R v Hill[2024] QSC 196

Sentencing Remarks

The King v Thomas Prescott Hill [2024] QSC 196

The Hon Justice Copley

27 August 2024

(draft remarks to be revised against official transcript)  

Thomas Prescott Hill, on 19 August 2024 you pleaded guilty to:  a count of manslaughter committed on 31 March 2019; a count of dangerous operation of a vehicle and a count of assault occasioning bodily harm both committed on 20 July 2018; and to two counts of assault occasioning bodily harm both committed on 21 March 2019.

You pleaded guilty to a number of summary offences.  You pleaded guilty to driving a vehicle without a driver’s licence whilst disqualified by court order and failing to remain at a road incident and assisting an injured person.  These two offences are connected to the count of manslaughter.  You also pleaded guilty to contravening a domestic violence order and committing a public nuisance.  These two offences occurred on 21 March 2019.

The indictment charging you with the count of manslaughter was presented on 19 August 2024.  Manslaughter carries a maximum penalty of life imprisonment.  The indictment charging you with the other counts was also presented on 19 August 2024.  The maximum penalty for assault occasioning bodily harm is 7 years imprisonment.  The maximum penalty for dangerous operation of a vehicle is 3 years imprisonment.

In imposing sentences on you I take into account your pleas of guilty to these counts and to the summary charges.  I have reduced the sentences I am going to impose because those pleas of guilty demonstrate cooperation with the administration of justice.  Much of this court’s time has been saved.  I proceed on the basis that in all the circumstances these have been timely pleas of guilty.

You were born on 7 November 1986.  You were 31 years old when the dangerous operation of a vehicle and the assault occasioning bodily harm of 20 July 2018 were committed.  You were 32 when the other counts occurred.  You are now 37.

The circumstances of the offences were as follows. 

I will deal first with the offending of 20 July 2018. 

A young woman was driving her vehicle at about 100km/hour along the Pacific Highway south of Brisbane when you came behind her vehicle.  Your vehicle travelled closely behind her.  She slowed and when it was safe to do so moved into the left lane.  You drove past her and without indicating veered into the lane she was in.  She beeped her horn.  Your vehicle hit her car.  This driving constitutes the count of dangerous operation of a vehicle.  You put your window down and yelled at her.  She drove on, you followed her and cut her off.  She took evasive action to avoid a collision and drove past you and drove off the highway at an exit ramp.  She stopped at a red traffic light.  You pulled up beside her vehicle and yelled at her.  She entered a car park and stopped.  You stopped behind her.  She got out of her vehicle.  You got out of your vehicle.  You yelled at her and asked for her name and registration.  She was frightened by you and did not reply.  You slapped the right side of her face with an open hand.  You tried to slap her again, but she pushed you.  What next occurred constitutes the assault which occasioned her bodily harm.  You grabbed her arms and swung her to the ground.  She landed on her side.  You kicked her to the body and face.  She put her hands up to protect her face, but you persisted in punching her and kicking her.  She got up and you pushed her to the ground.  She landed on her knees and elbows.  You grabbed her by the hair and pulled her along the ground.  Two men intervened and pulled you away from her.  You got into your vehicle and drove off.  As a result of your assault upon her, she sustained grazes to both knees and both elbows and a large bruise to her right knee.  In early 2019 the police linked the vehicle that you were in to you.  On 23 October 2019, the police served you with a notice to appear.  By then you were in custody.

This assault was very serious because it was committed on a woman.  She was not previously known to you.  She was not a neighbour of yours.  The assault involved multiple applications of force and only ended when other citizens intervened.

Concerning the manslaughter, I will begin with the relevant background.  Your family lived at a house in Strathfield Street, Tarragindi.  Your father died in 2011.  You were aged 24 or 25 when he died.  You and your mother continued to live in the house, however, your behaviour changed after your father died.  You became angrier and confrontational.  By 2013 you stopped working in your job as a shop assistant.  Your mother and sister encouraged you to seek help.  You were diagnosed with anxiety and received treatment at the Princess Alexandra Hospital.  You ceased the treatment.  You were both verbally and physically abusive to your mother.  You often told your family that the neighbours and/or other residents in your street were talking about you, laughing at you or staring at you.  You believed a person was out to get you.  On some occasions you verbally abused people and on some occasions you assaulted some neighbours.  Some of this behaviour resulted in court appearances.  In 2016 you assaulted a man who was a neighbour and damaged his property.  For this you were fined in June 2017.  In January 2018 you assaulted another neighbour and did him bodily harm.  In August 2018 you were fined for this conduct and you were also fined for a failure to stop your vehicle when directed to do so by a police officer.  You were then disqualified from holding or obtaining a driver’s licence.

