Redacted
AT Melbourne
CRIMINAL DIVISION
Case No: CR-13-00498
DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROSECUTIONSv
MICHAEL ALLEN PILGRIM
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JUDGE: / JUDGE TINNEYWHERE HELD: / Melbourne
DATE OF HEARING: / 15 August 2013
DATE OF SENTENCE: / 27 August 2013
CASE MAY BE CITED AS: / DPP v Pilgrim
MEDIUM NEUTRAL CITATION: / [2013] VCC
REASONS FOR SENTENCE
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APPEARANCES: / Counsel / SolicitorsFor the DPP / Mr B Sonnet / Ms K Maikousis
For the Accused / Mr G Hughan / Mr S Moodie
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HIS HONOUR:
1 Michael Allen Pilgrim, you have pleaded guilty to one charge of theft, one charge of stalking, one charge of false imprisonment, one charge of possession of explosives, one charge of aggravated burglary, one charge of intentionally causing injury, one charge of abduction, four charges of rape and one charge of possession of child pornography. Charge 1 is a rolled up charge of theft pertaining as it does to three stolen vehicles, charge 2 is a continuing offence of stalking over a period of some 13 months and charge 8 is a charge of rape but one laid on a representative basis as paragraph 5 of the opening makes clear. You have admitted one Court appearance of which I will have more to say.
2 The offence maximum penalties are correctly set out in the opening and I see no need to restate them.
3 The details of your offending are set out in Exhibit A which is the summary of prosecution opening dated 12 August of 2013. That is for all intents and purposes an agreed statement so I really do not intend to fully recite the facts, in these reasons. I say for all intents and purpose. The transcript will record the handful of issues raised by Mr Hughan in relation to the opening. On some occasions it was by way of clarification. For instance lest paragraph 2 convey some great success achieved by you as an aeronautical engineer, Mr Hughan made plain that this was not the reality. Further, though false identities were undoubtedly employed in this offending, your counsel emphasised that you had lived your life with false identities well before the planning and commission dates of these crimes. He clarified that in relation to paragraph 10, as to contact being made, it was (your victim) who contacted you in around November 2011. As to the extent of time (she) was held in the purpose built “soundproofed” zone, your instructions were that it was for about 10 or maybe 15 minutes but her impression was of a longer period and you did not quibble ultimately with it being on one occasion for something approaching one hour.
4 Your counsel took me to the various issues and in some instances referred to a seeming disparity between the depositional material and the actual account in the written opening. He did not suggest that any of the matters raised were of any great significance but I make clear that I sentence on the basis of an acceptance of those matters which he did raise. Your counsel conceded that for the most part the summary was an agreed one. Well that lengthy opening has been read in open Court on the day of the plea. It runs for over 30 pages and I really see no useful purpose in my repeating it in these reasons this morning. What I will do is incorporate that written summary, that is Exhibit A, into these my reasons for sentence.
5 It is sufficient if I say at this early stage in my reasons that your offending was offending of a very high level of seriousness indeed. You committed a number of inherently serious crimes against your victim. Having committed an aggravated burglary upon premises that you had tracked her to, having tasered and struck the unfortunate (man) who came to the door of his home, you then abducted (the victim) intending to sexually penetrate her. You then raped her a number of times over the following days not hours and the context of the rapes was of her being held in an isolated rural property and chained to an eye bolt on the floor. She thought she was going to die and the materials disclose really a quite incredible level of planning and preparation for many of these crimes. It is quite chilling to comprehend.
6 For instance the search by you for suitably isolated properties. Ultimately you obtained a rental in a false name, that is of a suitably isolated country property. One that suited your purposes. You then constructed within that premises, within a room, a soundproof area with an eye bolt screwed into the floor of that area and another in one of the other rooms. Their purpose: to restrain your victim. The soundproofing, to silence her. I do not see much need to list now the other indications of preplanning.
7 The opening read into the transcript by Mr Sonnet is replete with them including of course the tracking of your victim's movements months out from the point of your abduction and the obtaining of weapons, disguises and chemicals. The fact is that parallel lives were being led but with no relationship between the two lives. Your victim on the one hand, blissfully and totally unaware of your warped thought processes, of your infatuations and your designs, she was simply going about the business of living her life.
8 You on the other hand dedicated months of your life to preparing to abduct her. Once you abducted her on the 5th July, in speaking to her during her ordeal you raised matters that caused her fear and a sense of despair as to her predicament or position. You mentioned that you felt like carving somebody up and your desire to go on a rampage and to have a shootout with police. You told her that you planned to keep her there and to use her and you mentioned the tracker that you had installed on her younger sister’s vehicle.
9 A number of other comments were made which heightened her fear of you and her concern as to her predicament. (She) feared for her own life and that of her sister's. It was not surprising that she thought she would not survive this ordeal. These were incredible crimes which you committed.
Victim Impact.
10 What do I really need to say as to the impact of crimes such as these? To anyone other than you listening to the summary there could be no doubt as to the foreseeable and likely deep impact of these crimes upon the immediate victim and her loved ones. These crimes are the sort where any reasonable minded observer listening to that opening, if asked, could probably draft a statement of the likely impacts of crimes such as these and not go too far astray. Your attitude at least as of June this year was that “it looks a lot worse than it is.” Well It doesn’t, Mr Pilgrim.
