EDITORIAL NOTE: NO SUPPRESSION APPLIED.
IN THE DISTRICT COURT
AT DUNEDIN
CRI-2015-012-002017
[2016] NZDC 7304
NEW ZEALAND POLICE
Prosecutor
v
MANDELA GILLESPIE
Defendant
Hearing:
28 April 2016
Appearances:
Sergeant A Cheyne for the Prosecutor
M Scally for the Defendant
Judgment:
28 April 2016
NOTES OF JUDGE K J PHILLIPS ON SENTENCING
POLICE v GILLESPIE [2016] NZDC 7304 [28 April 2016]
[1]
Mr Gillespie, you are 26 years of age. You are building an appalling history
of committing serious crimes and they are matters that are of concern not only to the
Courts but to the community as a whole, because your threats give great
apprehension as to what you might do when you are drunk or angry. Your lack of
control and the nature of what you then do is just alarming. The offending that
overall is, I suppose, really of concern is relating to offending and making threats to
kill.
[2]
I gave you a sentencing indication on 9 February which you accepted, and
pleaded guilty. The offending of 21 August relates to charges of intentional damage.
There are two threats to kill, as there are two of intentional damage, possession of a
knife and possession of an offensive weapon.
[3]
You had drunk a large amount of alcohol, topped it up with cannabis. There
was an argument with a doorman in a bar. You became unhappy about it. You spoke
to another staff member, gesturing at the doorman you had had problems with,
saying you were going to stab the other staff member. You put it, “I will kill him by
stabbing him.” The female staff member was scared for herself and the doorman.
She told you to leave but you refused, you repeated your threat, and then you said to
the woman you would kill her by stabbing her. She became very distressed. The
doorman began to approach because he could see how upset she was. You saw the
doorman and you went to him and pulled a knife out of your pocket, a bait knife, I
think, a 10 centimetre blade, holding it with your hand pointing it to the doorman.
You then dropped the knife, walked to the exit and walked out, picked up a glass,
throwing it at a window and breaking it. In George Street you lashed out and
punched a shop window, cracking the glass. You said you had taken the knife for
self-defence, you were drunk and under the influence of drugs, and you said you
could not remember threatening anybody.
[4]
By 9 October you were on bail on those serious charges. You were in the
commercial business district. You made a malicious call to the police using a
cellphone at three in the morning saying someone was damaging windows in the bar
you had been thrown out of a month or so earlier. Then you gave your own
description when asked who was doing it. Half an hour or so later you made another
call to the police.
You said you had a firearm and you were going back to
the Octagon to shoot and kill people. You were talking to people who had to react to
that and make decisions on what they had just been told. The Comms staff called
you back to check and you told them the same thing again, and you told them that
you had a firearm in your possession.
[5]
Then from a payphone at four in the morning you rang the police saying you
were going to, “Kill every fucker in the Octagon,” and you were coming for the
police. “You are only two blocks away so lock your doors, you little piglets, there is
a bullet coming for all of you.” You were identified, stopped and arrested. You
knew you were going to be taken into custody. You came to Court and pled it and
then you said you decided after a night out you would wind the police up. You
admitted what you had said.
[6]
You were on conditions of release 21 September and had been warned but
again you failed to report. You became angry at the Milton Corrections Facility, you
were angry at a Corrections officer. You picked up a plastic chair, smashed it against
the cell door, ripped up a towel, hooked it over the sprinkler, pulled it intentionally
so the sprinkler head broke, which distributed 1000 litres of water through the prison
before it could be stopped. Then fire engines had to be called out. $3000 worth of
damage.
[7]
You have prior convictions for wilful damage, four of those; breaches of
sentences of supervision and community work, which you all did badly; and a breach
of release conditions. You were on release conditions at the time you did all this
offending.
[8]
Ms Ure was appearing for you at the indication and she made submissions to
me in writing and orally. She suggested a starting point overall of 20 to 24 months,
taking into account the amount of premeditation, the nature and frequency of the
threats, the use of a weapon and the willingness to carry the threat out and the fear
created. She accepted that the telephone threats to the police would carry another
eight to 12 months cumulative. I think her approach was realistic, based on her
instructions. I considered all the matters she put to me.
[9]
I have now received a pre-sentence report. It appears that you have poor
insight into your offending and little, really, remorse because you do not understand
the impact of what you do on your victims. The comment, as I mentioned to your
counsel today, that you made to the probation officer is alarming, that you feel better
in prison than you do out in the community. Continued re-offending is going to
make that worse, not better.
[10]
Clearly you are a person who abuses alcohol and drugs and that is really the
problem, I think. You have no ability to pay the reparation that the police ask. You
already owe an amount of some $8500 in reparation which you are not paying.
[11]
As you are aware, because you have pleaded guilty I indicated that if you
pleaded guilty I would send you to prison for three years.
I have read the
pre-sentence report, as I have said. I have considered the sentencing indication
because what I said has been typed back for me and I have re-read it, and I see this.
You made specific threats to a specific person, saying you were going to use a
specific weapon in a manner that would cause them death or bodily harm, a knife,
stabbing. That created a great deal of fear in people going about their job. By your
production of the knife you caused that fear to be heightened. You threatened the
doorman with it. I note that this offending was, in my view, to result in two years’
imprisonment as the starting point. I confirm that.
[12]
In relation to your offending on 9 October and the threats you made, the
starting point that I put on that was 12 months; the intentional damage, nine months;
the breach of release conditions, two months. I ended up with some three years and
nine months.
The starting point with totality recognised, that I indicated, was
three years and six months.
[13]
I do not have any difficulty in saying that that is the way I still look at it. I
note you have prior convictions. I noted that an uplift was required and in the end,
again, relating to totality I indicated the end sentence was three years. I do not think
there can be any argument about that. You do not raise one today at all. I am
sending you to prison overall for a term of three years. I impose that sentence on
charging document 2697, the charge of threatening to kill. I have looked at your
fines and I remit your outstanding fines of $1758. All reparation, however, remains.
On the threat to kill police officers, charging document 3355, you are sent to prison
for nine months. For the threat to kill Darren Simpson, on that charge you are sent to
prison for nine months. For the possession of the offensive weapon you are sent to
prison for nine months. I make an order for the destruction of the knife. On the
charge of breach of release conditions you are sent to prison for two months. In
relation to the damage to Corrections property you are sent to prison for six months.
In relation to using the telephone device to make disturbing statements and
comments you are sent to prison for two months. For your breach of bail of 18
September you are sent to prison for one month; intentional damage of the window,
you are sent to prison for a period of one month; and the intentional damage of the
glass window at The Bog Irish Bar, one month.
[14]
As you will appreciate, I have taken all of those matters into account when I
have assessed what I have imposed on the head or lead charge under 2687, the threat
to kill, when I sentenced you to three years’ imprisonment. All those terms are to run
concurrently. Three years’ imprisonment.
K J Phillips
District Court Judge