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THE SUPREME COURT OF
THE NORTHERN TERRITORY
SCC 21555708
21555705
THE QUEEN
and
BRETT DREDGE and
NARELLE DREDGE
(Sentence)
MARTIN J
TRANSCRIPT OF PROCEEDINGS
AT ALICE SPRING ON THURSDAY 23 JUNE 2016
Transcribed by:
DTI
HIS HONOUR: Mr and Mrs Dredge, I will come to sentence you in a while, but first I
am going to say something about what you did.
Mr Dredge, you have pleaded guilty to three serious offences. Taken in the
order in which they occurred, is one of driving a motor vehicle dangerously and
causing serious harm to the victim, Emma O’Connor.
The second in point of time was an offence of being a driver of a motor vehicle
involved in an incident that resulted in serious harm to Ms O’Connor, you failed to
stop at the scene and failed to give assistance. And then the third in point of time
was your offence of attempting to pervert the course of justice.
The accident that gave rise to the first two offences occurred on
21 October 2015. Your offence of perverting the course of justice occurred between
that date and 11 November 2015, when you were arrested.
Mrs Dredge, you have pleaded guilty to the one offence of attempting to pervert
the course of justice occurring between 21 October and 11 November 2015.
This case presents particularly difficult circumstances for me as the sentencing
Judge. Mr Dredge, in a few moments of extraordinarily bad driving on
21 October 2015, you caused horrendous injuries to a young victim, who will have to
live with the consequences of these injuries for the rest of her life. The
consequences to her and her family have been devastating and it is a tragedy that
she has been deprived of the vitality of her youth and saddled with these
consequences caused by your dangerous driving.
In addition, you aggravated the devastation by your callous and cowardly
conduct in driving off without stopping after you had struck the victim and her
motorbike and propelled her and the motorbike down the road. Then you
compounded your criminal conduct by dragging your wife into attempting to cover
up.
On the other hand, you are now 53 years of age. Apart from one occasion of
driving in a disorderly manner and exceeding .08 percent in 1989, you have not
previously been in trouble with the law and you had led a relatively normal life while
coping with depression and alcoholism.
You have two adult children and two young grandchildren and you are about to
go to gaol. For you and your family, this is a very sad day.
There are no winners here today.
The gravity of your crimes is reflected in the maximum penalties. For the offence
of driving dangerously causing serious harm, the maximum penalty is 7 years. For
failing to stop and render assistance, it is the same maximum. For the offence of
attempting to pervert the course of justice, the maximum penalty is 15 years.
As to the facts of your offending, in the main, they have been agreed and
presented in the document which is an exhibit headed, ‘Crown facts.’
At the relevant time, you were aged 52 and Mrs Dredge, you were aged 51.
Together, you lived at a site in the Heritage Caravan Park in Alice Springs.
On Wednesday 21 October 2015, you, together, left your residence at about
5:05 pm and Mr Dredge you were driving your Toyota Corolla hatchback. When it
comes to considering the impact of the accident, it needs to be remembered that this
was a small vehicle and a large amount of damage was caused.
Mr Dredge, you dropped your wife off at the horse stables in Len Kittle Drive at
Blatherskite Park. You then drove the Toyota to a bottle shop on Flynn Drive at the
IGA Supermarket. You were seen there at 5:15 pm. It is not known what you did
between 5:15 pm and 6:11, but at 6:11 pm, you were captured on CCTV footage at a
supermarket on Gap Road, where you purchased alcohol.
So after dropping your wife off, in the next hour or a little over, you attended at
two bottle shops and purchased alcohol.
At 6:40 pm, you were seen driving in a southerly direction and you were the only
person in the vehicle. You stopped on the opposite side of the roadway to the
visitor’s park and appeared to have an interaction with persons that you have said
you knew.
At 6:57 pm, you were captured on CCTV driving north along Len Kittle Drive and
as you drove north along that road, the victim, who was then aged 25, was with her
husband, undergoing a motorcycle riding lesson.
The motorcycle was stationary and facing north. The victim was sitting on the
motorbike and it was positioned 35 centimetres from the western edge of the road on
the bitumen. The engine was running and the headlight and tail light were
illuminated. In addition, the left side blinker was flashing.
The victim’s husband had parked his Toyota Hilux off the roadway on the dirt
verge and he was standing next to the victim, talking to her. The victim’s sister had
pulled up and had parked her Holden Cruze a few metres in front of the Hilux. She
was also standing there talking.
As your vehicle approached the location where the victim was sitting on her
motorbike, it veered off the bitumen onto the dirt verge and proceeded north with the
passenger side wheels on the dirt verge. The front driver’s side of your bumper bar
became lined up with the rear of the motorcycle.
Mr O’Connor and the victim’s sister saw your car approaching and, although the
victim’s sister yelled, ‘stop,’ it was too late to avoid any impact. The victim’s sister
and Mr O’Connor jumped out of the way of the vehicle as it struck the rear of the
victim’s motorbike.
It is obvious from these facts that this was a case very close to involving the
striking of two other people as well as the victim.
The force of the impact sent the motorbike down the roadway. Ms O’Connor
was thrown up onto the bonnet of your car and she struck the windscreen before
being projected 24 metres to her final resting position. When Ms O’Connor struck
the windscreen, it caused the windscreen to shatter immediately in front of you.
In other words, it was your side of the windscreen that was shattered and glass
was propelled into the vehicle. There was quite a lot of other damage caused
because, in addition to striking the victim and her motorbike, your car then collided
with the Holden Cruze, in effect in a sideswiping motion. Then your vehicle swerved
across onto the incorrect side of the roadway before you corrected it and swerved
back.
The time of the crash was 6:59 pm. Sunset was at 6:42 and last light at
7:05 pm. The weather was fine and clear and it is agreed in the Crown facts that the
motorcycle was clearly discernible from a distance of at least 100 metres.
