R v Pitt

SENTENCE 1The offender, Leonard Arthur Pitt, pleaded guilty to manslaughter on 26 November 2012 in full discharge of an indictment charging him with the murder of Jamie Collins on 17 January 2011. The plea was accepted on the basis that the offender was substantially impaired at the time he inflicted a fatal stab wound to the victim. The offence of manslaughter carries a maximum penalty of 25 years imprisonment. 2The offender was committed for trial on a charge of murder on 15 December 2011. However, in early 2012 the offender was assessed as unfit to stand trial and transferred to Long Bay prison hospital as a forensic patient. Following a change to the offender's medication, the offender was found fit to stand trial on 23 May 2012. On 18 May 2012, the offender offered to plead guilty to manslaughter. On 1 June 2012 the offender was arraigned. 3In January 2011, the offender lived in a unit on High Street, Granville together with the victim Jamie Collins and another man, Travis Hunter. The offender was the lessee of the unit. 4On Sunday 16 January, the victim and his brother spent a number of hours working on a motor vehicle at Merrylands. The owner of the vehicle bought some beers and a sixpack of Jim Bean and Cola. At about 5:30 pm the trio went to the offender's residence and began drinking. Mr Hunter was not home at the time. 5The offender was at home. He was given one beer which he consumed. The offender argued with the others over the amount of alcohol that was available to him and at one point threatened to evict everyone. 6At about 7 pm the victim, his brother and the owner of the vehicle went to the Woolworths liquor outlet at Parramatta Westfield where a case of VB stubbies was purchased. They returned to the offender's residence and saw a sign on the door reading "gone away for two or three weeks love Len". When the trio entered the premises the offender was still at home. He began throwing his arms around towards the victim and tried to grab him or hit him around the neck and face. He talked about moving out, either the next day or in March or July. He appeared drunk at this stage even though he had not consumed much alcohol. After the beer was consumed, the offender admitted to ringing 000 because the victim had kicked his door. 7At about 7:30 pm, a neighbour from the unit next door was standing on the footpath outside the unit block. She heard the offender swearing at the victim telling him he wanted him to leave his unit. She also heard the offender say "move away from my neck". The door to the offender's unit opened and the victim ran onto the footpath. He was joined by the offender who was speaking on his mobile phone, saying "I need some help someone tried to kill me". The offender mentioned something about a bottle and a knife. The victim was calling the offender a liar. 8The neighbour rang the police because of further arguments between the offender and the victim. Police arrived a few minutes after 9 pm. The offender claimed the victim had assaulted him by hitting him over the head with a bottle. The attending police noticed that the offender had a small scratch on his forehead and an abrasion to his right cheekbone. The offender was very vague in his allegations. The victim denied to police that he had hit the offender with a bottle. The victim said the offender had fallen over. The victim also said that the offender was trying to get the victim locked up so the offender could take the beer. Police described the offender as extremely well affected by either alcohol or drugs, in that his speech was slurred and his eyes glazed and bloodshot. The ambulance attended and took the offender to hospital. 9Police spoke to the victim and told him they would not be charging him but that an AVO would be applied for in the offender's favour. The victim told police that he would not hit the offender because he is too small. At about 10:45 pm, the neighbour heard the sound of items being broken inside the offender's unit and again called the police. Police attended at about 11 pm. However, the noise had ceased so they left without speaking to anyone. The noise and banging sounds continued during the night, causing the neighbour to call police a third time at about 11:30 pm. Police attended and spoke to the victim about the noise. The offender was not at home at this stage. Police thought that the victim was slightly more intoxicated than when he had been seen at about 9 pm that night. Police returned to Merrylands police station to apply for an AVO on behalf of the offender. 10Mr Hunter returned home in the early hours of the morning and found both the offender and the victim to be drunk and constantly arguing with each other. Mr Hunter tried to go to sleep in the lounge room but eventually decided to leave. He walked to a nearby park where he spent the remainder of the night. 11About 3:30 am on Monday, 17 January 2011, the neighbour saw the victim's brother sitting in his car in the unit carpark playing loud music. At about 4:30 am she heard the victim and his brother talking about smashing the unit so that the Department of Housing would kick the offender out of his unit. 12At about 5:15 am, the neighbour heard the offender's front door open, heard loud music inside the unit and heard the victim say "I want to fucking kill him he's a liar". The victim's brother then said "don't worry. We'll fix it." She then heard someone run from the offender's unit into the car park. 13At about 4 am, police heard a broadcast of an incident at the offender's unit. Soon afterwards, a second broadcast indicated that the victim and his brother were chasing the offender down the street. Police drove to Church Street Parramatta where they came across the victim's brother. He was well affected by alcohol and was searched by police. Police then walked further down Church Street and saw the offender who told them that the victim's brother had been chasing him. The offender was also well affected by alcohol. Police enquired about a knife, however the offender said there was no knife. Police then spoke to the victim's brother who denied chasing the offender and said he was walking home when the offender started running and screaming. The offender complained to police that his house was being trashed by the victim and his brother, although he had no proof. 