R v Matangi

R v Matangi - [2022] NSWDC 228 - NSWDC 2022 case summary — Zoe

[5]

Sequence 2 - Sentence

At about 11.24am on 22 November 2020, the offender re-attended the bottle shop. He was wearing a beige coloured jacket on top of a dark blue hooded jumper, dark blue shorts and dark blue Nike shoes with a white trim similar to those worn the day before. The offender was armed with a 30-centimetre kitchen knife. He approached the checkout desk from the western side of the premises and said to Mr Iteka, "Open it, open it right now" while gesturing towards the cash register with the knife. Upon seeing the knife, Mr Iteka moved away from the checkout desk and stood about ten metres away from the offender where he called for help.
The offender pulled out the drawer under the front counter and removed a number of packets of cigarettes. He made numerous attempts to access the till until the Manager of the Hotel contacted Mr Iteka through a two-way radio. The offender grabbed the two-way radio and pushed the computer screen which was located on top of the front counter. The offender ran back towards the western side of the premises before exiting towards Fairfield Road. The two-way radio was later found down a drain.
Police attended the scene a short time later. The entire incident was captured on CCTV which clearly showed the offender's face.
At about 8am on 8 December 2020, police attended the Crown on McCredie Hotel and conducted a search of the rear car park. During this time, police spoke to a witness, Chang Park, who informed them that he had found a dark grey coloured, Ryde-Eastwood Hawks backpack containing a claw hammer. Police seized the backpack for forensic analysis.
On 27 April 2021, the offender was arrested by Bankstown Criminal Investigation Unit at the offender's home on Waruda Street in Yagoona for an unrelated matter. During this arrest, police seized a pair of dark blue Nike shoes with a white trim similar to the shoes the offender had worn during the armed robberies.
On 3 May 2021, police obtained a DNA result which linked the claw hammer to the offender.
On 8 May 2021, police executed a search warrant at the offender's home to obtain clothing worn by the offender during the armed robberies. Police seized certain items of clothing and two pairs of Nike shoes.
The offender refused to participate in an electronically recorded interview in relation to these offences.

[11]

Background and psychiatric history

The offender was born in Auckland in 2001. His father was born in Tonga and his mother was of mixed Tongan/Māori heritage. His family migrated to Australia and lived in Brisbane between 2005 and 2019.
The offender completed primary school and high school in Brisbane. There were no indications of specific learning difficulties or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. He played rugby league at school, including competitive football. He completed Year 12.
The offender's father worked in the construction industry and his mother stayed at home. The offender worked in the construction industry himself for a period in 2019 after his family moved to Sydney. His family lived in Guildford then Yagoona.
The offender has been in a relationship for the last three years. He has a one-year-old son with his partner and they are expecting a daughter in September. The offender was unemployed at the time of the offences.
The offender had a history of apparent psychotic symptoms. He reported that he "heard voices" after he ceased working with his father, which was in the latter months of 2019. He also experienced feelings of paranoia around that time, believing that people were talking about him and that songs and other content on the radio were about him.
The offender's mother also reported that she saw changes in the offender's behaviour around this time. She stated that he was staying up all night and sleeping during the day. She also stated that he was paranoid and believed that their neighbours were "laughing at him".
The offender was admitted to Cumberland Hospital for approximately two months from December 2019 to January 2020, or thereabouts, for treatment of his psychotic illness. Dr Furst stated that the nature of his symptoms and the length of that admission suggested that the most likely diagnosis was schizophrenia.
The offender had follow-up treatment through Headspace Parramatta with Dr Hecham Al-Hajali, psychiatrist and case manager. His antipsychotic medication was changed due to adverse side effects.
The offender also saw a psychiatrist from the Bankstown Community Mental Health Team (BCMHT) and was prescribed antipsychotic medication, being a depot antipsychotic medication each month via injection and 400 milligrams of Solian (Amisulpride) orally twice daily.
The offender told Dr Furst that he still experienced paranoia from time to time but was no longer having auditory hallucinations or hearing voices.