The crash report estimated that your vehicle was travelling at an average of
58.7 kilometres per hour, being somewhere between the minimum of 48.7 and the
maximum of 68.7. There was also a steering absence of between 1.34 and
1.97 seconds in order for the vehicle to veer partly onto the dirt verge.
The Crown facts state that your conduct in not paying attention to the driving and
otherwise failing to drive or control your vehicle in such a way as to ensure it
remained on the bitumen represented a serious breach of the proper management
and control of the vehicle and created a real danger to Ms O’Connor, her husband
and her sister. The Crown facts also state that at the time of the crash you were
under the influence of an intoxicating drug or alcohol and that you drove your vehicle
dangerously in the circumstances.
After the impact, you did not stop. You continued to drive and you headed for
your home. CCTV footage from a supermarket captured your vehicle at about 7 pm
travelling south on Palm Circuit with the rear bumper dragging along the roadway.
You turned left into Palm Place and eventually drove the incorrect way down a
one-way street. A witness saw your car and noticed the damage to the windscreen
and a noise of a piece of the vehicle dragging on the road.
At 7:02 pm, you approached the gate of the caravan park where you and your
wife lived. So within two to three minutes of the impact, you were at the gate of your
home. At the gate, you got out of the car and removed the dragging rear bumper bar
and then you operated the gate to enter the premises.
The call records indicate telephone communications occurred between you and
your wife at this time. So it is reasonable to infer that you rang your wife.
Having entered the park, instead of placing the vehicle outside your premises, as
was the usual practice, you parked it behind the gates. At that time, a neighbour
heard you say and loudly, ‘right in the middle of the road. I couldn’t believe it, right in
the middle of the road.’ Then she heard the front gates opening and slamming shut.
I have a photograph of the vehicle parked behind your gates. It graphically
demonstrates the extent of the damage. It is clear that the major part of the impact
occurred just right of the centre of the car. That is right from the point of view of
when you were sitting in it.
There is a large dent in the bonnet, obviously caused by the victim as she was
propelled into the windscreen, which as I said earlier, is smashed right in front of the
driver’s steering wheel.
Apparently, at some point, a mattress was put over the bonnet and the smashed
front windscreen in an attempt, it must be said a hopeless attempt, to conceal the
damage. The rear bumper was concealed in the rear garden shed.
On 22 October, that is the next day, Mrs Dredge asked to borrow a car and told
the owner of the car that her car had, ‘shit itself.’
Police attended on Friday 23 October 2015. Their examination showed there
were hair fibres in the glass fractures of the shattered windscreen of a similar colour
to the colour of the victim’s hair and there was blood observed in two locations.
It was on 23 October 2015 that both of you gave false statements to the Police in
an effort to avoid Mr Dredge being held responsible for his criminal conduct. On that
day you, Mr Dredge, declared that a person known to you as Donny Tonkin had
stayed with you and, in substance, you told the Police that you were not at home and
that this person, Donny Tonkin, had taken your car.
This story was reasonably detailed. You talked about dozing off when your wife
left to go to Blatherskite Park and you could not remember whether she drove or
walked. You talked about her having to feed her horses. You said that later you and
your wife decided to go to Coles for some milk and a bit of food and some smokes
and you walked. You talked about speaking with an Indian taxi driver and asking
him if he could take you to Coles, which he did.
Of course, Police investigations established that no taxis had travelled in that
area at that time. There was also a checking of CCTV footage at Coles, which
demonstrated that you had not been there.
You talked about wearing a faded black Back to the Future shirt with black jeans.
In fact, you had been wearing a high visibility garment.
You said that when you returned home from shopping, you found the red Toyota
damaged and the rear bumper missing and the windscreen smashed. You said to
the Police:
It looked like the car had hit a tree. Straight away, I formed the opinion that
Donny must have come back and used the car while we were out shopping.
He would have been able to drive through the boom gates of the caravan park
because I gave him our access PIN, which is #1965. Donny was not at the
caravan park when we got back to see the damage to the car. I haven’t seen
or heard from him since and I have no idea where he might be. I don’t have
any contact details.
You created a fictitious character called Donny and you signed a statutory
declaration. It is agreed in the Crown facts that you even went to the extent of
providing a Comfit likeness of Donny Tonkin to the Police and you signed it.
So Mr Dredge, this was not just a minor exercise in trying to mislead the Police.
It was a significant one and you persisted with it for some time.
Mrs Dredge, you also signed a false statutory declaration. You told the Police
that ‘we,’ meaning both of you, had walked over the road to feed the horse and you
had come back to the park at about 6 pm. You talked about your husband assisting
you etcetera. Then you talked about having walked to the shops and then, because
you thought it was too expensive to shop there, you decided to walk into town on the
footpath to Coles.
You told the Police that when you and your husband left home, the Toyota was
present at your site and that when you returned, the car was not there. That was
why you had walked to the shops.
According to your false statement, on your return from Coles you knew
something was wrong because the Toyota was parked underneath the shelter next
to the caravan, where you never parked it, and you saw a lot of damage. Your initial
thought was that whoever had the car may have hit a tree.
Mrs Dredge, you also talked of the fictitious character Donny and provided a
Comfit. So between you, the crime of attempting to pervert the course of justice
started and you did nothing to correct it until you were arrested.
Your conduct required the Police to undertake quite extensive investigations and
that included, as I have said, talking to witnesses, examining CCTV footage from
various places, making enquiries through a taxi organisation and obtaining a
listening device so that Police could listen and record conversations that occurred
between you within your home.
I do not have a complete transcript of everything that was recorded, but I have
selected parts of the conversations, which undoubtedly have been agreed between
counsel because they are part of the Crown facts. The conversations occurred
between 6 and 11 November 2015.