In 2018, you and your mother were spending much of your days and nights in your car.  You resorted to this because you believed that your neighbours were bullying you.  You and your mother would sleep in the car.  You and she would return to the house in Strathfield Street from time to time, but generally sometime between 2.00 am and 4.00 am and then leave at around 5.00 am.

On 9 August 2018 the police came across you and your mother.  The police took you to the hospital for an emergency examination under the mental health legislation.  Your mother told medical staff that your views about the neighbours were based on reality and so no diagnosis of paranoia was made and you were discharged.

The man you unlawfully killed was Dr Peter Dunne, aged 53.  He lived in the same suburb as you, but was not a resident of your street.  He had the habit of going for a run in the early morning and the route he took involved passing by your mother’s house.  On 31 January 2019, Dr Dunne was running along Strathfield Street at about 5.20 am.  You were in your front yard and had some problem untangling a garden hose.  You verbally abused your mother and as you did this Dr Dunne ran past.  You perceived that he was staring at you.  You said to him, “What are you staring at?”  Your mother says she heard Dr Dunne call you an “idiot”.  Dr Dunne walked towards your mother.  You left your yard and ran at Dr Dunne and you used both your hands to push him in the chest and you kicked at him.  Dr Dunne turned and ran on and you called out to him in abusive language. 

Early in the morning of 18 February 2019, you and your mother returned to the house at Strathfield Street.  Your mother drove the two of you there in a rented car.  At about 4.00 am the two of you left, however, when you left you were driving the rented car and your mother was driving the car your family owned.  You were driving whilst disqualified.  It was still dark, but the street was illuminated by street lights.  You proceeded to drive along Strathfield Street ahead of your mother.  The headlights were on in the vehicle you were driving.  Dr Dunne was running along Strathfield Street in the opposite direction to the direction your vehicle was going in.  He was carrying a torch which was turned on.  Dr Dunne slowed to a walk as your vehicle approached where he was.  Dr Dunne looked in your direction as you drove past him.  Your mother noticed Dr Dunne and he shone his torch towards her or into her car.  She thought that Dr Dunne called you an idiot or something.

You became angry at Dr Dunne and decided to confront him.  You did a U-turn at the intersection of Strathfield Street and Pallaranda Street and drove back along Strathfield Street towards Dr Dunne.  He was running on the side of the road.  As you neared him he slowed to a walk and moved to the left side of the road.  You reversed and then drove at him a number of times.  When he was outside the house at 39 Strathfield Street you accelerated and struck him with your vehicle.  His back was to you when your vehicle struck him.  Your vehicle struck his leg and he fell to the ground and his head hit the roadway with considerable force.  You reversed and drove down the street.  You did a U‑turn and drove past Dr Dunne as he was lying on the road.  You called out “Leave me and my mother alone”.  Thus, you failed to remain at a road incident to render assistance.  As a result of the head injuries sustained in the fall caused by you striking him with the vehicle he died on 31 March 2019.  Hence, the count of unlawful killing is pleaded to have occurred on 31 March 2019.

The basis on which you are to be sentenced for manslaughter is that you did the act of striking Dr Dunne with your vehicle intending to do him grievous bodily harm, however, at the time you did the act your capacity to know that you ought not to do it was substantially impaired.  The cause of the impairment was paranoid schizophrenia.  It is relevant to notice that this illness was not being treated when you did the act.

Residents of the street eventually came out and rendered help to Dr Dunne.  The injuries he sustained were bilateral skull fractures, bilateral subdural haematomas, extradural haematoma, bilateral subarachnoid haemorrhage, haemorrhagic cerebral contusions, right ankle fracture and leg abrasions.  Medical procedures, such as three craniotomies, could not save Dr Dunne.  A cerebral infection eventually arose and, as already stated, he died on 31 March 2019.

In the minutes after you struck Dr Dunne you met your mother on Andrew Avenue, Tarragindi.  You both drove the vehicles to Rocklea where you waited in order to return the hire vehicle shortly after 7.30 am.  You told your mother that you had knocked the man down.  You told her you had accelerated and reversed a couple of times before knocking him down.