[16]

Opinion regarding specific questions

Dr Furst stated that the offender was not very bright and had developed a schizophrenic illness with the onset of psychotic symptoms and functional decline in 2019 that had continued in active and then residual form over the last 2 to 3 years. He appeared to have developed a maladaptive pattern of drinking and cannabis abuse over the last few years, with his drinking and desire to obtain alcohol, cigarettes and money being causally related to his offending. Whilst Dr Furst acknowledged that drinking and a desire for alcohol does not, of itself, necessarily reduce the seriousness or moral culpability of the offending, he stated that it was "an inescapable conclusion" that the offender's schizophrenic illness and related functional impairment were driving forces behind his drinking, maladaptive behaviour, and impaired judgment at the time of the robbery offences, including an apparent disregard for the consequences of his actions.
Dr Furst believed that the offender met the DSM-5 criteria for schizophrenia and substance use disorder. He opined that current medical evidence suggested that schizophrenia was more likely to be the result of a genetic vulnerability rather than cannabis being causal of schizophrenia and related psychotic symptoms.
As to the offender's risk of reoffending, Dr Furst stated that the offender was likely to remain functionally impaired by his schizophrenic illness. However, he believed that the assertive psychiatric follow-up and case management outlined in the proposed treatment plan would likely improve his mental health, decrease his risk of reoffending, and facilitate adequate rehabilitation. Dr Furst also acknowledged that the offender's drug and alcohol issues also needed to be managed, most likely through engagement in drug and alcohol counselling/rehabilitation.
Dr Furst was of the opinion that the available history suggested that the offender was likely to engage in the proposed treatment plan, including by taking antipsychotic medication and seeing his local community mental health team, which he had been doing over the last two years.
Dr Furst also opined that the offender's mental condition would make any period in custody more burdensome for him. In particular, he stated that people with schizophrenia are prone to paranoid interpretations of the actions or words of other inmates due to hallucinations and/or delusions, and that mood disturbance associated with schizophrenia can also make persons more irritable and confrontational. Additionally, the presence of a schizophrenic illness and lower than average intellectual capacity also made the offender more vulnerable to being 'stood over', humiliated or abused in other ways, meaning the custodial environment would be more challenging and onerous. Dr Furst also opined that the offender would probably be at greater risk of having further relapses of psychosis in the future due to difficulties in accessing timely assessment and treatment in custody, lack of direct support from his family and case manager, and the increased stress of incarceration.

[20]

Objective seriousness

The November 2020 and April 2021 offences shared a number of common features. Firstly, the items taken on both occasions were of limited value, being a number of packets of cigarettes on the first occasion and approximately $510 in cash on the second occasion. Secondly, the offending appears to have been short-lived rather than a protracted course of conduct. Thirdly, the offender's threatened use of violence was largely by way of his conduct rather than explicit threats of violence and the words spoken took the form of demands directed towards opening the cash register. I note, however, that in the offence of 19 April 2020, the offender pointed the knife at the victim momentarily before motioning towards the cash register. Fourthly, both offences were unsophisticated with limited planning save for the offender arming himself before attending the premises. Fifthly, the offender made no attempt to conceal his identity which was captured on CCTV. Sixthly, the victims in both offences were in a vulnerable position as employees of licensed premises.
The Form 1 offence attached to the 22 November 2020 offence shared many of the features outlined above. The Form 1 offence attached to the 19 April 2021 offence involved common assault in the form of a single push of moderate force to the right shoulder of Mr Ho whilst holding a knife.
The Henry guideline is applicable in these sentence proceedings: R v Henry (1999) 46 NSWLR 346. The guideline provides that where the offence is characterised by certain features, the head sentence imposed should fall between four to five years imprisonment but it should be noted that the Henry guideline related to late pleas of guilty where the appropriate discount was in the order of 10%. The guideline judgment is not prescriptive, but rather operates as a check or a sounding board for the imposition of an appropriate penalty: Legge v The Queen [2007] NSWCCA 244 at [40] and [48]-[59].
As a result of the offender's mental illness, his moral culpability for the offences is reduced to some extent. The offences are at the low end of the range of objective seriousness.
I have had regard to the maximum penalty for the offences.

At a glance

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Judgment (26 paragraphs)

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Cases Cited (3)