R v Helen Ryan ; R v Coralie Coulter

SENTENCE 1The offenders stand to be sentenced for the offence of murder, following verdicts of guilty on 4 July 2011. The victim was Helen Ryan's husband, and Coralie Coulter's son-in-law, Jeffrey Ryan, who was gunned down on his property on 23 October 2009 by a hired "hitman". Helen Ryan contracted with a Mr Ken Brooks to have her husband killed for the sum of $30,000, of which $10,000 was contributed by Coralie Coulter in the knowledge that Jeffrey Ryan would be murdered. 2The offence carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment and a standard non parole period of 20 years. Those two guideposts are to be borne in mind when the Court comes to a consideration of the appropriate penalty, having regard to the objective circumstances of the offence and the subjective features of each of the offenders : Muldrock v The Queen [2011] HCA 39. 3Helen and Jeffrey Ryan lived on a property near Tamworth, which they owned and operated together since 2001. They each had children from former relationships. Their marriage produced a daughter, CR, who was 13 years of age at the time of the offence. 4In the 12 to 18 months prior to the murder, the marriage deteriorated to the point where Mr Ryan had engaged a solicitor in February 2009 to commence divorce proceedings. The evidence in the trial established that Mr Ryan had complained to family members and friends of minor assaults upon him by Helen Ryan. There was evidence of minor bruising to Mr Ryan's upper arm, consistent with such assaults. Similar claims were made by Helen Ryan against her husband, although the extent and severity of the assaults said to have been committed upon her were a matter of some contention. 5I am satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that Helen Ryan's claims in respect of the assaults upon her by her husband, and his general behaviour towards her and towards their daughter, were grossly exaggerated, no doubt in order to convince her mother, Coralie Coulter, and her younger sister, Ganene, that drastic action was needed to ensure their safety. In the course of several conversations between Coralie Coulter, Ganene Coulter and another person in the weeks after Mr Ryan's death, Helen Ryan's mother and sister both spoke of threats to Helen Ryan's life and serious physical assaults upon her by the victim. It was these asserted episodes of violence or threats of violence that were said to justify Helen Ryan's actions. These allegations originated from Helen Ryan and were not supported by other evidence in the trial, subject to what appears in the following paragraph. More importantly, there were features of Helen Ryan's behaviour before and after the victim's death that are inconsistent with these claims. 6I accept that there were episodes of pushing and shoving between Helen Ryan and the victim, and that on occasions, the victim's greater strength resulted in the offender sustaining bruising. On one occasion, the victim pushed Helen Ryan against the wall, resulting in a break in the gyprock. 7I also accept that there was an episode involving the victim's daughter, constituted by the victim pushing or throwing a bag of feed towards her, which resulted in a complaint by her to her teachers at school. The matter was reported to police, who applied for an apprehended violence order against the victim. The first return date for the order was 29 September 2009. The victim attended court on that day and the matter was adjourned to 12 October 2009. An interim order was granted by the court. When this order was served upon him, the victim moved to a shipping container on the property some distance from the house. However, before that time the victim and Helen Ryan occupied separate bedrooms. 8In a covertly recorded conversation between the victim and Helen Ryan in the weeks before his death, the victim attempts to convince Helen Ryan that the marriage is over and that she should reconcile herself to that fact and seek happiness with someone else. Helen Ryan's response is one of disbelief and unwillingness to accept that position. The offender is heard to plead with the victim to reconcile, but she is consistently rebuffed. 9The evidence at trial also established that Helen Ryan sought to persuade the police to remove the apprehended violence order. The offender made repeated efforts to contact a woman with whom the victim was having a close relationship and entreated the victim to finish the relationship. Helen Ryan also became aware that her husband had changed his will, to her detriment. As it became clear to the offender that her husband was resolute in his intention to end the marriage, Helen Ryan put her plan into effect. She paid Mr Brooks $15,000 by way of a downpayment, with the balance due after the job had been done. She provided Mr Brooks with photos of the victim and the information that her husband was living in the shipping container. 10On the night of 23 October 2009, the victim left the main residence between 7:30 pm and 8:15 pm. When he returned to the shipping container, which was at some distance from the house, he had a cup of coffee and received a telephone call. It appears the victim got ready to retire, changing into a T-shirt, shorts and slippers. Sometime after 8:40 pm, something caused the victim to leave the shipping container, leaving his keys, wallet and phone inside. The killer fired at least two shots from a shot gun which penetrated the victim's chest and abdomen and the right side of the lower lumbar area, indicating that the victim was shot from behind and slightly to his right. 