New South Wales Supreme Court CITATION : R v Cikos [2001] NSWSC 35 CURRENT JURISDICTION: Common Law Division Criminal FILE NUMBER(S) : SC 70048/00 HEARING DATE(S) : 20/11/00 & 14/12/00 JUDGMENT DATE : 9 February 2001 PARTIES : Regina Sandor Cikos (Prisoner) JUDGMENT OF : Dunford J COUNSEL : P Conlon (Crown) W Terracini SC (Prisoner) SOLICITORS : Director of Public Prosecutions (NSW) (Crown) Russell McLelland & Brown (Prisoner) CATCHWORDS : CRIMINAL LAW - sentencing - triple murder - family members - pleas of guilty CASES CITED : R v Thomson [2000] NSWCCA 309, 49 NSWLR 383 DECISION : See para 27 IN THE SUPREME COURT OF NEW SOUTH WALES COMMON LAW DIVISION CRIMINAL DUNFORD J Friday, 9 FEBRUARY 2001 70048/00 R v Sandor CIKOS SENTENCE 1 HIS HONOUR. The prisoner, Sandor Cikos, has on arraignment pleaded guilty to the murder on 6 December 1999 of his defacto wife, Allison Penrose & their two sons, Jake aged 4 years and Travis aged 18 months. 2 The deaths were discovered when the prisoner contacted police on his return from work, shortly after 6 pm on that day and informed them that he had found the three deceased dead in their beds at the family home at 2 Benares Court, West Dapto. The wife had two wounds at the rear left side of her head, consistent with the use of a blunt instrument and all three had plastic bags over their faces, suggesting suffocation. Some jewellery regularly worn by the wife was missing, suggesting that the motive for the killings might have been robbery, but there was no sign of forced entry, such jewellery was later discovered in the prisoner's lunchbox and one of the bracelets was blood stained with blood later identified as that of the deceased. Fibres and hairs were observed adhering to the wife's hands and these fibres matched the shorts worn by the prisoner that day, while fingernail clippings from her were later identified as containing the prisoner's DNA, during a later interview, police also observed what appeared to be fresh scratches on the prisoner's body, and the deceased's blood was also located on the shorts worn by the prisoner; all these matters indicating a struggle. 3 The pathologist's report identified the causes of death in the case of the wife as the combined effect of suffocation and a blunt force head injury, and of the two boys as suffocation. 4 In a recorded interview later that evening, the prisoner told police that he and his family had enjoyed a good evening the previous night which included a visit from a neighbour, that he and his wife subsequently watched a video together, that after it finished at about 12 to 12.30 am the deceased made a snack for both of them, following which they went to bed, watched a movie on television beginning at about 1 am, and that he gave the deceased a back rub after which they both fell asleep watching the movie. He said he went to work the following morning in the usual way whilst everyone was still asleep, but that when he returned from work at about 5 to 6 he noticed that everything was unusually dark inside the house, he went upstairs and noticed Jake in his bed, he checked his pulse, found there was none and then went to his wife's room and found her there, lying on her back with a pillow over her face and red marks all over her body, so he covered her up with a doona which was lying on the bed. 5 He also mentioned the incident involving his wife and one of her girlfriends in about February 1999 to which I will shortly refer, and said that his wife was having difficulty coming to terms with that incident and that she had subsequently assaulted him, but he claimed that their relationship was good and that they were working things out. Following further investigations by police, the prisoner was arrested on 28 January 2000 and has been in custody since that date. 6 As his Senior Counsel frankly conceded, the killings cannot be excused and there is no acceptable explanation for them; but to understand the circumstances in which they occurred it is necessary to consider the prisoner's background and his relationship with his deceased wife. 7 The prisoner is one of three children and was born in Yugoslavia near the Hungarian border on 20 December 1960. He migrated to this country with his family when 4 years old and there is nothing significant in the family background. His father was a fitter and turner in regular employment and the prisoner went to school in the Wollongong area where he was an average student, left school after completing the School Certificate and began an apprenticeship as a fitter and turner. When he was 19 he married the 17 year old sister of his brother's wife and although the relationship was good at first, as time went on it deteriorated. The wife seems to have been the dominant person in the marriage and incurred a number of debts with the result that they separated after 13 years, when he was aged 32. There were three children of the marriage. Initially after the separation he continued to see them but after he met Allison, his former wife created problems, and he has virtually lost regular contact with them. 8 He met Allison at line dancing in about 1993 and they formed a relationship shortly afterwards. They intended to marry but the prisoner suffered multiple fractures to his right lower limb in a crane accident at work in 1994 and they put those plans aside. Jake was born in 1995 and Travis in 1997. The deceased appears to have been a person with a strong, assertive character who enjoyed a social life and on occasions drank to excess when at times she became somewhat uninhibited such as by displaying her breasts and on one occasion jumping into a swimming pool wearing only her underpants. 