Varo v Regina [1979] FJSC 12; Criminal Appeal 4 of 1979 (31 January 1979)

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF FIJI
(WESTERN DIVISION)
AT LAUTOKA
Appellate Jurisdiction

Criminal Appeal No. 4 of 1979

BETWEEN

ILIASERI VARO
Appellant

AND

REGINA
Respondent

Appellant in Person
Mr. D. Williams, Counsel for the Respondent

JUDGMENT

The appellant had a dispute with his wife during which he stabbed her with a knife. He received 3 years imprisonment from the learned magistrate and now appeals against that sentence.

At the hearing of the appeal Father Dobie, a Roman Catholic priest in Lautoka, gave the Court some background as to the circumstances under which the stabbing occurred. Father Dobie did not know the appellant, his wife or family prior to this incident. He saw the appellant's wife when she was in hospital being treated and cared for. He informs the Court that the wife is reconciled to her husband in spite of the wound she received.

I notice that the incident arose on Christmas Day and the facts outlined show that there was an argument as to where the Christmastide should be spent and with whom. The wife rejected a suggestion that it be celebrated at the appellant's brother's home and this angered the appellant. During the ensuing quarrel it was the wife who first picked up the kitchen knife but she dropped it when the appellant struck her. Then she armed herself with a piece of bamboo but as the appellant struck at her she overbalanced. Thereupon the appellant picked up the knife and stabbed her as she lay on the ground. At this stage a neighbour intervened.

The wife appears to have recovered and is in her village with the 3 children of the marriage.

This is not one of those cases in which a drunken lout comes home and beats up his wife - a state of affairs which I have stated carries no mitigating feature. There was no premeditation and it was certainly in no way an act of vengeance.

There was some provocation on the wife's part which initiated the quarrel. It was not the appellant who first seized the knife but the wife.

A woman with children is often at the mercy of some drunken lout who frequently treats her violently. If he is imprisoned the wife and children suffer financially but to regard that as a mitigation licences brutality to wives and children. There is no reason to believe that this is such a case. Nevertheless the appellant has a record which reveals a tendency to violence and use of knives in the course of domestic quarrels is deplorable.

Having regard to all the circumstances, I am of the view that the magistrate did not give sufficient consideration to the issue of provocation.

In another wounding case on 25th December the learned magistrate imposed a sentence of 2 years and 3 months and there does not appear to have been the same degree of provocation and the convicted person had pleaded not guilty - see Cr. App. 153/78 (Lautoka).

Superior Courts are reluctant to interfere with sentences unless there are good reasons. For the reasons I have given I regard the sentence of 3 years as too severe. However, the use of weapons such as knives cannot be tolerated and there must be a custodial sentence in spite of the hardship it may cause to the appellant's family.

I would add that the Crown appeared to take the view that the sentence was somewhat too severe.

I reduce the sentence from 3 years to 18 months.

Sgd. J. T. Willliams
JUDGE

LAUTOKA,
31.1.79.