11In the weeks and months after the murder, Helen Ryan and Coralie Coulter attempted to put various measures in place in response to police enquiries concerning the murder of Jeffrey Ryan. They became concerned about the ability of the police to track various phone calls made between Helen Ryan and Mr Brooks, and between each of them and the "go-between" who had put Helen Ryan in contact with Mr Brooks in the first place. Much of the evidence at trial tending towards proof of the nature of the agreement between Helen Ryan and Mr Brooks came through recordings of conversations between the offenders and other persons. 12Following the charging of Helen Ryan on 15 December 2009, Helen Ryan accompanied another person to the Local Court at Tamworth, with the intention of paying $10,000 to an alleged corrupt official so that the matter would not proceed. On 10 February 2010, Helen Ryan attended the residence of Mr Brooks in Cessnock in order to pay the outstanding $15,000. She was arrested on her return to Tamworth and has remained in custody since. Coralie Coulter was also arrested that day and has remained in custody. Helen Ryan spent two days in custody prior to her release to bail in December 2009. 13At trial, Helen Ryan gave evidence to the effect that she had contracted with Mr Brooks to assault her husband, short of inflicting any serious harm upon him, in order to "bring him to his senses" and bring about a reconciliation in the marriage. It is not surprising that, given the weight of the evidence summarised above, this account of how the killer came to be at the property, and the purpose of his confrontation with Mr Ryan, was rejected by the jury. 14By its verdict, the jury determined that Helen Ryan deliberately and methodically plotted to have her husband killed, and that she enlisted the aid of her mother and her sister to bring about that result and avoid the possibility of detection for the offence. Far from the cowering, oppressed and terrorised wife that she attempted to portray, Helen Ryan embarked on a cold-blooded plan to get rid of her husband, rather than risk the dissolution of the marriage and the loss or diminution of the assets that they had jointly acquired. 15The objective gravity of this offence is of a very high order. The callousness with which both offenders embarked upon this plan and carried it to fruition, knowing that it would deprive Mr Ryan's extended family of a much loved father, brother and son, not to mention Helen Ryan's own daughter of a father, beggars belief. In my view, the offence falls very close to the worst category for offences of this type. 16In the case of Helen Ryan, the offence is worthy of the description "wicked" and "gravely reprehensible". To contemplate and carry out such a plan for purely selfish and largely financial motives demonstrates heinousness to a significant degree. There was a considerable deal of persistence exhibited by Helen Ryan. The killing was to have taken place weeks earlier but was called off by Mr Brooks. Throughout this period of time, the offender was acutely aware that there were agencies in the community, such as the police, the legal profession and the Family Court, which were capable of advocating on her behalf so as to preserve her lawful interests. She deliberately chose to exact revenge upon her husband. On the night that he was killed, Helen Ryan received a call from Mr Brooks and informed him that her husband had left the house. I am satisfied to the requisite standard that she did so, knowing that she was sending her husband to his death. 17In the light of my rejection of the Crown's submission that this case falls within the worst category and therefore attracts the imposition of a life sentence, it is not strictly necessary to consider the criteria that would in fact justify the imposition of a life sentence. However, I would observe that if I had accepted the Crown's submission, I am not persuaded beyond reasonable doubt that the imposition of a life sentence is required in order to meet the combined effect of retribution, punishment, community protection and deterrence. In particular, there does not appear to be a compelling need to protect the community from this offender. There is no material which justifies the conclusion that this was not a gross aberration. There is no reason to think that she represents an ongoing danger to the community at large. 18That said, the objective gravity of the offence requires a very severe penalty. Helen Ryan continues to protest her innocence. There is very little that can be said in mitigation of the offence itself. 19In the case of Coralie Coulter, the contents of the telephone conversations referred to above demonstrate that this offender was integral to the contract with Mr Brooks, in the sense that she provided the bulk of the deposit that initiated the killing. After the victim's death, this offender actively and consistently encouraged Helen Ryan and Ganene Coulter to remain firm in the face of the police investigation. Her involvement in the commission of the offence, whilst prompted by clearly fabricated allegations made by Helen Ryan against the victim, is difficult to comprehend, given her acknowledgement that she had previously regarded Jeffrey Ryan as a good husband and father. She personally had no motive for harming the victim, yet she was prepared to engage in a plot to have him killed on the basis of unsubstantiated allegations made by her daughter. Even if there had been some truth in what this offender was told, at no stage on the evidence in the trial did Coralie Coulter attempt to persuade her daughter that there were other lawful measures that were available to her. At every stage of the process, according to the jury's verdict, Coralie Coulter was a willing and active participant. 