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District Court 31 May 2012

R v Stanyard

[2012] NSWDC 106

Traffic & driving
CRIMINAL LAW SENTENCE AFTER TRIAL CATASTROPHIC INJURIES CAUSED DELIBERATE SHOWING OFF

Citation: R v Stanyard [2012] NSWDC 106
Court: District Court of New South Wales
Date: 31 May 2012
Judge: Berman SC DCJ

Background

The offender, a man aged 24 at the time of the offence, was convicted after trial of two counts of dangerous driving occasioning grievous bodily harm arising from an incident on 7 February 2009. He deliberately drove a small Suzuki four-wheel drive vehicle over a sand dune at excessive speed, intending the vehicle to become airborne. As it crested the dune and descended the steep face, the vehicle rotated and landed on its roof.

Two young women were passengers in the rear of the vehicle. One suffered two broken arms. The other was rendered a tetraplegic, unable to move from the neck down. The tetraplegic victim read a victim impact statement to the court describing the total and permanent transformation of her daily life.

The offender did not plead guilty. He expressed remorse at the sentencing hearing and had been in full-time employment up until bail was revoked the week before sentence.

  • What sentence was appropriate for two counts of dangerous driving occasioning grievous bodily harm, where the resulting harm was catastrophic but the offender did not intend injury?
  • How did the guideline judgments in R v Jurisic and R v Whyte apply to the offender's circumstances, including the absence of a guilty plea?
  • What weight should be given to aggravating factors, including the severity of harm, the deliberate showing-off conduct, multiple victims, and the ignored warnings?
  • How should the sentences for the two offences be structured, including the degree of accumulation?

Decision

His Honour accepted that the harm suffered by the tetraplegic victim fell into the worst category of grievous bodily harm. However, he distinguished between the severity of the harm and the objective gravity of the offence itself. The court found this case less serious than offences involving grossly excessive speed on public roads, reasoning that the dangers of driving over a sand dune at speed are not as widely understood as the dangers of high-speed road driving, and that no calm reflection on risk preceded the conduct.

Nonetheless, the court identified several significant aggravating factors: the deliberate decision to show off (found beyond reasonable doubt), the presence of two victims rather than one, the fact that both victims were effectively strangers to the offender, and the offender's disregard for the concerns expressed by occupants of the vehicle immediately before the incident. The offender's traffic history, which included two prior licence disqualifications and post-offence traffic breaches, also weighed against him.

On remorse, the court accepted the offender's expression of regret as genuine but afforded it limited weight, noting that remorse is expressed in almost every case of this type. The absence of a guilty plea meant no discount applied for utilitarian benefit, and this was also a relevant consideration when applying the guideline judgments, which postulate a typically recurring case premised on a guilty plea.

Partial accumulation of the two sentences was ordered to reflect the fact that two separate people had suffered grievous bodily harm.

Orders Made

  • For the offence involving the first victim (broken arms): imprisonment with a non-parole period of 1 year and a head sentence of 2 years, commencing 25 May 2012.
  • For the offence involving the tetraplegic victim: imprisonment with a non-parole period of 2 years and 6 months and a head sentence of 4 years and 6 months, commencing 25 May 2013.
  • Overall combined sentence: non-parole period of 3 years and 6 months, head sentence of 5 years and 6 months; eligible for release to parole on 24 November 2015.
  • Driving disqualification of 4 years from 25 May 2012.

Key Takeaways

  • The District Court confirmed that the severity of harm caused does not automatically place an offence in the worst category of offending for sentencing purposes; the two assessments remain distinct.
  • A sentencing court applying the Jurisic and Whyte guideline judgments must account for differences between the offender's circumstances and the "typically recurring case," including the absence of a guilty plea.
  • Deliberate showing-off conduct, combined with ignored warnings and the presence of multiple victims, constituted meaningful aggravating factors even where the offender had no intention of causing injury.
  • Genuine remorse carries reduced weight in dangerous driving cases where such expressions are, in the court's assessment, near-universal among offenders of this type.
  • Partial accumulation of sentences is appropriate where a single incident causes grievous bodily harm to more than one person.

Legislation and Cases Referenced

Cases:
- R v Jurisic (1998) 45 NSWLR 209 (Court of Criminal Appeal guideline judgment on dangerous driving occasioning grievous bodily harm)
- R v Whyte [2002] NSWCCA 343; (2002) 55 NSWLR 252 (Court of Criminal Appeal guideline judgment)

Legislation: No specific legislation was identified in the text provided.