R v Harpreet Bhullar

Supreme Court of NSW|2012-02-20|Before: Harrison J

remarks on sentence 1HIS HONOUR: On 20 February 2012 the offender Harpreet Kaur Bhullar pleaded guilty before me to one count of accessory after the fact to the murder of Ranjodh Singh, contrary to s 349 of the Crimes Act 1900. The Crown accepted that plea in full discharge of all counts on the indictment, which included a charge that on 29 December 2009 the offender did murder the deceased. Upon the basis of the agreed facts and other evidence not the subject of contest, including an induced statement from the offender, the following facts are accepted for sentencing purposes. 2The deceased was residing in one-bedroom boarding house accommodation with Harpreet Singh in Wagga Wagga. Both the deceased and Harpreet Singh used to live and work in Griffith but Harpreet Singh left Griffith around October or November 2009 due to issues involving considerable amounts of money that Harpreet Singh owed to workers whom he had contracted to work as farm hands on local farms in the Griffith area. The deceased moved to Wagga Wagga in early December that year because he could not find work in Griffith. 3Harpreet Singh also owed money to the deceased for work that the deceased had performed for him. Harpreet Singh would deal with farmers who required workers to harvest their crops. Harpreet Singh would then engage others to perform this work. One farmer named Russell Vardanega had also engaged Harpreet Singh who had in turn engaged the deceased, among others, to work on his farm. Mr Vardanega had refused to pay Harpreet Singh due to some damage occasioned to his property and so the deceased was also not paid. 4Gurpreet Singh and the offender were living in a de facto relationship and residing at premises in Kookora Street, Griffith. Harpreet Singh knew Gurpreet Singh and the offender, as he was responsible for finding them work in the Griffith area. The deceased lived with Gurpreet Singh and the offender for a short time in 2009. 5On Sunday 27 December 2009, Harpreet Singh, the offender, Gurpreet Singh and the deceased were in Wagga Wagga, planning to return to Griffith the following day. The deceased purchased a gift for the offender, which was handed to her in the presence of Gurpreet Singh and Harpreet Singh. Later that day Harpreet Singh, Gurpreet Singh, the offender and the deceased travelled back to Griffith in a red 1995 Ford Falcon sedan, which was registered in the name of the offender. 6For Monday 28 December 2009, Harpreet Singh had planned a party in order to celebrate his birthday. This took place that night at the offender's premises in Kookora Street, Griffith. Everyone at the party was drinking alcohol with the exception of the offender. Other friends were also there. 7At approximately 12.30am on 29 December 2009 the deceased left the premises and did not return. When the offender gave an induced statement to police, she originally indicated that the deceased did not leave the premises. She also stated that Harpreet Singh had told her and others to tell the police that the deceased had left and not to say that the deceased and Harpreet Singh had had a fight at the party. 8At about 2.45am on Tuesday 29 December 2009 a witness saw the offender's vehicle near the intersection of the Wilga Road and Main Road 80 at Willbriggie. This is a rural area in a 100km/h zone but the vehicle was travelling slowly, which the witness described as unusual. He could see that the vehicle contained three people, with one person seated in the rear on the passenger's side. This sighting apparently occurred after the murder of the deceased. 9About five minutes later another witness travelling along the Wilga Road, approximately eight kilometres from the intersection with Main Road 80, saw three small spot fires not more than 30cm high and 15cm wide. At 3.18am the offender's vehicle entered the Yambil Street Carwash in Griffith. Harpreet Singh alighted from the rear passenger seat of the car whilst Gurpreet Singh alighted from the front passenger seat. The offender was driving. She opened her door but did not get out. Harpreet Singh washed the car. They all left a short time later. 10At 9.10am on Tuesday 29 December 2009 the body of the deceased was discovered on the north side of the Wilga Road approximately eight kilometres from the intersection with Main Road 80. He was wearing only a white T-shirt, he wore no shoes and his hands and feet had been bound. He was burnt beyond recognition. It would appear that his throat had been cut and he had been stabbed as well. 11Between 4.00am and 5.00am Gurpreet Singh contacted the offender's employer and advised him that she was unable to attend work because they had all been to a party that night and she was too tired to work. Later that morning Harpreet Singh travelled by bus to Wagga Wagga. At 1.50pm on 29 December 2009 Gurpreet Singh and the offender drove her car back to the carwash where they thoroughly cleaned the boot and vacuumed the inside of the car. They wiped around the boot seals as well. This took about 18 minutes to complete. 12At about 3.00pm Gurpreet Singh drove the offender's vehicle to Pat's Tyres in Griffith where he sought to purchase four new tyres for the car. Despite advice from the proprietor that new tyres were not needed, Gurpreet Singh insisted that they be changed. 13At about midnight on 29 December 2009 Gurpreet Singh and the offender attended the residence of the deceased's aunt in Griffith and advised her that the deceased left their residence around midnight and that they had not seen him since. The next morning Gurpreet Singh travelled to Sydney. 14A description of some distinctive jewellery located on the deceased was released to the public. On 31 December 2009 the deceased's aunt attended the Griffith police station to report her nephew missing. He was later identified as the deceased. 15Police took statements from Harpreet Singh, Gurpreet Singh and the offender. Inconsistencies emerged from these statements. Other information concerning movements of the offender's vehicle was received. On the morning of 4 January 2010, Gurpreet Singh and the offender purchased a one way ticket to Sydney. In Sydney they both purchased one way tickets to Nepal on Thai Airlines Flight TG 452. They passed through customs but were arrested and removed from the plane. They were later released but rearrested on 28 January 2010. Numerous statements were taken from members of the Griffith Indian community indicating that Harpreet Singh operated as a standover man and had a reputation for violent and intimidating behaviour relating to workers operating in the agricultural labour market in the local Griffith area.