9 Apart from the period following his accident the prisoner has been in regular employment. As a result of the accident he recovered compensation in the sum of $140,000 and this was used to purchase the family home at Benares Court, West Dapto where the deaths occurred. 10 In February 1999 an incident occurred which appears to have had a profound effect on the family and on the relationship between the deceased and the prisoner. A number of friends, including the prisoner and the deceased, went to a club and stayed until it closed. They were all drinking except for the prisoner who was driving. After leaving the club they all returned to the prisoner's home where he went to bed and went to sleep whilst the others continued drinking and partying. At one stage the deceased and one of her girlfriends went to another room where another male member of the group had gone to sleep. They woke him up, the deceased straddled him and had sexual intercourse with him, with the girlfriend present and also participating. 11 After that the deceased told the girlfriend that it had always been one of her "fantasies" to watch whilst the prisoner had sexual intercourse with one of her girlfriends; and she invited the girlfriend to go with her to the prisoner's bedroom. When they got there the deceased aroused the prisoner and began to have sex with him for a short time. She then got off and told the girlfriend that it was her turn, and she watched whilst the girlfriend and the deceased had sex together; but once her fantasy had become a reality, she apparently did not like what she saw. 12 Almost immediately, she commenced to abuse and berate the prisoner for having had intercourse with the girlfriend in front of her, and she struck the prisoner and ordered him out of the house, and also the girlfriend. It seems this tirade of abuse continued in the days and months following, and led to the deceased selling the furniture from the room where the incident occurred, and when he returned home shortly afterwards, the deceased and the prisoner moved into another bedroom. 13 The deceased in her arguments with the prisoner appears to have taken the position that although she initiated the sexual activity with her girlfriend, the prisoner was nevertheless to blame because she and the girlfriend were drunk and he was sober, and so notwithstanding the provocation, he should not have succumbed. 14 The deceased told a number of her friends about the incident but although the versions she gave to different persons varied, they were generally to the effect that she had found her husband in bed with her best friend. No-one was told that she had invited the girlfriend to do it, or that she had initiated the arousal of the prisoner; and no-one, not even the prisoner, was told that she had sex with another man earlier that evening in the other room. The prisoner said, and I accept, that he was not aware of this fact until he received the police brief following his arrest. 15 The incident seems to have had an all consuming effect on the deceased. She kept a diary on her computer where she related discussions with the prisoner about it and her own thoughts on the matter. She attempted to set him up for a meeting with the woman involved, so that she could then accuse him of being unfaithful, but the prisoner did not attend any meeting with the other woman and had nothing further to do with her. Both parties attended counselling sessions where the prisoner was told to expect more of the same for about 12 months. She assaulted him a number of times, and on one occasion during an argument about the matter slashed at his elbow with a knife, with the result that he required 8 stitches for the laceration at Wollongong Hospital and the police obtained an Apprehended Domestic Violence Order against the deceased on his behalf. She also was meticulous about her fingernails and was frequently having them repaired, and told the beautician that she was constantly breaking them assaulting the prisoner, and that she hit him whenever she could. 16 The deceased was obsessive about the matter and would not let it rest. She told one of her friends that she was going to let the prisoner think that the matter was settling down, but that when things seemed better she would drop him like a bag and find another man. In the 6 weeks leading up to the killings, it appeared to a number of neighbours and others, that the situation was somewhat better between them; but the prisoner gave evidence and told the psychiatrist and psychologist who interviewed him that the deceased had threatened him that if he did not arrange to have the woman involved killed, she would have him killed, and in due course she gave him an ultimatum that the other woman had to be killed by February 2000. 17 He said that she told him if he went to the authorities or left home, she would arrange for something to happen to him. He told Dr Milton that February was fast approaching, he thought of leaving but felt she would pursue him, and that if he went to the authorities, she was more likely to be believed. He felt he had to do something and killing her seemed to be the only thing he could do. 18 There is of course no other evidence of this latest threat and the prisoner's evidence on this matter cannot be tested, but Dr Milton who examined the prisoner considered that it was probably true as the prisoner is not an imaginative person and would be unlikely to make up such a story. The prisoner made no attempt to speak to anyone about these threats, he did not attempt to speak to the psychologist whom he had previously seen with his wife, and he made no attempt to speak to his father or his sister, to both of whom he was close. He said that he could not just leave the deceased, as he was afraid that no matter what he did she would come after him. He appears to have been more aggressive at work in the couple of weeks leading up to the deaths. 