencing judge remarked that it must have been a horrifying experience for your unfortunate victim.

(4) You were paroled in March 1992. Two years later, in January 1994, you offended again. On 18 August 1994 you were convicted at the County Court at Bendigo of one count of false imprisonment and were sentenced to be imprisoned for three years and nine months, with a minimum of two years and nine months. The offence occurred at Lake Eppalock. A woman picnicking there, went to a public toilet. You apparently followed her there, wearing a hood with eye holes. You entered her cubicle with a knife. She suffered lacerations to her hand when she attempted to fend off the knife. You took her arm and led her out of the cubicle. Unexpectedly you let her go and told her to go off. She alerted her friends who chased you in their car and caught you.

As I understand it you were released on parole in 1996. The present offence occurred on 4 October 1997. It occurred in the context of a man who has displayed an abominable and despicable disposition to repeatedly violate the basic rights of women in our community. Insofar as the Sentencing Act requires me to take into account your character and background, this is by far the most outstanding and salient feature of it. Secondly, your record of recurrent recidivism over three decades demonstrates that there is no hope at all for your rehabilitation into society.

As I noted at the outset of these remarks, you were further convicted in August 2000 for the murder of Nicole Patterson on 19 April 1999. You were arrested for that crime on 22 April 1999. In the present trial some of the evidence given in your previous trial was adduced again. The murder of Nicole Patterson was brutal and cold blooded. You had planned it for some time. You murdered her in her own home, when she had no prospect at all of defending herself. The evidence relating to that offence was adduced because of the striking similarity between the mutilation of Margaret Maher after her death and the mutilation which was inflicted on Nicole Patterson after you murdered her. The evidence of your further offending, and your conviction for it, although a subsequent and not a previous conviction, is relevant to your character; R v Coulston [1997] 2 VR 446 at 459; R v Poulton [1974] VicRp 85; [1974] VR 716. It is also relevant because it cannot be said that, notwithstanding your previous violent past, the present murder for which I now sentence you was in some way or other a "diversion" from your usual conduct. In addition, the murder by you of Nicole Patterson, only 18 months after you had murdered Margaret Maher, makes it plain that you lacked the slightest recognition of the enormity of what you had done to Margaret Maher, yet alone feel even the faintest twinge of remorse for it.

In view of your appalling criminal history, and in view of the particularly serious nature of the crime for which you have been convicted, it is only appropriate that you be sentenced to life imprisonment. Even if the murder of Nicole Patterson had never occurred, I would have no hesitation in imposing a term of life imprisonment upon you. Bearing in mind the principles discussed in R v Coulston (above), R v Denyer [1995] VicRp 12; [1995] 1 VR 186, and R v Lowe [1997] 2 VR 465, I also consider that I should not fix a minimum term. It is clear, both in the present case and from your previous convictions for rape and like offences, that your offending is connected with a need by you to vindicate a perverted and sadistic hatred of women and a contempt for them and their right to live. As such the present offence must be characterised as being in one of the most serious categories of murders which come before this Court. You intentionally killed a harmless, defenceless woman who, like all your other victims, had no prospect of protecting herself against you. At the time you committed that offence, you had, over almost three decades, terrorised women in this State. You have repeatedly violated a central norm of a decent civilised society. Your conduct in the present case is without mitigation or palliation. There has been no recognition by you of your wrongdoing. Rather, you repeated the same offence, with even more brutality, 18 months after murdering Margaret Maher. Based on your repeated violent offences, and on the gravity of this offence, there is no prospect of your rehabilitation. Nothing was advanced on your behalf to reflect that there is even the faintest glimmer of hope for you. Even if there were, any considerations of rehabilitation must, in this case, be subordinated to the gravity of your offending, the need for the imposition of a just punishment, and the principle of general deterrence. All those circumstances combine, in my view, not only to justify, but also to require that I do not fix a minimum term.

In addition, at the request of the Crown I declare you a serious offender for the purpose of Part 2A of the Sentencing Act 1991. That declaration will be entered in the records of the Court under s.6F of the Act.

I also grant an order permitting retention of the sample of DNA taken from the prisoner pursuant to s.464ZFB of the Crimes Act 1958.

The sentence of the Court is that, for the murder of Margaret Josephine Maher at Somerton on 4 October 1997, you be imprisoned for the rest of your natural life and without the opportunity for release on parole. Accordingly, the Court sentences Peter Norris Dupas to be imprisoned for the rest of his natural life and without the opportunity for release on parole.

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