The police suspected that it was you who was responsible for Dr Dunne’s injuries and they obtained a warrant for a listening device which they installed in the vehicle you and your mother occupied.  It recorded conversations on 21 March 2019.  Among other statements that you made, you blamed your mother and said it was her fault because she had failed to obtain help for you.  You told your mother that if Dr Dunne had kept his comment (that you were an idiot) to himself, then he would have still been alive, that Dr Dunne had picked on the wrong person.  You referred to having chased him.  At one point you tried to persuade your mother to take responsibility for the collision and you told her she could say it was an accident.  You were apprehended by police on the afternoon of 21 March 2019, following an unpleasant incident with some elderly people at Kedron. 

Prior to that, at about 1.30 pm, you committed the two assaults which occasioned bodily harm.  The victims were two women.  They were having lunch at a restaurant at Newmarket.  Neither of them knew you.  You sat down at their table and started talking about domestic violence and how you had been bashed by women.  One woman said, “Sorry about that”.  You said, “It’s not funny”.  You pushed her in the face with an open hand, causing her pain and discomfort to her face.  You used an open hand to strike the other woman in the face.  This caused her pain and discomfort.  Each woman was left with slight bruising to each of their faces.  Members of the public came over and you left.  You were later identified from CCTV images and photoboards.    

When the police apprehended you at Kedron they took you to the Prince Charles Hospital for an emergency examination.  You remained there until 4 April 2019, when the police returned and charged you with murder.  You have been in custody since then, a period of 5 years and about 4½ months.  That time has been served in the correctional centre except for two periods of time in 2019 totalling about 7 months during which you were detained in the High Security Inpatient Service.  The period in custody will be declared as time already served under the sentences imposed on you.

The matter of your mental state at the time of the killing was referred to the Mental Health Court.  At a hearing held in June 2020 a substantial dispute of fact existed, so that Court could not make a decision about your mental state.  Your case was returned to the criminal justice system.  A committal hearing occurred on 13 October 2021 and some witnesses were cross-examined.  An indictment for a count of murder was presented in April 2022 and the trial of that count was listed to start on 27 November 2023.  Prior to then Dr Kovacevic, a consultant psychiatrist, examined you on 26 August 2023 and again on 9 September 2023.  Her report is exhibit 22.

Dr Kovacevic’s opinion was that at the time you struck Dr Dunne you were suffering from paranoid schizophrenia.  That illness had not been diagnosed prior to Dr Reinders diagnosing it in March 2019 at the Prince Charles Hospital.  Dr Kovacevic said that it had been present for a long time prior to February 2019.  She said the illness was characterised by “paranoid persecutory delusions involving constant persecution and harassment predominantly his neighbours, but also people in general, often complete strangers.  For a number of years, he was living and labouring under the influence of his delusions with a consequent detrimental impact on his general functioning, social interactions …”  She said that your striking of Dr Dunne was due to your paranoid delusions, in which you incorporated strangers into your delusional belief system, and underlying emotional arousal and anger.  Her opinion was that as a direct result of your abnormality of mind you were substantially impaired in your capacity to appreciate that you ought not to do the act in question and in your capacity to control your actions.  She said that you were substantially impaired in your capacity to appreciate the potential consequences of your conduct.  As already observed, the plea of guilty is on the basis that it was the capacity to know that you ought not to do the act which was substantially impaired.

As to the future management and level of risk posed by you, Dr Kovacevic said:

“There is little doubt that Mr Hill suffers from a major psychiatric disorder and that he will require ongoing treatment and psychiatric care on an indefinite basis, including the prescription of antipsychotic medications, in order to prevent a relapse of his mental illness and safeguard the community against future offending.  It would appear that once his mental illness is well-controlled, the main risk factor for future offending is removed and as long as his mental illness is well-controlled, Mr Hill’s risk of future violence will remain at a relatively low level.  There are no in my opinion, other major risk factors for future violence, in particular there are no signs of a major personality disorder, psychopathy, cognitive or behavioural impulsivity, lack of insight or alcohol or illicit substance abuse, or pervasively negative or violent attitudes.”

