STATE OF TASMANIA v VARLEN BARRON 13 MARCH 2025
COMMENTS ON PASSING SENTENCE PEARCE J
Varlen Barron, you plead guilty to two counts of aggravated assault, one count of wounding and one count of recklessly discharging a firearm. The crimes were committed on Saturday 20 November 2021 when you were aged 19. At the time Nathaniel Wilson lived in Goose Green Place in Longford. You also lived in Longford. You and he had been friends but you had fallen out. Something of an ongoing feud had developed and there had been unfriendly phone and social media exchanges between you. At around 6.00 pm your brother and another man were in Goose Green place near Mr Wilson’s house and there was an argument. You were not present but you received a message from Mr Wilson which you took as a threat and, at about 7.00 pm, you decided to confront him. You walked towards his home and took with you a sawn off .22LR Brno bolt action rifle, modified so that it could be raised and fired using only one hand. As you approached Mr Wilson heard you shouting, saw you coming and walked towards you. From a distance of about 30 metres you stood in the road, lifted the firearm with one hand, pointed it at Mr Wilson and, without aiming, fired towards him. That shot did not strike him. Mr Wilson then began running towards you. When he was about 20 metres away you aimed the rifle and fired again. This time the shot struck Mr Wilson on the inside of his right thigh, causing a wound just above his knee. Despite having been shot in the leg he continued towards you. You pointed the rifle and fired it at him for a third time. Again you missed. You tried to fire a fourth shot but, as later ballistics examination revealed, the fourth cartridge failed to discharge because the priming compound inside the rim did not ignite. You then ran off. The three fired cartridges were recovered from the road.
One of the bullets was later found by the police near the rear glass sliding door of the lounge room of the home of Louisa Bounds in Goose Green Place beyond where Mr Wilson was standing. The bullet was extensively damaged and flattened from impact. There was a hole in the glass consistent with a bullet strike. That window was struck at a time when there were four children sitting in that room. Fortunately the bullet did not penetrate to the inside of the room and was found outside.
After running away from the scene you went to the home of a nearby resident. You falsely claimed that someone was going to shoot you and asked him to call the police, but when he looked away you left again. You were found at the police station not long afterwards where you had gone with your mother. You told the police that you had disposed of the firearm but it was later retrieved by your brother and handed in.
The photographs of the wound to Mr Wilson’s leg depict a wound which is like a slice, about 15 centimetres long, along the skin on the inside of right lower thigh in an aspect which would be roughly horizontal if he were standing. The wound is more open at each end, but otherwise it appears relatively superficial, without damage to the underlying structures of the leg. The end of the wound away from the entry point appears to me to be an exit wound. The only further information I have about the extent of the injury comes from the medical notes of Mr Wilson’s general practitioner. The notes mention that the wound was cleaned and dressed by paramedics and then reviewed and further treated by his general practitioner. He required pain relief. Somewhat surprisingly, given the appearance of the wound in the photographs, there is no mention of any requirement for stitches. However the notes record that an X-ray disclosed fragments of the bullet lodged in his leg left in the leg which may cause further problems for him.
At the time of this crime you were aged 19 and had no prior convictions. However you were subsequently convicted of burglary and theft of a firearm committed on 26 September 2021 and the wounding and assault of another man on 4 October 2021. Those crimes were both committed only a month or two before these crimes. It is an aggravating factor that you had been arrested for and charged with the wounding and assault and were on bail. On that occasion you stabbed a man twice in the buttock with a knife. I sentenced you on 19 December 2024 to a wholly suspended term of 12 months.
You are now 22. In addition to information given to me by your lawyer about your personal circumstances I was given two reports from a forensic psychologist, Dr Georgina O’Donnell and reports from two general practitioners respectively dated 21 November 2024 and 5 December 2024. Your father was a violent man but your mother and stepfather are supportive and positive influences. You struggled at school and moved into employment after grade 10 but you have a solid work history. You have been in a relationship for three years and you have a child who is now seven months old. You have not been in trouble since 2021. Prior to your remand in custody you had stable employment and were well regarded by your employer who has indicated that you will be welcomed back following your release. You were incapacitated for a period because you broke your wrist in a motor cycle accident and you had surgery to insert a plate and wire on 14 November 2024. You generally engage in healthy outdoor activities and no longer abuse alcohol and drugs.
