Public Prosecutor v Iauiap [2011] VUSC 285; CRC 117 of 2011 (17 October 2011)

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE REPUBLIC OF VANUATU
(Criminal Jurisdiction)

Criminal Case No. 117 / 2011

PUBLIC PROSECUTOR

V

WILLIE IAUIAP

Hearing: 17 October 2011
Before: Justice Robert Spear
Appearances: Tabisa Harrison for the State
Andrew Bal for the Accused

SENTENCE

1. Willie Iauiap, you are for sentence today on 1 charge of threatening to kill your wife. This offending occurred on 20 June 2011. You pleaded guilty at an early time and you are entitled to distinct credit for that. However, the circumstances of this offending are disturbing and they need to be dealt with in some detail.
   
2. The summary of facts (set out in the prosecution's submission) is not disputed by you. It explains that shortly before 20 June 2011 your wife and relatives brought a civil action against you. After the hearing of that civil case you approached your wife and said that you want to tell her a story. You said this in Bislama but the English version is
   

"Lily I want to tell you a story just so you know, there was once a man who murdered his wife, placed her in a truck, took her body to her family and gave her death body to the family".

"Just so you know I am not afraid of the law, I cant wait to go and eat government rice", (implying that you could not wait to go to prison).

3. On 20 June 2011 you were at your village. You approached your wife while you were holding a bush knife and said in Bislama (English translation) "today you are going to die and your vagina will be cut open. This is where you two were having sex".
   
4. You swung the bush-knife at your wife but she dodged the blow. Fortunately, the knife slipped out of your hands and fell to the ground some distance away. You then went and picked up the knife and started to advance on another person who was standing nearby. He wisely took flight. Some men in the village had by then been alerted to what was happening and arrived and managed to subdue you. You were arrested by the police some 3 days later.
   
5. The charge of threatening to kill a person is considered seriously in this country as in other countries. In Vanuatu, it carries with it a maximum penalty of 15 years imprisonment. It is well recognised, however, that there is a huge range in the seriousness of this offending from what might be considered lower point with just "hot air" upwards towards threats that leave people very frightened and require them to believe that their life is in danger.
   
6. Without question, your case is in the mid to upper level of the range of seriousness. Indeed, on the basis of the summary of facts, the prosecutor could well have been justified in charging you with attempted murder.
   
7. Be that as it may, you are charged with threatening to kill and you have pleaded guilty to that charge. The offending, however, is aggravated because it shows that over a short period of time (measured in days not hours) your antagonism to your wife, your thoughts of doing her harm, your thoughts of wanting her to know that you were considering killing her, continued. On 20 June 2011, it certainly appears that you did attempt to kill her and to carry out your threat. Fortunately that did not happen.
   
8. You are a mature man born in 1963 which means that you are now about 48 years of age. You are employed locally as a security guard working in the night shift for a law firm in the Nambatu area of Port Vila. You are supporting the two children from the marriage who live with their grand parents on Tanna.
   
9. Mr Bal makes the plea that you should be sentenced to a community base sentence on the basis that if you lose your work here, the children will lose their financial support and that puts their schooling at risk. I need to tell you now that I am not prepared to stop short of imprisonment today.
   
10. This offending is simply too serious. It is an offending that needs to be treated seriously by the Courts and for the public to know how seriously the Courts take this type of offending. This was not just the exhalation of hot air, the blowing off of steam, they were words uttered by you designed to leave your wife in no doubt that you intended to kill her. Indeed, as it happened, you attempted to carry that threat out. If you had been successful, you would have received a sentence of life imprisonment.
    
11. It is important that you understand that violence is not the way to resolve issues. It is important that the message goes out consistently from this Court that this Court will deal firmly with those who resort to violence to resolve disputes. There is simply far too much of it. So, this sentence must do its best to promote in you a sense of responsibility for what you have done. It must denounce your behaviour with emphasis and it must send a strong message both to you and others who hear about this case that this Court will not be shy at imposing firm sentences on those who decide to resolve their frustrations in violent way. I regret that sending you to prison is likely to have a damaging effect upon your children's schooling but the only person who has caused that problem for them is you - no one else.
    
12. I accept that as first offender and someone who has pleaded guilty at the first available opportunity you are entitled credit for that. Also, that it appears that you are remorseful for what you had done but it is often is a case of being too sorry, too late. If that blow you had struck at your wife had connected with her, you would be going to prison for a number of years.
    
13. I take as a starting point, having regard to the aggravating features to this offending, 18 months imprisonment. I reduce that by a full third for your guilty plea entered at the first reasonable opportunity and I allow you a further three months for the fact that you have no previous convictions and you obviously held in sufficient regard to find work as a security guard. That leaves me with a sentence of 9 months imprisonment.
    
14. The question now is whether I should suspend that sentence. I tell you now I am not prepared to do so. A suspended sentence should be to assist those who are truly remorseful and to encourage rehabilitation. However, it should only be applied where the offending is at a level of seriousness that could justify such a rehabilitative approach. The more serious the case, the more unlikely it should be for a sentence (or any part of it) to be suspended.
    
15. In your case, the offending is simply too serious and anything short of an immediate term of imprisonment would be quite inadequate as a response by this Court.
    
16. You are sentenced to 9 months imprisonment. You have 14 days to challenge the sentence by way of appeal if you do not accept it.
    

BY THE COURT