11 Three victim impact statements were filed on the plea and marked as exhibit B. An identified portion of (her) statement dealing with physical impacts is not relied upon by the prosecution so I put that portion aside altogether. I have read those statements since the day of the plea. Ordinarily in my reasons for sentence, I would go into much greater detail as to the impact of the crimes and I would undoubtedly quote material from those victim impact statements. Here, as I understand it, the primary victim would prefer the court not to do so. So I won’t. It is sufficient if I say your crimes have had a deep impact on every aspect of her life. She and her family have been deeply and profoundly affected. Her life will never be the same. I take into account the impact of your crimes. It has been profound.
Mitigation
12 MrHughan, who conducted the plea on your behalf is, if I might say so, an excellent and realistic practitioner, not one prone to overstatement or worthless rhetoric. He raised on your behalf what could be raised in mitigation. There was in truth not a great deal that could be said. He relied primarily upon your early guilty plea and the facilitation of justice achieved by that stance. He conceded the very significant impact of the offending but pointed to your very limited history, your age and background and argued that you had at least some prospects of rehabilitation saying that those prospects were not non-existent. He argued that you had faced in the past, and would continue to face for a period in the future a period in protective custody, with a slight increase in your custodial burden.
13 He dealt with the claimed motivation of the offending and emphasised that you did at least ultimately release your victim. He relied upon two reports one from a psychiatrist Dr Carroll, one from a psychologist, Ms Lechner. He conceded that the offending was very serious indeed and deserving of a very substantial term of imprisonment but argued that the Court ought not pass a crushing disposition upon you.
Prosecution
14 MrSonnet on behalf of the Director of Public Prosecutions submitted that this was very serious offending. There were many factors, he argued, which heightened its seriousness and he relied upon some written sentencing submissions which were marked as Exhibit D.
15 Those submissions were uncontentious and your counsel did not quibble with the submissions, or any of the aggravating features spelt out in the Prosecution sentencing document. When asked for a sentencing range, Mr Sonnet on behalf of the Director of Public Prosecutions of this State, provided a range of between 19 to 22 years with a non-parole period of between 16 to 18 years. Your counsel argued against that range submitting that an appropriate range would fall between 15 to 16 years with a non-parole period of between 11 to 12 years. Well these were each submissions of counsel. They were submissions no doubt designed to assist the Court and whilst of course I pay regard to any submissions or arguments advanced by counsel, no submissions or arguments are binding upon the Court. I must ultimately exercise my own sentencing discretion in this case.
Background
16 Your counsel really did not dwell on your personal background at all on the plea. He relied upon the background as was spelt out in two reports that I have mentioned and again I do not see any useful need to recite your personal background in any great detail in these reasons. That is because I accept the family and the personal background that has been placed before me.
17 Briefly though, you are 34 years of age. Your childhood and early life was quite unremarkable. You clearly come from a good family. You have had good schooling. All the outward signs really of success. You are one of four children with one older and two younger sisters. There is nothing in your personal background to in anyway hint at this outcome. It is true that you had it would seem some social isolation existing at school though still succeeded academically and otherwise. As I understand the materials you were a member of the St Kevin’s College rowing firsts. You went on to tertiary education graduating with a degree in aeronautical engineering.
18 However, by then it would seem your social isolation which had commenced at school had become more far more pronounced. School had at least a structure for you. University and life beyond university had far less structure and though you passed your degree and went on to employment, your life was to a degree it would seem unravelling. You have had no real or true intimate relationships. You have relied upon the services of paid sex workers and in this way met your victim.
19 Ultimately you distanced yourself from your family and it would seem sailed out of their lives for some years emerging battered and bruised and worse for wear from a strange style of life that you led overseas and in this country At one point imprisoned in France for quite odd offending committed in 2008. False identities, firearms and weapons offences and child pornography. Your life had for some reason swerved off course quite dramatically.
20 Jumping ahead, even now as you sit where you sit, you have not permitted your parents to visit you. Nor your sisters. Whether it is shame felt by you or a sense of letting them down is unclear to me. What is clear to me though is whatever your attitude to them, your family still stand by you. They are deeply shocked by your offending. Your parents have written a most thoughtful and valuable reference attesting to their support of you and documenting your descent into a most unusual life apart from them in the years leading up to this offending. I take that reference, Exhibit 3 into account in mitigation.
21 You have admitted a criminal history or record. That is one appearance in an overseas Court. It was undoubtedly serious and unusual offending rewarded with a substantial term of imprisonment imposed upon you by the French Court that dealt with you. The conduct suggests that by that point in 2008 you were well and truly slipping off the rails possessing as you did automatic pistols, ammunition, a taser, a teargas grenade and other weapons and also some child pornography. Your counsel told me also of the unusual life you were leading in Australia when you returned and the creation and use by you of false identities arising independent of the identities created for the commission of these offences.
22 Your criminal history is of course of relevant to my task.
23 As I have indicated, your background is set out in far greater detail in the reports of Dr Carroll (Exhibit 1) and Ms Carla Lechner (Exhibit 2) and I have read those reports again a number of times since the plea. I take them into account both generally and also in as much as opinions are offered in terms of your condition, your motivation for offending and your risks of offending in the future.
24 There is no suggestion that any of the principles from the case of Verdins v. The Queen have any application here. That case is one which deals with the impact upon the sentencing process of various conditions existing either at the time of the offending or sentence or both. That is a gross simplification of that case, but it suffices for present purposes. Your counsel who, as I say, is very experienced was specifically asked and specifically disavowed any reliance on any of the principles derived from that decision. Nonetheless you personal background is one that I do take into account in so far as I am able to. Yours is an odd personality at best (whatever diagnostic tag or label may be applied to it) and obviously has been instrumental in shaping your strange obsession or fixation with (the victim) and your attitude to this offending. But so too is it relevant to making judgments as to the risk that you present now and into the future.