R v Mottram [2018] NSWSC 873

Supreme Court New South Wales

Medium Neutral Citation: R v Mottram [2018] NSWSC 873 Hearing dates: 26 April 2018 Date of orders: 14 June 2018 Decision date: 14 June 2018 Before: Hidden AJ Decision: Sentenced to imprisonment for 18 years, NPP 13 ½ years, from 19 October 2015 Catchwords: CRIMINAL LAW – sentence – plea of guilty – murder of offender's mother – spontaneous offence – background of troubled upbringing of offender in his mother's care – offender 19 years old – no prior convictions or history of violence – history of mental health issues – substance abuse Legislation Cited: Crimes Act 1900 (NSW) s23A Category: Sentence Parties: Regina Bradley Craig Mottram Representation: Counsel: K Ratcliffe – Crown D Wilson - Offender

Solicitors: Solicitor for Director of Public Prosecutions Legal Aid Commission NSW File Number(s): 2015/306401 Publication restriction: No

Judgment 1. HIS HONOUR: The offender, Bradley Craig Mottram, has pleaded guilty to the murder of his mother, Simone Mottram, at her home in Inverell on 19 October 2015. I received a lengthy statement of agreed facts, setting out in detail the circumstances of the killing and the background to it, which I shall summarise. This background is essential to an understanding of the offence and it is necessary to deal with it first.

