The facts upon which sentence is to be passed
39 In every case, whether after trial or after a plea of guilty has been entered, it is critical to the determination of an appropriate sentence that the sentencing judge finds the facts upon which sentence is to be passed and clearly identifies them so that the basis upon which sentence is passed is made manifest (see GAS v The Queen [2004] HCA 22; 217 CLR 198 at [30]). In some cases the facts are a matter of agreement between the parties or, after a jury verdict, the facts may be so patent from the evidence led at trial that the factual basis for sentence is not the subject of contest.
40 This case does not fall into either category. Therefore, in accordance with established principles, and consistently with the jury's verdict, I must set out my findings of the facts material to the sentencing exercise. I am mindful that the offender is to be given the benefit of any reasonable doubt I might have as to those facts (see R v Isaacs (1997) 41 NSWR 374). There can be no other category of case where the task of fact finding that falls to a sentencing judge has greater impact than one where the Crown submits that life sentences should be imposed.
41 Mr Jeffreys urged me to make factual findings that would serve to elevate the role that David Weightman played in the death of his parents. In particular, he submitted that I should not be satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that his client was the initiator or instigator of the plan to murder the Weightmans since David Weightman, according to the evidence, had been speaking freely of his interest in seeing his parents dead for some months prior to their ultimate demise, and some time prior to a close relationship developing with the offender. Mr Jeffreys submitted that David Weightman falsely attributed the role of instigator to this offender and that, consistently with the jury's verdict, it was open for me to find that the offender was merely present at the scene of the crime at Weightman's invitation and that he assisted him to kill for reward. In considering that question, Mr Jeffreys urged me to take into account David Weightman's conduct in his own sentence proceeding where he attracted undeserved leniency from a judge of this Court by his deliberate manipulation of the forensic process.
42 On the other hand, I am invited by the Crown to proceed to sentence on the basis that the evidence David Weightman gave at the trial was evidence upon which I could rely and that the offender was a person who took an opportunistic advantage of a misguided and vulnerable younger person in David Weightman in proposing and planning a murder for his own cynical financial ends. The Crown submitted that the chilling account given by David Weightman to the jury of his fervent wish to see his parents dead so that he could inherit their wealth and spend it without restriction (but that he was unable to kill them himself), coupled with his equally chilling desire that they should not suffer in the course of being murdered (or for one to survive the other), was ample evidence that he was honestly recounting the events leading up to the murder and the role the offender played in seeing the murder committed. The Crown submitted that I should find that David Weightman could never have committed the crime without the offender's willingness to do the killing and by offering his additional guarantees that it would be a success by planning the killing, providing the sedatives and styling the simulated car accident.
43 In circumstances where the offender has not given any account of his dealings with David Weightman leading up to the murder, much less any account of the role he was asked to play, and did in fact play, in the killing of David Weightman's parents, the only evidence bearing upon those particular matters is in the evidence of Weightman at trial.
44 I do not regard the fact that David Weightman had expressed a desire to others that his parents be killed as inconsistent with the account he gave of how it came to pass that the offender joined with him in bringing about that result. This is exemplified in the following extract.
45 David Weightman said that whilst on a trip with the offender to Jindabyne he had a conversation with the offender in relation to his parents' financial situation in the following terms:
"Q. What did you say about to Terry about your parents?
A. I said to Terry something about how they have got the preschool and they have got the two cars and the house. He was like, "Well, what happens if they die?" And I said, "Well, I get everything, being the only child". We sort of left it there. I mean, we sort of talked about it on the way back to Campbelltown, but it wasn't a major thing. It was a surface conversation.
Q. When you say you talked about it on the way back to Campbelltown, what did you talk about?
A. We talked about things like if they were to have died, not so much when we kill them, but if they were to have died, then what would you do with your share of the dosh, like what bike would you buy.
Q. Who said that?
A. It was Terry.
Q. Can you remember the exact words he said in that context?
A. I can't recall word for word.
Q. Can you try to say, in the same words that he used as though you're Terry, what he said about the money and the bikes or what bike would you get?
A. Sorry, yeah, it was brought up about a Hayabusa.
Q. Would you kindly spell that?
A. Gee, H-A-Y-A-B-U-Z-A. That's just a guess. But yeah, that was at the time the fastest bike in the world. It was a 1300. It does 340 kilometres. Yeah, it was the beez neez at the time.
Q. What did Terry say about the Hayabusa?
A. That he liked it. It is a big person's bike. I can certainly ride it, but, you know, my sort of frame, I am a little bit short, whereas his sort of frame would fit, and were just talking about that."
46 The evidence continued in the following manner:
"Q. Mr Weightman, just returning to the conversation that you had with Terry Donai coming back up from Jindabyne after you stayed at his place, how did that conversation arise? Did you start it or did he?