Reports from Doctors Motamarri and Phillips were also tendered.  Dr Motamarri agreed with Dr Kovacevic’s opinion about the need for ongoing treatment.  Dr Jane Phillips opined that given your history of impaired insight, non‑compliance with psychotropic medication and serious risk of violence when unwell, you will require assertive psychiatric management and you will need to comply with psychotropic medication. 

Your compliance with the taking of medication has not been complete.  In 2019 you ceased taking your depot medication because you wanted to be removed from the prison to a hospital setting.  This non-compliance has some bearing upon a risk of further offending as the level of that risk depends upon your ongoing mental illness being controlled through adherence to medication.

In Channon v R (1978) 20 ALR 1 at 4-5 Brennan J said:

“Psychiatric abnormality falling short of insanity is frequently found to be a cause of, or a factor contributing to, criminal conduct.  The sentencing of an offender in cases of that kind is inevitably difficult.  The difficulty arises in part because the factors which affect the sentence give differing significance to an offender’s psychiatric abnormality.  An abnormality may reduce the moral culpability of the offender and the deliberation which attended his criminal conduct; yet it may mark him as more intractable subject for reform than one who is not so affected, or even as one who is so likely to offend again that he should be removed from society for a lengthy or indeterminate period.  The abnormality may seem, on one view, to lead towards a lenient sentence, and on another to a sentence which is severe.  That is not an unusual phenomenon in sentencing, where the court must fashion a sentence which either reconciles or balances the various objectives of sentencing, sometimes giving emphasis to one of the objectives of sentencing, sometimes giving emphasis to another.”

One of the purposes of sentencing is to protect the community (Penalties and Sentences Act 1992, ss 9(1)(e) and (3)).  Another purpose relevant to your situation is a punishment that is just in all the circumstances (s 9(1)(a)) and another is your rehabilitation (s 9(1)(b)).  General deterrence (s 9(1)(c)) and denunciation (s 9(1)(d)) are of lesser significance because of your limited moral culpability due to your abnormality of mind and its effect on the capacity mentioned earlier (R v Pringle; ex parte Attorney-General (Qld) [2012] QCA 223 at [33]).  I must have regard primarily to the matters listed in s 9(3) of the Penalties and Sentences Act and protection of the community is reflected in s 9(3)(a), (b), (j) and (k).  That is why I have had regard to the opinions about the level of risk you pose.  The consideration of risk however must not lead a court to impose a more serious sentence than the offending otherwise warrants (Veen v The Queen [No 2] (1988) 164 CLR 465 at 477).

Regard must also be had to the personal circumstances of the victim of your offence and to his death.  Dr Dunne was a man who posed no threat to you.  He was just going about his daily routine when he had the misfortune to be seen by you.  His death has been a grievous loss to his wife, daughters, parents, siblings and extended family.  As a doctor he was an important member of the community.  He had contributed to society immensely through first, his stable marriage in which he, together with his wife, produced such impressive daughters who have attained much in their young lives and second, through his work as a medical practitioner.  Regard has to be had to the circumstances of the offence and to the nature or extent of the violence used.  You used a vehicle as a weapon against him so the violence you used was great.  You did not care about what happened to him.  You were not remorseful about what you did to him because you did not stop to help him, or later telephone for help or later surrender yourself to the police.  You made statements which the listening device recorded in which you blamed him for what had occurred.  You even tried to prevail on your mother to get her to take responsibility for what you did.  Mr McGuire, your counsel, made a submission that your condition was one not noticed by medical practitioners and he put the matter in colloquial language “that you fell through the cracks”.  This submission was no doubt directed towards showing why you had not attempted treatment for your schizophrenia.  It should not be ignored though that your mother told medical staff your issues about the neighbours were based on reality.  This was what she said in August 2018.  Perhaps she had become unbalanced in her outlook and perspective in attempting to care for you and in her attempts to manage you.  Your counsel makes the point that you have been receiving anti-psychotic medication once every three months pursuant to a treatment authority and that you now understand or accept that you are going to have to continue with that medication for the rest of your life.  He also says that you understand that in the community you will need to see a psychiatrist every month.  Your present compliance with medication and your acceptance of what the future will entail is evidence of rehabilitation.  The opinion that the risk of future violence is low is premised upon your compliance with treatment.  Only time will tell whether you comply with treatment after your release.  With the sentence I intend to impose you will be able to be supervised on parole, if you achieve parole.  Such supervision would assist with compliance with the treatment regime. 

