R v Kenneth Noel WHITE [2009] NSWSC 809

New South Wales Supreme Court

CITATION : R v Kenneth Noel WHITE [2009] NSWSC 809

HEARING DATE(S) : 11/05/09, 21/05/09, 29/06/09

JUDGMENT DATE : 20 August 2009

JUDGMENT OF : Hidden J

DECISION : Sentence of 10 years, NPP 6 years.

CATCHWORDS : CRIMINAL LAW - sentence - plea of guilty to manslaughter in satisfaction of indictment for murder - death by stabbing - substantial impairment

LEGISLATION CITED : Crimes Act 1900

CATEGORY : Sentence

PARTIES : REGINA (Crown) Kenneth Noel WHITE (Offender)

FILE NUMBER(S) : SC 2008/8264

COUNSEL : C Maxwell QC (Crown) P D Young SC (Offender)

SOLICITORS : S Kavanagh - Solicitor for Public Prosecutions (Crown) S E O'Connor - Legal Aid Commission (Offender)

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF NEW SOUTH WALES COMMON LAW DIVISION CRIMINAL LIST

HIDDEN J

Thursday 20 August 2009

2008/8264 R v Kenneth Noel WHITE

REMARKS ON SENTENCE 1 HIS HONOUR: The offender, Kenneth Noel White, was indicted for the murder of Paul Richards at Kingswood on 10 December 2007. His plea of guilty to manslaughter was accepted by the Crown in satisfaction of the indictment. The plea was entered, and accepted, on the basis of substantial impairment by abnormality of mind: s 23A of the Crimes Act 1900.

Facts 2 At the time of the killing the offender was living in a home unit on the Great Western Highway at Kingswood. The deceased lived in a home unit nearby. He had friends who lived in the same block of units as the offender and he was a frequent visitor to that unit complex. It is likely that the offender had at least seen the deceased before the killing and, perhaps, had come into contact with him. 3 At about 7.00am on Monday, 10 December 2007, the offender and the deceased came into contact, with tragic consequences, in the basement of the garage area of the offender's unit complex. There the offender stabbed the deceased a number of times, causing his death. The deceased made his way to the hallway outside a unit on the first residential level and called for help. The residents of that unit found him in the hallway, bleeding heavily and with a knife in his hand. Police and ambulance officers attended, but he died at the scene. 4 In the meantime, the offender had gone to a service station on the Great Western Highway not far from the units. He spoke to two shop attendants, asking for help and saying, "The guy's coming after me, he has stabbed me, he is coming to get me." He was observed to be covered in blood, from his face to his pants, and he was holding a bottle of beer and a set of keys. One of the attendants called emergency services. The offender said a number of other things to the operators before the police arrived. He said: "I have been having problems with this guy for the last couple of weeks and he's been pushing me around." "I've been stabbed." "He stabbed me, he's coming after me." [It happened] "in my garage" or "at my place." "The guy came with a knife to my place." "Someone is trying to get me, he's after me." "He reckons I've got his camera." "He's been around my place for two or three weeks. He's been bothering and troubling me. He comes and he pushes me." 5 One of the attendants asked the offender if he had hit the other man back. The offender replied, "No, I was just trying to save myself. I was putting my hands over my body and he was continuously hitting me." As he said this, he moved his hand up near the front of his face. 6 Police arrived at the service station at about 7.05am. Senior Constable Clancey spoke to the offender and recorded what he said to her. The offender gave a version to the effect that, after not sleeping for twenty-four hours and after drinking all night, he went that morning to his garage to get some food from the freezer. He was attacked in the garage and was punched in the mouth. His assailant came at him with a silver thing/a knife/a screwdriver, and stabbed him with it. He had to wrestle the man off, he got away and ran for his life. 7 He repeated this version over and over. He also said that he had seen the assailant a number of times previously, and he had been having trouble with him over the previous few weeks. He said that he knew that the man had been coming to the unit block to visit people at units 1 and 10, where he sold drugs. He said that every time he saw the man, he was "hassled" by him. 8 He said that when he was going down to the garage that morning, he saw the man at unit 1. The man followed him downstairs to the garage area and "started saying shit", which he ignored. Then he was hit to the head and the man started pushing him around. All of a sudden he was cut by the man, and the next thing the man was on top of him and he was trying to get him off. He said, "He was trying to get me in the neck, it was a screwdriver or a knife, a flathead screwdriver, I am not quite sure, I just know I blanked out." 9 The offender was treated by ambulance officers and taken to hospital. There he was treated for a 6.5cm wound to his left palm near the base of the thumb with 5 sutures, and for a 3cm wound to the front of the right thigh with 3 sutures. He had a swollen right cheek, with a fresh laceration and a fresh contusion on his left cheek. He had red marks on his left and right forearm and small scratches on his upper left and right hands. 10 At the hospital he repeated and added to his version of events a number of times. He added that the man had been following him for three weeks, and they had had an altercation at a Subway outlet three weeks previously. He said that he got a screwdriver mark on his leg and a cut to the hand. He said, "I blanked out for a lot of it, I can't really remember what happened till down the servo and I nearly passed out." In a further version, he said that he thought that the man was gay and was trying to rape him. He also said that the man had previously said that he was going to "punch me out", and the next time he was going to kill him. 11 He told hospital staff that he suffered from schizophrenia, that he was prescribed 20mgs of "diprexa" per day, but that he had not been taking as much and had been medicating himself. 12 Testing was conducted on the blood found on the offender's shirt and shoes, together with a swab of the blood on his head and of blood found on the handle of the knife held by the deceased. The DNA profile of all four items was consistent with that of the deceased. Fingerprint testing on the knife was unsuccessful. 13 On post-mortem examination, it was determined that the cause of death was a stab wound which penetrated the chest. Coronary artery atherosclerosis was detected, a condition possibly contributing to the death. There were multiple stab wounds to the body of the deceased, seven to the chest and abdominal areas and two to the back. The fatal wound to the chest had penetrated the right pleural cavity and extended to the right ventricle of the heart. The wound displayed evidence of repeated insertions within the same entry point, showing that the knife was inserted, withdrawn and inserted again on a number of occasions. 14 On searching the offender's unit, police found and seized multiple knives of various types, along with a number of swords and axes. One resident of the unit block told police that he had seen the offender in possession of a knife in a leather pouch, attached to a belt, about two weeks prior to the incident.