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[2025] NSWSC 1573
Supreme Court of NSW
2025-12-19
Garling J
Original judgment source is linked above.
Source: NSW Caselaw (www.caselaw.nsw.gov.au). Converted to plain text by ZoeLaw. Not the official version.
Medium Neutral Citation: R v Sultana (No.8) [2025] NSWSC 1573
Hearing dates: 28 November 2025
Date of orders: 19 December 2025
Decision date: 19 December 2025
Jurisdiction: Common Law - Criminal
Before: Garling J
Decision: (1) For the offence of the murder of Dayna Isaac, I impose a sentence of imprisonment comprising a non-parole period of 33 years with a balance of terms of 11 years to commence on 17 January 2023.
(2) The first date upon which the offender will be eligible to be released on parole is 16 January 2056.
Catchwords: SENTENCING – Sentencing procedure – Instinctive synthesis – Application of Muldrock – Reasons for sentence
SENTENCING – Relevant factors on sentence – Character of offence – Circumstances of offence – General and specific deterrence – Prevalence of offence – Moral culpability – Objective seriousness – Purposes of sentencing – Victim attitude to offender – Post-offence conduct – Treatment of the body of the victim
SENTENCING – Aggravating factors – Home of victim – Record of previous convictions – Series of criminal acts – Use of violence
SENTENCING – Subjective considerations on sentence – Familial upbringing – Mental illness diagnosed after the offence – Lack of remorse
SENTENCING – Life sentences – Whether life sentence appropriate – Whether the offence falls into the worst category of offences of this kind
Legislation Cited: Crimes (High Risk Offenders) Act 2006 (NSW)
Crimes (Sentencing Procedure) Act 1999 (NSW) ss 3A, 21A, 30E, 44
Cases Cited: Cheung v The Queen [2001] HCA 67; 209 CLR 1
Filippou v R [2015] HCA 29; 256 CLR 47Markarian v R [2005] HCA 25; 228 CLR 357
Muldrock v The Queen [2011] HCA 39; 244 CLR 120
R v Isaacs (1997) 41 NSWLR 374
R v Sultana (No.7) [2025] NSWSC 1102
The Queen v Olbrich [1999] HCA 54; 199 CLR 270
Texts Cited: Not Applicable
Category: Sentence
Parties: The Crown
Paul Jason Sultana (Offender)
Representation: Counsel:
Y Prowse (Crown)
Dr G Woods KC (Offender)
Solicitors:
Director of Public Prosecutions (Crown)
Proctor & Associates (Offender)
File Number(s): 2023/17108
Publication restriction: Not Applicable
On 26 September 2025, I found Paul Jason Sultana (“the offender”) guilty of the murder of Dayna Isaac (“the deceased”) on 16 January 2023 at Penrith, in circumstances where he had forced his way into the Penrith apartment of the deceased and engaged in a physical assault of the deceased, before causing her death by ligature strangulation. Immediately following the murder, the offender sexually assaulted the deceased.
When first arraigned before me on 14 July 2025, the offender pleaded not guilty. Thereafter, a trial ensued, without a jury, which resulted in a guilty verdict. My conclusions and reasons for finding the offender guilty are to be found at R v Sultana (No.7) [2025] NSWSC 1102 (“my earlier judgment”).
It is now time for the offender to be sentenced for his crime.
The maximum penalty for the offence of murder is life imprisonment. A standard non-parole period of 20 years applies. The maximum term of imprisonment and the standard non-parole period are guideposts to which a Court must have regard when imposing a sentence: Muldrock v The Queen [2011] HCA 39; 244 CLR 120 (“Muldrock”) at [27].
The Parliament of NSW has fixed in s 3A of the Crimes (Sentencing Procedure) Act 1999 (NSW) (“Sentencing Procedure Act”) the purposes for which a Court may impose a sentence on an offender. Those purposes are: to ensure adequate punishment of an offender; to prevent crime by deterring others and the offender from committing similar offences; to protect the community from an offender; to promote an offender’s rehabilitation; to make an offender accountable for his or her actions; to recognise the harm done to the victims of the crime and the community; and to denounce, publicly, the conduct of an offender.