On 6 November 2015, you, Mr Dredge, were talking to your wife and telling her
to stick with this story about Donny. On 7 November, you were heard to say that if
asked whether this fellow exists, you would say he did and that, ‘he slept on the
bloody stinking mattress.’
You were also heard to say, ‘I don’t remember who was driving. I can’t
remember fucking much at all. It’s a horrible thing, this is.’ That, to me, appears to
be you practising what you were going to say to the Police.
On that day, Mrs Dredge asked you, ‘why did you take off?’ You replied, ‘I didn’t
take off, I just kept driving.’ ‘You kept driving?’ And you answered, ‘No, Ralphy did.’
Your wife said, ‘well, why didn’t you tell him to stop. Now, it’s Ralphy.’ And you
replied, ‘it was Ralphy. Ralphy was fucking driving.’ Your wife responded, ‘ah, the
other day it was Alfie or something, then it was Ralphy, then it was someone else.’
On 8 November, you were heard to say that you were still going to say that
Donny took the car, ‘not me, otherwise I’ll get 15 years.’
And I must say, Mr Dredge, it is readily apparent from these conversations, and
it was an expression used by your counsel, that you were totally self-absorbed and
totally and utterly callous and indifferent about the damage that you had caused to
an innocent young woman.
On 9 November there was a lengthy conversation between the pair or you,
during which your wife said to you that you had come home and said you had hit
someone and you responded, ‘yeah, but the thing is I’m going to say fucking he
brought it back and pissed off. He brought it back and pissed off.’
Then there is further discussion. You were accusing Mrs Dredge of not helping
you much and you were saying, and this emotional blackmail is another common
theme, ‘so what you’re after is that I go away for a long time. That’s what you want.’
Mrs Dredge responded, ‘I think you should have stayed there at the fucking car.
I think you should have stayed there and not fucked off.’ And you responded, ‘well, if
I wasn’t driving, you’re not going to help me, so that’s it, we’re finished.’ She said,
‘you should have owned up. You should have owned up to it in the first place.’ You
responded, ‘I’m not doing ten years for someone else that was driving.’ She
responded, ‘why the fuck did you not say that in the first place?’ And she went on to
say, ‘because you were too pissed, that’s why’ and you responded, ‘no, no, no, just
wait a minute, when I get out, there’s will be trouble mate.’ She said, ‘big trouble
with what?’ You said, ‘you’ll see.’
Again she said, ‘I think you should own up to something you did’ and you
maintained, ‘I didn’t do it.’
There was discussion about why you took off and your wife, in the course of that
said, ‘because you were too fucking pissed.’ You responded with a threat. ‘You
fucking look at me like that one more time and do this shit and I will knock you the
clean fuck out and I will go to gaol.’
The conversation, it is not clear whether it is a continuation of the immediate or a
later conversation, but you accused the Police of targeting you. In later conversation
on 9 November, it looks like through to the 10th, you talked about taking a couple of
tablets to get high and passing out and you showed your callous indifference: ‘I
don’t know when the accident happened, don’t care. I was in the back seat. I was
snoring so much, I wouldn’t have even felt a bump’ etcetera and you went on.
You talked about putting your hand up and at this point, you were laughing:
‘Look, I was asleep in the back seat. I was fucking out like a light,’ etcetera. You
were preparing a story about taking drugs and alcohol and out like a light.
On 10 November you said to Mrs Dredge, ‘you know, I’m going to get a hard
time after this accident shit, it’s only going to get worse.’ She said ‘a hard time for
what?’ And you went on with foul language, talking about people who did not know
the true story and there is no need to repeat that foul language again, but you added,
‘oh that bitch that copped it. I hope she’s fucking dead, when you get to be on the
wrong side of the road’; vividly demonstrative of your utter lack of care for what you
have done; completely callous and indifferent. It is not surprising that when that part
of the Crown facts was read to the Court, the victim was obviously distressed by it as
were those who were close to her.
Both of you were arrested on 11 November 2015. You, Mr Dredge, participated
in an electronic interview, during which you said you were unable to recall the
statement you provided to the Police and you said you had a poor memory. The
interview was discontinued because you said you felt dizzy and ill.
I do not accept that at that time, you had no recall of what you said to the Police
and, as will appear later in my remarks, I do not accept the position you have taken
in this Court that you have no memory of what happened.
Mrs Dredge, you participated in an interview and, although you were not entirely
frank, you admitted to the Police in substance that you had given a false statement
and that you wanted to recant the entire statement. So it was prompted by your
arrest, but you did acknowledge that you had made a false statement and that you
were in your words, ‘bloody stupid.’
So far I have been dealing with the conduct of both of you, but what should not
be underestimated is the extent of the damage that you, Mr Dredge, caused to
Emma O’Connor. It is actually an amazing fact that medical science was able to
save Ms O’Connor’s life.
She was resuscitated by Paramedics at the scene and she has told me in her
victim impact statement that of the coma scale, 15 being normal and 3 being not
responsive, she was given a coma scale of 3.
In summary from the Crown facts, the horrendous injuries suffered by
Ms O’Connor included:
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Extensive skull fractures involving the right ear extending to the right base of
the skull and also left frontal bone.
Left frontal extra axial haemorrhage.
Left orbital haematoma.
Bilateral subarachnoid haemorrhages in the parietal region.
A compressed fracture of the L3 vertebrae. That is a fracture in the spine.
Bilateral pneumothoraxes. That is collapsed lungs.
Multiple pelvic fractures and severely displaced pelvis.
Spleen lacerations.
On further examination at the Royal Adelaide Hospital, it was found there was a
severe comminuted fracture to the left hip socket and upper hip bone, together with a
fracture extending from the right superior pubic region to the right acetabulum.
There was surgical intervention with head injuries in the form of a right front burr hole
and intracranial monitoring while at the Royal Adelaide Hospital.
