A YOUTH described as the “primary instigator” in an armed robbery of two men while armed with a knife has had her appeal against sentencing refused.
In June last year, Olivia Baxter was sentenced to 16 months’ imprisonment each on two counts of armed robbery to be served concurrently at a youth justice centre.
The applicant sought leave in November in the Court of Appeal to appeal against sentence.
Her proposed ground of appeal was that “the sentence imposed was manifestly excessive having regard to the applicant’s personal circumstances, parity and other sentencing options”.
The Country Court of Victoria was told the two victims were residing at a share property in Robinvale in the early hours of February 11, 2023, when the 19-year-old sent one of the men a text message requesting cigarettes.
Baxter sent the man a further text message to advise of her arrival, prompting the man to unlock the front door where he saw the accused sitting on the porch.
He told Baxter he would return, but when he went to his bedroom he found the woman and three co-accused standing in the room.
Baxter took a cigarette from a bedside table and began smoking it, picked up the man’s iPhone and asked for the passcode which he refused.
The accused became angry and repeatedly demanded the passcode before she removed a kitchen knife that had been hidden in her pants and held it to the left side if the victim’s neck.
The man leaned back in an effort to distance himself from the knife, however Baxter followed and climbed on top of the man with the knife still held against his neck.
A co-accused then removed a machete from his waistband and told the victim to do what Baxter asked before he struck the man to the leg with the back of the machete, while another co-accused struck the man to the head and body with a chain wrapped around his hand.
After going through the victim’s phone, Baxter opened his banking app and coerced the man to access his phone banking against his wishes via fingerprint verification.
Baxter began asking the man where his money was before the four accused began searching through the room and taking possessions from both victims.
County Court Judge David Sexton said Baxter’s wielding of the knife and holding it to the neck of one of the victims highlighted the seriousness of the armed robbery.
“It must surely have increased the level of apprehension and fear on the part of your victims and made them fear for their lives,” he said.
“Your conduct during the commission of these armed robberies was extremely concerning; your victims would have been absolutely terrified.
“You engaged in behaviour that could only be described as violent and disturbing.”
Justice Jonathan Beach said in support of her contention that the sentence was “manifestly excessive”, Baxter noted that she had been found suitable for a community correction order following an assessment.
“While the applicant accepted the correctness of the judge’s conclusion … she submitted that the judge erred in not imposing a combination of imprisonment and a community correction order,” Justice Beach said.
In support of that submission, Baxter noted a co-accused, who the applicant submitted had “some similar personal circumstances”, received a sentence of three days’ imprisonment as time served and an 18-month community correction order.
She also submitted that she should have been given “the opportunity to attempt the community correction order once her suitability was satisfied, rather than an immediate term of imprisonment based on the judge’s finding that the applicant had a fairly stagnant progress on bail”.
Justice Beach ruled there was no substance in the applicant’s complaint that the judge erred in not imposing a combination of imprisonment and a community correction order.
“Turning to the complaint of manifest excess, as has been said many times before, this ground will only succeed if it can be shown that the sentence imposed was wholly outside of the range of sentencing options available to the sentencing judge,” he told the court.
“That is, it must be shown that it was not reasonably open to the sentencing judge to come to the sentencing conclusion which he or she did, if proper weight had been given to all of the relevant circumstances of the offending and the offender. As has also been said many times, this is a stringent requirement, difficult to satisfy.
“The reasons show that the judge gave detailed and careful consideration to the circumstances of the applicant’s offending, the applicant’s personal circumstances and each of the matters which the applicant was able to call in aid in mitigation.”
Justice Beach said but for her youth and the other matters she relied upon by way of mitigation, Baxter could reasonably have expected a significantly longer custodial sentence than the one imposed by the judge.
“Taking into account all of the relevant circumstances of the offending and the offender, the sentence imposed was, at most, moderate,” he said.
“The contention that the sentence was wholly outside the range of sentencing options available to the judge is simply not arguable.”
Justice Beach concluded that leave to appeal must be refused.
