Regina v Khanh Hung Vu [2005] NSWSC 271

New South Wales Supreme Court

CITATION : Regina v Khanh Hung Vu [2005] NSWSC 271

HEARING DATE(S) : 24 November 2004 - 1 December 2004, 11 March 2005

JUDGMENT DATE : 1 April 2005

JUDGMENT OF : Barr J at 1

DECISION : The offender is sentenced to imprisonment for a period of eighteen years. A non-parole period of thirteen years and six months is fixed commencing on 23 July 2003 and expiring on 22 January 2017 and a balance of the term of four years and six months expiring on 22 July 2021.

PARTIES : Regina, Khanh Hung Vu

FILE NUMBER(S) : SC 2004/30

J Dwyer COUNSEL : L Flannery

S Kavanagh SOLICITORS : Legal Aid Commission of New South Wales

LOWER COURT JURISDICTION :

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF NEW SOUTH WALES COMMON LAW DIVISION

GRAHAM BARR J

1 APRIL 2005

2004/30 REGINA v KHANH HUNG VU

SENTENCE 1 HIS HONOUR: On 31 March 2004 the offender, Khanh Hung Vu, was committed for trial on a charge that on 1 December 2003 at Sydney he murdered Yong Ling. At the commencement of his trial he pleaded not guilty of the murder of the deceased but guilty of her manslaughter. The Crown did not accept the plea in discharge of the indictment and the trial proceeded. On 1 December 2004, part way through the trial, the offender asked to be arraigned again and changed his plea to guilty. 2 The deceased, Yong Ling, came from a Chinese family and grew up in Sarawak. She settled in Australia in about 1990. She married a Chinese man, but the relationship ended in fact when he took their infant child and returned permanently to China. The deceased met the offender in about 2000 when she was living and working in Campsie. They began to live together and on 3 June 2001 the deceased gave birth to their child, Joseph. The deceased was still married, so she and the offender did not marry. 3 The offender began to act violently towards the deceased. In September 2002 she reported to the police that he had hit her many times. The police had to be called a number of times to the unit where the couple were living. The deceased became afraid of the offender and obtained an Apprehended Violence Order which restrained him from going to the place where she and the child were living. He disobeyed the order and repeatedly went to the deceased's home. He assaulted her a number of times. 4 One such occasion was on 1 June 2003. The deceased was at home with their child and the offender went to the unit. He told the deceased that he wanted her to let him live with her and not to tell the police about it. She refused. He punched her several times in the face, causing swelling and bruising. She had to be taken to hospital for treatment. 5 On the evening of 16 June 2003 the offender knocked on the deceased's door but she would not open it and told him to go away. The unit was situated not very far above street level and access could be gained from the street by climbing onto a balcony which led onto a bedroom. The offender got in by that means. He told the deceased that he wanted to have sexual intercourse with her and she refused. He raped her violently in the presence of the child. She was badly hurt. The offender stayed in the unit for several hours afterwards but the deceased was afraid to call the police. After the offender left she reported the matter to her neighbours, who helped her and took her to hospital. There were plain, fresh and telling injuries to her sexual parts. The police were informed and took photographs of the deceased's face. Those photographs show the bruising caused by the attack made earlier in the same month. 6 The deceased found herself unable to look after the child properly and handed him over to the Department of Community Services, I think for a limited time. On 20 June 2003 the offender again went to her unit. She explained to him that the child was with the department and telephoned the department so that the offender could speak to an officer. She was afraid to ring the police and hoped that the officer would. Fortunately the officer did, and the police went to the unit and took the offender away. 7 The deceased was afraid to live any longer at the premises and arranged for her neighbours to take over the remainder of her lease. She was due to move out on 23 July 2003 but decided to stay one more day. The neighbours had already moved in. The offender arrived unannounced as before and entered the unit via the balcony and the bedroom. He told the deceased to come into the bedroom to listen to him. He took her out of the presence of the neighbours and into the bedroom. He took her onto the balcony and gave her a savage beating with his fists. As she lay helpless on the floor the offender swore and kicked her repeatedly in the leg. He left her unconscious, lying face down on the balcony. There was blood coming from her nose, her ears and her mouth. Ambulance officers were called and had to remove a tooth from her airways to enable her to breathe. They could not feel her blood pressure. They took her to hospital. 8 When she arrived at hospital the deceased was unconscious and bleeding from various parts of the head. She was in severe hypovolaemic shock. CT scans showed multiple fractures. There was a fracture of the frontal bone and the frontal sinuses. There was a longitudinal fracture within the right petrous temporal bone. There were fractures of the nasal bones and the ethmoids bilaterally. There were fractures involving the anterior, lateral and medial walls of the maxillary antra. Fracture lines were reported extending to the bases of the pterygoids. There were fractures involving the zygomatic arches bilaterally. There were fractures involving the medial orbital and lateral orbital walls. There were fractures involving the right side of the body of the mandible as well as both mandibular heads.