There was a displaced fragment in the spinal fracture at L3, which mildly
impeded the spinal cord.
Ms O’Connor has had to undergo multiple surgeries. The pelvic fractures
required repair. There was a surgery required to remove bone fragment from the
right hip. On 11 November, there was a revision fixation of the left pelvis. There
were multiple other surgical interventions for non-orthopaedic injuries and following
the surgeries, there has been ongoing physiotherapy, rehabilitation and regular
follow ups.
Ms O’Connor remained in the Royal Adelaide Hospital until 28 November when
she was transferred to the Alice Springs Hospital. It was not until 8 February 2016
that she was discharged. She was confined to a wheelchair until mid-March 2016,
although on her release from hospital she was able to walk in a limited way.
There will be future surgeries required and there are still assessments going on
regarding her cognitive and physical functions.
In addition to those Crown facts, I have before me victim impact statements from
Ms O’Connor and her husband. As I said earlier, your criminal conduct has caused
absolute devastation to the lives of Ms O'Connor, her husband, her wider family and
undoubtedly to her friends.
Ms O'Connor displayed significant courage in reading the victim impact
statement in this Court. She has obviously also displayed and exercised great
courage in recovering as much as she has from these injuries and there is no doubt
that she will need all of that courage in the years to come.
There are many, many consequences. Ms O'Connor is angry, sad and upset
about missing time with her child. She is embarrassed by her scarring. She feels
sick every day and finds it hard to eat. Her memory has been affected. She will, of
course, have extensive arthritis in her back and pelvis in the years to come. There is
a limited amount of weight she can put on her leg and she will have a limp
permanently because one leg is shorter than the other.
She no longer has a left hip socket. There are problems with her eyes, blood
clots on her lungs. She described her brain injury was like whiplash, where her brain
rattled around in her head. This is her understanding of what happened.
She does not like a lot of foods as everything tastes disgusting. Her memory is
not good and she had to learn how to do everything, even the simple things like
walking again. All of which was frustrating and distressing to her. She still gets
dizzy, headaches every day. So there is constant pain associated with her
neurological injuries and the physical injuries.
As she understands it, there will be ongoing hip replacements for the rest of her
life. She gets tired doing simple things. And what is clear from the victim impact
statement is that there has been significant psychological distress to Ms O'Connor,
which is obviously to be expected. In substance, it amounts to a psychological or
psychiatric injury.
There were other effects. Ms O'Connor has pointed out that after being in
hospital so long, her child did not even know that she was his mum. It took some
time before he was able to laugh with her or at her.
Today, even screeching tyres scare Ms O'Connor. So there is a fear that will
take a long time to overcome.
Others have had to help out the family and Ms O'Connor rightly praises her
family for the extent of their assistance and also the community of Alice Springs.
She is also very grateful to people from Darwin and Adelaide who have provided
assistance by way of fundraising.
That is an inadequate summary of the horrendous injuries and the devastating
effects that those injuries have had, but hopefully it gives some indication of the
damage and devastation that you have caused.
Mr O’Connor has told me of his depression and of the emotional and financial toll
that this has all had. He experiences flashbacks and describes the stress that this
incident has had on his life is unthinkable. As he put to me in his victim impact
statement, they never imagined their lives as they are now and what they were
hoping for their future has been ruined because of, as he describes it, ‘one fool’s
actions.’
Now, to matters personal to both of you. In a sentencing exercise, there is
always more than one side that the sentencing Judge is required to consider. First
and foremost is the criminality of the conduct and the effect it has had upon any
individual or others involved. So we are talking about the criminal conduct and the
damage that follows from it. But there is also another side that a sentencing Judge
is required to take into account and that is the personal side relating to the offenders.
Mrs Dredge, you were 51 years of age at the time of the offending. You came to
Alice Springs with your parents at the age of 3. You attended high school but left
halfway through year 11, which was in 1978. Others members of your family have
moved to South Australia as well as your parents, who moved over ten years ago.
Most of your time has been spent in Alice Springs, although there were periods when
you were in Western Australia, Wagga Wagga and South Australia.
You and Mr Dredge met in high school in Alice Springs in 1978. You have been
married for a little over 30 years.
There are currently two adult children, but there was a third child who was
adopted because you felt that you were unable to cope. Another child died at the
age of 6 weeks due to sudden infant death syndrome. You are the grandmother of
two young children and there is another one due shortly.
You have never been in trouble with the law before and you have a good work
history. First, you worked as a clerk with a bank for a year after you left school, and
then you were with the Department of Lands for 15 years. When you were in
Western Australia, you did some farm work and when you were in Wagga for three
years, you became a full time mother.
Back in Alice Springs between 2001 and 2005, you worked at various
supermarkets and then for eight years, you worked as a maintenance and property
officer with the Department of Housing. In more recent times, you have worked
casually as a cleaner at the caravan park and as a receptionist at the Old Timers
Village. Your last work was casual work with the Department of Housing.
So as I have said, you have had a useful life in the working sense.
There is an additional matter of importance in your case. Following the death of
the child through sudden infant death syndrome, your husband began drinking
heavily and that drinking, that heavy drinking, has been going on for at least 20
years. As a result of that and the change, if you like, in the personality of your
husband while affected by alcohol, in substance you became a victim of domestic
violence and you have been in that category for some years. As your counsel
described it, your gentle and caring husband became an aggressive and controlling
husband.
On occasions, he was physically violent. He told you that if you left him, he
would come and find you.
I have a reference from a person who has known you for the last three years.
Both of you are avid horse lovers. She has told me that you would spend hours
down at the stables as you did not want to go home due to fighting and arguments at
home. There were times when she would stay with you at the stables until well after
dark and then drop you home.
