Jersey Unreported Judgments

Attempted murder - having in a public place an offensive weapon.

[2022]JRC169

Royal Court

(Samedi)

8 August 2022

The Attorney General

-v-

Liam Michael Carmody

Sentencing by the Superior Number of the Royal Court, following guilty pleas to the following charges:

Age:  35.

Plea: Guilty.

Details of Offence:

On 24^th March 2022, the Defendant confronted the Victim in the rear car park of the Hotel Ambassadeur and attempted to kill him by stabbing him repeatedly with a knife that he had carried to the scene.  It was a ferocious assault, during which the Defendant only stopped stabbing the Victim when the blade of the knife broke off the handle.  The assault continued, even at that stage, with the Defendant punching and kneeing the Victim in the head as he lay on the ground.  The Victim was seriously injured and was extremely fortunate to survive.  The expert evidence was to the effect that the Victim will suffer long-term physical and psychological harm as a result of the offence.

The offence was premeditated and was the Defendant's response to the Victim posting Facebook statuses some nine days earlier in which he accused the Defendant of being a paedophile and a drug user.  The Defendant travelled to Jersey in an effort to locate and confront the Victim, and he took the knife with him to the scene.

Details of Mitigation:

Early guilty plea and treated as a man of previous good character.

Previous Convictions:

Convictions for five offences. None of relevance

Conclusions:

Total:  12 years' imprisonment.

Sentence and Observations of Court:

Total:  10½ years' imprisonment

M. R. Maletroit, Esq., Crown Advocate.

Advocate S. E. A. Dale for the Defendant.

JUDGMENT

THE BAILIFF:

1.        You are to be sentenced today for the attempted murder of R in the carpark of the Hotel Ambassadeur on 24^th March 2022, and also for possession of an offensive weapon. 

2.        There is clearly a background to this matter and indeed your victim was known to you through your mutual association with a woman who is the mother of two of your children and one of your victims.

3.        On the 15^th March 2022, your victim posted a series of posts on social media during which he accused you of being a convicted paedophile and a drug user and suggested that children were at risk from you.  He also made allegations concerning the children of a particular egregious nature and this was clearly the motive for your attack upon the victim.

4.        Your victim had travelled to Jersey and when you found out he was here you booked your own travel.  You came here on 23^rd March 2022 on a ferry from Portsmouth and at that time you explained to Customs Officers on your arrival that you were here for potential work and a break from the issues that you were having with your girlfriend.  It seems to us to be clear, as indeed the Crown suggests, that your entire purpose for travelling to the Island was to locate and confront the victim for the things posted on social media that he had done.  

5.        On 24^th March you left the hotel where you were staying and having armed yourself with a knife that you had taken from the hotel room this seems to us to be a demonstration that you had by that stage formed the intention of either attacking your victim with a knife or at the very least to use it in an aggressive and terrifying manner.  Accordingly, there was a material matter of premeditation involved in this attack in our view. 

6.        You attended the hotel where the victim was staying, and you waited for him to return.  He returned and remained outside in order to smoke a cigarette and his two colleagues went into the hotel.  You then went to him and he stood as you approached him.  Following a verbal exchange between you he put out his hands to hold you back.  You continued, pulled out the knife, and attacked him with it. 

7.        We have seen CCTV of the start of this attack and clearly you draw the knife and weild it in an aggressive manner towards him before you go out of shot and we cannot see anything more.  We have heard the descriptions of the attack given by witness to it and it seems to us to be clear that this was a frenzied vicious attack on a defenceless individual in which you clearly intended his serious injury if not death.  It is to our mind entirely a matter of luck that the victim was not killed during this assault. 

8.        You were arrested and interviewed under caution in response to which you gave "no comment" answers.  We have seen the photographs of your victim's injuries and have heard the medical description of them.  They could indeed have been fatal.  He required a chest drain and blood transfusion and he remained in hospital for some thirteen days including a period in intensive care.  He also suffered defensive injuries which included severance of the tendons in his right hand and multiple other wounds.  These will have a long lasting, possibly permanent, affect and it could be that he cannot work at his trade in the years to come. 

9.        It is poignant to note that whilst you were seeking to discover the victim's address your sister told you "You need to stop and think before acting.  The kids need their dad around and if you go to prison for that you are going to undo everything you have worked so hard for....He is not worth losing it all for....."  This was wise advice, and it is a pity indeed that you did not heed it. 

10.      You pleaded guilty to both the charges on 27^th May 2022 and you are accordingly entitled to credit for your guilty pleas.  We note that you have previous convictions but we accept the Crown's position that you should be treated as in effect of good character, and we do so.

11.      We have also of course read both the reports and all of the references that have been provided on your behalf.  They paint a very different picture than the facts of this case disclose and if taken at face value it would make your actions in deliberately coming to Jersey to confront your victim, going armed to meet him. and then attacking him whilst he was defenceless and backing away entirely incomprehensible.

12.      This type of offending is mercifully rare in Jersey.  The Crown has put before us a number of cases and specifically that of AG v Barbosa [2013] JRC 165 where someone who attempted to murder his wife was sentenced to 9 years' imprisonment.  The Court considered that there was no icy cold pre-planning in the sense of pre-meditation and that there was in that case no long-term physical harm.  Of course. in this case, we have both the medical reports and the Victim Impact Report and this seems to us that there is clearly long-term physical harm and indeed psychological harm suffered by your victim. 

13.      This attack seems to us in any meaningful sense to have been committed in cold blood.  Your whole purpose for travelling to Jersey was to locate and confront the victim.  You established where he was staying, armed yourself with a knife, attended at his place of residence, waited for him to return and attacked him in effect with little further warning.  As we have said it was a frenzied attack in which you deliberately stabbed the victim on many occasions and the only thing that stopped you was when the blade of the knife broke off at the handle.  Notwithstanding that, you continued to assault him by punching and kicking him in the face until you then fled the scene.

14.      The Crown has put before us the observations of the Court in other cases relating to knife crime and we echo these observations without here repeating them.  The use of a knife is sufficiently serious that the Court is entitled to consider and to impose if it chooses a deterrent sentence. 

15.      We have as suggested by the Crown, felt able to apply a full one-third discount to reflect your guilty plea.

16.      We note that the consequences of your offending and inevitable imprisonment are that other members of your family will suffer.  As we have said on a number of other occasions, that cannot be a matter that amounts to mitigation other than the most exceptional circumstances.  If you did not think of the consequences to your family, and you were warned of them by your sister, then you and you alone are the cause of those consequences.

17.      In all of the circumstances allowing appropriately for all of the factors in this case and the mitigation available, with regard to Count 1 you are sentenced to 10½ years' imprisonment from a starting point of 18 years.  For Count 2 we impose a sentence of 18 months' to be served concurrently on the sentence Count 1 making a total of 10½ years' imprisonment.

18.      We would add that in our view sentencing going equipped with an offensive weapon in the streets of Jersey might be a matter that now should be reviewed but we do not do so on this occasion we reserve it for the future. 

19.      That is the sentence of the Court. 

Authorities

Firearms (Jersey) Law 2000. 

AG v Barbosa [2013] JRC 165.

AG v Caboz [2003] JRC 230.

AG v Hare [2008] JRC 168.

AG v Lawlor [2009] JRC 150.

AG v Hussain [2017] JRC 047.

England & Wales Sentencing Council Guidelines for Attempted Murder.