STATE OF TASMANIA v BENJAMIN JAMES CHATTERS 28 JUNE 2024
COMMENTS ON PASSING SENTENCE BLOW CJ
Benjamin James Chatters you have pleaded guilty to three charges of assault. They all relate to an incident on 11 March 2023 when you assaulted your partner three times. One assault has been charged under the Criminal Code and the others under the Police Offences Act but I am dealing with them all together.
You and your partner had an argument. There was an age difference. She is about ten years younger than you. In the course of the argument there was a tiny bit of provocation by her. She gestured at you with a broom but did not hit you. You responded by hitting her to the back of her head with an open hand. That was the first assault, and then you made a threatening gesture. You had a large pit-bull mastiff, and in front of the dog you pointed at your partner and said, “Fucking get ’em.” That put her in fear. That was a threatening gesture that constituted an assault. It was the second assault and it is the subject of count 3 on a complaint.
Your partner shut herself in the kitchen to get away from the dog. Then she was trapped in the kitchen. She told you to call the dog off or she would call the police. You did not call the dog off. She called the police. Even though she had called the police you assaulted her a third time. This is the charge that was laid under the Criminal Code. You grabbed her by the neck with one hand and squeezed her neck for about ten seconds. She had difficulty breathing and was gasping for air. After about ten seconds you pushed her into the door frame and then let her go. She chased you out of the residence with a broom.
Your partner has not made a victim impact statement but it is clear that this would have been a very disturbing experience for her. It is not the first time you have assaulted or threatened her. In or about 2019 there was a police family violence order in place to protect her from you. In November 2019 you breached that order by calling her a whore and following her, and for that a magistrate fined you $200. In January 2022 you assaulted her by grabbing her and slamming her head into the ground. You were charged under the Police Offences Act with that offence in 2022 and you were on bail on that charge when you committed the assaults that I am dealing with.
You have got a terrible record, but it is not that surprising when I hear about your background. You had a difficult childhood and adolescence, and the conditions in the home where you grew up resulted you in leaving home at the age of 13. By the time you were 14 you were homeless. You had started using drugs and you had developed a number of unsuitable friendships. You got yourself into trouble. You have a lot of convictions for assault. They have resulted in you going into youth justice detention when you were younger and subsequently to prison. Y ou committed far worse crimes of violence in your youth than the ones I am dealing with today.
Since you have committed these crimes you have spent 2 months plus 28 days in custody from March to June 2023 in relation to other offences, some of them offences of violence but also a mixture of other things. You came out of gaol in mid-June 2023 but you have been back in custody since apparently 7 August 2023. A magistrate sentenced you to 21 days’ imprisonment with effect from 7 August 2023 for a breach of a family violence order relating to the same complainant. It is a subsequent offence, but the point is that you went into custody on 7 August last year, you had 21 days serving that sentence, then, from and including 28 August last year you have been in custody in relation to these offences alone. That is 10 months up to and including yesterday. I think the most appropriate sentence for me to impose is a partially suspended sentence that will see you released today. I am told that you have work available to you in Hobart. You want to go to the Hobart area. You have no need to have anything to do with your former partner whom you assaulted. I will make a family violence order to operate for a longer period than the one currently in force from the Magistrates Court. I will not make a probation order or a community correction order because that would delay the proceedings, and I think that the amount of time that you have spent in custody at this stage is enough provided you behave yourself when you get out.
I convict you and sentence you to 14 months’ imprisonment with effect from 28 August 2023. I suspended the unserved balance of that sentence on condition that you commit no offence punishable by imprisonment for a period of 2 years. I direct that these offences be recorded as family violence offences. I make a family violence order to operate for a period of 2 years from today in the same terms as the current family violence order dated 7 June 2024.