These purposes obviously overlap and are often in tension: Muldrock at [20]. The purposes of ensuring adequate punishment of an offender and promoting an offender’s rehabilitation, for example, are not always compatible. None of the purposes of sentencing can be considered in isolation.
Section 21A of the Sentencing Procedure Act also requires the Court to take into account, where relevant, a number of aggravating and mitigating factors in determining an appropriate sentence. The legislation does not require a Court to increase or decrease a sentence because of the presence or absence of these factors: s 21A(5).
Over time, the Courts have developed legal principles to guide the exercise of the sentencing discretion by Judges. These common law principles are to be found in decided cases. Of relevance, in these circumstances, is the principle of proportionality, namely, that the sentence should be proportionate to the gravity of the offence.
The common law principles have continuing relevance because s 21A(1) of the Sentencing Procedure Act preserves the entire body of judicially developed sentencing principles: Muldrock at [18]. As well, factors established by the common law as being relevant to sentence, such as whether incarceration may be particularly burdensome, are also to be taken into account: Muldrock at [19].
What the sentencing task requires of a Judge is that they have regard to the relevant legislation, including the purposes of sentencing, the statutory guideposts of the maximum penalty and the standard non-parole period, the aggravating and mitigating factors and the principles of the common law. Against that legal framework, the sentencing Judge has to identify the significance of all the relevant factual circumstances of the offending and the offender. The sentencing Judge is then able to undertake an “instinctive synthesis”, whereby he or she “makes a value judgment as to what is the appropriate sentence given all the factors of the case”: Markarian v R [2005] HCA 25; 228 CLR 357 at [51]; Muldrock at [26].
As the instinctive synthesis approach to sentencing embodies a value judgment, there is no such thing as a single correct sentence. I will bear in mind the legislation by which I am bound, and the common law principles developed by the Courts, when proceeding on the task of sentencing this offender.
In my earlier judgment, I made extensive findings of fact. However, it is necessary to make further findings of fact that are relevant to sentencing. Contextual and other background facts referred to here are from my earlier judgment and I use the same terms as in that judgment.
In setting out the findings of fact which I have made, it is important to note that I am not entitled to make a finding of fact against the offender for the purpose of sentencing unless I am satisfied beyond reasonable doubt of that fact. Any finding in favour of the offender needs only to be established on the balance of probabilities: The Queen v Olbrich [1999] HCA 54; 199 CLR 270 at [27].
It is well established that a Judge’s findings of fact on sentence must be consistent with the verdict as to an offender’s guilt: Cheung v The Queen [2001] HCA 67; 209 CLR 1 at [14], citing R v Isaacs (1997) 41 NSWLR 374 at 377‑378.
I am not constrained by my earlier findings of fact, which were made in a different context and for a different purpose, so long as any finding of fact on sentence is consistent with the verdict which has been reached and the reasons I gave for that verdict. In other words, if I determined a matter of fact on the balance of probabilities for the purpose of reaching the verdict that I did, but did not find that I could be satisfied of that fact beyond reasonable doubt, I am not now precluded from being satisfied of that fact beyond reasonable doubt: cf [2015] HCA 29; 256 CLR 47 at [68].
By way of background, it became clear over the course of the trial that the offender and the deceased, having known each other since 2018, were engaged in an intimate relationship commencing sometime in November or December 2022. The offender knew the husband of the deceased.
The nature and state of that relationship form the essential context behind the events which occurred on 16 January 2023. It is necessary to provide further detail by way of a brief explanation.