You were first seen by Dr O’Donnell on 25 November 2021 while you were in custody. You presented with poor mental health accompanied by a heightened risk of suicide and were under crisis support management suicide watch. The risk you posed to yourself at that time arose from the stress caused by your imprisonment combined with other risk factors: youth, your aboriginality, a recent history of self-harm, depression and suicidal ideation. Two weeks before these offences were committed, you had seriously harmed yourself by cutting your arm. Although you claimed that you had no substance abuse problems, you said that you had used Ice before the events of both 4 October and 20 November 2021. Your mother told Dr O’Donnell that she had serious concerns for you and that you had previously been reluctant to engage with doctors and mental health professionals to deal with trauma arising from exposure to your father’s violence. Dr O’Donnell diagnosed depression.
Dr O’Donnell’s second report followed another interview with you on 11 September 2024. She reported that you presented as a dedicated and devoted new father and that you and your partner had established a healthy and stable family unit. She described the improvement in your personal circumstances. Nothing Dr O’Donnell says justifies the conclusion that any mental impairment you had was causally linked to these crimes. However, notwithstanding the improvement Dr O’Donnell described she considered that the same risk factors still apply. You are currently being assessed for having had seizures which seem to arise from stress and you have recently been medicated for anxiety. Prison poses a very high risk to you because it would likely impact you more than a person who does not experience the same risk factors. There is a serious risk that imprisonment will have a significant adverse effect on your mental health.
There is no victim impact statement. Mr Wilson’s wound healed but I am informed that he has been left with a scar and the bullet fragments embedded in his leg cause a slight limp. He was distressed by what happened and still ruminates on how much worse it could have been. Your plea of guilty is in your favour. It avoids the need for a trial and for Mr Wilson to have to give evidence, a prospect he was concerned about. However it is not an early plea, and the delay is a very troubling aspect of the sentencing process. You were quickly charged and committed to this court. An indictment and trial papers were filed in July 2022 along with a draft statement of the facts which were to be asserted if you pleaded guilty. You elected preliminary proceedings. The result is that it is now more than three years since these crimes were committed, and your counsel is likely correct when he asserts that you are not the same person in terms of maturity and insight. You have assumed responsibility as a parent. Delay, per se, is not mitigating. In this case there has been some sign of rehabilitation. You were a young person when these crimes were committed. Your youth is relevant to sentence but the mitigation it offers is less for serious crimes of violence. It is possible that your actions were affected by use of illicit drugs but that is not mitigating.
You are to be sentenced for very serious crimes. You, in public and in a residential area, took a weapon you should never have had, loaded with live ammunition and modified in a highly illegal way, and fired it three times in the most dangerous manner and attempted to discharge it on a fourth occasion. In your heightened emotional state, and possibly affected by drugs, the shots you fired were directed at Mr Wilson but could have gone anywhere. It is very lucky that he was not more seriously injured or killed. You are not charged with attempting to kill him, or causing or intending to cause him grievous injury but your plea of guilty to wounding carries the admission that, at least, you realised that you were likely to wound Mr Wilson and fired the gun anyway. The other shots were either an attempt or threat to shoot him. In addition, you put others in the immediate area at serious risk. Society cannot tolerate use of firearms in this way and it is necessary for the court to strongly condemn your actions and to make clear to you and others what the consequences may be. The only appropriate sentence is a term of imprisonment. I have little doubt that prison will serve no rehabilitative purpose, but in a case of this nature punishment, denunciation and general deterrence are the predominant sentencing considerations. To allow for the factors in your favour I will suspend part of the term and allow the earliest possible eligibility for parole. You were remanded in custody on 28 February 2025. You spent 18 days in custody in 2021 but that period was taken into account in an earlier sentence.
Varlen Barron, you are convicted on each count on the indictment. You are sentenced to imprisonment for three years from 28 February 2025. I suspend one year of that term for two years from your release. It is a condition of that order that while it is in force you commit no offence punishable by imprisonment. I order that you be eligible for parole after having served half of the operative part of the sentence.