20Her criminality is of a lesser order than that of Helen Ryan, primarily because she was not the instigator of the plot and, apart from providing the money, she played no direct role in the negotiations with Mr Brooks that led up to the killing : R v Kalajzich (1997) 94 A Crim R 41 at 52. In addition, I am persuaded on the balance of probabilities that this offender's participation in the offence can be explained (albeit never justified) by her genuine belief that her daughter and her granddaughter were being subjected to gross physical and possibly sexual abuse. Both this offender and Ganene Coulter appeared to accept without reservation the claims made by Helen Ryan to the effect that both she and CR were being terrorised by the victim. 21This offender's counsel has submitted that considerations of parity arise as between the offender and Ganene Coulter. Ganene Coulter pleaded guilty to conspiracy to murder and received a substantial discount on the sentence imposed for that offence on the basis of her willingness to give evidence in the offender's trial. In the course of the trial, Ganene Coulter maintained that her mother knew nothing of the purpose of the money until after the victim had been killed. However, that evidence was entirely inconsistent with the tenor of the recorded conversations and was obviously rejected by the jury in favour of the objective evidence at trial. 22Whilst there are circumstances where considerations of parity arise, notwithstanding that co-offenders have been sentenced on the basis of different offences, the basis of the charge preferred against Ganene Coulter was that she made contact with the "go-between" on behalf of Helen Ryan, in the expectation that someone would be made available to kill the victim. Ganene Coulter played no further part in the commission of the offence, although she continued to communicate with both offenders and was present, at the request of Helen Ryan, when the victim's body was discovered. Of course, the most significant difference between Ganene Coulter and Coralie Coulter for the purposes of sentence is the fact that the former pleaded guilty to an offence carrying a maximum penalty of 25 years and a standard non parole period of 10 years, that is, half the standard non parole period for the offence of murder. 23The Court received a number of very moving victim impact statements from members of the victim's family, including his sons and sisters. These statements were received on the basis that they provide those persons affected by the death of the victim with a voice in the proceedings. They have no bearing on the sentence ultimately imposed, because the long-standing policy of the criminal law values each life equally. 24The victim's daughter, CR, provided a "victim impact statement" through her mother's legal representatives. In that statement, CR describes her distress at hearing that her father was engaged in another relationship and the "emotional abuse" to which she and her mother were subjected by the victim. The entirety of the letter reads as an apology for her mother's conduct and a damning indictment of the victim. To the extent that the statement purports to support Helen Ryan's account of physical and emotional abuse at the hands of the victim, it is an unsworn and untested statement that has no weight for the purposes of sentencing. 25More importantly, I doubt that the statement qualifies as a victim impact statement for the purposes of s 26 of the Crimes (Sentencing Procedure) Act 1999. That provision defines a victim impact statement relevantly as :- a statement containing particulars of: ................................................... (b) in the case of a family victim, the impact of the primary victim's death on the members of the primary victim's immediate family. 26As I have already noted, the statement is almost wholly concerned with events that predated the victim's death. It fails to express any impact upon CR arising out of the death of her father. 27I turn to the offenders' subjective circumstances. 28Helen Ryan is presently 51 years of age. She was born near Grafton in northern New South Wales. She is the second eldest child in a family of three boys and three girls. Her father died in 1987 of cancer. The offender reported to a psychologist (Exhibit 1) that her father was a placid, loving parent who was treated badly by her mother. The offender was educated in the Maclean area and obtained her school certificate in the course of an early pregnancy. 29She claimed that she was kicked out of home by her mother when she fell pregnant to her first partner. She lived with her partner's parents for 12 months and then moved into rented accommodation. That relationship continued for 17 years. The offender described her first partner as a heavy drinker who was consistently verbally abusive and intermittently physically abusive. The relationship produced two daughters who remain supportive of the offender. 30The offender met Jeffrey Ryan after she separated from her first partner. It appears that Jeffrey Ryan was in a relationship with Ganene Coulter when he transferred his affections to the offender. They moved in together in 1994 and in 1995 the offender gave birth to her daughter. At that stage the couple were living on a property near Casino owned by the Ryan family. That property was sold and they moved to Tamworth in 2001. 