Supreme Court New South Wales

• Medium Neutral Citation: R v Ronald SHIELS [2011] NSWSC 1177
• Hearing dates: 30 September 2011
• Decision date: 07 October 2011
• Jurisdiction: Common Law - Criminal
• Before: Barr AJ

Decision

Sentenced to a term of imprisonment with a non-parole period of 13 years, commencing on 20 April 2010 and expiring on 19 April 2023.

The balance of the term of the sentence will be 7 years, expiring on 19 April 2030.

The offender will become eligible for release to parole on 19 April 2023.

• Catchwords: CRIMINAL LAW - sentence - murder
• Category: Sentence
• Parties: Crown - Regina; Accused - Ronald SHIELS
• Representation: Counsel: Crown - BH Hughes; Accused - JP Watts; Solicitors: Crown - Solicitor for Public Prosecutions; Accused - Legal Aid Commission of NSW
• File Number(s): 2010/96389

REMARKS ON SENTENCE

1 On 29 August 2011 I found the offender, Ronald Shiels, guilty of the murder of his father Trevor Shiels. At the time of the deceased's death he was just turning 42 years old and the offender was not quite 21 years old. They had generally got on well together over the years. The two used to do things together. They spent some time working on a motor vehicle and both derived enjoyment from each other's company in that endeavour. The deceased was a big man, a driver, 1.75 metres tall and weighing 84 kilograms. The offender is of slight build.

2 When he was about 15 years old, the offender began to use cannabis, and from then he used it regularly. During the two years or so before the death of the deceased he began using it heavily. He drank alcohol from the age of 16 years, taking it weekly until he was drunk. The deceased used alcohol and drank to excess on occasions. When he did he became quarrelsome and tended to be violent. Sometimes he became a bully and occasionally there was violence between him and the offender.

3 In August 2007 the offender was charged with assault, threatening violence and causing fear and with having custody of an offensive instrument in a public place. He was granted the benefit of 12 month bonds.

4 His behaviour began to change about two years before the events giving rise to the charge. He fell into a pattern of repetitive speech and appeared on occasions not to understand what he was being told. What he said sometimes made no sense. He stopped looking after his appearance. He continued to use cannabis heavily and to drink regularly to drunkenness.

5 He had a girlfriend and they lived together at his parents' house. In April 2008 she gave birth to a child.

6 In December 2008 an incident took place after the offender had been out with his sister. When they returned home his sister had a sore eye, not the fault of the offender. The deceased, who had been drinking, jumped to the conclusion that the offender had assaulted her, remonstrated with him and seized him by the throat. A struggle followed and the offender picked up a shovel and dealt the deceased a blow on the arm, leaving a wound that had to be attended to in hospital. The offender had been hearing voices for about two months before that event. He also thought that his girlfriend was having an affair with the deceased, though he was also aware that that was all in his imagination. He told the deceased that something was wrong and asked him to take him to Mental Health. Nothing happened. The offender was convicted of the reckless wounding of the deceased and was sentenced to imprisonment for 18 months, suspended on his entering into a bond for 18 months.

7 Eventually the voices stopped. In 2009 the offender increased his use of alcohol. His parents lost their home and one consequence was that the offender and his girlfriend had to separate. He was distressed about that. The voices returned, telling him to run under cars or otherwise hurt himself. He thought that he would lose his girlfriend and had thoughts of suicide. There was an incident in October 2009 when he attacked the deceased with a length of wood. His family took him to Campbelltown Hospital. He was admitted under the provisions of the Mental Health Act 2007 as mentally disordered. He was recorded as being hostile and angry and believing that his girlfriend was cheating on him and that his daughter was not his, although he had no evidence of it. He wanted to hurt himself or others. He was insightless and wanted to break out of hospital. A psychiatrist concluded that he was acutely psychotic and required treatment in hospital for his own safety and that of others.

