The Queen v Singh [2015] VSC 738

3 You and your wife met in February 2011 and for various reasons your relationship was kept secret from her family. On 8 December 2011, you and she married - that was also kept secret. In June 2012, under the name 'Robin' you met your wife's family, that meeting was apparently not a success. You seemingly concluded your wife's family disapproved of you. However, the marriage continued and included a trip to India so that your wife could meet your family.

4 In April 2013, the lease was signed for the property in Waxman Parade, West Brunswick and the two of you lived there from then until the terrible events of 9 January 2015.

5 In 2010 you had obtained a bridging visa for residence in Australia. In March 2014 you obtained permanent residence in Australia as a consequence of your marriage to the deceased.

6 There were some difficulties in the relationship with your wife and it appeared that you were in need of psychological assistance in the latter part of 2014. I will return this in more detail shortly.

7 In November 2014, with your wife's encouragement, you went to India to see your family. You were away until early January 2015 and while you were away you gained the impression correctly that your relationship with your wife was deteriorating further. During that time your wife had commenced work at a health insurance company and formed a relationship with a work colleague. She had also decided to end her marriage to you.

8 In early January, while you were in India, the flavour of communication between you and the deceased was angry, at least on your part, as you detected that the relationship was failing. During that time the deceased had decided to separate from you telling others of her intention and had begun looking for somewhere else to live.

9 On 7 January 2015 you returned to Australia from India. For various reasons it became more apparent to you that your wife was conducting some kind of relationship with another man. On the following day, and shortly before you murdered your wife, you gained access her to mobile phone while she slept by eventually finding the right security code. You subsequently discovered a series of messages between her and the other man in her life. You claim you felt betrayed.

10 At about 1:30 m on 9 January 2015, you rang the 000 emergency service and told the operator that you had killed your wife and that you required the police to collect a dead body. You told the operator you had used a knife to cut your wife's throat. During the course of the plea the phone calls to 000 were played to the Court. Alarmingly, your end of the conversation was all conducted in a calm, detached tone of voice.

11 The police then attended the Waxman Parade apartment and found the body of the deceased woman in the main bedroom. She had suffered a large number of stab wounds to her neck, face, head and arms. Next to the bed was the meat cleaver you had used to inflict these wounds. The later post mortem examination revealed some 35 wounds. In the opinion of the pathologist, the cause of death was connected to blood loss and/or brain injury.

12 After murdering your wife and your phone conversations with the 000 operator, you left the apartment and began walking around the streets of West Brunswick. You were arrested by police on an overpass over the Tullamarine Freeway. Your counsel has told me that you were in the position you were when police found you because you had decided to commit suicide. I come to no conclusion about that. You did make admissions about what you had done to police who first spoke to you and you have not since denied responsibility for what you did.

13 In the later record of interview with police after your arrest, you described discovering your wife had been seeing another man. You claimed that you then had some kind of black out at around the time you attacked her. Clearly during this period you attacked her with a lethal weapon and inflicted the injuries that caused her death. As I understand it, you claim that you do not recall exactly the detail of what you did. You recalled seeing some photos on her phone of man she was involved with; you had the knife and then you said you got scared. During the course of the plea on your behalf your counsel pointed out that in your post offence conduct you were co-operative with the police at every stage.

14 During the course of the proceedings on 13 November 2015, the prosecutor presented 18 victim impact statements made pursuant s 8K of the Sentencing Act 1991. These documents became Exhibit C and included two DVDs that were played to the Court.

15 These victim impact statements were from the family and friends of your wife and were heart felt. Several of them were read to the Court by the deponents and others were read by the prosecutor. Individually and collectively they graphically display the emotional harm you have caused a large number of people by the terrible offence you have committed.

16 As is always the case these statements demonstrate that the pain caused by the death of Nikita Chawla will be felt by these people for the rest of their lives. Such dramatic events change the lives of a considerable group of people comprising the family and friends of the deceased. People cope with the trauma in varying ways. The victim impact statements suggest that several close family members will never recover from the death of the deceased woman. There is little the Court can do to ease that pain other than to take account of the effect of what you have done to them.