Induced statement 16On 15 December 2010 the offender gave an induced statement to the police. She confirmed the matters to which reference has already been made. She gave the following additional information that is particularly relevant for present purposes. 17The offender said that after midnight on the night of the party, and after she had gone to bed, Harpreet Singh came into her room asked her to drive him to Wagga Wagga. Gurpreet Singh discussed this request with the offender, even though it is accepted that he was quite drunk at the time. Ultimately they agreed to the request. Harpreet Singh then joined them in the offender's car, bringing the deceased with him as well. The deceased appeared to be walking with difficulty and needed assistance to do so. Harpreet Singh and the deceased entered the rear seats of the car. With Harpreet Singh directing, the offender drove the four of them towards Leeton. 18After travelling for 20 to 25 minutes, Harpreet Singh asked the offender to stop so that he could have a drink. Harpreet Singh got out of the car and asked Gurpreet Singh to assist him to remove the deceased. The deceased was unable to get out of the car and Harpreet Singh dragged him out. The offender stayed in the car with the engine running and the lights on. About ten minutes later Harpreet Singh and Gurpreet Singh returned to the car without the deceased. The offender asked where he was. Harpreet Singh said: "I finished him" or "I finished the job". The offender became very scared and frightened. Harpreet Singh said: "Do you have some tissues because I have blood on my hands?" 19Harpreet Singh told the offender then to drive him to Wagga Wagga. The offender told him that she could no do so as she was frightened and confused. Instead she drove back to Griffith. She drove slowly but without stopping. Harpreet Singh said: "We have to get the car washed because there might be some blood on it because I opened the door and there might be some blood marks on the car". The offender drove to the carwash as earlier described. 20After the carwash the offender noticed that there was blood on Harpreet Singh's trousers. He took off his trousers and soaked them in the bathroom. She and Gurpreet Singh went to their bedroom but could not sleep. She told Harpreet Singh that he could sleep in the other room. 21At about 8.15am Harpreet Singh knocked on her bedroom door and asked the offender to drop him at the bus stop. Harpreet Singh told her and Gurpreet Singh that if anyone asked about the whereabouts of the deceased that they should say nothing of what occurred but tell any inquirer that he had just left the house. After dropping Harpreet Singh at the bus stop, the offender and Gurpreet Singh went to the carwash as earlier described. The car was also driven to be fitted with new tyres as Harpreet Singh told them that the tyres might have left marks at the scene where the deceased was killed.