Background 1. The offender was born on 7 May 1996, and was 19 years old at the time of the offence. His father was Craig Mottram, who died in 2002. 2. His mother, the deceased, had a history of mental illness from her late teenage years. In 1996, after the birth of the offender, she was hospitalised for post-partum psychosis. Her marriage to Craig Mottram broke down in 1998 and she suffered another period of psychosis. At this time the offender was 2 years old, and the Department of Community Services (DOCS) became involved in his care. He was placed in the custody of his father until that gentleman's death. The offender was then 6 years old, and the deceased regained custody of him. 3. Over the next 12 years the deceased continued to have periods of time where her mental health deteriorated, during which she was hospitalised and was unable to care for the offender. His life during this period was a troubled one. He was constantly exposed to men with whom the deceased had formed relationships after knowing them only briefly. He spent time with her at their houses, where she would drink alcohol, use drugs, and on occasions engage in sexual activity in his presence. Often these relationships ended as abruptly as they began. Numerous incidents of domestic violence perpetrated upon the deceased were reported to police, and the offender was present when some of this violence occurred. 4. The offender and the deceased had been living on the Central Coast of New South Wales, but moved to Inverell when the deceased formed a relationship with a man called Joe O'Brien in 2009. The offender became close to Mr O'Brien's sister, June O'Brien, whom he referred to as "aunty". Mr O'Brien himself was a heavy drinker and was prone to violence. On one occasion he held a gun to the deceased's head in the offender's presence. On another occasion he called the offender "an uncontrollable little faggot" and threatened to knock some sense into him. 5. Over this period the offender's paternal grandmother, Jocelyn Kennedy, was concerned for his welfare. She disapproved of the deceased's lifestyle, which she often voiced in his presence. She made repeated complaints to DOCS about her. Many of these complaints were unsubstantiated or could not be verified. The Department declined to take action in relation to them, citing case load and competing interests. Ms Kennedy continued to complain to DOCS, to the schools which the offender attended and, on one occasion, to a local member of parliament. Mr O'Brien made threats to Ms Kennedy, resulting in an Apprehended Domestic Violence Order (ADVO) being made against him for her protection. 6. When the offender became a teenager, he and the deceased began to abuse each other verbally. On occasions the deceased also inflicted physical violence upon him. However, despite all this, and the inconsistency in the deceased's care of him, he attended school regularly and, indeed, excelled there. Numerous people describe him as intelligent, and his school records indicate he was an above average student. 7. His relationship with the deceased broke down after an incident in late 2010. Her relationship with Mr O'Brien had come to an end a month previously, and at the time of the incident she and the offender were living in unstable accommodation in caravan parks and motels. He was 14 years old at the time. She threw him out, complaining that she no longer wanted to live with him. He spent the night with a friend and boarded a bus the next day to return from Inverell to the Central Coast. She became aware that he was boarding the bus and attempted to remove him from it, but he refused. The bus left and she followed it in her car, swerving in front of the bus and almost causing a collision. Police attended the scene, and subsequently an ADVO was made for the offender's protection. One of the conditions of the order was that there be no contact between them. 8. Following this incident, the offender returned to the Central Coast, where he took up residence with his grandmother, Ms Kennedy. He continued his education in that area. 9. Between November 2010 and June 2012, the deceased continually tried to contact him in breach of the ADVO. On some occasions this contact was preceded by her call to police, asking them to check on his welfare. These breaches led to her arrest a number of times for contravention of the ADVO. 10. From early 2013, the offender did not attend school regularly and he left school shortly after his seventeenth birthday in May of that year. His mental health was declining, and over the next 2 years he was admitted several times to the Mental Health Unit at Gosford Hospital. There were incidents of self- harm. At the end of 2013 he was diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder and moderate, recurrent Major Depressive Disorder. 11. In August 2013, he spent a period of time at a youth refuge after fighting with Ms Kennedy. In the following year he was supervised by the Youth Mental Health Team at Central Coast Community Health. He was discharged from that service shortly after his eighteenth birthday. He was abusing prescription medicine and regularly smoking cannabis. In February 2015, he attended two sessions with a psychologist, who described him as "largely misunderstood in his life", and as having "control issues" and behaving "in a way to elicit attention." 12. In May 2015, he told the Central Coast Mental Health Team that he had been drinking heavily and sought admission to a detoxification facility. After a further admission to hospital in the following month for risk of self-harm, during which he described heavy drinking and the use of cannabis, the Mental Health Team set in train arrangements for him to enter a drug and alcohol rehabilitation program. In late July 2015, he entered the GROW facility at West Hoxton. 13. When interviewed at his admission to that facility, he described his abuse of alcohol, cannabis, nicotine and codeine, as well as experimentation with ecstasy and hallucinogens. Initially he settled well into the program, but about a month later his mental health began to decline. He was self-harming, and described consistent thoughts of killing himself and others. The GROW staff attempted to obtain treatment for him, but were unsuccessful due to red tape and a lack of resources. There was an admission to Liverpool hospital in early September 2015, where medication was prescribed and he was discharged back to the GROW program. Later that month, he took a knife from the kitchen and made comments about wanting to stab people and throw acid in their face. This led to his being discharged from the program. 