STATE OF TASMANIA v ISAAC JESS HALL BRETT J
COMMENTS ON PASSING SENTENCE 20 APRIL 2026
Mr Hall, a jury has found you guilty of the crimes of committing an unlawful act intended to cause bodily harm and three counts of assault. You pleaded guilty in the presence of the jury to a fourth count of assault.
It is necessary for me to make findings of fact for sentencing purposes. Although you pleaded not guilty to four counts, you gave evidence at trial and made a number of admissions. However, there are still significant disputes between the allegations made by the prosecution and your concessions in evidence. In respect of the disputed matters, I can only find a fact adverse to you if I am satisfied of that fact beyond reasonable doubt. My findings must, of course, also be consistent with the verdicts of the jury.
The relevant crimes were committed on 4 October 2023. The complainant was known to you, but you did not have a close relationship. You had only met on a few occasions. However, at the time of this offending, you were both simultaneously engaged in a relationship with a woman. Despite this, it seems that when you did have contact with each other, you were relatively friendly.
On the evening of 4 October, there was an argument between the complainant and the woman at her house. The complainant left her house after the argument, and she contacted you to complain about his conduct. In your evidence, you said that she sent you a message containing a video in which she was crying and alleging that the complainant had hit her. You could see blood on her face and a missing tooth, which was consistent with her claim of assault by the complainant. I do not intend to make any finding concerning what actually took place during that argument. The complainant denied in his evidence that he had assaulted her, and she did not give evidence on the trial. What actually happened is not relevant to my determination of your culpability, the important question is what you actually believed. I am satisfied that on the basis of what she told you and what you could see in the video, you formed the belief that the complainant had in fact assaulted her.
Shortly after receiving the message, you contacted the complainant and asked what had happened. He gave you his version, which included his denial of assault. You told him that you were going to see the woman and would contact him after that. In evidence, you said that you drove to her house but were put off because there were police cars outside her house. This may well be the case. It is clear from the evidence that police had been called and attended her house after the incident. In any event, I am satisfied that by the time that you contacted the complainant again, you had confirmed to your own satisfaction your belief that he had assaulted this woman. You invited the complainant to meet with you. The complainant’s evidence was that you said you wanted to have a few drinks and “have a vent about what happened”. Your evidence was that your intention was to take him to see the female and attempt to “mediate the issue”. I accept that there was contact of this nature, and that it was ostensibly friendly and innocent. However, I am also satisfied this that was a subterfuge on your part with your actual purpose being to lure him into your vehicle so that you could take him to a remote location on the property of a person known to you and assault him. Your purpose was to extract retribution for what you believed to have been an assault perpetrated by the complainant on the female. I have come to this conclusion as a matter of necessary inference from your subsequent conduct.
After this conversation, you collected the complainant in your car and started to drive through Launceston. According to the evidence of Sgt Chugg, he started to follow your vehicle for the purpose of interception when he came across you in Mayfield at about 9:30 pm. He was driving a marked police vehicle, and when you saw him, you increased your speed and otherwise drove in a manner with the intention of evading police interception. You travelled onto the incorrect side of the road in your efforts to get away from the police vehicle. You confirmed in evidence that you were aware that there was a warrant in existence for your arrest and that is why you wanted to avoid police. The complainant said that when you saw police and started to speed away, he told you that he wanted to get out of the car. You told him that you could not risk being caught by police and you refused to stop. This may well have been your primary reason for not stopping at that point but in any event, you did not let him out of the vehicle when he expressed his desire to do so. I am satisfied that by this time, and irrespective of your desire to evade police, your intention was to deprive the complainant of his liberty so that you can carry through with your plan to assault him. The deprivation of liberty referred to in count five was a continuing offence which commenced around this time.