Evidence at the trial painted a picture of the relationship in which the offender had wanted more than the deceased did – a relationship that could best be described as not settled. The relationship itself was at a developmental stage and featured a varying level of commitment as between the offender and the deceased. Conversations between the deceased and her parents, and the deceased and the offender, respectively, make it clear that there was a tension underlying the relationship, largely arising from the deceased’s refusal to grant the offender’s requests for a fuller, more settled relationship.
The offender also displayed significant jealousy and controlling behaviours in the week leading up to the murder, seemingly based on his irrational fear that the deceased was engaging in intimate activities with other males outside of their relationship. This provides the backdrop against which the murder occurred.
On Saturday 14 January 2023 (“the Saturday”), the offender stayed the night at the deceased’s unit, which was located in Colless Street in Penrith.
During the day on Sunday 15 January 2023 (“the Sunday”), the deceased had a conversation with her mother, Ms Deborah English, in which she told her mother that the offender had begun to move his belongings into her unit, although he did not have a key to the unit. The deceased also told her mother that she did not want a settled relationship with the offender and had asked him to remove his belongings from her unit.
On Monday 16 January 2023 (“the Monday”), the deceased attended a trial shift at a prospective workplace in Penrith, commencing at approximately 7.30am and concluding at approximately 1pm. The workplace was a short distance from the deceased’s unit, and she was observed returning to her unit in her motor vehicle shortly after 1pm.
The offender lived in the suburb of Cranebrook, which is about 5.5km to the north of the deceased’s unit.
At about 9am earlier on that Monday, the offender left the Cranebrook property, carrying red rope and a roll of box tape, and over the next half an hour or so, cycled to the vicinity of the deceased’s unit at Penrith. I am satisfied that the offender intended to use the rope and tape to restrain the deceased, if that became necessary, during the course of any interaction which occurred later that day.
The deceased died as a consequence of strangulation with cords, being a segment of white electrical cord originally attached to a table lamp and a black extension cord, which were both found wrapped three times tightly around the deceased’s neck. These two ligatures were then used to strangle the deceased to her death.
I am satisfied from the findings of the forensic pathologist, that considerable force was used to effect the strangulation of the deceased.
As well, the offender caused significant blunt force injuries, including extensive bruising around the deceased’s face and neck, bruising on her upper arms, her right leg and the lower parts of both legs. Her nose had been fractured.
The deceased had been subjected to a brutal physical assault, during which she was pleading to the offender to stop. She resisted the offender, who was obviously able to overpower her. She must have suffered significant pain from the blunt force trauma. The strangulation with the two ligatures and the bruising and marks on her skin which it caused, together with the very loud scream from the deceased, I am satisfied, occurred as she resisted the offender strangling her with the ligatures. At that stage, the deceased must have realised that whatever she did to resist the offender, he was intent on taking her life. The last minutes of her life were ones in which she must have been terrified at the thought of what was happening.
I am satisfied that the offender intended to kill the deceased when he strangled her. The assault which occurred, combined with the way in which the deceased was dragged or forcibly moved onto her bed, the use of two ligatures wrapped tightly around the deceased’s neck and then the application of considerable force to strangle her at a time when she was vocally and physically resisting the offender, compel me to that conclusion beyond reasonable doubt.
As can be seen from the fact that the offender took with him red rope and box tape when he left home and cycled to the vicinity of the deceased’s unit and then waited for a period of about 3½ hours or so for her to come home, there was degree of pre-meditation and planning in his actions. Particularly is this so because, I am satisfied, the assault commenced immediately when the deceased answered the door of her unit and let the offender in.
The murder of the deceased incorporated a persistence of criminality on the part of the offender. He assaulted the deceased, in more than one location in the unit, he forcibly dragged the deceased onto her bed where he then strangled her over a period of time using two different ligatures, and then sexually assaulted her before he left. This was no impromptu or momentary crime.
I am satisfied that the deceased suffered considerable pain and fear. The offender sexually assaulted the deceased after he had killed her. This degradation of the deceased represented a true insult and, in my view, significantly aggravated the offence.
