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Supreme Court 16 December 2025

R v Yoo

[2025] NSWSC 1522

Homicide
CRIME MURDER MURDER OF FAMILY WHERE OFFENDING IS CAPTURED ON CCTV OBJECTIVE SERIOUSNESS R ELEVANT FACTORS ON SENTENCE

Citation: R v Yoo [2025] NSWSC 1522
Court: Supreme Court of New South Wales
Date: 16 December 2025
Judge: Harrison CJ at CL

Background

The offender, a taekwondo instructor who operated a martial arts studio in North Parramatta, pleaded guilty to the murders of three members of a family: a mother, a father, and their seven-year-old son. The victims were a Korean-Australian family. The child had been a student at the offender's studio for approximately three years. The murders occurred on 19 February 2024.

The offender murdered the mother and child at his studio. He strangled the mother in a storeroom while her son remained in the reception area and while other students were present and conducting class in the adjoining mat room. The child was subsequently killed at the studio. The father, who had been at work that day, was fatally stabbed at the family home. The offender's motive, as established by the agreed facts, was to acquire the family's BMW vehicle and their money.

The offender had made multiple reconnaissance visits to the victims' townhouse complex in the weeks preceding the murders. The entire sequence of events at the studio was captured on CCTV. The offender pleaded guilty at the first opportunity in the Local Court.

  • Whether the objective seriousness of each murder placed the offending at the upper end of the range for that offence
  • Whether the offender's subjective circumstances, including his background and personal history, reduced his moral culpability
  • Whether a 25 percent discount for the guilty plea entered at the first opportunity should be applied
  • Whether the murders attracted sentences of life imprisonment or lengthy determinate sentences, having regard to the four indicia in s 61(1) of the Crimes (Sentencing Procedure) Act 1999 (NSW)
  • Whether the offender's culpability was so extreme that the interest of the community could only be met by the imposition of life sentences

Decision

Harrison CJ at CL found that the objective seriousness of each murder was at the upper end of the range. The murders were planned and premeditated, as demonstrated by the offender's repeated surveillance of the victims' home in the weeks beforehand. The court noted that the offender carried out the killings in a particularly prolonged and determined manner, repeatedly returning to the office where the mother lay dying to continue applying pressure to her throat while simultaneously conducting a class in the adjoining room.

On subjective circumstances, the court acknowledged that the offender had a difficult background and that his early life had affected his moral development. However, the court declined to reduce his moral culpability on that basis to any meaningful extent, in light of the extreme nature and premeditation of the offending. The court accepted that the offender was entitled to a 25 percent discount for his guilty plea entered at the first opportunity, and applied that discount to its consideration of the appropriate sentence. Ultimately, however, the discount did not produce a determinate sentence because the court concluded that life imprisonment was warranted.

Turning to whether life sentences were appropriate, the court applied the framework in s 61(1) of the Crimes (Sentencing Procedure) Act 1999, which requires consideration of whether the offender's culpability is so extreme that the community interest in retribution, punishment, community protection, and deterrence can only be met by a life sentence. The court found that all three murders, forming part of a single episode of criminality, met that threshold. The court observed that the offender's apparent motive was wholly disproportionate to the gravity of the crimes committed, that the murders could never have been detected before they occurred, and that an element of unpredictability in the offender's conduct remained.

The court placed particular weight on general deterrence, noting that the stark disconnect between the offender's reasons for the killings and the violence he inflicted warranted a sentence that made clear to the community the certainty of severe consequences. The court stated that the deaths could not adequately be punished in the eyes of the community or the victims' family through a determinate sentence alone, and found no basis on which to exercise any discretion to impose a lesser sentence.

Orders Made

  • The offender was convicted of the murders of Min Kyung Cho, Hyun Soo Cho, and BC.
  • On each count, the offender was sentenced to imprisonment for life, commencing 19 February 2024.

Key Takeaways

  • Section 61(1) of the Crimes (Sentencing Procedure) Act 1999 requires a sentencing court to assess whether the offender's culpability is so extreme that the community interest in retribution, punishment, community protection, and deterrence can only be satisfied by a life sentence; this case confirmed that multiple planned and premeditated murders committed in a single episode of criminality can meet that threshold.
  • A 25 percent guilty plea discount, available where a plea is entered at the first opportunity in the Local Court, does not of itself prevent the imposition of a life sentence where the other sentencing factors compel that outcome.
  • The Supreme Court treated objective seriousness as an exercise to be conducted separately for each individual murder rather than as a single aggregate assessment across the entire episode of offending.
  • Difficult personal background and subjective circumstances may be acknowledged in sentencing reasoning without necessarily reducing the offender's moral culpability where the offending is sufficiently extreme and premeditated.
  • General deterrence assumed particular significance in this case because the court identified the need to communicate unambiguously to the community that murders committed for wholly disproportionate reasons carry certain and severe consequences.

Legislation and Cases Referenced

Legislation:
- Crimes (Sentencing Procedure) Act 1999 (NSW), ss 21(1), 61(1)

Cases:
- Adanguidi v The Queen [2006] NSWCCA 404; (2006) 167 A Crim R 295
- Bugmy v The Queen (2013) 249 CLR 571; [2013] HCA 37
- CC v R; R v CC [2021] NSWCCA 71
- Knight v R [2006] NSWCCA 292
- R v Harris [2000] NSWSC 285; (2000) 111 A Crim R 415
- R v Merritt [2004] NSWCCA 19; (2004) 59 NSWLR 557
- R v Miles [2002] NSWCCA 276
- R v Thomson; R v Houlton (2000) 49 NSWLR 383; [2000] NSWCCA 309
- Regina v Quill (a pseudonym) [2005] NSWCCA 4
- Rogerson v R; McNamara v R [2021] NSWCCA 160