You committed the crime alleged in count one as soon as you arrived at the remote property. You had a crowbar secured in a pocket in the driver’s door. You got out of the car, went around to the passenger side where the complainant was seated in the front of the passenger seat, and attacked him with the crowbar. You struck him a number of blows with this weapon. There was a dispute between you as to the number of blows involved in this attack, he said more than nine, you said four. I agree with the prosecutor that it is not necessary for me to resolve the precise number. The fact of the matter is that you delivered several blows in immediate succession, each of which was swung with considerable force. He had put his left arm up to defend himself and the crowbar was primarily coming into contact with his forearm. By the time you had hit him at least four times, you had broken his arm. The medical evidence established that he suffered a fracture of the ulnar bone of his left forearm. You accept and the jury found that this injury constituted grievous bodily harm. In fact, you pleaded guilty to the alternative count of causing grievous bodily harm, which accepted that you were subjectively reckless about the causation of serious injury, but you denied that your intention was to inflict such injury. This plea was not accepted by the prosecution in discharge of the indictment, and a trial was necessary. The jury found you guilty of the more serious crime of unlawfully intending to cause bodily harm. The only available finding consistent with this verdict is that you struck the complainant with the crowbar with the intention of causing him serious and disabling injury, that is grievous bodily harm. You will be sentenced on that basis.
Although the particulars in count two alleged that you then pulled the complainant from the car, this was not supported by the evidence. I accept the complainant’s evidence that after being struck with the crowbar a number of times, he forced his way out of the car, took the crowbar off you and threw it under the car. You then committed count two by punching him with your fist to the side of his head. He agreed that you did this but said that he did not fall to the ground and you did not assault him when he was on the ground. However, the count was left to the jury on the basis that the alleged assault was not constituted by the punches but by the fact that he fell to the ground as a result of your actions and you then stomped on his back and leg while he was on the ground. The jury was instructed that it was not required to be satisfied of all of these particulars in order to find you guilty of this assault and a question asked by the jury during deliberations indicates that it may not have been satisfied that after the complainant went to ground you stomped on him. However, an inevitable finding is that your punches cause the complainant to fall to the ground. You will be sentenced on the basis that this took place, but not that you stomped on him after he fell down.
You then took him into a nearby shed and told him to sit on a chair. I am satisfied that this was part of his unlawful detention by you. I have no doubt that he felt compelled to comply with your instructions to go into the shed and remain there because of the brutal assault which you had just perpetrated on him. You admit that in the shed you punched him to the face twice more. This constituted the assault alleged in count three. The complainant said in evidence, that you also pointed a firearm at him and told him he was going to die. I am not satisfied of this allegation beyond reasonable doubt, mainly because there is no allegation of aggravated assault or any suggestion in the particulars of the indictment that a firearm was used. It would in my view be unfair and inconsistent to principle to sentence you on that basis. Accordingly, I will not sentence on the basis that you threatened him with a firearm.
After this, you compelled him to go back to the car. He sat in the passenger seat, and you got into the driver’s seat. You then committed the assault alleged in count four. Having regard to the jury’s verdict on this count, I accept the truth of the complainant’s allegations. These were completely denied by you but clearly the jury rejected your denials. I am satisfied that you assaulted the complainant in the vehicle by hitting him multiple times on the side of his head a number of times with a brick, elbowing him in the nose and punching him twice to the eye. After this assault, you got out of the car and told the complainant that if he tried to run or left the car, you would see that he had done so on CCTV and he would be killed. He had seen the monitors for the CCTV in the shed. His evidence was that he believed that you were serious about your threats. This also forms part of the deprivation of liberty.
You returned to the car after about 20 to 30 minutes. The complainant said that when you did, you were apologetic said you had taken things too far. You told him that you would take him back to town. On the journey back to Launceston, you sought his assurance that he would not report what you had done to police. He played along with this because he was scared. Although you told him that you would take him to the hospital, you in fact dropped him off in a location which was a significant walking distance from the hospital, most of it uphill. After you drove away, he called 000 to seek assistance. The police located at him and took him to the hospital.
The complainant’s broken arm required surgery. It was initially treated under an anaesthetic in the emergency department upon arrival at the hospital. He subsequently underwent a more extensive surgical operation to realign and straighten the arm bone and a metal plate was inserted at that time to stabilise the fracture. He suffered other injuries in the nature of bruising and soft tissue injury to various parts of his body including his face and around his eyes. He has provided an impact statement which describes the practical, emotional and psychological impact of your crimes. This impact is ongoing. Although I treat the impact statement with the usual degree of circumspection, what has been described by the complainant is what one would expect as a result of a significant trauma such as this.