14. He returned to live with Ms Kennedy. He contacted the Drug and Alcohol team at Central Coast Community Health, explaining that he had relapsed immediately and had suicidal thoughts. However, shortly after his return, he made contact with a friend whom he had met during his time in detox. For some weeks thereafter he stayed with that friend and others. He began to drink again and his consumption of alcohol escalated. He was also smoking cannabis. On an occasion during this period there was an altercation in which a person threatened him and one of his friends with a pair of scissors. 15. Ms Kennedy did not hear from him for about 3 weeks and reported him as a missing person. However, in mid-October he returned to her home. He told her that someone he had been with had drugged him, raped him and gone through his belongings looking for money. He said that he had been with very dangerous people and that they had threatened Ms Kennedy. The following day he attended the Emergency Department at Gosford hospital, where he said that he had been taking methamphetamines for about a week and had no recall of events. 16. That same day the deceased rang her father, Leopold Purer, and asked him to pick the offender up from the hospital and have him stay with him. When Mr Purer attended the hospital with his partner, he was shocked by the offender's appearance. He was unkempt and dirty, and looked as if he had been homeless. He told Mr Purer that he had been drugged at a party and he thought he had been raped. He removed his pants to expose his buttocks, and Mr Purer noted red marks around his thighs which looked like ring marks. He said that the people at the party were bad people. He was fiddling with a pen and he lunged towards Mr Purer in a stabbing motion, stopping close to his neck. He said, "That is how quick it can happen." As a result of this, Mr Purer was reluctant to have the offender stay with him because he seemed unpredictable. He took him back to Ms Kennedy's home. 17. On 16 October 2015, the deceased arranged for a friend of hers to drive her to the Central Coast to pick up the offender and take him to Inverell. In the course of their journey to the Central Coast, the offender rang the deceased and told her that the "bad people" were after him and wanted to kill him. The offender was picked up and on the way back to Inverell, at Armidale, he bought a new mobile phone and SIM card so that the "bad people" could not contact him. 18. In the evening of 17 October, the deceased and the offender arrived at the address in Inverell where she was then living with her partner, Robert Hawke. Both of them were heavy drinkers and, although the relationship was generally happy and stable, there had been reported incidents of domestic violence. 19. That same evening the three of them were at a club. The offender saw a friend of his from school, Jasmin Elliot. He asked her whether she was happy and she said that she was. He said, "Hold onto that." Later he said to Mr Hawke, "If you knew something was going on about something would you tell someone?" Mr Hawke replied, "It depends what it's about." He also asked Mr Hawke whether he knew where to "score" cannabis, but Mr Hawke said that he did not. 20. Mr Hawke told the offender that the deceased had applied for an ADVO against him (Mr Hawke) and he was facing criminal charges. Later, after the offender had become quite intoxicated, he asked the deceased why she was "trying to put assault charges on" Mr Hawke, to which she replied that it had nothing to do with him. 21. The following morning, the offender told Mr Hawke that he was in trouble. In summary, he said that he met a person while he was undergoing rehabilitation who wanted him to "do something with ice." When Mr Hawke said that he should stay away from such people, the offender said that they knew bikies and they would "get" him. He added, "For the last 8 days I don't know what I've been doing. They have threatened me and held a knife against my throat. They said don't leave town and that they know my phone number and address." 22. Later in the morning the offender rang Ms June O'Brien and said, "Mum hasn't changed has she? She has got Rob in trouble with the cops just like she did Joe. She still drinks and smokes and then goes to church just like a hypocrite. She'll never change. I fuckin' hate her." Ms O'Brien was concerned about the way he was acting. 23. It was a Sunday, and the offender, the deceased and Mr Hawke had a roast for lunch at the home. After lunch the deceased gave the offender a number of presents, which she had bought for him during their period of estrangement. In the afternoon the three of them drove to Copeton dam. There the deceased took photos of the offender but he covered his face. He and Mr Hawke walked towards the edge of the dam. The offender said, "Would you die if you fell over there?" Mr Hawke said, "Yes, you would." 24. It was on the next day, 19 October, that the offence occurred. In the morning the deceased rang Mr Purer and told him that she was going to take the offender shopping and then was going with him to the RTA to get his driver's licence. Mr Purer thought that she sounded happy. However, a number of witnesses saw the deceased and the offender at the public library later in the morning, and noticed that the deceased seemed worried and was not her usual self. 25. At the library the offender again ran into Jasmin Elliot. He was crying. Ms Elliot asked what was wrong and he said, "I fucked up, I fucked up real bad and got involved with some bad people." Ms Elliot noticed that the deceased seemed concerned about him. He was writing furiously in a notebook, and he seemed very distracted and unable to focus. He tried to give Ms Elliot a book and said, "I'll likely be dead tomorrow. Keep it." He then said, "Let me sleep it off. I'll be fine." Just before he and the deceased left the library, he cupped Ms Elliot's cheek and said, "Never stop writing, you have potential, promise me you'll never stop writing." 26. Still later in the morning, the offender attended a bank to make a cash withdrawal and was observed by the teller to be uncommunicative. He attended a liquor store, where he bought some alcohol and other items, and was observed to be sober but agitated. After that, the deceased drove her car past a friend of hers, who observed that there was a man seated directly behind her in the car who was leaning forward as if he was whispering to her. That man, no doubt, was the offender.