On 6 March 2019 a domestic violence order was obtained in favour of your mother.  The prosecution submits that pursuant to s 37 of the Domestic and Family Violence Protection Act 2012, I should extend that order to August 2029.  Your counsel did not submit otherwise. 

So far as the two counts of assault occasioning bodily harm on 21 March 2019 are concerned, they are each examples of unprovoked assaults involving force to the faces of young women who were out with a friend for lunch.  The assaults were no doubt very shocking to them.  They are another manifestation of the violence you are capable of if not under medial treatment.  Later that day you breached the domestic violence order concerning your mother by forcing her into the car after the incident with the elderly people and after the public nuisance constituted by your behaviour towards the off-duty police officer who had intervened.       

The prosecution put before the court a number of cases which it said would assist in determining a sentence.  Those cases were:  R v Perini; ex parte Attorney-General (Qld) (No 2) [2011] QCA 384; R v Pringle; ex parte Attorney-General (Qld) [2012] QCA 223; and R v Zarnke [2013] QCA 141.  The prosecution submitted that the sentence for the count of manslaughter should be 12 years imprisonment.  The prosecution submitted that the separate and distinct assault offences and dangerous operation offence should attract sentences to be served cumulatively upon the sentence imposed for manslaughter.

I bear in mind that any sentence of 10 or more years imprisonment for the offence of manslaughter will engage ss 161A(a) and 161B(1) with the result that you would have to serve 80 per cent of the sentence before becoming eligible for parole.

Defence counsel also relied on Pringle as well as R v Potter; ex parte Attorney-General (Qld) [2008] QCA 91; R v Beacham [2006] QCA 268; R v Mielke [2021] QSC 127; R v Venn [2023] QSC 173 and The King v Hubbard, Supreme Court, Cairns, 6 March 2023.  He submitted that there should be a short, cumulative sentence of imprisonment for the counts committed on 20 July 2018.

Whether sentences are to be imposed cumulatively is a matter for discretion in this case (s 155).  In view of the consideration that all of the offences the subject of the ex officio indictment and all of the summary offences were committed when you were mentally ill, it would be just not to order that the sentences for these offences be served cumulatively upon the sentence for manslaughter.  The sentences for these offences will be ordered to be served concurrently with the sentence I impose on the count of manslaughter.

To make it plain, in arriving at the sentence for the count of manslaughter I have not uplifted what I consider to be the appropriate sentence for that offence to reflect all of your criminality.  I consider that the great degree of violence involved in causing the death of Dr Dunne warrants a sentence substantially in excess of 10 years, but because of your mental condition and its substantial impairment of your capacity to know that you ought not to do the act and your plea of guilty, a shorter term of imprisonment should be imposed.

In relation to all counts and all the summary offences convictions are recorded.  In relation to the count of manslaughter I declare the conviction to be a conviction for a serious violent offence.  For the count of manslaughter I order that you be imprisoned for 10 years.  For count 2 on the ex officio indictment I order that you be imprisoned for 12 months.  For each of counts 3 and 4 on that indictment I order that you be imprisoned for 6 months.  For count 1 on that indictment I order that you be imprisoned for 3 months.  In relation to the summary offence of failing to stop and remain at the scene of the incident and immediately render assistance, I am satisfied that you showed a callous disregard for the needs of Dr Dunne.  Indeed, you pleaded guilty to the circumstance of showing a callous disregard.  The legislature has mandated that when this circumstance is established the Court must impose as part of the sentence a period of imprisonment.  In relation to this offence I order that you be imprisoned for 9 months.  I order that all the sentences of imprisonment are to be served concurrently.

In relation to all of the other summary offences you are convicted and not further punished save for that in relation to the offence of driving a vehicle without a licence whilst disqualified by a court order I disqualify you from holding or obtaining a Queensland driver’s licence for a period of 2 years.

It is declared that 1,972 days spent in pre-sentence custody between 4 April 2019 and 26 August 2024 is time already served under these sentences.

Pursuant to s 37 of the Domestic and Family Violence Protection Act I order that you must be of good behaviour towards the aggrieved, HFR, and you must not commit an act of domestic violence or associated domestic violence against her for a period of 5 years from today’s date.

I order that the reports of Doctors Kovacevic, Motamarri and Phillips be forwarded to the Department of Corrective Services.