You are now 25 years of age. You have had a difficult life. Your early childhood was impacted by abuse, including sexual abuse. You were made a ward of the State and rendered homeless by the age of 13. Thereafter, you largely fended for yourself although you did spend some time in foster care and attempted to seek shelter with your father. Unfortunately, this was unsuccessful because he was an abusive alcoholic. You have been diagnosed with mental illnesses including autism spectrum disorder, ADHD and post-traumatic stress disorder. It is not clear to me that you are having any significant treatment for these conditions, and it is not suggested that they are causally linked to your commission of these crimes. In 2020, you were the victim of a shooting and spent six months in hospital. All of this is consistent with a lengthy and concerning criminal record. You first came into contact with the criminal justice system at the age of 15. Much of your early offending consisted of offences of dishonesty which your counsel tells me related to your need to support yourself at such a young age. There are also regular convictions related to the use of drugs. Your criminal history includes a number of offences of violence. In August 2021, you were sentenced by me for a serious assault which involved you attacking a man with a hockey stick. I imposed a wholly suspended sentence conditioned on community supervision for that crime. This sentence was activated in full three months later because of further offending. Various other community-based sentencing options have been attempted including a drug treatment order imposed in 2022. This order was cancelled in January 2024. However, the drug treatment order was still in effect, and you were subject to its conditions at the time that you committed the crimes with which I am dealing.
I regard these crimes as extremely serious. You deprived this man of his liberty so that you could assault and terrorise him. Your conduct was clearly premeditated. I am satisfied that you had the crowbar with you in the car because you had the intention of using it in this assault. You attacked him with it with the intention of causing grievous bodily harm and you achieved that purpose. All of this occurred in a remote location, and you kept him there under threat of further violence or even death for a considerable period. The violence perpetrated by you over this time including by the further assaults outside the car, in the shed and back in the car where you used a brick to attack him. This was brutal and sustained. Not only did he suffer serious physical injury, but it must also have been a terrifying experience. He said in evidence that he thought he was going to die, and this can be readily understood. Your purpose was to extract retribution because you believed he had attacked and assaulted the female. You had no real basis for this, and in any event your attitude that you were able to take the law into your own hands in this way deserves condemnation. You knew that the police had been contacted about that incident and the maintenance of order in our community requires that such allegations be dealt with in a lawful way and not according to the idiosyncratic notions of vigilante justice. It can be said in your favour that you did eventually desist when it dawned on you that you had gone too far and you did drive the complainant back into town. However, much of your contact with him at that time and subsequently seemed to be concerned with your own welfare and, in particular, not being reported to the police. Further, although you did drive him into the CBD, you left him a long way from the hospital and made no real attempt to ensure that he received appropriate care. I accept that when you gave evidence you did express what I regarded to be genuine remorse, but I am far from being convinced that you have any real insight into how serious your actions were or the devastating impact that they have had on the complainant. Your plea of guilty to one count of assault has some relevance but in reality, given that a trial was required to establish your guilt in respect of the other charges, it has had no significant utilitarian value.
In my opinion, the only appropriate sentence is a significant term of imprisonment. There is a need to denounce and make clear to those who would act in a similar way that premeditated violence of this nature will incur severe punishment. In your case, there is also a need to emphasise specific deterrence. You have now been in custody for a considerable period of time, some of which will be attributable to this sentence and I will backdate the sentence accordingly. I will permit the possibility of parole given your age and the remorse which you have expressed, but given your criminal history and the fact that you committed these crimes when subject to another sentencing order, it is appropriate that the non-parole period reflect the need to spend a significant period of time in actual custody.
Isaac Hall, you are convicted of the crimes of which you have been found or to which you have pleaded guilty and sentenced to imprisonment for a global term of five years. That sentence will commence from 19 January 2025. You are not eligible for parole until you have served three years of that sentence.