R v Pascal Lucien Francois DIONNET [2008] NSWDC 65

New South Wales District Court

CITATION: R v Pascal Lucien Francois DIONNET [2008] NSWDC 65

HEARING DATE(S): 24 April 2007 - 7 May 2007 - Trial 22 June 2007, 12 October 2007, 18 October 2007, 1 February 2008, 4 April 2008

JUDGMENT DATE: 4 April 2008

JURISDICTION: Criminal

JUDGMENT OF: Berman SC DCJ

DECISION: The offender is sentenced to imprisonment with a non-parole period of seven years on each count and a head sentence in each case of ten years imprisonment.

CATCHWORDS: Criminal law - sentence - standard non-parole period - sexual intercourse without consent - actual and threatened violence - continued denial - mentally unwell

CASES CITED: R v De Simoni (1981) 147 CLR 383

PARTIES: The Crown Pascal Lucien Francois Dionnet

FILE NUMBER(S): DC 06/11/0323

COUNSEL: A. Seeto - Crown B. Murphy - Accused

SOLICITORS: NSW DPP McGowan Lawyers

SENTENCE

1 HIS HONOUR: Pascal Dionnet appears for sentence today on two counts of having had sexual intercourse with a woman without her consent. She was an Italian citizen on a working holiday in Australia. (In this judgment I will refer to her as LT). On 17 February 2005 she went to a boarding house in Brighton-le-Sands. She was allocated Room 10 on the first floor of the boarding house. She later went downstairs to the manager's office where she first came into contact with the offender who would sexually assault her only a few hours later. He came to the manager's office while she was there. She said that he began to stare at her. Later on that same day she saw the offender again. This time she was knocking on the door of room 14 when the offender and a friend of his came up the stairs. Again she noticed the offender staring at her. She went out that evening before returning to the boarding house and going to bed. She believed that she had locked the door. Whether she forgot to lock the door or whether the offender had a means of entering the locked door was never made clear in the trial. In view of the evidence that the lock to Room 10 had been changed only shortly before it was occupied by LT I am inclined to the view that she simply overlooked locking her door that evening.