31The property was affected by drought, necessitating the offender finding employment in the town. Jeffrey Ryan also took on employment in the town in 2008. At that time the offender was on workers compensation payments. It was at about this time that Mr Ryan commenced a close relationship with a woman at his workplace and the marriage came under stress. The psychologist's report also contains a statement by the offender that her husband was physically violent towards her "on at least two occasions" and that her mother, Coralie Coulter, advised the offender to leave Jeffrey Ryan. It is of some interest to note that, according to the psychologist's report, the offender said she was too attached to the country lifestyle and to her daughter's interest in horses to take that option. The report also states that "at times the client maintained her husband was also sexually abusive of her although she never revealed that either because of feelings of shame and embarrassment. Ms Ryan commented that 'looking back, I guess you could call it rape'." Not only is this latter statement to a psychologist unsubstantiated and untested by evidence on oath, the jury's rejection of the offender as a witness of truth renders this account highly questionable. 32The offender is in reasonably good health. She has no history of treatment for mental illness and no history of illegal drug use. She is described as a very occasional light social drinker. She has no prior criminal history. She is described as just above average intelligence. The psychologist's finding that she displayed a "marked depressive mood and high anxiety" is consistent with the fact that at that time she was facing trial for the offence of murder. Otherwise, the offender was said to display "depressive, dependent and avoidant personality attributes". 33The offender's letter to the court (Exhibit 2) purports to express sorrow and remorse for the death of her husband. The offender takes responsibility for "wishing my husband had a better relationship with both CR and myself" and maintains the version given at trial, namely that she paid $5,000 to have her husband "touched up". The letter essentially invokes the hardship occasioned to the offender's daughter by the loss of her father and now the effective loss of her mother. 34The offender's daughter is presently under the care of the offender's older daughter, although technically in the custody of the Department of Community Services. It is trite to observe that it was the offender's conduct which brought about the death of her daughter's father and the offender's incarceration. These were the natural and inevitable consequences of the offender's behaviour and no mitigation of the sentence can be justified in the circumstances of this case. It is not the type of hardship which would cause the Court to draw back from imposing a sentence that properly reflects the objective and subjective factors. 35It is clear that the offender refuses to take responsibility for the murder of her husband and must therefore be sentenced on the basis that she demonstrates no remorse or contrition. Her prospects of rehabilitation therefore remain guarded. I can see no basis upon which the Court should find special circumstances, particularly given that the length of the sentence necessarily imports a lengthy parole period which should be more than sufficient to allow the offender to re-engage with the community. 36Coralie Coulter is presently 72 years of age. Her husband died in 1987 of cancer at the age of 47 years. The offender raised six children and worked hard together with her husband in the family business in the fishing industry. The letters before the court (Exhibit 4) from the offender's adult children (other than her co-offenders) speak highly of her love, support and dedication to her family. They paint a picture of a devoted and selfless mother and grandmother, inconsistent with the kind of person that would commit the instant offence. 37The Pre Sentence Report (Exhibit 3) refers to "ongoing difficulties in the relationship between Ms Coulter and the co-offenders beginning in their early teenage years. One .... commenced the use of illicit substances from about the age of 13 years while the other fell pregnant and moved out of home at the age of 15 years to reside with the father of her child. It appears that during difficult financial periods both co-offenders relied on the mother for financial support and contrary to advice from her more stable children, Ms Coulter would provide for them financially." This statement provides some insight into the circumstances leading to the commission of the offence but it is far from explanatory. 38This offender also continues to protest her innocence. She must also be sentenced on the basis that she demonstrates no contrition or remorse. She has no prior criminal history. Apart from a mastectomy 15 years ago from which the offender appears to have fully recovered, she has no ongoing health problems that one would not expect to find in a woman of her age. 39It is unfortunate but inevitable that any sentence imposed upon this offender, commensurate with the objective gravity of the offence and her role within it, will probably result in the offender living the remainder of her life in prison. That is not a sufficient reason to refrain from imposing such a sentence : Barton v R [2009] NSWCCA 164. However, it does justify an alteration to the statutory ratio, in order to allow for the likelihood of a decline in the offender's health and the need for medical intervention in the furture. 40Taking all of these matters into account, I propose to sentence as follows :- 41Helen Ryan, you are convicted of the offence of murder. I sentence you to a non parole period of 27 years to date from 8 February 2010, expiring 7 February 2037, with a balance of term of 9 years, expiring 7 February 2046. You are eligible for release to parole on 8 February 2037. 42Coralie Coulter, you are convicted of the offence of murder. I sentence you to a non parole period of 18 years, to date from 10 February 2010, expiring 9 February 2028, with a balance of term of 9 years expiring 9 February 2037. You are eligible for release to parole on 10 February 2028.