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N.B. Copyright in this transcript is the property of the Crown. If this transcript is copied without the authority of the Attorney-General of the Northern Territory, proceedings for infringement will be taken. __________ 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: 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. ______________