From the perspective of this friend, Mr Dredge would often drop you off at the
stables and she would be hoping that he was not staying because of the way he
used to speak to you in front of other stablers while he was intoxicated. On
occasions she saw you down at the stables with bruises on your body.
She described your home life as not happy and she understood you were
constantly getting abused verbally and that you never knew what mood your
husband was in. She found you, in this time, to be a very caring, trusting lady, who
would help anyone out if needed, and you have done that for her on a number of
occasions.
Mr Dredge, you are now 53 years of age and you were 52 at the time of your
offending. You were born in Wollongong and you experienced a very difficult
childhood. Your mother suffered from a bipolar disorder and was violent. Although
not violent, your father was a heavy drinker and he came from a family with a history
of heavy drinking.
You left school at the age of 13 and started work as a stock hand and horse
handler at the age of 14. You met, as I have said, your wife at the Alice Springs
School when you were about 17 years of age. You have been together since.
When you came to the Territory, you obtained various forms of work before
moving to Western Australia and then Wagga Wagga, looking for work. You were
unsuccessful in obtaining steady employment in those areas and moved back to
Alice Springs, where you worked for many years as a delivery driver and facilities
supervisor at the university. You then worked at Blatherskite Park as a caretaker,
working with camp draft horses.
As I mentioned earlier, there is only one occasion when you got into trouble with
the law and you appeared in the Alice Springs Court of Summary Jurisdiction on 27
April 1989. It appears that these were driving matters that occurred on the same day.
There was disorderly driving and you were found to be exceeding .08 percent of
alcohol. You were convicted on those matters. A $50 fine was imposed for the
disorderly driving and there was a $300 fine with 12 month license disqualification for
exceeding .08.
You also have had a long history of anxiety and depression, together with your
excessive alcohol intake. You too have told me that your drinking worsened in your
early 20s after the death of the child from sudden infant death syndrome.
In August 2015 you made a serious suicide attempt during a major depressive
episode. Following that episode you tried to stop drinking, but this led to you
self-medicating with other drugs.
I have before me a report from a doctor which talks about your long history of
anxiety and depression and excessive alcohol intake and the medication that you are
taking now. You also have some orthopaedic difficulties. However, the doctor has
noted that your orthopaedic and other medical difficulties such as hypotension,
cholesterol issues and psoriasis can be adequately managed during a prison
sentence.
Significantly, from the point of view of the future, since you were released on bail
you have made serious efforts to commence your rehabilitation. You have stopped
drinking and your wife has told me, through her counsel, that since you have stopped
drinking you have returned to the affectionate person she married.
I have a report from a counsellor who has said that you have been attending
counselling sessions at Holyoake since January 2016. Of course, this has all
occurred since you committed this offence and since you were granted bail.
The counsellor reports that as at 31 March 2016, you had attended ten sessions
and you had engaged very well with them. The Counsellor reports that you have
been working very hard on your recovery from alcohol dependence in spite of
battling some severe clinical withdrawal symptoms.
In the view of the counsellor, since you have given up alcohol you have become
a dedicated family man and a hands on grandfather. In her view you are actively
creating and sustaining close, real and loving relationships for the first time in your
life as a result of being released. That is, releasing yourself from alcohol
dependency.
She describes what is happening, given the stress of the current proceedings, as
you undertaking a brave and difficult journey. You have told the counsellor, in
respect of your actions:
I cannot fix what has happened. I am so sorry for all the harm this incident has
caused, but I know that there is nothing that I can do about it but accept the
consequences. All I can do is to fix myself.
So from the personal side of things, both of you have led normal lives with their
difficulties. That is difficulties within the relationship and Mr Dredge, your difficulties
with alcohol and depression. You have reached mature ages. Mrs Dredge, you
without getting into trouble before. You, Mr Dredge, with the one prior lapse in 1989.
Mrs Dredge, having had regard to all the material and particularly to you conduct
in November, in my view there is no reason to think that you will ever offend again.
Mr Dredge, you have finally accepted responsibility, although as will become
apparent shortly, in my view you have not been entirely frank with this Court. But
you have acknowledged your alcohol problem and you have taken significant steps
towards rehabilitation.
In these circumstances there is reason for optimism about your future prospects,
but it must be said that there is a long way to go and no one, Judge or otherwise,
can predict with any certainty or confidence how you will respond after you have
served your period of imprisonment.
Mrs Dredge, I am going to sentence you first, but I want to say something
directly relating to you. The first part relates to both of you because it concerns
attempts to pervert the course of justice.
Any attempt to pervert the course of justice is a serious offence, whether it
succeeds or not. An attempt which succeeds in an offender avoiding criminal
responsibility for an offence will, generally speaking, be regarded as a more serious
example of this offence. But because an attempt to pervert the course of justice
strikes at the heart of the justice system, failure to succeed usually cannot be treated
as a mitigating circumstance in the same way as it might be when an attempt to
commit a substantive offence fails.
In this case, your husband engaged you in an extensive and persistent scheme
aimed at your husband avoiding responsibility for serious crimes he had committed;
his criminal conduct having caused devastating consequences.
The conduct of you and your husband required the Police to carry out significant
investigations, which included, as I said, obtaining CCTV from various locations,
investigation of taxi records and the use of a listening device. Excellent Police work
doomed your attempt to failure, but in helping your husband you committed a serious
offence.
Having made those observations, it must be said that you were brought into this
by your husband and you played a lesser role. In assessing the influence of your
husband, that is the influence he was able to exercise, I accept that the impact of
such a longstanding relationship, dominated in recent years by your husband’s
drunken aggression and violence, should not be underestimated. You were a
longstanding victim of domestic violence and you well knew how your husband
would react if you did not go along with him. You were scared of his moods and
scared he would snap.
