Citation: R v Veronica Eliana SALAS-COLLARD [2013] NSWSC 1188
Court: Supreme Court of New South Wales
Date: 30 August 2013
Judge: Adams J
Background
The offender was convicted after trial of being an accessory after the fact to murder, following events in December 2010. Her then-boyfriend (AB, aged 17) and another man had killed a 17-year-old victim after an earlier aggravated break-and-enter at the home of an elderly woman. The offender was not involved in either the killing or the break-and-enter in any way.
After AB and his co-offender returned and disclosed what they had done, the offender assisted AB over a period of roughly three days to evade police. This involved accompanying him to her cousin's home and then to a friend's unit at Miller, where AB was ultimately arrested on 16 December 2010. A related charge of being an accessory after the fact to aggravated breaking and entering was taken into account on a Form 1.
The sentencing proceedings examined the extent of the offender's knowledge of AB's crimes at each stage of her assistance, as well as her psychological state and personal circumstances, including her vulnerability, her relationship with AB, and the fact that she was a young mother with a newborn at the time of sentencing.
Legal Issues
- What sentence was appropriate for an accessory after the fact to murder, given the wide range of circumstances in which that offence can be committed?
- What weight should be given to the offender's mental state, including her psychological vulnerability and uncertain knowledge of AB's guilt at the relevant times?
- Whether the offender's assistance was genuinely voluntary, or whether her will was overborne by AB to a degree that reduced her culpability.
Decision
Adams J found that the offender's knowledge of AB's involvement in murder crystallised progressively rather than immediately. While she was told early on that AB may have killed someone, the court accepted a reasonable possibility that she did not appreciate the full gravity of his guilt until AB described the killing to her in some detail near her cousin's home. Even so, she was aware throughout that he had committed a very serious criminal offence, and she nonetheless assisted him to avoid arrest.
The court rejected the defence's duress argument. AB had not threatened the offender, and she had told police he had never been violent toward her. However, Adams J accepted that her psychological vulnerability meant she did not appreciate that she could or should have declined to assist him when he demanded it. This fell short of duress but remained a significant mitigating consideration.
The court described the offence as inherently serious, noting the public interest in preventing murderers from receiving support to evade justice, as articulated in R v Hawken. Nonetheless, Adams J found this case fell at the lower end of the seriousness spectrum. The assistance lasted only a few days, it was rendered at AB's insistence, and the offender's compromised mental state reduced her moral culpability. Her remorse was accepted as genuine, and reoffending was considered most unlikely.
Imprisonment was not regarded as the only appropriate response in these circumstances. Taking into account the offender's personal situation, including her care of two young children and family support, the court imposed a non-custodial disposition.
Orders Made
- The offender was ordered to enter into a good behaviour bond for a period of two years, subject to conditions that she be of good behaviour and appear before the court if called upon during the term of the bond.
Key Takeaways
- The offence of accessory after the fact to murder carries a maximum of 25 years' imprisonment but attracts no standard non-parole period, and the courts have recognised an exceptionally wide sentencing range, from full-time custody to non-custodial orders.
- Where an offender's psychological vulnerability falls short of formal duress, it may nonetheless substantially reduce moral culpability and support a more lenient disposition.
- Progressively acquired knowledge is relevant to an accessory charge: the court examined what the offender knew, and when she knew it, at each stage of her assistance.
- A non-custodial disposition remains available even for serious accessory offences where the assistance was limited in duration, rendered under personal pressure, and the offender's culpability is otherwise reduced by mental state and personal circumstances.
- In sentencing for this offence, the Supreme Court drew on R v Cowen [2008] NSWSC 104 as a useful consolidated survey of relevant authorities, given the relative scarcity of comparable decisions.
Legislation and Cases Referenced
Legislation:
- Crimes Act 1900 (NSW), s 349(1) (accessory after the fact to murder)
- Crimes (Sentencing Procedure) Act 1999 (NSW), s 5(1)
Cases:
- R v Hawken (1986) 27 A Crim R 32
- R v Cowen [2008] NSWSC 104