"The jury by their verdict have accepted the evidence of Mr Cetinkaya that you presented at his business premises, Willetton Smash Repairs, on 4 January 1997 and there perpetrated an assault upon him in the course of stealing some of his property.
It is not clear what property the jury found was stolen because they were directed that it did not matter whether it was one of the three items, the cash, the phone or the keys, or more. Provided the jury was satisfied that at least some of that property was stolen, then that element of the offence was made out. Apart from this, the verdict clearly indicates that the jury has accepted that unannounced and unexpected you presented yourself at Mr Cetinkaya's business premises on 4 January 1997 and began to harass him.
During the course of that harassment you perpetrated personal violence to Mr Cetinkaya and took some of his property, at least on the jury verdict and having regard to the questions they asked during the course of their deliberations, the keys to his workshop and house. It was put on your behalf that the violence that you perpetrated upon Mr Cetinkaya was relatively modest, but I think that the photographs exhibit 1 show the position to be otherwise.
In my opinion, you offered serious violence to Mr Cetinkaya by beating him with your fists causing the damage that is depicted in the photographs, resulting in him bleeding to a significant degree, certainly such that in wiping his face with his hands blood came off onto his hands, which in turn later, as can be seen, was sufficient to stain the door handles to the entry of his home and further to stain his sorts [sic shorts], as can be seen in exhibit 1.1.
With regard to the second conviction, the facts behind this are that you left Mr Cetinkaya's business premises at Willetton Smash Repairs in circumstances where the jury's verdict leaves a little unclear. Certainly the jury acquitted you of count 3 on the indictment wherein the Crown had alleged that you had kidnapped Mr Cetinkaya in order to take him to Mr Righetti's house at 78 Apsley Road in Willetton, and were further undecided in respect of count 4 on the indictment, which was that at that house you assaulted Mr Cetinkaya with actual violence in order to rob him.
As I say, this leaves the position of how you got from Mr Cetinkaya's business premises to Righetti's house somewhat uncertain. However, at Righetti's house and at some part of the time from Righetti's house to an Ampol service station and from an Ampol service station to Cetinkaya's house and from Cetinkaya's house back to his business premises at Willetton Smash Repairs the jury found that you had unlawfully detained Mr Cetinkaya. In other words, at some time during that journey you had kidnapped Mr Cetinkaya and, worse, you had done so aided and abetted by your co-offenders, Mark Donald Pringle and Michael Angelo Righetti.
I think it is fair to infer from the jury's verdict that it involves an acceptance of the evidence that you, in company with Pringle and Righetti, were taking Cetinkaya to his house with a view to stealing money from him; so much is gleaned from the jury's verdict in respect of count 6 which I will come to in a moment. It does not take a great deal of imagination to anticipate the terror that you must have visited upon Mr Cetinkaya by your conduct in kidnapping him. Eventually he escaped from you at his workshop, hiding under a car in a street some distance away, and then after you left the scene finding his way to a St John Ambulance depot where he asked an officer to telephone the police.
As to the aggravated burglary, the jury by its verdict accepted that you in company with Pringle with Righetti went with Cetinkaya to his house and entered his house without his consent with a view to committing an offence in the house, namely to steal from him. It was given in evidence that your motivation in wanting to steal from Cetinkaya was that you were short of money for lawyers' fees. How you came to believe that Mr Cetinkaya had money is not clear. It seems to me that the evidence discloses that you had no prior involvement with Mr Cetinkaya at all and that you came to his premises in the belief that he carried with him or held a large amount of money.
Whether you had come to this conclusion of your own accord or whether, as I suspect, somebody had said to you that they suspected Cetinkaya carried large amounts of money and you decided to act upon this criminal intelligence, I don't know. I don't think it much matters. It is fair to say that all these offences were premeditated and carried out by a practised hoodlum, as I have no doubt you are.
It seems to me that you have deliberately chosen the low life, a life of crime. It would be wrong to call you the mastermind of these crimes because that would be tautologous, but you were the prime mover. They were all committed at your instigation for your purposes. There is no suggestion in any of the evidence that either of your accomplices Pringle or Righetti were going to benefit from their participation in the kidnapping and aggravated burglary.
The effect of these crimes upon Mr Cetinkaya can only be imagined. I do not have a victim impact statement, but I did see him give evidence. Whilst some criticism can be offered of him that he exaggerated the degree of his physical abuse and the jury were unconvinced by his evidence of the presence and use of knives, there was no doubt that he was seriously assaulted, kidnapped, taken to his own home which you forced him to enter, and from there taken to his workshop. He must surely have feared for his life.
I have looked in vain for any facts surrounding the commission of these offences which could be said to mitigate their seriousness. There is no sign of any consideration for your victim, no compassion, no backing off, and even as he was giving evidence you were swearing foul-mouthed abuse at him from the dock."