Veen v The Queen [No 2] [1988] HCA 14

High Court of Australia Mason C.J. Wilson, Brennan, Deane, Dawson, Toohey and Gaudron JJ. Veen v The Queen [No 2] [1988] HCA 14

ORDER Application for special leave to appeal granted. Appeal dismissed.

Cur. adv. vult.

The following written judgments were delivered:—

1988, March 29 Mason C.J., Brennan, Dawson and Toohey JJ.

Early in 1971 the applicant, then almost sixteen, was apprehended by the police in Hyde Park in Sydney. He was already a homosexual prostitute. He was taken to the Darlinghurst Police Station where he pulled a knife out of his pocket and stabbed himself, puncturing a lung. No charge was laid against him on this occasion. In October 1971, an incident occurred in the boarding house where he was living in Albury, after he had been drinking. His landlady tried to get him to go to bed but he took a kitchen knife and lunged at the landlady. She escaped and attempted to run away. He ran after her and stabbed her three times in the back and once in the chest. On this occasion he appeared before the Children's Court and was convicted of malicious wounding and committed to an institution generally.

In 1975 the applicant, then aged twenty, was picked up as a homosexual prostitute by a person with whom he spent the weekend. After the two had been drinking heavily, the applicant asked for payment. The other man refused saying: "No, you black bastards are all the same, always wanting handouts." (The applicant is an Aboriginal.) The applicant took a sharp, pointed knife from a kitchen rack and stabbed the other man to death, leaving the body with over fifty stab wounds. He was charged with murder but convicted of manslaughter by a jury. The verdict was based on s. 23A(1) of the Crimes Act 1900 NSW, the jury being satisfied that he was suffering from "such abnormality of mind as substantially impaired his mental responsibility". Rath J. sentenced him to life imprisonment. His Honour came to the conclusion that, although life imprisonment was not otherwise appropriate for the crime, a life sentence ought to be imposed for the protection of the community by reason of the applicant's uncontrollable urges. His application to the Court of Criminal Appeal was unsuccessful but an appeal to this Court succeeded: Veen v The Queen [No. 1] [1] (hereafter "Veen [No. 1]"). The majority of the Court were of the opinion that the sentence of life imprisonment should be quashed and that a sentence of twelve years imprisonment should be substituted. He was sentenced accordingly but was released on licence pursuant to s. 463 of the Crimes Act on 20 January 1983.