14The offender was advised by police that no action would be taken. The offender queried this and requested the police remove the victim from the offender's unit. The offender was informed of the AVO and advised to go to the Department of Housing or the Tenancy Tribunal in respect of evicting the victim. The offender continued to insist that police remove the victim from his unit. Ultimately police decided to speak to the victim. They attended the premises where they observed a broken chair with a number of furniture items strewn around the unit, and empty beer bottles scattered around the lounge room. The victim was not in the premises. Police advised the offender that an AVO was being obtained for his protection. 15Police then left the premises and drove to a nearby petrol station where they heard a further broadcast indicating that the victim's brother had returned to the premises and was going to assault the offender. They returned to the premises and spoke to the victim's brother who said he had returned for his girlfriend. They left the premises. Police noticed the victim lying in a chair in the lounge room and asked the victim's brother if he could take the victim with him. The victim's brother declined. The victim was told to go to the Department of Housing in the morning and the offender continued to argue and complain about the lack of police action. The offender then left the premises yelling out that police were chasing and assaulting him. The police decided against continuing to argue with the offender and they returned to Merrylands police station. 16Just before 6 am, the offender attended the Merrylands police station where he continued to insist that the police remove the victim from his unit. The offender was told that a check would be made in relation to the AVO and while this was occurring the offender left the police station. 17At about 6:40 am, a resident of High Street heard a man yelling out the front of his house. He opened the front door and saw the offender walking away from his property. The offender then came to the gate and said "I just stabbed someone, I stabbed him in the heart, he's dead." The offender told the resident that he had been assaulted, had run away, but went back and talked about someone trashing the unit. The resident rang the police. The offender spoke to the operator repeating his statement that he had stabbed someone and requesting an ambulance. 18When police attended the unit shortly after 7 am, the offender was sitting on the front veranda with the resident of those premises. Police approached the offender and asked him what had happened. The offender said "I stabbed him". He was handcuffed and placed under arrest and cautioned. The offender again stated "I stabbed him here" pointing to his heart. A silver bladed knife was found on the driveway of the unit block. 19When police entered the offender's unit they found the victim in the end bedroom, wearing only shorts, lying on a single bed with his feet partially over the edge of the mattress. There was a large pool of blood on the carpet on the side of the bed. The victim had a puncture wound to his chest and was not breathing. Ambulance officers arrived and life was pronounced extinct at 7:15 am. 20The offender was taken to Merrylands police station where he declined to be interviewed. He was then charged with murder. 21The knife found at the scene was found to contain a DNA profile matching that of the offender. A stain on the doorframe between bedrooms one and two in the unit was found to contain a DNA profile matching that of the victim. 22The victim died from a stab wound inflicted to the right of the midline which penetrated through the right pectoralis major muscle, through the right fourth rib, passing between the right lung and the mediastinum and the airway and pulmonary artery. The wound also penetrated the heart. The depth of the wound was estimated at 13 cm. There was a non-penetrating superficial wound on the left thumb. There was bruising on both forearms and some bruising to the knuckles of the left hand. There were various abrasions and bruises around his shins and calves. The minimum degree of force required to inflict the stab wound to the chest would have been severe. The bruising on the forearms was consistent with defensive injuries. The bruising to the knuckles was also consistent with defensive injuries or with the victim landing a punch or punches. There was a concentration of 0.118 g per 100 mls of alcohol in the victim's blood. 23The objective gravity of the offence may be legitimately assessed as considerable, if regard is had to the force required to inflict the wound and the position of the wound on the body. There is no suggestion that the victim was armed, although I accept that the victim may have physically assaulted the offender shortly before he was stabbed and I accept that the victim and/or his brother had provoked the offender earlier by damaging his personal belongings. It is not possible to make a finding beyond reasonable doubt as to the position of the body when the stab wound was inflicted. It appears likely from the position of the victim's legs and feet that the victim was standing when the wound was inflicted and then fell back onto the bed where he died. 24There are however a number of features of the offence that, whilst technically not purely objective, impact upon the moral culpability of the offender and therefore impact indirectly upon the gravity of the offence. These factors include a complex interrelationship between the offender's psychiatric state and his perception of the threat posed to him by the victim and the victim's brother. In order to appreciate the offender's state of mind, some brief reference to his psychiatric history is required.