The offence occurred in the deceased’s home, where she was entitled to feel safe. This is also a statutory aggravating factor.
A prior record of convictions, particularly for serious personal violence offences, can be an aggravating factor: see s 21A(2)(d) Sentencing Procedure Act. Although in this case, having regard to the offender’s previous criminal record, this is of minimal significance as an aggravating factor.
It is necessary to consider whether there are any mitigating factors of the kind referred to in s 21A(3) of the Sentencing Procedure Act. The circumstances which I have described above, make it clear that there was no provocation by the deceased of the offender. The absence of provocation is not an aggravating factor. It is simply a finding which does not permit a mitigating factor to be found and taken into account.
It is a mitigating factor if I am satisfied that the offender is unlikely to reoffend, or else has good prospects of rehabilitation. I am satisfied of neither of those matters.
The offender, at least since 2016, when he was about 26 years old, has had criminal convictions for a variety of offences, some involving violence, some involving offending whilst he was on parole which has led to his parole being revoked. Generally speaking, there has often been quite short periods between being released from prison and committing further offences. Again, these are not matters of aggravation because the offender is not being sentenced now for those previous offences. However, they do not provide any basis for a conclusion that the offender is unlikely to reoffend. Nor do they provide any basis for a conclusion that he has good prospects of rehabilitation.
The Crown submits that the Court ought find that it is satisfied that the level of culpability in the commission of this offence is so extreme that the community interest in retribution, punishment, community protection and deterrence can only be met through the imposition of a life sentence without parole.
Whilst there are features of this murder which mark it out as being very serious, I am not satisfied that the offender’s level of culpability is of such a kind as to warrant the imposition of a whole of life sentence: s 61(1) Crime (Sentencing Procedure) Act.
Nevertheless, I am satisfied that the objective seriousness of this offence is at the high end of the range for the offence of murder.
It is necessary to now consider the circumstances relating to the offender, and to make an assessment of the importance and impact of those circumstances, for the purpose of sentencing.
The most significant circumstances are identified in the report of Dr Olav Nielssen of 28 October 2025.
Dr Nielssen conducted his consultation with the offender on 14 October 2025. He had access to a variety of documents, including material from an expert psychiatrist from 2011, psychologists in 2012, 2018 and 2020, and considerable volumes of records from various health entities.
In giving a history to Dr Nielssen, the offender told him that he believed he was in a sound state of mind at the time he murdered the deceased. He told Dr Nielssen that he was not affected by drugs prior to her death – although he ingested a significant quantity of sedative medication afterwards.
The offender denied to Dr Nielssen any admission to a psychiatric hospital, or being prescribed with any antipsychotic medication, prior to the events of January 2023. He denied experiencing any common symptoms of psychotic illnesses and told Dr Nielssen that any reports in the medical records that he had experienced hallucinations of voices were false. He also denied ever experiencing episodes of sustained abnormally elevated mood, or any syndrome of mania.
In terms of his social history, the offender told Dr Nielssen that he was the oldest of three children. He had a younger brother and sister. His parents separated when he was 4 years old and he stayed with his mother – apparently, he and his siblings were often placed in the care of their maternal grandparents. He was educated to high school level and had a mixed vocational record. He had never married and did not have any children, but he had engaged in various relationships which did not last for very long periods. He accepted that he had spent a good deal of time in prison.
Of importance in the documents provided to Dr Nielssen was a report by an expert psychiatrist, Dr Pusic, in February 2011, which recorded that the offender had sustained a severe closed-head injury in June 2008, with loss of consciousness, post-traumatic seizures, a fracture of the frontal bone and a subdural haematoma. The offender required surgery. He had personality changes in the aftermath of the closed-head injury.
Neuropsychological testing in 2020 found that the offender’s overall intellectual performance was around the bottom of the normal range. The testing noted specific impairment in the executive or decision-making functions. Ms Skea, an expert psychologist who undertook the testing, concluded that the offender had a mild neurocognitive disorder secondary to a traumatic brain injury.