The recorded conversations three weeks after the accident vividly demonstrated
that your fears were well founded. In the five days from 6 to 11 November, the
insistence, aggression and verbal abuse of you by your husband is obvious. So too
is his controlling behaviour through emotional blackmail and threats.
Further, you tried to remedy the situation. Numerous times you asked your
husband why he had not stopped and you told him he should own up. As I said, I
only have excerpts of the recorded conversations, but your counsel has advised me
that four times you told your husband that you wanted to change your statement and
six times you told him to change his statement and tell the truth.
In response your husband would try to manipulate and control you with a mixture
of aggression and emotional blackmail. He repeatedly said you were trying to get rid
of him. On one occasion he spoke of you putting a hole in his heart. On another he
said you would need a bodyguard when he got out of gaol.
This overview provides the context in which you assisted your husband and
committed this offence when you gave the false statement to Police. Your response,
that is your response to the situation in which you found yourself, was typical of
victims of domestic violence who stay with and protect their partners notwithstanding
extensive physical and mental abuse over many years.
Finally, although it took your arrest to prompt it, eventually you owned up and
admitted you had been stupid. Mrs Dredge, I accept that you are truly sorry for what
you have done and that it is highly unlikely that you will ever offend again.
In all of these circumstances, and bearing in mind that this is the first time that
you have got into trouble with the law, while a sentence of imprisonment is required
to reflect the seriousness of your conduct, the interests of the community will best be
served by suspending the sentence.
You are convicted. Had it not been for your plea of guilty I would have imposed
a sentence of 2 years’ imprisonment. After allowing for your plea of guilty I impose a
sentence of 18 months’ imprisonment, but that sentence will be suspended forthwith.
That is you will not have to serve any time in gaol. The operative period of the
suspension is two years.
You are a mature person. You know and accept that what you did was wrong
and, as I have said, there is no reason to think you will offend again. In these
circumstances I do not regard supervision as either appropriate or required.
So Mrs Dredge, some paperwork will be prepared for you and upon signing that
paperwork you will be free to leave the Court. Please bear in mind that for the next
two years that sentence of 18 months’ imprisonment hangs over your head. So if
you get into trouble again with the law and commit any offences, then you will be
brought back to this Court and you will be liable to serve, that is go to gaol, for the
18 months. But if you stay out of trouble for the next two years, then you will not be
required to serve the sentence.
Now Mrs Dredge, would you please take a seat in the witness box. Just come
across to this other place. You are no longer in custody but I want you to stay in
Court to hear the rest of the proceedings relating to your husband.
Mr Dredge, I return to your offending. Through your counsel you have told me
that you do not remember much about what you consumed and, in substance, you
had no memory of the accident and the aftermath. I do not believe you. I am
satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that you have a greater memory than you admit,
but I am not able to determine the extent of that memory.
As to the events before the accident, both oral and written submissions say you
agree that you consumed unknown tablets, believed to be Valium and that you
consumed, ‘some,’ alcohol with these tablets. Your counsel has told me you
remember using alcohol only to wash the tablets down and that you took the tablet
within about 20 minutes to half an hour of the accident.
Mr Dredge, you have not been completely frank with this Court. There is a
combination of facts which lead me to this and other conclusions beyond reasonable
doubt.
1. You were an alcoholic consuming large quantities of alcohol on a daily
basis.
2. The accident happened at 6:59 pm.
3. You left your residence at about 5:05 pm and, after dropping your wife off,
purchased alcohol at about 5:15 pm.
4. At about 6:11 pm you purchased more alcohol from premises on
Gap Road. So for some unexplained reason, an hour after your first visit
to a bottle shop, you needed to buy more alcohol.
5. At 6:40 pm you were driving in the vicinity of the visitor’s park in
Len Kittle Drive, where you stopped and spoke to persons on the side of
the road.
6. At 6:57 pm you were again driving in the vicinity of the visitor’s park.
7. At a speed between 48.7 and 67.7 kilometres per hour, for between 1.34
and 1.94 seconds there was an absence of steering of your car, during
which you veered onto the verge and, with the passenger side wheels in
the dirt, your car drove straight into the rear of the victim’s motorbike.
8. The brake light and indicator on the motorbike were illuminated and
clearly visible from a distance of at least 100 metres.
9. You took no evasive action whatsoever before the impact.
10. After impact you sideswiped a motor vehicle and, as your car swerved
onto the wrong side of the road, you took control and swerved back.
11. Immediately following the impact, the victim was thrown onto the bonnet
of your car and into the windscreen.
12. The windscreen directly in front of you shattered. As I said, the
photograph is graphic. It was not just a minor impact. Glass fragments
flew into the interior of your car.
13. You drove home, dragging the rear bumper along the road.
14. You reached the gate of the caravan park within two to three minutes,
where you got out and removed the dragging bumper.
15. You spoke by telephone with your wife.
16. You parked at your home behind the gates and were heard to say, ‘right in
the middle of the road. I couldn’t believe it, right in the middle of the road.’
17. At home, you said to your wife, ‘I hit someone.’ Now that is in the context
of arriving home with the car.
18. When your wife challenged why you had not told the Police in the first
place that someone else was driving and said, ‘because you were too
pissed, that’s why,’ you did not deny that you were pissed.
19. On a second occasion, when your wife accused you of being too pissed,
again, you did not deny it; instead, you threatened to knock her out.
Mr Dredge, first, I do not know how much alcohol you consumed but I am
satisfied that it was more than washing down a few tablets. Second, the admitted
facts are that you were under the influence of an intoxicating drug or alcohol. Third, I
am satisfied that the combination of a sedative-type drug and alcohol made you a
danger on the road.
Fourth, under such influence, you either fell fully asleep or you were so drowsy
that you ceased to have control of your car. Fifth, the impact jolted you into
consciousness. Sixth, immediately upon gaining consciousness, you realised you
had hit a person although, in your confusion, you thought that the person had been
in the middle of the road.