A. He started it.
Q. Do you remember what he said?
A. Yeah, it started with, "Oh, if your parents die, what would you get?" And my answer was, "Everything, being the only child".
Q. And what did he say then?
A. It was - it was just, I don't know, a bit of a look, and it was like, "Oh, so what have you got?" by me saying "Everything", that was a bit vague and I went into detail, "a business, the double-storey house in Glen Alpine, the two cars, the whole lot".
Q. You said something about motorbikes or a motorbike, what was that?
A. Yeah, well he said - he said, "What bike would I get?" I had my eye on the Ducati 996 - oh sorry, it was the Ducati 916 at the time. I mean they weren't cheap, they were about 25, 35,000. He started talking about the Hayabusa. It turned - it sort of went from there as in, "Oh, well, if something happened, if I took care of them, then, I would want payment of the Hayabusa".
Q. Sorry who said that?
A. Terry did."
47 David Weightman also gave evidence of talking to the offender on the same topic a couple of days before the murder. He said:
"A. … "Yeah, I'll drug them and put them out, yeah"…
Q. "I'll drug them" and?
A. And like get rid of them, you know what I mean, like, I don't know exactly how, but he was saying that he'd drug them and I said - I said, "Okay". Well, that was - that was like the first step, by him saying, "I'll drug them"."
48 I am satisfied that despite David Weightman's obvious capacity to deceive doctors and the sentencing judge, his disclosure in the offender's trial that his intentions were to achieve selfish ends, with no apparent shame, is illustrative not of his capacity for showmanship or fine acting (as Mr Jeffreys submitted) but a demonstration of extraordinarily guile. It did nothing, however, in my view to diminish the force of his evidence implicating the offender.
49 I am satisfied, having regard to the evidence of David Weightman, that upon arrival at his parents' home at about 8:30pm on 8 January 2000, Weightman prepared two cups of tea surreptitiously adding a number of Serepax tablets. At this time the offender was outside the house effectively in hiding. The cup of tea that the co-offender made for his mother was either taken to her upstairs in the master bedroom where she was lying, or was given to her in the lounge room downstairs, which she then took upstairs. Weightman gave his father his cup of tea in the lounge room. He then went outside to where the offender was waiting to advise him of what he had done. I am satisfied that when the offender entered the house, leaving David Weightman outside, Pamela Weightman was lying on the bed in the master bedroom. The offender entered her bedroom and applied a pillow to her face under sustained pressure resulting in her asphyxiation. Given the toxicological report following autopsy she was unlikely to have been even mildly sedated when the offender fatally assaulted her. This is consistent with David Weightman's evidence that he heard "a bit of a scream" emanating from his parents' bedroom when he was outside the house.
50 Whilst it is not clear whether William Weightman heard his wife's scream, it would appear that he did not react to it. This may have been because of the sedative effect of the Serepax detected at post-mortem which was, in his case, within the therapeutic range.
51 I am satisfied that the offender then proceeded downstairs (leaving the deceased Pamela Weightman upstairs) to enlist David Weightman's assistance to kill his father since the method of killing proved more difficult than the offender had apparently hoped or expected. David Weightman gave the following account in his evidence at the offender's trial:
"So I'm there having a cigarette and I've looked up and I've just heard a bit of a scream and next thing I know Terry comes downstairs, opens the door and he's all - he's all out of breath and he's sweating, I don't know, I - I guess you would say stinking like death, do you know what I mean? And he was like, "Gee, you know, that really took a lot out of me. I need a hand with your dad". And I went, "Oh shit" because - because I certainly didn't want to be involved and like I was - my heart was racing just because I heard my mum scream and that was the point I knew it had gone so far and I couldn't turn back from that, so…"
52 I am satisfied that the offender placed a pillow over William Weightman's face while David Weightman took hold of his father's legs and pinned him to the lounge. William Weightman struggled but was eventually subdued and asphyxiated.
53 Both men then carried the bodies of the deceased from the house to the garage where they were placed into the Mitsubishi. Pamela Weightman was placed in a seated position in the front passenger seat while William Weightman was placed across the backseat. The offender drove the car to the location off Heathcote Road where the bodies were to be left while David Weightman followed in his mother's white Hyundai coupe.
54 In the result, I am satisfied that the offender not only killed Pamela Weightman by his own hand and, together with David Weightman, killed her husband shortly thereafter, but that he performed a crucial role in transporting the deceased's bodies and positioning the body of William Weightman in the driver's foot well before the car was pushed over the embankment. I am satisfied that the offender and David Weightman then left the area together in the white coupe. There being no evidence to the contrary, I am satisfied they returned to the Weightman's home and had a beer before playing a game of pool.