During a mental state examination conducted by Dr Nielssen, the offender appeared depressed. Dr Nielssen from his examination, estimated that the offender’s intelligence was in the lower part of the normal range, and that his registration and retrieval of information was unimpaired.
“… I am unable to provide an opinion about whether Mr Sultana was mentally ill in January 2023, and whether symptoms of a mental illness contributed to his behaviour. However, he was likely to have been affected by enduring impairment in decision-making and emotional regulation …”
Dr Nielssen noted that the offender’s mental health conditions were likely to be enduring and would require long-term treatment with anti-psychotic medication and the support of rehabilitation services to reduce the risk of further offences of a similar nature.
Dr Nielssen felt unable to predict the effect of long-term imprisonment. However, he noted that so long as the offender was in jail, such confinement should help to establish long-term abstinence from substance use and provide an opportunity to received consistent psychiatric treatment.
Of importance for the purpose of sentencing is that Dr Nielssen’s diagnosis of schizophrenia relates to a history and reported symptomatology taking place after the offender was arrested for the murder. He expresses no opinion that the offender’s mental health conditions contributed to the commission of the offence at all, let alone in a material way.
The diagnosis of cognitive impairment placed the offender at the bottom end of the normal range. Again, Dr Nielssen did not express an opinion that that cognitive impairment contributed to the commission of the offence in a material way, but noted that it was likely to have had some effect.
I should also note that, when Dr Nielssen was asked to express an opinion about the likely impact on the offender’s mental condition of a sentence of imprisonment, including a lengthy one, he did not suggest that there would be any adverse effect on his mental condition. Rather, his opinion seems to include the benefit of the availability of consistent psychiatric treatment, including medication. I accept that the administration of such psychiatric treatment, including medication, would, as Dr Nielssen said, only be reliably administered in the psychiatric ward of a correctional centre or hospital, or in a wing with close support from mental health services.
Dr Nielssen’s report expressed no opinion as to whether the diagnosed mental illness would make the conditions of the offender’s time in custody any more onerous than any other offender.
Nevertheless, I accept that, if an offender is required to spend significant time in the psychiatric ward of a correctional centre or Justice Health facility, or in some other form of hospital ward where psychiatric treatment can be administered, that is likely to be more onerous and more restrictive than being in the general prison population. Due allowance will be made for that.
There was no evidence or material put before the Court which confirmed the correctness of the history given to Dr Nielssen, or recorded in any of the earlier expert reports. I view with caution the accuracy of the histories provided.
Overall, I am satisfied that, from such information as is available, the offender grew up in a home where, from an early time, his father and mother were separated. He had a very limited relationship with his father, followed by a significant period of no relationship at all. Whilst he was educated, including at high school, his education experience was limited, intermittent and disrupted. Ultimately, having left school as soon as he could, he did obtain his School Certificate from a TAFE institution.
The Court heard a number of Victim Impact Statements from the family of the deceased. Those statements made clear that the death of the deceased has caused significant harm and distress to them.
Of particular note, arising from those statements, was the loss suffered by the deceased’s two young daughters, who will never have their mother available to them for all the important occasions in their lives. The offender well-knew that the deceased was the mother of two young daughters.
Pursuant to s 30E(3) of the Sentencing Procedure Act, I consider that it is appropriate to take these statements into account. I do so on the basis that the harmful impact on the family of the deceased is an aspect of the harm done to the community, as a whole, by the offender.
In considering the appropriate sentence to be imposed on the offender, I commence with the reminder that the offence of murder involves the criminal and intentional taking of a human life. It is a violation of the sanctity of human life, which is a concept at the heart of a civilised community.
Any conviction for murder warrants a substantial sentence because the purposes of punishment and general deterrence are of significant importance.