Subjective factors 22The offender was born in March 1989 in Shaina, which is a small city in the Punjab region of India. She is therefore almost 23 years of age and was only 20 years of age at the time of the events that give rise to these proceedings. Her parents are still both alive and living in India. She has an older sister who lives in Sydney and a younger brother. Her mother is a housewife and her father is a farmer. 23The offender came to Australia in March 2008 when she was aged almost 19 years. She had left school in India when she was 16 to help her mother with her housework. In her culture it is customary for young girls to do so until they marry. However, the offender found that her life was restricted and she felt helpless and depressed. When she was 16 she unsuccessfully attempted suicide by self-immolation. When she was 17 she attempted to hang herself from a ceiling fan. As a result her parents decided to send her overseas. She saw neither a psychologist nor a psychiatrist following these events and received no counselling. When news of these events reached her sister in Australia, she was offered a place with her. 24In August or September 2007 the offender married. The relationship was not close. The offender's husband travelled to Australia to study cooking and the offender travelled here at that time. They lived with the offender's sister in Sydney. She then spoke no English. 25The offender's relationship with her husband deteriorated further. The offender and her husband separated and the offender moved to Griffith in September 2008 in the hope of finding work. She found accommodation with a group of Indians that included Gurpreet Singh. She was apprehensive living in a house with men she did not know well. She acquired work on a farm pruning grapevines. Work was irregular. She did tomato packing as well. She earned about $400 to $500 per week. She was able to pay for food and rent. 26In due course she formed a relationship with Gurpreet Singh. He offered her the opportunity of staying at home while he worked. She did this for about four months. She made friends and was very happy during this time. 27Following her arrest she went to gaol. She had never been in custody before that, either in Australia or anywhere else. Bail was never granted. She was very frightened. She failed to appreciate the gaol culture, largely because of her lack of English and ended up in conflict with other prisoners and the prison officers. She had no way of easily learning the rules and found life in custody to be harsh, confusing and correspondingly frightening. She was alone in a cell for the first month. She missed her family. She found the food strange, especially as a vegetarian. She had no contact with anyone who spoke her language. She sat alone and cried for her first month in gaol. 28In the middle of 2010 the offender commenced to learn English. Her teacher did not converse in her language so the process was particularly difficult. However, she persevered and now is able to speak English and write a little as well. She has been employed within the gaol since almost as soon as she was taken into custody and has continued with that work up to the present. She has also completed a computer course and topped the class. The offender has high hopes for her future and intends to teach English upon her eventual return to India. 29The offender gave evidence before me. She expressed considerable remorse with respect to the death of the deceased and spoke of her concern for the deceased's family, especially his mother, in the circumstances as they have transpired. She also expressed regret for providing misleading information to the police when she was first interviewed.

Objective gravity 30It was submitted on behalf of the offender by Ms Yehia SC that the offence was at the lower end of seriousness for offences of this type. In this respect I was asked to take account of the fact that her conduct consisted in a series of low level acts that included driving the deceased and Harpreet Singh to the countryside some 20 to 25 kilometres from Griffith. She then drove the car to the carwash in the early hours of the same morning. She did not wash the car herself but remained seated within. The following afternoon she assisted Gurpreet Singh to clean the inside of the car. She later gave a false account of her involvement. She was present when Gurpreet Singh purchased new tyres for her car at the behest of Harpreet Singh. 31Ms Yehia emphasised that the offender was not involved in harbouring Harpreet Singh or attempting to disguise his identity. She played no role in disposing of the body of the deceased or of a murder weapon. Such conduct is not unusual in cases of this type and tends to characterise an offender's conduct as at the higher end of the scale of criminality. The present case is to be contrasted with such cases. Moreover, the offender had no criminal motivation for her involvement in the events leading to the death of the deceased and was not otherwise concerned in some associated anterior criminal enterprise. Indeed it would appear, and I accept, that the offender had no appreciation or understanding of what Harpreet Singh intended for the deceased until after it had occurred. Apart from her relative youth and apparent naivete, the overriding explanation for her role in these events is directly related to the character and characteristics of Harpreet Singh, to which I now turn. 32I am asked to accept that Harpreet Singh is a violent and dangerous individual with a propensity for and history of intimidation and violence within the local Indian community within which he circulated. Considerable material has been tendered in aid of that contention, to the particular details of which it is unnecessary to refer. It is sufficient to note that farmers and labourers in and around the Griffith area have complained to the police on several occasions about the conduct of Harpreet Singh. He is alleged to have threatened to kill people. He has attacked residential properties occupied by people with whom he has had disputes about money. Apprehended violence orders have been taken out against him. He has been convicted for an offence involving violence. 33The offender herself set out in some detail her experience with the violent propensities of Harpreet Singh. She understood that he was prepared to "fix" people, meaning kill them, if the circumstances as he saw them required it. He was regularly in disputes concerning the non-payment of money to contractors. There is other material to indicate an ongoing period of harassment of Mr and Mrs Vardanega by Harpreet Singh involving threats by him to kill them and members of their family. These matters came to the attention of police and I have been provided with statements and other documents that record these incidents at some length. I accept all of this material for present purposes as supporting the proposition that Harpreet Singh had the violent propensities of which the offender has given evidence and that her role in the subject events was significantly inspired by the fear for her own safety that her knowledge of Harpreet Singh engendered.

Assistance to authorities and early plea 34The offender pleaded guilty to the current offence at the first available opportunity. The Crown uncontroversially accepts this. 35The offender has also given an undertaking to give evidence in the Crown cases against Gurpreet Singh and Harpreet Singh who are each charged with the murder of the deceased but who are to be tried separately. The trial of Gurpreet Singh is now scheduled to commence later today. The trial of Harpreet Singh is due to commence in the middle of the year. Ms Yehia has submitted that a discount in the order of 45 to 50 percent is appropriate in this case for the combined effect of the offender's early plea and her undertaking to give assistance to the authorities as a witness in the trials to which I have just referred. The Crown accepts that this submission has merit.

