R v Facchi [2026] NSWSC 154

Citation: [2026] NSWSC 154
Court: Supreme Court of New South Wales
Date: 5 March 2026
Judge(s): McGuire J

Background

The offender, Anthony Facchi, aged 26 at the time of the offence, was sentenced for the murder of a 16-year-old victim and for the common assault of another man, Stanley Weatherall. Both offences occurred on 26 April 2024 in Narromine, New South Wales.

On the day of the offences, the offender — who had been released from Goulburn Gaol on parole only weeks earlier, on 5 March 2024 — spent the afternoon and evening drinking heavily. After a confrontation with Mr Weatherall during which the offender struck him on the head and displayed a knife (constituting the common assault, count 3), the offender later attended the victim's home on a different matter. He entered the house uninvited, intending to remonstrate over money. The victim, a 16-year-old boy, was home alone at the time, with his father in the backyard. A physical confrontation ensued inside the house, during which the offender used a broken glass port bottle to inflict five sharp force injuries to the victim's face and neck, perforating the external jugular vein. The victim walked out of the house, collapsed on the footpath, and was pronounced dead at Dubbo Airport at 10:00 pm that evening while being prepared for medical transfer to Sydney.

The offender initially pleaded not guilty to all charges. When re-arraigned on 28 November 2025 — with the trial listed to commence on 2 March 2026 — he pleaded guilty to murder (count 1) and common assault (count 3). The Crown accepted those pleas in full satisfaction of the indictment, and the remaining charges (assault occasioning actual bodily harm and using an offensive weapon with intent to commit an indictable offence of intimidation) were not pressed. The parties agreed the offender was entitled to a 10% sentencing discount for the utilitarian value of his late guilty pleas pursuant to s 25D(2)(b)(i) of the Crimes (Sentencing Procedure) Act 1999 (NSW).

Legal Issues

Objective seriousness of the murder offence: Where on the spectrum of seriousness did this offence fall, given that the offender had an intention to cause grievous bodily harm (but not to kill), the victim was a young, vulnerable person attacked in his own home, and the weapon was a broken bottle?
Aggravating and mitigating factors under s 21A of the CSPA: What weight should be given to factors including the victim's youth and vulnerability, the offender being on conditional liberty (parole), extensive criminal history, limited remorse, and self-induced intoxication?
Effect of the offender's subjective circumstances on moral culpability: How should the offender's background of early neglect, mental health issues, and the Bugmy principles (concerning the effect of profound childhood deprivation) bear on sentencing?
The role of self-induced intoxication: Should intoxication operate as a mitigating factor or should it instead be treated as a factor reducing moral culpability without diminishing the sentence?
Appropriate discount for the late guilty plea: Whether the agreed 10% discount was appropriate in light of the timing of the plea.
Sentencing for common assault (count 3): What was the appropriate sentence for the assault of Mr Weatherall, and how should it interact with the sentence for murder?

Decision

McGuire J began by acknowledging the profound loss suffered by the victim's family, noting that no sentence could equate to the value of a human life, particularly one as young as the 16-year-old victim. His Honour emphasised that the sentence must reflect proper legal principle across all statutory purposes of sentencing, including punishment, deterrence, denunciation, rehabilitation, and community protection.

On objective seriousness, his Honour assessed the murder as falling just below the mid-range. Key considerations included that the offender entered the victim's home uninvited, attacked a young and vulnerable person who was alone, and used a broken bottle to inflict multiple sharp force injuries to the face and neck — injuries that proved fatal by perforating the external jugular vein. However, the offender's intention was to cause grievous bodily harm rather than to kill, and the attack arose spontaneously during a remonstration over money, rather than being premeditated. The use of the broken bottle as a weapon was acknowledged as an aggravating factor, though a limited one given it was an improvised weapon of opportunity rather than something brought to the scene for the purpose of inflicting harm.

Significant aggravating factors under s 21A of the CSPA included that the victim was a child, the offence was committed in the victim's home, the offender was on parole (conditional liberty) at the time, and the offender had an extensive criminal history. His Honour found that the offender's remorse was limited. Self-induced intoxication was not treated as a mitigating factor; rather, consistent with established authority, it was treated as a factor that reduced moral culpability to some degree without serving to lower the sentence.

On the subjective case, McGuire J applied the principles from Bugmy v The Queen (2013) 249 CLR 571, acknowledging the offender's background of early neglect and mental health difficulties. These factors bore on the offender's moral culpability and were given appropriate weight, though they could not displace the need for significant punishment, denunciation and deterrence, particularly in a case involving the murder of a child. His Honour noted the offender's limited prospects of rehabilitation, given his extensive history of offending and the pattern of violence while on conditional liberty.

Regarding the common assault (count 3), McGuire J assessed the offence as falling in the low range of objective seriousness. While the offender struck Mr Weatherall on the head, there was no evidence of lasting injury. The display of a knife during the confrontation was noted as a concerning feature. The same subjective factors applied, including the offender's intoxication, criminal history and being on conditional liberty.

The victim impact statements tendered by the Crown painted a devastating picture of the effect of the victim's death on his family and the broader community, and McGuire J gave these careful consideration.

Orders Made

Note: The full text of the judgment was truncated and the precise sentences imposed were not included in the material provided. Based on the reasoning available, the following can be stated:

The offender was convicted and sentenced to a term of full-time imprisonment for murder (count 1), with a non-parole period to be set having regard to the standard non-parole period of 25 years (applicable because the victim was under 18), reduced by the agreed 10% discount for the utilitarian value of the guilty plea.
The offender was convicted and sentenced to a term of imprisonment for common assault (count 3), also subject to the 10% discount.
The precise head sentences, non-parole periods, commencement dates and any orders concerning accumulation or concurrency were not available from the truncated judgment text.

Key Takeaways

The Supreme Court applied the 25-year standard non-parole period for murder of a child: Even though the offender's intent was to cause grievous bodily harm rather than to kill, the standard non-parole period applicable where the victim is under 18 was treated as a guidepost in the sentencing exercise.
Bugmy principles remained significant but not determinative: The Court recognised the offender's background of early neglect and deprivation as relevant to moral culpability, but held that this did not displace the need for significant punishment, particularly for the murder of a vulnerable child alone in his home.
Consistent with R v Henry and related authorities, voluntary intoxication was not treated as a mitigating factor: Intoxication was instead considered as part of the broader assessment of the offender's moral culpability, maintaining the distinction between intoxication reducing sentence and intoxication bearing on the characterisation of culpability.
A discount of only 10% was applied under s 25D(2)(b)(i) of the CSPA for the late guilty plea: The utilitarian value of the plea was acknowledged, but the discount was constrained by its lateness, entered only months before the scheduled trial date.