In the offender’s case, the murder occurred in the circumstances of an intimate domestic relationship, albeit one that was not fully developed. It occurred in the home of the deceased, where that relationship had been, in part, explored. There is no reason to find that the offender’s moral culpability for the offence has been, in any way, reduced. He has not satisfied me that his current diagnosis of schizophrenia, a recognised mental health impairment, was in any way related to, or causative of, the offence.
In those circumstances, general deterrence is of real and significant importance.
In the circumstances of this offence, as well, there is a need for specific deterrence, and it is very important for the Court in imposing the sentence to denounce, wholly, the conduct in the community. Any sentence must reflect the gravity and seriousness of this particular offence.
It was a premeditated offence. It was at the high-end of the range for murder, although I am not satisfied it reached a level which warrants the imposition of a whole of life term. There were aggravating features about the offence, including the defilement of the deceased’s body immediately after she died.
The offender positively misled people in the immediate aftermath of the offence. There is no material upon which I can find that the offender is unlikely to reoffend or that he has any reasonable prospects of rehabilitation.
The offender ignored the deceased’s pleas to stop and persisted in his cruel attack on her, which made her last moments full of pain and fear. Sheer terror would an appropriate description.
There is, in the offender’s upbringing, no matters which would lead to any reduction in his moral culpability for this offence.
I am not satisfied that I should make a finding of special circumstances as the law permits: s 44(2) of the Sentencing Procedure Act.
In my view, the usual period of parole will be adequate to assist the offender to reintegrate into the community on the completion of his non-parole period. There is no other sufficient reason which has not already been taken into account to justify a finding of specific circumstances.
I have now discussed all of the facts relevant for sentence, including the relevant, albeit minimal, subjective circumstances of the offender. It is now necessary to make a value judgment as to the appropriate sentence to be imposed for the offence.
Paul Jason Sultana, I impose the following sentence upon you:
For the offence of the murder of Dayna Isaac, I impose a sentence of imprisonment comprising a non-parole period of 33 years with a balance of terms of 11 years to commence on 17 January 2023.
The first date upon which the offender will be eligible to be released on parole is 16 January 2056.
**********
R
Sultana
(1997) 41 NSWLR 374
This is entirely appropriate given, as I have said, the different context and purpose for which facts are found on sentence. In this regard, the parties have tendered other evidence for the purpose of sentence, and I have had the benefit of further submissions by both parties.
After arriving in the vicinity of the deceased’s apartment, at about 9.30am, the offender concealed himself in the vicinity of the unit complex, or in its surrounds, until the deceased arrived home.
Shortly after the deceased returned to her unit, Ms Kelly Ryan, a neighbour of the deceased, heard a male voice and female voice, engaged in a heated argument, coming from the deceased’s unit. The male, who was identified by Ms Ryan as the offender, was heard telling the deceased to “shut up”. Ms Ryan heard several words and phrases, including “stop” and “don’t” being said loudly by the deceased, accompanied by several loud thuds and following a very loud scream from the deceased, which Ms Ryan described as “one of the worst screams which I have ever heard in my life”. Ms Ryan did not hear anything further from within the deceased’s unit.
The offender then walked out of the deceased’s unit in a calm and somewhat casual manner, carrying the keys to her motor vehicle (“the RAV4”), entered the basement level carpark of the unit complex, and drove her car out of the complex. At no time did the offender call an ambulance.
At about 2.10pm, the offender telephoned his mother, Ms Janet Tsiliris, stating repeatedly, “it’s bad”, before picking her up in the RAV4. The offender then drove Ms Tsiliris to the deceased’s unit complex and escorted her inside of the deceased’s unit, where she observed the body of the deceased laying face up on the bed. Upon sighting the deceased, Ms Tsiliris said “Oh my God, what have you done? You can't fix this. I can't be here", before leaving the unit. She, later that afternoon, went to the Penrith Police Station and reported what she had seen.