17 I have taken theses victim impact statements into account in determining what sentence I should impose on you.

18 You were born in India on 14 December 1985 and you are now 30 years of age. You have an older brother who lives in the United States. Your parents both live in India. You were educated in India, including in a boarding school where I understand you say you were seriously sexually assaulted by older students and that has caused you emotional and psychological difficulties ever since. Your secondary education was completed at year 10, by which time you qualified for a computer engineering diploma.

19 You apparently started drinking alcohol and using cannabis from the age of 16 years. There is a suggestion that your drinking was, at times, very heavy and to the extent of losing consciousness.

20 As I understand it, you came to Australia in November 2006 and had planned to bring your parents here at some stage. That did not happen. You now face the fact that your desire to go back to India and look after your ageing parents cannot be achieved. Your parents are aged 53 and 58 and it remains your hope that you will see them again at some stage.

21 Since being in Australia, you have worked in a variety of positions in shops, as a tow truck driver, factories, customer service and unskilled work. You also worked in security in the night club industry, but due to your obvious background you suffered constant abuse. Your prior criminal history arises from your work in the security industry.

22 In the Magistrates Court in 2009 on a charge of unlawful assault, the case against you was adjourned for 12 months and you were directed to pay $500.00 to the Court Fund. In 2012 in the Magistrates' Court you were convicted of assault with a weapon and fined $400.00. Both incidents arose out of your employment in the security industry. The earlier incident involved an altercation at the Taylors Lakes Hotel, the latter involved a nightclub in the city area.

23 I accept the submissions that these matters have very little bearing on the sentence to be imposed on you.

24 On your behalf during the plea, I was referred to documents in the form of references which demonstrate, as your counsel submitted, that this conduct is in stark contrast with your past and also that you are valued by your family and friends.

25 Both your parents provided written support for you. They are also very seriously affected by your conduct. Your mother seems to be in a permanent state of disbelief that you could have done what you did. Sadly, your father seems not to understand that whatever issues arose between you and your wife, nothing could excuse what you have done. Other of your friends seem willing to support you.

26 In addition, it appears that since you have been in custody you have made reasonably good use of the time and been, as Mr Hutton submitted, a model prisoner. You held the position of billet and have turned to religion. You have completed a number of courses and certificates to that effect were produced during Mr Hutton's submissions.

27 Little was said during the plea about your prospects of rehabilitation but I would conclude that, in view of the way you have conducted yourself in custody, they are reasonably good.

28 In the course of the plea, Mr Hutton presented a report from the forensic psychiatrist Nina Zimmerman. She described a history which included increased anxiety and symptoms of panic. These symptoms were apparently linked to your experience of being sexually abused as a child. The anxiety drove you to use alcohol and cannabis. You also experiences intense anger and had consulted a psychologist accordingly.

29 In August 2014, there was a call to the police and ambulance service by your wife because she had found you in an anxious and aggressive state. You were taken to Royal Melbourne Hospital and discharged an hour later. You apparently realised at this time that your anger was a risk to your wife.

30 Following this incident, you sought the assistance of Dr Elliot Goldstone, a psychologist, and continued with therapy until you travelled to India in December. There was some level of improvement but obviously not enough.

31 According to Dr Zimmerman you have an alcohol and cannabis dependency. She also suggested that you 'most likely' suffer from generalised anxiety disorder and depression. You also suffer from panic attacks. A question arose as to whether you met the criteria for post-traumatic stress disorder based upon the trauma that occurred when you were a child but Dr Zimmerman concluded that you did not.

32 Dr Zimmerman also expressed the opinion that your '...preoccupation with humiliation and betrayal that sprang from [your] history of childhood abuse contributed to [your] catastrophic response to having [your] fears of infidelity confirmed. In this way, there was an association between [your] actions on the day of [your] offence and [your] mental functioning.'

33 As I put to your counsel, and as he accepted, this conclusion would not lead me to conclude that your mental state at the time of this offence lowered your moral culpability for this murder in the manner contemplated by the judgement of the Court of Appeal in Verdins[1] and, as more recently explained, in O'Neill.[2] It is nowhere near sufficient to enable such a conclusion to be reached. I have read Dr Zimmerman's report and I have considered what she says but there is a degree of imprecision in her opinion as to the link between your mental state and this offence. However, in imposing a sentence I have taken account of your history and the observations she has made about your mental state and circumstances. I am willing to accept that your diagnosed mental issues will make your sentence more difficult though, being amenable to treatment with medication, that may become less so as time passes.