Seventh, with that knowledge you knew that, at the least, the person you hit was
highly likely to be seriously injured. Eighth, with that knowledge, you callously
disregarded the victim’s wellbeing and fled the scene because you knew that if you
stayed, you would be in serious trouble because you had lost full consciousness due
to the influence of a sedative and alcohol.
Those, Mr Dredge, are the facts that I find proven.
It must be said that your dangerous driving was not aggravated by high speed or
persistent bad driving over a lengthy period. But your moral culpability is high
because you drove when you were not in a fit condition to drive. And, of course, you
caused horrendous injuries to the victim and devastated her life and those of her
immediate family.
I need to make clear at this point that although in the minds of the victim, her
family and friends and many in the community, your cowardly failure to stop
aggravates your dangerous driving, you have pleaded guilty to the offence of failing
to stop and render assistance. So I cannot punish you twice for that conduct. Your
conduct in failing to stop and render assistance will be the subject of a separate
penalty. So your failure to stop cannot be seen and used as an aggravating feature
of the dangerous driving. The failure to stop is penalised separately.
Again, your moral culpability in failing to stop is high because you knew the
victim had struck your windscreen and ended up on the ground. You knew that the
victim would at least be seriously injured. This was not just a minor deflection off
your windscreen, it was smashed right in front of you and glass came into the car.
Quite rightly, the crime of failing to stop and render assistance disturbs and
distresses the community greatly. As the Attorney General said when introducing
this offence in 2008:
Failing to stop in these circumstances is cowardly and falls short of what a
humane society requires of its citizens.
In 2010, Mildren J explained the essential purposes of this offence. His Honour said:
The purpose of this offence is to achieve a number of objects. First, it is to
ensure that the driver remains at the scene so that when the Police arrive, he is
able to be identified and an assessment made as to his culpability for causing
the accident. An assessment may also be made as to whether or not the driver
concerned had consumed alcohol or was under the influence of drugs or had
otherwise committed some other offence.
The second object of the section is to ensure that the driver does all that is
reasonable in the circumstances to give assistance to those who made be
injured as a result of the accident. The assistance which can be given will vary
according to the circumstances. At the very least, one would expect the driver
in these circumstances to be able to contact Police and emergency services to
arrange for an ambulance either my making a telephone call or by stopping a
passing motorist or bystander and asking that person to make the call on his or
her behalf.
The second kind of assistance which would normally be expected is to ensure
that those injured at the scene are protected from further injury by passing
traffic. Whether more than that could be done will depend upon the nature of
the injuries to the victims, the circumstances of the offender, the skills which the
offender may or may not have in being able to render first aid to the victims as
well as the extent to which the offender was himself or herself injured as a
result of the accident. At the very least, in normal situations, one would expect
the driver to be able to give some comfort and aid to the victims, even if it is no
more than assurance that help is on the way.
In your case, as I have said, you were callously indifferent to the wellbeing of the
victim and that callous indifference is vividly demonstrated by the comments that you
made later to your wife.
You crime of failing to stop and render assistance is a serious example of this
type of offending.
As to the attempt to pervert the course of justice, you have already heard my
remarks to your wife. This completed, if you like, a course of criminal conduct. You
embarked on the scheme to avoid responsibility and enlisted, under pressure, the
assistance of your wife. That is an aggravating feature of this offence.
As the days went by you kept up the pressure, resisting her efforts to get you to
come clean and you did that through verbal abuse, emotional blackmail and threats
of physical violence. It is correct that your attempt was not sophisticated, but
nevertheless you told a false story about your movements and created a fictitious
character to blame.
Of concern is your persistence in abusing and threatening your wife and your
callous indifference to the victim. Drunk you may have been when you were
recorded making these statements, but you displayed in your drunken state a
disturbing side of your character. Drunk or not, this side of your character came
through.
As I have said, during those conversations you said that you did not know when
the accident happened and you did not care. You spoke about, ‘that bitch that
copped it’ and you said, ‘I hope she’s fucking dead,’ then you added, ‘when you get
to the wrong side of the road.’
Now, that statement smacks of you, in your drunken state, blaming the victim.
There is no blame whatsoever to be attached to the victim, not a skerrick. You were
so self-absorbed and worried about yourself that you were willing to callously
disregard not only her interests, but disregard her lack of fault. You wanted to try
and attribute something to her.
It was an appalling attitude, Mr Dredge, drunk or sober. This is a serious
example of attempting to pervert the course of justice and it was accompanied by a
complete lack of remorse for what you have done. It was all about you.
Today, as you look back in a sober state, having accepted responsibility, you
have gained an appreciation of your conduct and your attitude to the extent that you
are now sorry for the victim, but you are not sorry enough to be completely frank with
this Court.
Personal deterrence, that is deterring you from embarking on this sort of conduct
again in the future, remains a significant factor. As I said, it is significant that you
have taken steps in rehabilitation, but given my assessment of your underlying
character or features of it, there is a long way to go and personal deterrence remains
a significant factor.
General deterrence is of great importance. The community is rightly concerned
about dangerous driving. When I talk about the community, I mean the community
across the country, not just in the Northern Territory. It is unfortunately not
uncommon for drivers to drive dangerously and to cause devastating consequences,
be it through injuries or death.
Deterring others who might be minded to drive in this manner is of particular
importance, especially when the message needs to go out that those who drink and
drive or are in some way under the influence of drugs cannot expect sympathy when
they appear before a Court. To the best it can the Court must endeavour, through
the imposition of appropriate penalties, to deter others from this course of conduct.
General deterrence is also of particular importance with respect to failing to stop
and render assistance. As I said earlier, this is a crime which causes great anxiety
and distress throughout our community. One only has to look at reactions when
faulty drivers have caused accidents and failed to stop, particularly when injuries
follow or death follows, to understand the widespread alarm and concern. General
deterrence in this area is of great importance.