8 The accused gave a history of cannabis use, commencing at 15 years of age. That would have been in 2004. More recently that had become a daily habit and he was smoking 10 to 20 cones a day. He reported binge alcohol use in the order of 12 or more standard drinks at a time. He was commenced on the anti-psychotic drug Olanzapine. By 27 October he had substantially improved and was acknowledging that he might be suffering from a mental illness. He agreed to counselling for alcohol and cannabis abuse. He no longer had suicidal or homicidal thoughts and no longer believed that his girlfriend had been unfaithful. Following periods of escorted leave without incident he was discharged on 4 November 2009. His medication was then Olanzapine 7.5 mg mornings and 10 mg nightly. He did not believe that he needed to take the drug but agreed to do so. At the time of discharge there was no evidence of persisting psychotic symptoms.

9 When he was discharged he went to live with his family and his girlfriend and the child began living there as well.

10 He was referred for follow up to the Youth Mental Health Team in Campbelltown. A case manager was appointed. He was reviewed by the Psychiatry Registrar once and failed to attend a subsequent planned appointment. He had several telephone and face to face contacts with the case manager and there were a number of documented occasions when he was unable to be contacted. On each occasion of review he was noted to be symptom-free and to be supported by his family.

11 The offender and his girlfriend had difficulties in managing their own lives and the child and after about two months together in his parents' house they separated. The separation was on good terms and had nothing to do with the offender's state of health.

12 Not long after that, the offender stopped taking the Olanzapine which had been prescribed for him on his discharge from Campbelltown Hospital. He did so because the voices had stopped and he thought that he was better. He used cannabis again. Something he said to his girlfriend on the telephone and the way he said it showed that he was again entertaining delusive thoughts of her infidelity.

13 On 19 April 2010, however, his girlfriend spoke to him twice on the telephone and thought he sounded well. On that day a party was being held to celebrate the deceased's 42 nd birthday. It took place at the house of one of his sons in the Liverpool district. The deceased, his wife, the offender's mother and their children attended. So did the partner of the son who was hosting the party. During the afternoon and evening some of the adults, including the offender, drank a substantial amount of alcohol. The mood of the party was happy. The offender played a joke on the deceased by putting superglue in his hair. When he realised what had happened the deceased became very angry. He called the offender a fucking dog and a fucking little cunt. He said that he would kill him. At one stage, early in the confrontation, the deceased pushed the offender back onto a lounge chair as he tried to get up. Referring to the incident of December 2008, the deceased said that the offender had put him in hospital last time, but he would put him in hospital this, or perhaps next, time. The offender responded by asking the deceased whether he had wanted to have a go and said that he should have killed him with the shovel. The deceased told the offender that he would not take him back home and that he would have to go and live with his girlfriend. He twice invited him to go outside the house and fight with fists. Those angry words went on for a long time. They must have lasted for at least half an hour and may have lasted longer. The deceased's anger continued or was revived as he repeated his invitation to fight. The invitations offered by the deceased and the offender were not taken up and there was no fighting. About five minutes before he did the act that caused the death of the deceased, the offender sent a text message by mobile telephone to his girlfriend. The message was as follows:

" Im goin to kill me dad i put supa glue in his hair lol and im fightin wif him c wat happenz "

14 The offender committed the offence as the deceased was standing as one of a group of people. The offender went to the kitchen which was close by, took a carving knife, rushed towards the deceased and put the knife into his temple. The brother whose house it was tried to stop him but sadly was unable to do so. The deceased took a couple of steps back and raised his arms to protect himself, but to no avail. The resulting injury to his brain led to his death a few hours later.

15 The adults at the house were preoccupied with caring for the deceased, who had collapsed. They telephoned the emergency number to ask for an ambulance and obeyed the directions of the officer in caring for the deceased. While that was happening the offender was left to his own devices, but he did not run away. He went to a neighbour's house and telephoned his girlfriend. When the police arrived, he approached them and told them that he was the one that they were looking for, that he had stabbed his father.