19 Dr Milton, an experienced psychiatrist who examined the police statements before the prisoner's arrest and expressed a profiler type opinion, and after his pleas interviewed the prisoner and furnished a report to the prisoner's solicitors, considered that whereas the deceased was of a turbulent, aggressive, demanding nature, prone to sexual jealousy, with a poor self-concept and a tendency to drink to excess, the prisoner was a passive and unassertive man with no past history of violence, no enjoyment of alcohol and not one given to attending parties or expressing himself, or talking about himself or his feelings, being hardworking and skilled in his trade. He was of the opinion that after the incident in February 1999 the prisoner continued to take a passive attitude to putting up with a lot of verbal and physical aggression against him, to which was added the threat that the other woman was to be killed by February 2000 or the deceased would take action against him; and he believed she was capable of it. Dr Milton considered that what led to the wife's death was her overwhelming jealousy and the prisoner's inability to cope with her reaction to his sexual encounter with her friend. He still found the deaths of the two boys perplexing. He found no indications of any cognitive defect or serious mental disorder. 20 The prisoner in evidence said that he had thought of killing his wife for some time, but had always decided against it, and there was nothing different this particular night except that the time limit that she had imposed for causing the death of the other woman was getting closer. He said that although he had thought about killing her as an option, he had not actually made up his mind to take that option before the night in question, but after she went to sleep he watched the end of the movie and decided to do it. 21 He said he went downstairs and obtained a piece of pipe, returned to the bedroom, struck her over the head with the pipe, she turned over and he grabbed her by the throat and choked her. He later put the pillow over her face but did not apply pressure. He then went and choked the two boys; although he put a plastic bag over the head of each of them, they were choked and not suffocated. 22 The only reason he could give for killing the boys was that he could not bear the thought of them going through life with the pain of having lost their mother, and knowing that their father had done it. This line of reasoning, although it may have a certain perverse logic to it, overlooks the fact that two innocent lives have been taken by one of the persons who brought them into the world and from whom, most of all, they were entitled to expect security and protection. Similarly, however unreasonable the conduct and reaction of his wife to the situation which, as I am satisfied, she initiated, he was under no immediate physical threat and he had plenty of opportunities to seek advice and to pursue other options. Three people, two of them his own innocent children, have been killed without any justification and the law must take its course. 23 It seems that notwithstanding the front he put up to the police in the days following the deaths, the prisoner almost immediately regretted, and was remorseful and sorry for, what he had done. He has expressed such sorrow and remorse, not only to the Court, but also to Dr Milton and to a psychologist who interviewed him (Mr Terry Kesby-Smith); and like them, I am satisfied that his remorse is genuine. 24 I have read the Victim Impact Statements and observe that Allison's parents have lost not only their daughter, but also their grandchildren, and I express the Court's sympathy to them; but these matters are not relevant to the issue of sentencing in this case. 25 The prisoner has no previous convictions, has been in regular employment all his life and has been a good provider. He is entitled to an appropriate discount for his plea of guilty: see R v Thomson [2000] NSWCCA 309, 49 NSWLR 383. The plea was not entered until arraignment, but it was signified as a possibility some time earlier and as a certainty the week before the arraignment. I am satisfied that the plea in this case is evidence of genuine remorse and contrition and it has saved the State the trouble and expense of a trial. It has also saved some potential witnesses the embarrassment of giving evidence of their sexual activities. I consider that the appropriate discount for the plea of guilty in this case is in the range 10 to 15%. 26 The prisoner has been in strict protection, and no doubt will serve at least the greater part, if not all of the sentence, in that classification, owing to the fact that children have been killed and this will make the service of his sentence somewhat harsher. He has been in custody since 28 January 2000 and the sentence will be backdated to that date. 27 Sandor Cikos, in respect of each count in the indictment I sentence you to imprisonment for a term of 21 years; the sentences are to be served concurrently and be deemed to have commenced on 28 January 2000. I fix a non-parole period of 15½ years. The earliest date on which you will be eligible to be released on parole will be 27 July 2015. ----------- Last Modified: 02/12/2001 DISCLAIMER - Every effort has been made to comply with suppression orders or statutory provisions prohibiting publication that may apply to this judgment or decision. The onus remains on any person using material in the judgment or decision to ensure that the intended use of that material does not breach any such order or provision. Further enquiries may be directed to the Registry of the Court or Tribunal in which it was generated.