So too is general deterrence when it comes to attempting to pervert the course
of justice. As I said earlier, this offence strikes at the heart of the justice system and,
unfortunately, although it is not as prevalent as other offences, it is certainly not
decreasing in its prevalence.
Before I sentence, I want to finally make some remarks directly addressed to
Ms O'Connor and her husband and those who are supporting you.
You have urged that I do not make any reduction by way of allowance for the
plea of guilty. I understand your reasoning entirely. But the law directs me that I
must do so and I must apply the law as it is today.
The entry of the plea of guilty possesses what we in the law call utilitarian
benefit. That is it has saved the cost, trouble and trauma of a trial, and in those
circumstances the law requires that I make some allowance by way of a reduction of
the sentence for the utilitarian benefit of the plea.
In addition, some reduction must be made for the fact that there is a degree of
remorse that exists now, albeit that it took a long time, but some degree of remorse
does exist.
The second matter is that, again very understandably, you have asked me to
impose the maximum sentence. But again, the law does not permit me to give the
maximum sentence in this case for any of the offences.
The dangerous driving and the failure to stop attract a maximum sentence of
7 year. Perverting the course of justice attracts a maximum sentence of 15 years.
But the maximum penalties are reserved for crimes in the very worst category.
For example, an offender in a case like this could have a very bad driving record
or prior offences for dangerous driving or prior offences for failing to stop. The
driving could have involved high speed or dangerous driving over a long period.
So there are aggravating features that could exist, but do not exist in this case.
That is with respect to those offences, and it is not difficult to imagine far worse
offences of attempting to pervert the course of justice which succeed in avoiding
conviction for serious offences and perhaps involve the use of violence and threats
to potential witnesses.
So I am not permitted by the law, because of the circumstances, to impose the
maximum penalties and I must fix penalties that comply with the standards that have
been fixed over the years for crimes of this type. As you will appreciate, crimes of all
sorts vary in their seriousness. Some are at the lower end of the category of
seriousness, others are right at the top. Over the years the Courts have fixed
standards of penalty according to where individual crimes sit in the scale of
seriousness and according to the personal circumstances of each individual
offender. I must, in arriving at appropriate sentences, apply those standards.
I am going to fix penalties in the order in which the events occurred, not in the
order in which they appear on the indictment.
The first offence that occurred was the offence of driving dangerously and
causing serious harm. That is charged in Count 3. In respect of this offence, of
course, I take into account the injuries sustained, but not the failure to stop.
Had it not been for your plea of guilty, Mr Dredge, I would have imposed a
sentence of 4 years and 6 months’ imprisonment. After allowing for your plea, I
impose a sentence of 3 years and 9 months’ imprisonment to commence on
5 June 2016.
The second offence in order of committal was Count 1, the failing to stop and
render assistance. Here, the extent of the injuries are not taken into account,
because they have already been taken into account on the previous charge.
Had it not been for your plea of guilty, I would have imposed a sentence of
4 years’ imprisonment. After allowing for your plea, I impose a sentence of 3 years
and 3 months’ imprisonment.
The third offence in point of time was the attempt to pervert the course of justice
charged in Count 2. For that offence, had it not been for your plea of guilty I would
have imposed a sentence of 3 years’ imprisonment. After allowing for your plea, I
impose a sentence of 2 years and 6 months’ imprisonment.
Then comes the question of what total sentence you should serve. The law
directs that it is not a matter of simply adding up the sentences to come to a total. I
am required to assess the gravity of your total criminal conduct and to bear in mind
the approach of the law, particularly with a person who is almost a first offender, of
not imposing a crushing sentence.
It is a balancing exercise. There is widespread and grave community concern
generally and about this case in particular, but there is also the other side, as I have
mentioned. As best I can, I have arrived at an assessment of the gravity of your total
criminal conduct and endeavoured to fashion a sentence which properly reflects that
and your personal circumstances. Your personal circumstances include the fact that
you have been on strict bail and that has included the wearing of a monitoring
device. But it must be said that those matters are not of particular significance in
mitigation when viewed against the seriousness of your total criminal conduct.
As I said, the sentence on Count 3 for the serious harm by dangerous driving is
3 years and 9 months. That will commence on 5 June 2016 and I am sorry, I should
have said you are convicted of all three offences.
So the second penalty for failing to stop on Count 1 is 3 years and 3 months. Of
that period, I direct that one year and six months be served cumulatively upon the
sentence on Count 3 of 3 years and 9 months.
I move then to the sentence for attempting to pervert the course of justice in
Count 2. Of that sentence of 2 years and 6 months, I direct that one year and
six months be served cumulatively upon the sentence imposed for Count 1.
That makes a total sentence of 6 years and 9 months, commencing on
5 June 2016. So from 5 June 2016, Mr Dredge, your total sentence is
6 years and 9 months.
Then I must consider the question of the non-parole period. Again, this is a
balancing exercise and it is here that matters personal to you are of particular
importance, but so too is the other side of the coin. Again, balancing as best I can, I
fix a non-parole period of three years and nine months.
This means that after you have served three years and nine months, you will be
eligible for release on parole. Whether you are released on parole or not will be
entirely up to the Parole Board. The Parole Board may grant you parole, it may not
grant you parole. That is the for Parole Board to determine.
You will be disqualified from holding or obtaining a driver’s licence for a period of
six years from today.
Is there anything further from counsel?
MS INGLES: No, your Honour.
MR ROBSON: Sorry, the disqualification period?
HIS HONOUR: Six years from today.
Thank you, would you take Mr Dredge to the cells please.
And Mrs Dredge, as I said, you will need to sign some paperwork.
Thank you, I will adjourn now.
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