The offender left the deceased’s unit not long after Ms Tsiliris, and proceeded to drive the deceased’s RAV4 to an area of bushland at Castlereagh, before setting it alight and entirely destroying it.
At approximately 4.20pm, police gained access to the deceased’s unit, where they found the body of the deceased lying on her bed. She had been physically assaulted, with obvious facial wounds, and she had two ligatures, one white and one black, tightly wound around her neck. Scattered throughout the unit was also a significant quantity of blood stains, as well as a indentation hole in the wall, immediately opposite the front door to the unit.
I am satisfied beyond reasonable doubt, based on the evidence recovered from the deceased’s unit, that when the deceased voluntarily opened her front door to the offender, an argument ensued, during which the deceased was pushed back into the wall, causing a large area of indentation. She was then physically assaulted and was forcibly dragged or moved into the bedroom area, where a further struggle ensued and she was again assaulted. I am satisfied that the offender then used two ligatures, which he had wrapped three times around the neck of the deceased, to deliberately strangle her and thereby to cause her death.
As well, I am satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that the combination of several matters, including the presence of the offender’s DNA in the deceased’s vagina and vulval area, the position of the deceased’s body on the bed, and the fact that, after she had been strangled, her trousers and underpants had been pulled down to below her knees and near her ankles, that the offender sexually assaulted the deceased after he had murdered her.
The offender was placed under arrest by officers at the Cranebrook property in the early hours of the morning of 17 January 2023 and remanded in custody. He has remained in custody since that time.
The offender is not obliged to express, and cannot be punished for not expressing, remorse or showing that he has accepted responsibility for his actions and acknowledging the loss caused by his action at all. But the absence of any such expressions contributes to my conclusion with respect to the offender’s prospects of rehabilitation and the likelihood of reoffending.
Dr Nielssen expressed the opinion that the offender suffered from schizophrenia. That opinion was based on the bizarre delusional belief reported by the offender, and the fact that there had been a pattern of treatment in custody with a moderate dose of a potent antipsychotic medication. Dr Nielssen noted that the syndrome of schizophrenia is more common in people who have had acquired brain injuries, and that the illness appeared to him to have emerged sometime after the psychological assessments conducted in 2018 and 2020 because, upon the history available at that time, there were no objective features of a psychotic illness.
In addition to the diagnosis of schizophrenia and the formal diagnosis of an acquired brain injury, Dr Nielssen also diagnosed the offender as having a substance use disorder. He noted that that was largely in remission.
Dr Nielssen expressed an opinion that, from all of the information available to him:
Thereafter, he had an intermittent employment history. That history may have been a product of, or at least influenced by, his mild cognitive impairment deriving from his brain injury.
His previous history of criminal offences was not said, on the information provided to me, to be associated with any mental illness, nor any diagnosis of schizophrenia.
His present diagnosis of schizophrenia, which I accept on the basis of Dr Nielssen’s evidence, relates only to the time after his arrest for his present offence.
There is nothing in the material available on sentence which would suggest that there is any basis for a reduction in the offender’s moral culpability for the offence, by reason of his upbringing, his cognitive impairment, or his recently diagnosed mental health condition. I have no reason to find that the offender ought not carry to the fullest extent his moral culpability for this crime.
The offender does not get the benefit of any leniency in relation to a good prior criminal record, nor does he obtain any leniency by reason of any expression of remorse or regret for his offences.
His conversations and the things he said to his fellow prisoner, who is described as “Person A”, also do not suggest that he is entitled to any leniency. Rather, I would characterise his conversations with Person A as being the offender engaging in boasting about what he had done.
Intimate domestic partner violence is a scourge in a civilised society. The offender’s conduct is to be denounced completely. There is simply no place at all in our community for conduct of this kind. It must be marked with significant disapprobation.
I determine the appropriate sentence for the offence to be 44 years imprisonment with a non-parole period of 33 years. The sentence will commence on 17 January 2023, to reflect the time which the offender has spent in custody since committing this offence prior to sentence.