STATE OF TASMANIA v MARK ANTHONY HOLMES 21 OCTOBER 2024
COMMENTS ON PASSING SENTENCE PEARCE J
Mark Holmes, you plead guilty to two counts of assault. At about 7 pm on 6 May 2023 you were driving in Newnham when you saw Belinda Baker parked by the side of the road outside your house talking to her husband Stuart Baker. Mr Baker had been walking with a friend and Mrs Baker had stopped her car to speak with him. Mrs Baker was seated in her car and Mr Baker was standing on the nature strip. At the time, you were in a relationship with Mrs Baker who had been separated from her husband. When you saw them talking you accelerated, drove onto the wrong side of the road, over the kerb and onto the nature strip between the road and the front fence of the house. You continued to accelerate and drove directly at Mr Baker, tearing up the grass on the nature trip as you did so. The left front of your vehicle struck Mr Baker to his right side and knocked him to the ground. You then drove back onto the road, reversed back and drove at Mr Baker again. This time he narrowly avoided being struck by moving behind Mrs Baker’s vehicle. You then drove off but you were arrested not long afterwards. At the time your driver licence was suspended for non-payment of fines and I agreed to deal with the charge of driving while suspended on count 1 of complaint 32722/23.
Mr Baker was then aged 39. As a result of being struck by your car he experienced pain in his hip and lower back. His right knee and lower leg were grazed, but he did not require medical treatment. There is no victim impact statement and so I will assume that his injuries resolved quickly and that there is no other lasting impact of which I should be made aware.
You have some convictions in Queensland and Victoria for anti-social offences, including assault police, committed when you were in your early to mid 20’s. You are now 43. In this State, in 2020, you were fined for a family violence assault and disqualified from driving for driving with an illicit drug. You are still in a relationship with Mrs Baker. You have three children of your own the oldest of whom is 17 and lives with you. Her siblings live with their mother. You have a long history of employment as a labourer in the agricultural sector, mostly on dairy farms. I was given a letter written by your general practitioner Dr Andrew Jackson. He has treated you since 2019 but outlined your medical history prior to then. In 2011 you suffered very serious injuries in a motor vehicle accident, including spinal fractures and a brain injury. There was a long period of rehabilitation but you were left with some cognitive impairment which, according to Dr Jackson, results in poor memory, reduced organisational skills, impulsive behaviour and a decreased awareness of the potential consequences of your behaviour. Nevertheless, you recovered sufficiently to return to employment. Then, in 2016, you developed rheumatoid arthritis which permanently necessitates immuno-suppressant medication. In 2018 you suffered a complex fracture of the right ankle which was so disabling that it led to a fusion of the joint in 2022. You fell down stairs and broke your jaw in 2020. The fall, according to Dr Jackson, was contributed to by the ankle injury. Then in December 2023, a motor cycle fell onto your left leg causing a fracture to the top of the left tibia which required surgery and resulted in persistent further pain and disability. Your general health is not good either. The result is that you have not been able to return to work and the chance of future employment is very uncertain. The impact on your finances is such that you are unable to pay your mortgage and you plan to sell your home.
I accept that the injuries to which I have referred would make prison more difficult for you than most. As to the possible relevance to sentence of your acquired brain injury I must consider the evidence with rigour. Dr Jackson’s report suggests that there is some impaired mental functioning as a result of your injury, but falls short of establishing that any mental impairment, at the time, reduced your ability to appreciate what you were doing was wrong, or to make calm and rational choices or to think clearly. His report only contains the bare statement that you were prone to impulsive behaviour.
Your plea of guilty is in your favour. It was indicated at a relatively early stage. Those who plead guilty are usually entitled to a reduction in sentence because the need for a trial is avoided and it indicates that you accept responsibility for your actions and are sorry for what you did. I accept that you acted spontaneously and impulsively. Nevertheless, these are serious assaults. You used the car as a weapon to deliberately drive into Mr Baker. Having struck him once you tried to hit him again. You are not charged with a more serious offence involving an intention to cause serious injury, and it is very fortunate that Mr Baker was not more seriously injured, but the risk that he may have suffered serious injury or worse is obvious to anyone. It is an aggravating factor that this occurred when your child was present in your car and Mrs Baker’s child was present in her car. Your crimes were motivated by ill-feeling towards Mr Baker. You believed he had conducted himself badly towards his wife and your family. That might explain your conduct but certainly does not lessen the seriousness of it. There is a need to denounce your conduct and impose a sentence which reflects the seriousness of it in the hope that this will make you and others think twice before committing acts of this nature in the future.
Balancing all of these competing considerations I have concluded that a sentence of imprisonment is the only appropriate sentence, but I will allow you the opportunity to avoid having to serve any term of actual imprisonment by wholly suspending it. You cannot pay a fine which is sufficient to reflect the seriousness of the assaults but I will impose a fine for the driving offence. I would have supplemented the sentence by community service but it is obvious that you would not be fit for that either. However it will be a condition of the sentence that you do not commit another offence punishable by imprisonment. If you breach that condition you will be required to serve the term I am about to impose unless that is unjust, in addition to any further sentence which is imposed.
Mark Holmes, you are convicted on both counts on the indictment and on complaint 32722/23, count 1. On that count on the complaint you are fined $200 and disqualified from driving for three months from today. On the indictment I impose one sentence. You are sentenced to a term of imprisonment of nine months, wholly suspended for two years from today. You are disqualified from driving for nine months cumulative to the period of disqualification just imposed, making a total of 12 months. Any driver licence you have is cancelled, which means that you will need to re-apply at the end of the total period of disqualification.