Shamouil
20 Linard Shamouil was 20 years old at the time of the offence, and is now 23. His criminal history is, to say the least, disturbing. I put to one side some traffic offences, for which fines were imposed. In 2007, after a trial in the District Court, he was found guilty of attempted murder and was sentenced to an effective term of imprisonment of 12 years with a non-parole period of 9 years. (The sentence actually passed was reduced somewhat so as to take account of an initial period of custody before he was released on bail.) That offence was committed on 17 July 2004, before the present offence. Indeed, it was while he was on bail in respect of it that the present offence was committed.
21 In 2008 he pleaded guilty in the District Court to a charge of supplying a commercial quantity of methylamphetamine, and asked that four further charges of supplying prohibited drugs be taken into account on a Form 1. All five offences were committed in May 2006, that is, after the present offence. He was sentenced to imprisonment for 7 years with a non-parole period of 5 years, which was partly accumulated upon the sentence for the attempted murder. In the aggregate, those sentences expire on 29 January 2019, and he would be eligible for release on parole on 29 January 2017.
22 He remained at large after the murder of Mr Audisho until 3 June 2006, when he was arrested for the drug offences, and he has remained in custody since that day. The sentence for the attempted murder was directed to commence on that date. It was while he was in custody, on 17 July 2006, that he was charged with the murder of Mr Audisho. Thus, none of the period he has spent in custody is exclusively referable to the present offence.
23 I have been supplied with material concerning the attempted murder and the drug offences, including the remarks of the sentencing judges. The victim of the attempted murder was a man whom the offender believed to be having contact with his (the offender's) girlfriend. He and that young woman had had an intermittent relationship over a number of years, although it seems that it was not a sexual one. Nevertheless, he was jealous of any contact she had with other men as, indeed, was she of his contact with other women. On the occasion in question he drove to the victim's home, armed with a handgun. He lured the victim outside, and he fired at least six shots in his direction. The victim ducked for cover but sustained two wounds, one to the left foot and one to the right thigh. These caused him significant injury, but it seems that he made a complete recovery.
24 The trial judge, Neilson DCJ, found that the offence was premeditated and could not be described as a "crime of passion". On the other hand, he noted that the offender was only 18 years old at the time and saw the offence as the product of emotional immaturity.
25 The drug offences were dealt with by Zahra DCJ. It is unnecessary to recite the facts of those offences. It is sufficient to say that the offender was the subject of an undercover police operation, and the principal offence and the four matters on the Form 1 represented a course of drug dealing in which he supplied methylamphetamine to an undercover police officer. His role was that of a courier. Steven David was also involved in the principal offence, a matter to which I shall return when I deal with his case.
26 The offender's background appears from the affidavits of three of his aunts, Muna Shamouil, Amira Shamouel and Elen Shamuel, together with a psychological report of Mr Tim Watson-Munro.
27 He has not had an easy life. A member of Sydney's Assyrian community, he is an only child who was born in Iraq. His parents' marriage failed while he was an infant, and he has since had no contact with his father. He was raised by his mother, assisted by her sisters and his maternal grandmother. In the early 1990's, in the aftermath of the Gulf war, the family left the country, travelling to Jordan and settling in Malta in 1993.
28 He was close to both his mother and his grandmother. Sadly, his grandmother died after their arrival in Malta. His mother had not enjoyed good health, and suffered from kidney disease during the period leading up to his birth. While in Malta, she was found to be suffering from breast cancer. She had one of her breasts removed and had to undergo chemotherapy. He was only eight years old at the time, and during his mother's treatment he had to be cared for by neighbours until his aunt, Muna Shamouil joined them.
29 In 1996 they came to this country. Unfortunately, his mother's cancer worsened and she died in the following year. As I understand it, it was around that time that Elen Shamuel settled in Australia, as did Amira Shamouel and her family. Between them, the three aunts cared for the offender. It will be remembered that the genesis of the offence was the deceased's trading insults with the offender's young cousin, NS. She was a member of his extended family, and it is against this background that it must be understood that he saw her as his sister.
30 He left school before completing year 10, whereupon he had a number of labouring jobs. Not surprisingly, he described to Mr Watson-Munro longstanding symptoms of depression, anxiety and low self esteem. He also told Mr Watson-Munro that during his teenage years he had been the subject of violence involving the use of a firearm and a knife, had witnessed a friend of his shot at a nightclub, and was concerned about what the psychologist expressed as "an ongoing litany of violence" in the area where he was living. This provides some explanation for his carrying a loaded gun on the occasion of the offence. Although this material was not the subject of sworn evidence, the Crown prosecutor did not take issue with it.
31 He did not report to Mr Watson-Munro a history of the abuse of alcohol or drugs. However, he did say that he had consumed a small quantity of cocaine and alcohol on the day in question, which aggravated his anxiety and may have had some bearing upon his capacity to control his impulses. Again, the Crown prosecutor took no issue with this account but, in all the circumstances, I do not consider it to be of significance.
32 Among the observations in the conclusion of Mr Watson-Munro's report were these:
This man has been exposed to a multitude of serious life events including an absence of his father, the ongoing illness of his mother prior to her death when he was 11 years old, a number of alleged attacks upon him and the significant dislocation which he experienced through shifting from Iraq to Jordan and Malta, prior to his arrival in Australia.
An analysis of the depositional material confirms a very troubled child who was conduct disordered, disinterested and evidently constantly anxious. No doubt the loss of his mother shortly after arriving in Australia substantially destabilised him as a preadolescent, with this in turn establishing the basis for his problems later in life.