Citation: R v Fredes [2020] NSWSC 1332
Court: Supreme Court of New South Wales
Date: 1 October 2020
Judge(s): Hidden AJ
Background
The offender, a 58-year-old man, was sentenced for the murder of his long-term domestic partner, aged 43, at their shared home in Glenfield in the early hours of 11 October 2018. The couple had been together for approximately 15 years and had two young children, aged 7 and 8 at the time of the offence. Although their relationship had broken down years earlier, they had continued to share the same house.
On the night of the offence, the offender attempted to initiate intimacy with the deceased. She rejected him and reminded him that she was seeing another man. The offender went to the kitchen, retrieved a large knife with a 25-centimetre blade, returned to her bedroom, and stabbed her once in the back. The wound penetrated approximately 13 to 15 centimetres, passing through a shoulder blade and into the right lung. The deceased died at 2.53am.
The offender immediately expressed remorse at the scene, asking the deceased's housemate to call an ambulance and sobbing repeatedly that he was sorry. He admitted to police that jealousy and rejection had driven his actions, and he participated in a recorded interview in which he said he had not intended to kill her. He pleaded guilty in the Local Court.
Legal Issues
- What was the appropriate starting-point sentence for the murder, having regard to the objective seriousness of the offence?
- What weight should be given to the offender's plea of guilty and the associated utilitarian discount?
- How should the offender's personal history, including a background of childhood physical and sexual abuse and its documented psychological effects, bear on the sentence?
- Whether genuine remorse and good prospects of rehabilitation warranted further mitigation.
- Whether special circumstances existed to justify departing from the standard statutory proportion between the non-parole period and the total sentence.
Decision
Hidden AJ assessed the objective gravity of the offence as considerable. The killing occurred in a domestic context and was motivated by jealousy and rejection. The offender had armed himself with a large kitchen knife and deliberately stabbed the deceased in the back while she was in bed. His stated intent, accepted for sentencing purposes, was to cause grievous bodily harm rather than death, and the offence was described as a single, isolated act. Nonetheless, the court treated the objective circumstances as serious.
The offender's subjective case attracted meaningful mitigation. A psychological report from Dr Marcelo Rodriguez detailed a significant history of childhood physical and sexual abuse, which had lasting psychological consequences. The court accepted that this background was relevant to the offender's emotional state and conduct, though it did not excuse the offence. The court also took into account the offender's age (60 at the time of sentence), his lack of any meaningful criminal history, and its satisfaction that he was genuinely remorseful, a conclusion supported by his conduct immediately after the stabbing and consistently thereafter.
The guilty plea, entered in the Local Court, was treated as having considerable utilitarian value. Under the applicable statutory regime, it attracted a 25 per cent reduction to the sentence. The court set the pre-discount starting point at 23 years' imprisonment, reduced to 17 years and 3 months following that discount.
The court declined to find special circumstances warranting a departure from the standard statutory proportion between the non-parole period and the balance of term. Hidden AJ observed that applying the statutory proportion still produced a substantial period of parole eligibility, and that a shorter non-parole period would not adequately reflect the seriousness of the offending.
Orders Made
- Total sentence of 17 years and 3 months' imprisonment for murder.
- Non-parole period of 13 years, commencing 11 October 2018 and expiring 10 October 2031.
- Balance of term of 4 years and 3 months, commencing 11 October 2031 and expiring 10 January 2036.
- Eligible for release on parole on 11 October 2031.
Key Takeaways
- In a domestic murder involving a single stab wound and an accepted intent to cause grievous bodily harm rather than to kill, the Supreme Court set a pre-discount starting point of 23 years, reflecting the serious but not worst-category nature of the offending.
- A guilty plea entered at the earliest available opportunity, in the Local Court, was treated as having significant utilitarian value and attracted the maximum statutory discount of 25 per cent.
- Documented childhood trauma and its psychological sequelae can constitute genuine mitigating factors in a murder sentence, without diminishing the court's assessment of objective seriousness or excusing the conduct.
- Genuine remorse, demonstrated consistently from the moment of the offence through to sentencing, was accepted as a mitigating consideration where it was corroborated by the offender's conduct and admissions at the scene and to police.
- Special circumstances will not be found merely because a lengthy sentence produces a substantial non-parole period; the court declined to depart from the statutory proportion where the standard formula still permitted a meaningful period of parole eligibility.
Legislation and Cases Referenced
Legislation:
- Statutory provisions governing the non-parole period proportion and guilty plea discounts in New South Wales (specific Act references not identified in the judgment text provided)
Cases:
- No specific cases were cited in the judgment text provided. The sentencing judge noted having had regard to a number of comparable domestic murder sentencing decisions from the Supreme Court of New South Wales, supplied by defence counsel, without setting them out.