REGINA v EBNER [2001] NSWSC 421

New South Wales Supreme Court

CITATION : REGINA v EBNER [2001] NSWSC 421 revised - 5/06/2001 CURRENT JURISDICTION: Common Law FILE NUMBER(S) : SC 70071/99 HEARING DATE(S) : 21.12.00, 01.03.01 JUDGMENT DATE : 29 May 2001

The Queen

PARTIES : v

Robert John Ebner JUDGMENT OF : Adams J at 1

COUNSEL : Mr P V Conlon (Crown) Mr G J T Cusack QC (Offender) SOLICITORS : S E O'Connor (Crown) Brezniak Neil-Smith & Co (Offender) CATCHWORDS : Sentencing - murder - drug addict - plea of guilty - eighteen years - non parole period thirteen and a half years LEGISLATION CITED : Crimes (Sentencing Procedure) Act 1999 CASES CITED : Veen v The Queen (No 2) (1988) 164 CLR 465 Thomson & Houltron (2000) 115 ACrimR 104 DECISION : Robert John Ebner you are sentenced to imprisonment for a term of eighteen years, commencing on 12 April 1999 and ending on 11 April 2017. I fix a non-parole period such that the earliest date upon which you will become eligible to be released on parole is 11 October 2012.

THE SUPREME COURT OF NEW SOUTH WALES COMMON LAW DIVISION ADAMS J TUESDAY 29 MAY 2001 70071/99 REGINA v ROBERT JOHN EBNER JUDGMENT

1 HIS HONOUR: The offender has pleaded guilty on an indictment charging him with the murder of Paula Margaret Bonacina on 3 April 1999 at Unanderra. 2 Paula Bonacina was a heroin addict. The offender and his girlfriend, Elizabeth Redmond, who were also heroin addicts, were living in Paula's house. Shortly before she was killed, Paula had bought some heroin. She refused to give any to the offender. He killed her for it. Paula's body was found in an unnamed laneway off Nolan Street, Unanderra at about 9:15am on 4 April 1999. These simple facts cover a well of tragedy. 3 Paula left home when she was sixteen years of age to live with a young man (Andrew, who was a heroin user) in a shared house. She had already been using illicit drugs of various kinds but started to take heroin within a few months of moving out of home. What led her to take drugs and leave home at such an early age is not clear, but it seems likely that her father's death (apparently by suicide) when she was eight years old was very traumatic for her. No doubt there were other family stresses which, together with her personality and decisions, contributed to her problems. In June 1990 she had a daughter to Andrew. Their relationship was not a good one. He assaulted and abused her frequently and also threatened her life. In about 1993 they separated and Paula moved into a unit in Dapto. To support her heroin addiction, Paula worked as a prostitute. Shortly after she moved to her unit at Dapto, Paula started a relationship with Darren, who was also a heroin addict. Again, not surprisingly, this relationship was a difficult one. Darren was violent. In about September 1997 he held her at gunpoint in what her mother described as a siege situation that ended after ten hours with police assistance. He had obviously beaten her up very severely. Following the birth of her son in June 1996, Paula went into a rehabilitation centre in an attempt to deal with her drug addiction. She went into a methadone program with some success. However, when she moved into another home in Albert Street, Unanderra, in about November 1997 she started to use drugs more heavily. Her habit was financed by prostitution. She told her mother, "Some people use heroin for kicks but I use it to try and be normal and get out of bed". Paula's children have been cared for by their grandmother since February 1998. She had been looking after them one weekend and took them back to Paula's house with her son Daniel. He went into the house and returned with a note asking her to keep the children and care for them. From that time onwards she has done so, although Paula spent time with them from time to time and her mother would bring them to her house regularly. Her mother said, "Paula loved her children very much and she found it extremely stressing when she could not see them or had to leave them". 4 I have taken some of these facts from statements tendered in the proceedings and others from the Victim Impact Statement provided by Paula's mother. In that statement, Mrs Bonacina said - "Paula was so disillusioned and so emotionally hurt by these experiences. Her wants and needs from life seemed so unreachable to her, so she looked for an escape which was to be heroin - YES Paula's escape from life and her troubles was heroin. This was her poison, not alcohol, nicotine, prescribed drugs, pain killers or the many other escapes people use, but Paula's load to carry was to be the heroin. This was far from being a choice for Paula as the grip was so tight, nobody more than Paula hated what this was doing to her life. After three times in "rehab" and finishing a methadone program she would relapse deeper as a result of these failed attempts. Her self esteem plummeted along with this, but still determined to be free from this poison, she once again packed her bags and her house up to try "Rehab" again more determined than ever before. She had lost everything to the heroin except her children and her family's undying and supporting love for her, so she knew for herself and her children that this attempt had to be the one to preserve what she had left. Paula had done a lot of things I did not like nor was I proud of but nobody was more remorseful than Paula herself was." 5 According to the law, Paula was a criminal and had been one for many years, starting long before she was capable of making mature decisions about her life. Because supply to her of the drugs she used was also a serious crime, it was profitable for someone to do it. It was entirely predictable, therefore, that someone did. Whether the drug laws do any good is not for me to say. But they exact a high price, which is paid, in part, by addicts, their families and their victims. The black market created by the law means that the only way that most addicts (excepting, of course, the rich) can support their addiction is by illegal depredations on the community. Some, like Paula, become prostitutes. Many die before their time. One of Paula's neighbours noted that a few months after she moved into the street a number of houses in the street were broken into. A young woman bearing the same description as Paula was known to be walking around knocking on people's doors and asking for a cup of sugar and the like and, when she gained entry, would steal items. Another neighbour reported letting Paula into her house to use the telephone and then asking to use the toilet but then she found her in a bedroom looking round. The neighbour said - "When she saw me she jumped. She said 'Oh, I'm sorry, I haven't touched anything. Honest I haven't. I wouldn't do that sort of thing.' I said, 'I'll have to ask you to leave. You asked to use the toilet and you went into my bedroom.' She apologised again and said, 'I'm sorry'. She just went then." 6 Another neighbour said - "I would usually see Paula every day or every second day out the front of the house just to say hullo to and that. Every second day she would come over and ask for coffee or milk or something else. I used to make sure I locked the screen door so she couldn't come in while I got whatever she wanted. On three occasions I didn't lock the door and she invited herself in and I found her looking through my home...Another thing Paula and I would talk about was money. She was always asking me for $30 or $40 at a time. I think it was to buy drugs with but I am not sure." 7 Another of the witnesses, who was associated with Paula's drug supplier, said - "Over the last twelve months I have been injecting heroin which has affected my whole life. I have lost employment and have been kicked out of the family home. As a result of my using heroin I was stealing from everybody, including my family, to support my habit, which at the height was me using five to six caps a day which in monetary terms is about $200 a day."