16 A few hours later the offender took part in a recorded interview at the police station and made a full confession about taking the knife and stabbing his father. He was plainly very upset at what he had done. Ever since then he has continued to acknowledge his act and has shown strong and clear signs of remorse.

17 That was his attitude at trial. On his arraignment he repeated the plea he had previously made in this Court by pleading not guilty of the murder of the deceased but guilty of his manslaughter. The offender's case at trial was put principally on the basis of substantial impairment by abnormality of mind. There was psychiatric evidence which supported the offender but that evidence did not ultimately prevail. The offender by his counsel also raised excessive self defence and provocation.

18 I accept that on the evening of the party the offender was suffering from schizophrenia and that he was slipping back towards the condition he had been in during the previous October. However, the evidence shows that he had no overt signs of psychosis. I am satisfied that his capacity to understand events or to judge the rightness or wrongness of his actions or to control himself was not substantially impaired by his underlying condition.

19 I am satisfied that the offender stabbed his father, intending to kill him, when he lost his temper in the face of the continuing harangue and disinhibited by the alcohol he had consumed. He did not take the knife to the house but seized it as the opportunity presented itself. Although the intent to kill was formed a few minutes before the commission of the act causing death, it would not be appropriate to regard the offence as having been planned. It was committed in hot blood in the face of the deceased's strongly provocative verbal attack.

20 At the time of the offence the offender was still subject to the bond imposed for recklessly wounding his father, and that might at first be thought to aggravate his criminality. I shall not give it weight, however, because the offender committed the wounding while he was affected by his illness and because the provocative behaviour of the deceased played some part in the events that led to his death.

21 There are several mitigating features. The offender is young. He is not without a criminal record but it is not a bad one. His case at trial was conducted on a reasonable basis, given the evidence available to him, and his plea of not guilty of the murder raised no doubt about his genuine remorse. His family support him strongly. They were present throughout his trial and I accept that they will continue to support him.

22 The offender has been placed on an indefinite regime of anti-psychotic drugs and will need to conform closely with it so that his symptoms do not re-emerge and bring with them the risk of his re-offending. So far he has complied. There is no suggestion that he has misbehaved since his arrest.

23 Given the support the offender will continue to receive, therefore, there seem to be reasonable prospects that he will not re-offend. I think that he has reasonable prospects of rehabilitation. The special nature of his problem, however, will make it necessary for him to have an extended period of time on parole, and I shall impose a sentence which is biased towards parole.

24 At present the offender has to spend more time than normal confined to his cell because of his illness. How long that state of affairs will continue is unclear - a report requested from Justice Health did not materialise and it was inappropriate to delay sentencing any longer - but I assume that as his condition settles he will be able to participate in the ordinary range of programmes available to rehabilitating inmates. However, his illness is a serious one and to all intents and purposes incurable, so the sentence I will impose will reflect in some way the special difficulty he may have in serving his sentence.

25 To a large extent the offender has punished himself. He has lost a father who at one time was his good friend and companion. I think that the anguish his act has caused him will continue. I take those matters into account as well.

26 Notwithstanding the intent to kill and the nature of the attack, I think that the offence falls well below the mid-range of objective seriousness of offences of its type. I have already stated some of the reasons for this conclusion, but I have particularly in mind that the offender was sorely and repeatedly provoked before, disinhibited by the alcohol he had drunk, he finally lost his temper. That provocation was insufficient to justify a reduction of his verdict to one of guilty not of murder but of manslaughter, but it did significantly mitigate his criminality. Some regard must therefore be had to the range of sentences generally imposed for manslaughter.

27 Ronald Shiels, I sentence you to imprisonment for the murder of Trevor Shiels. I set a non-parole period of 13 years which will be taken to have commenced on 20 April 2010 and which will expire on 19 April 2023. The balance of the term of your sentence will be 7 years, expiring on 19 April 2030. The first day on which you will become eligible for release to parole will be 19 April 2023.

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Decision last updated: 07 October 2011