R v Hunter [2002] VSC 162

Supreme Court of Victoria|2002-05-14|Before: TEAGUE J

Criminal Law - Sentencing - Manslaughter - Husband killing wife - Provocation not excluded - Passage of nearly 20 years until circumstances revealed - 7 years prison - 4 years 6 months non-parole period

You have been found guilty of manslaughter, by a jury that found you not guilty of the murder of your wife, Venda Hunter in October 1981.

You married the deceased in 1965. There were a number of children to the marriage, which had its ups and downs. After living in North-Eastern Victoria for some years, you and your family moved in September 1980 to 4 Furlonger Street, Traralgon. In 1981, you were living there with the deceased, three daughters and a son. The deceased had mental health problems. She was not an affectionate and loving mother to the children. On the contrary, she mistreated the older three, and badly. The evidence I have heard from two of the children has made that very clear. You were upset at how the deceased was treating you and the children.

One night in October 1981, you killed her. I cannot make reasonably precise findings as to what happened on that night. The information that I have as to what happened comes only from your account to the police. You said that you and your wife argued, that she called you names, that she told you that she hated you, and that she came at you with a knife. You told the police that it was not the first time that she had come at you with a knife. You said that on prior occasions you had acted so as to defuse the situation. On this occasion, there was to be no defusing. You hit her on the head 2 or 3 times with a stick. As to why you did so, you were later to make claims that are difficult to reconcile. On the one hand, you spoke of being sick and tired of the hell and misery. You said you wanted your wife to go but she would not go. On the other hand, you claimed that you acted in self defence. On one assessment of your account, it could be inferred that you lost control in the face of provocative acts and words. I treat the jury's verdict as an acceptance of two positions. The first is that self defence had properly been excluded. The second is that provocation had not been excluded.

You did not act like a man who had killed on the spur of the moment. You were to claim later that you were too scared to contact the police, and that you were fearful that you would lose your children. You chose to act in a number of ways that aggravated the seriousness of the killing. You chose to secretly dispose of the deceased's body. You brought in a wheelbarrow. You put the body in the barrow. You wheeled the barrow and body out to a small garden shed. You locked the door of the shed. You cleaned up the blood on the carpet in the lounge.

The next morning, you told the children that their mother had left with a man during the night. The garden shed in which you had left the body had a dirt floor. After the children left for school, you dug a hole inside the shed. You put timber, paper and some petrol in the hole, set it alight and kept stoking the fire. When the fire went out, you were left with the charred remains of your wife. You buried them beneath the dirt floor. You told neighbours and friends and the brother of the deceased the same basic lie that you had told your children. You told them that the deceased had left with another man. From time to time, you embellished the basic lie. You invented occasions when the deceased was supposed to have called on you. Or when she was supposed to have been seen by other people.

The remains stayed buried in the small shed, until you came to build a big shed some ten years or so later. When the big shed was built and you were about to have a concrete floor laid inside it, you dug up the remains of the deceased in the small shed. You dug a hole in the then dirt floor of the big shed. You put the remains into the hole, filled it with dirt, and the concrete floor was laid over the site.

You told nobody that you had killed your wife. In 1985, you remarried. You raised your children by the deceased and your two children by your second wife. You have had your tribulations. In 1986, you suffered the loss of your then only son in a criminal homicide. Indeed, I believe I sentenced the man who killed him. Later you learned that your youngest son is intellectually impaired and that your youngest daughter had been the subject of sexual abuse by a neighbour.

Eventually, the police confronted you as to what had happened in 1981. They did so only after making extensive enquiries of your daughters and former neighbours and friends. The account which you gave then was later shown to have been correct to the extent that verification was possible given the long lapse in time.

I turn to the position as to victim impact statements. There is only one. It is made by the brother of the deceased. The admissible parts serve to remind me of matters relevant to sentencing. A covered up killing can impose a continuing burden on those close to the person who has seemingly just disappeared. The processes of grief and closure and the like are suspended. I also take account of the fact that there is only one victim impact statement. There is not one from any of your children. That is a tribute to you. Your position stands in contrast to that in the case of John Culleton, who was sentenced by Vincent J on 27 November 2000 to seven and a half years in prison, with a non-parole period of 6 years, after pleading guilty to manslaughter. He had concealed the killing of his wife for more than two decades, and had told his children lies similar to yours. Unlike you, he had made the lives of his children more difficult after the killing. He showed little concern for their welfare. You have clearly cared for your children, and that is shown in their loyalty to you. You have shown yourself to be a peace-loving and even-tempered man. Rehabilitation and special deterrence are not concerns in my sentencing of you. But denunciation and general deterrence must be. Too often do the courts see husbands resort to violence as a means of settling matrimonial disputes. And in your case there is little indication of remorse. And I must take account of the aggravating circumstances of how you acted after the killing.

I turn to your background. You were born in January 1945. You are now 57 years of age. You were raised in a environment of deprivation and abuse. Despite the difficulties, you proved yourself to be a good worker. After a long period with the State Electricity Commission, you have worked at gardening. And you have done work of that kind while on remand.

I do of course take account of the fact that you have no prior convictions. I have read the report of the psychologist, Jeffrey Cummins, who has expressed concern at the level of your depression at present and has indicated that it is likely to persist. I take account of the circumstance that your younger children will suffer particularly from the absence of your stabilising influence. Your knowing that will mean that your time in prison will not be easily served.

As at 1981, the maximum term for manslaughter was 15 years. I take that into account in the same way as was done in the case of Culleton to which I have referred earlier. I declare that you have spent to today, 14 May 2002, 376 days in pre-sentence detention. I direct that those details be entered in the court records. I sentence you to 7 years imprisonment. I fix a non-parole period of 4 years and 6 months.

At a glance

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Before

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Judgment (14 paragraphs)

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