The proper sentence 36I was referred to considerable authority and to helpful statistics published by the Judicial Commission of NSW relating to like offences. These included, but were not limited to, R v Dileski [2002] NSWCCA 345; (2002) 132 A Crim R 408; R v Jin [2011] NSWSC 169; R v Fennell [2011] NSWSC 489; and R v Cowen [2008] NSWSC 104. In the latter case, Buddin J helpfully summarised some of the principles that apply in a case of this sort. His Honour set these out at [15] - [26]. At [27], in terms that are, with obvious factual exceptions, somewhat informatively redolent of the present case, his Honour recorded the following: "[27] The offender is entitled to have weighed in her favour a number of matters which mitigate the otherwise appropriate sentences. First, there are her pleas of guilty which were entered, as I have indicated, at the first opportunity which was available to her. Moreover, after some prevarication, she made admissions to police which effectively guaranteed that she would be convicted of these offences. In those circumstances, and because of the views which she expressed to the authors of the pre-sentence report and the psychological report respectively, the offender is entitled to a finding that she has accepted responsibility for her actions for which she is suitably contrite. Furthermore, somewhat unusually she entered her pleas before knowing of the outcome of the proceedings against the principal accused which have not yet commenced. It is at least theoretically possible that the verdicts in those trials could have been of assistance to her in her own proceedings. It goes without saying of course that the principal accused remain entitled to the presumption of innocence. Secondly, the offender is entitled to a finding that she is otherwise of good character. Thirdly, I am of the view that the offender enjoys good prospects of rehabilitation, particularly if she overcomes her dependency upon alcohol." 37Although the present offender has not had the advantage of, or the opportunity to obtain, a report concerning her mental state from an appropriate medical or forensic specialist in the field, I am in any event satisfied that she is contrite and remorseful in the way that I have indicated. Moreover, the offender has no drug or alcohol related problems of any sort, has no criminal record and is entitled to a finding that she is in all respects otherwise of good character. It follows from this that she has what I consider to be excellent prospects of rehabilitation and presents with no obvious or discernible indication of any likelihood of reoffending. 38It was contended on the offender's behalf that having regard to the fact that she has already served 2 years and 25 days on remand since she was taken into custody on 28 January 2010 that a sentence of that length was an appropriate one in all of the circumstances, meaning that she should immediately be released,. I note that the Crown did not contend otherwise and indeed accepted, quite properly in my view, that such a submission was appropriate. 39It follows from all of the matters to which I have referred, namely the reduced gravity of the offender's criminal conduct, in combination with her favourable subjective features, and my finding that the offender was motivated by fear of Harpreet Singh, who is clearly capable of extreme and unpredictable acts of violence, that I am presented with a somewhat wider range of realistic sentencing options in respect of the offence charged. In so saying, I am mindful of and take into account the relevant provisions of the Crimes (Sentencing Procedure) Act 1999. 40I also observe, retrospectively, that the conditions under which the offender has served time in custody to date would, in other circumstances, attract attention as potentially more onerous and difficult than would have been the case for an incarcerated offender or prisoner on remand whose first language was English and whose family were local and able to offer physical and emotional support. These things have conspired to make the offender's time in custody so far more difficult than might ordinarily be the case and notionally increase the significance of the time already served.

Sentence 41In respect of the offence of accessory after the fact to murder I sentence the offender to a fixed term of imprisonment of 2 years and 25 days. That sentence will be taken to have commenced on 28 January 2010 and to have expired today. It follows that the offender is entitled to be released immediately. 42I note that the offender's status for immigration purposes is described now as an illegal non-citizen. Whatever may be the specific ramifications of that troubled expression, it carries with it the potential consequence of immediate deportation. I am however informed by counsel for both sides that the offender can be confidently expected to be issued with what is described as a criminal justice visa, which will ensure that she is entitled to remain in Australia for as long as her promise to give evidence in trials to which I have referred remains undischarged. I note further that the Crown holds no fears that the offender will not honour her undertaking to remain in Australia to give this evidence, and that she has in any event offered forthwith to surrender her passport to the police. It is expected that she will reside with her sister in Sydney.

DISCLAIMER - Every effort has been made to comply with suppression orders or statutory provisions prohibiting publication that may apply to this judgment or decision. The onus remains on any person using material in the judgment or decision to ensure that the intended use of that material does not breach any such order or provision. Further enquiries may be directed to the Registry of the Court or Tribunal in which it was generated. Decision last updated: 02 August 2012

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