34 Your plea of guilty was made at an early stage of the proceedings. In addition, as I have said, you admitted what you had done to police almost immediately after doing it. Your plea avoided any prospect of the family and friends of the victim being put through the difficulty and trauma of a trial. You therefore must be given some credit for the utilitarian value of your plea and that you have accepted responsibility for your actions. However, I do not detect any significant remorse. You do not seem to me to clearly understand that nothing your wife did in the days and weeks leading up to 9 January 2015 in any way justifies or excuses what you did.

35 Your actions in murdering your wife were, in many respects, an exercise of control to ensure that she did not share her life with anyone else and you appear willing to pay the price that the community imposes on you for doing that.

36 Pursuant to the Migration Act 1958 (Cth), and in particular s 501(3A), the relevant Minister is required to cancel a visa of the kind possessed by you if you are serving a sentence of imprisonment on a full-time basis in a custodial institution for more than 12 months.[3] The section particularly provides that the rules of natural justice do not apply to a decision under this section.

37 The certainty is that upon the custodial portion of your sentence concluding you will be deported. It may be that this will be less of a burden for you than others since, if your parents are alive on your release, you will be anxious to see them in India. Nonetheless, I have taken those consequences into account in mitigation of your sentence

38 Amendments to the Sentencing Act 1991 sought to establish a regime of sentencing for certain offences, including murder, of what is generally known as baseline sentencing. Following the proclamation of those amendments, issues arose concerning how the provisions could be applied. In DPP v Walters,[4] the Court of Appeal determined that the defects in that legislation were 'incurable' and that provisions are 'incapable of being given any practical operation'. The problems of application identified before the Court of Appeal were concluded to be 'fundamental'.

39 That being the case, and in accordance with the submissions of the Senior Crown Prosecutor and your counsel, I will sentence you according to the principles in application prior to the baseline provisions coming into effect.

40 What can be said about this murder as an extreme example of family violence that has not already been said in so many other cases? You murdered someone you professed to love. You murdered someone who had no capacity to defend herself from the attack you launched against her. Despite feeling betrayed, you murdered someone who was completely entitled to end her marriage to you and form a relationship with someone else if she wished to. As the victim impact statements I have heard and read show, you murdered someone who was loved by her family. You also murdered someone with the majority of her life still ahead of her. You did that in circumstances where there is very little, if anything, that mitigates your behaviour. Your culpability is very high indeed.

41 Domestic violence is rightly the subject of significant public interest after decades of it being ignored or trivialised. This is an extreme example of domestic violence. Nikita Chawla did nothing whatsoever to in any way contribute to what you did to her. Whilst it appears that you were acting spontaneously, in my opinion you acted with some degree of vengeance and control.

42 Nothing about your relationship with your wife and the fact that it appeared to be failing can mitigate this crime.

43 In view of all of those circumstances, for the murder of Nikita Chawla, you will be sentenced to be imprisoned for a period of 22 years. I direct that you serve a minimum period of 17 years before you are eligible to apply for release on parole.

44 Pursuant to s 18 of the Sentencing Act 1991, I declare that your pre-sentence detention is 343 days including this day. That period is to be reckoned as time already served and I direct that be entered in the records of the Court accordingly.

45 Pursuant to s 6AAA of the Sentencing Act 1991 I am required to state the sentence and non-parole that I would have imposed but for your plea of guilty. I therefore declare that but for your plea of guilty I would have sentenced you to be imprisoned for a period of 25 years and I would have fixed a period of 20 years as the period you would have to have served before becoming eligible to apply for release on parole. I have already pronounced the disposal orders sought pursuant to s 78 of the Confiscation Act by the Director of Public Prosecutions.

[1] [2007] VSCA 102.

[3] Note: The section provides that The Minister must cancel a visa that has been granted to a person if: (b) the person is serving a sentence of imprisonment on a full-time basis in a custodial institution for an offence against a law of the Commonwealth, a State or a territory'