R v IRT [2015] VSC 372
Judgment summary
Supreme Court of Victoria
30 July 2015
This summary is necessarily incomplete. It is not to be used in any later consideration of the Court’s reasons. The only authoritative pronouncement of the Court’s reasons is that contained in the Court’s published Reasons for Judgment: The Queen v IRT [2015] VSC 372.
Today the Supreme Court handed down the first sentence imposed under the provisions introduced by the Sentencing Amendment (Baseline Sentences) Act 2014.
The offender pleaded guilty to two charges of committing an indecent act with a child under 16 and 4 charges of lineal incest. Only the final charge of lineal incest was subject to the baseline sentencing provisions.
The offender’s name has not been published to protect the identity of the victim.
Justice Lasry found that Parliament’s intention, as expressed in the terms of the Act, was that the baseline sentence is to form, after a period of time, the median sentence for the cohort of sentences to which the baseline sentencing provisions apply, meaning that half of those sentences will be at or above the baseline and half will be at or below the baseline figure.
In order to sentence in a manner compatible with Parliament’s intention His Honour found that the Court was required to consider whether the instant case falls at, above or below the median for future cases, informed by an analysis of the historical median and historical cases.
In cases falling below the median, His Honour held that the Act continued to require the application of all existing sentencing principles. Giving effect to Parliament’s intention required only that cases at the median are to receive a particular sentence with cases above more and cases below less.
Justice Lasry noted that it was difficult to reconcile aspects of the legislation with the process of instinctive synthesis. His Honour also noted that predictions about how complex the sentencing process might become as result of the provisions seem to be well based and that this was of particular concern for the time and resources of busy trial courts.
In this case, His Honour determined that taking into account all relevant sentencing factors including the full and frank admissions of the offender, his early plea of guilty, remorse for his crime, prior good character, prospects of rehabilitation and mental illness, the sentence should fall below the median.
The offender was sentenced to 2 years imprisonment on each of the charges of committing an indecent act with a child under 16, 4 years imprisonment for two of the charges of lineal incest, 5 years for one charge of lineal incest and 4 years and 6 months for the charge of lineal incest which was the subject of the baseline sentencing provisions.
A total effective sentence of 6 years and 8 months was imposed with a non-parole period of 4 years.