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State v Winara (No 2) [2008] PGNC 67; N3352 (24 April 2008)

N3352

PAPUA NEW GUINEA
[IN THE NATIONAL COURT OF JUSTICE]

CR. 666 OF 2006

THE STATE

-v-

ANGELINE WINARA

Lae: Kirriwom, J
2008: 2, 3, 4 & 24 April

(No. 2)

SENTENCE – Murder – Wife stabbed husband with kitchen knife during domestic argument – Deep penetrating wound causing left lung to collapse – Deceased died of massive internal bleeding – Prevalent offence – Offence precipitated by history of violence and unhappy marital relationship – Sentenced to 17 years imprisonment.

Cases cited

Manu Kovi v. The State [2005] unreported Supreme Court Judgment SC789

Counsel

N. Miviri, for the State
K. Pais, for the Accused

DECISION ON SENTENCE

24 April, 2008

1. KIRRIWOM, J: Angeline Winara, hereafter the prisoner, was convicted of the murder of her de facto husband, Simon Gura, at Kamkumung Ass Mango Block on 24th December 2005. She pleaded not guilty and raised a defence of accident or unwilled act under section 24 of the Code. But the Court rejected the defence and found that she intended to cause grievous bodily harm to her husband when she consciously and wilfully stabbed him above his left chest just below the neck and the knife penetrated deep inside almost severing the left lung and causing it to collapse. The deceased died on the spot.

2. On allocatus the prisoner expressed sorrow that death resulted in the altercation between her and her husband. She said she did not anticipate such tragedy when she took her knife with her for their protection when they left their house to watch movie in a neighbour’s house in the next block. She apologized to her husband’s family, her own and to her son for her action and asked for leniency.

3. The prisoner’s personal particulars are that she is thirty (30) years old from Kunjigini village, Wosera District, East Sepik Province, living in a de facto relationship with the deceased when she became pregnant and gave birth to their son now aged 8 years old and was with him at his house in Kamkumung until this incident. In her own family she is the last born of seven children, father already deceased and mother is still alive in the village. She is a Catholic and went to Maprik High School where she completed Grade 10 in 1995. She comes before this Court for the first time in her life and according to her own evidence; she surrendered herself to Omili Police Station at Kamkumung immediately following this trouble and has been in custody all this time.

4. Her lawyer submits that she is not a threat to the society apart from this offence and she cooperated with the police and that she is a first offender. It was also submitted that this case falls in the third category of the sentencing guidelines set out in Manu Kovi v The State [2005] unreported Supreme Court Judgment SC 789 which recommends 20 – 30 years imprisonment.

5. I have been supplied with both Means Assessment Report and Pre Sentence Report both of which are not of much help to me. The prisoner has no means to effect customary compromise of reconciling the two sides to this problem created by her own making driving a wedge between her and her husband’s line. Some of the husband’s relatives including his elder brother interviewed in Lae are still bitter over what had happened which was further exacerbated by the failure of the prisoner’s relatives to contribute to the funeral expenses of the deceased. They have no sympathy for the prisoner and it is their fervent desire to see her punished for depriving them of their relative who was quite young, educated and a gainfully employed member of the family with bright future ahead of him as an electrician that the prisoner had ended quite abruptly.

6. The PSR also notes that the prisoner’s marriage to the deceased was not a happy one for the five years they were together before this tragic end. It was full of quarrels ending in fights. The prisoner does not state the reasons for this state of affair in their home although in her evidence she told the court that their constant quarrels often had to do with their support. She said the deceased never gave her money to look after the house. Instead he went gambling at the horse race and spent his money needed to maintain the family. The deceased’s family members interviewed gave a different viewpoint saying that the prisoner was a very jealous woman who always accused the deceased of fooling around with other women and they always ended up arguing and eventually fighting.

7. Murder carries a maximum of life imprisonment subject to section 19 of the Code. I have considered the submission on sentence by counsel for the prisoner. This is indeed a serious case of murder by any stretch of imagination. It is one that could be said to have been a calculated reaction by the prisoner who was so annoyed, upset and angry with her husband because he would not carry their son but instead expected her to carry him. She said she was tired from carrying the son during the day and going over to Eriku and back to Kamkumung on his bidding. She was tired and wanted the husband to do his share by carrying the son to the house that night and he kept sending him to her and she could not hold herself much longer when he smacked the son and sent him back to her for the second time. This was when she lost her cool and took the fight to him by slapping him on his cheek. When the deceased became angered by his wife’s assault and wanted to retaliate, she was already in the mood for a fight and gave the husband no chance as she drove the knife into him with such savagery and viciousness that she really meant to hurt him badly. And this she did. When she heard him cry out in pain and pleaded for help, she did not bother to turn back and see if he was okay. Instead she walked away, telling Rita Greg that she had stabbed the deceased. She said she walked on to the house to find some money to get him to the hospital. She knew that she had inflicted serious harm to the deceased which should teach him some good lesson.

8. What aggravates this offence is that the prisoner is an educated woman who has been brought up in a Christian family and environment as a member of the Catholic Church. It is against the preaching of the Church and the Ten Commandments to take the life of another person. Use of dangerous weapons in domestic quarrels is very prevalent today and those who have some form of education and can read and write or understand English or Pidgin or Motu must be expected to appreciate the dire consequences often associated with the use of these weapons and therefore must refrain from resorting to them.

9. In the prisoner’s favour I take into account her good background and prior good record. I bear in mind that she has accepted the responsibility of her mistake and is prepared to face the consequences of her actions. She is also a young woman with a child now with his paternal grandmother. Her future with this child is not going to be the same by the time she is released from prison after she had deprived him of his father and he grows up in the custody of some other people while she serves her punishment in jail.

To the Prisoner

10. From what you told the Community Based Corrections Officer and from my observation of your demeanour in the witness box, it is not surprising that you found yourself where you are now. Good and happy life starts at home in the family. A family in which husband and wife do not respect each other, constantly nagging each other, one is jealous of the other, suspicious of the other, both arguing with each other and fighting over trivial things such as whose turn it is to carry the child or do this and do that, unless there is wholesale change in both their attitudes towards each other, there is bound to be disaster in their marriage sooner or later. In saying this I do not for one moment overlook the fact that respect goes and comes both ways. A wife must not strike her husband in anger over domestic chores and a husband must not hit his wife in anger for not giving him money for selfish reasons. There must be understanding between the spouses. Sadly this understanding did not reach you both quick enough. If one or both of you considered the welfare of your young child and decided that he needed to grow up in a better and loving environment and sought some counselling to help you start on different ways to approach each other, this wrong could not have taken place. You are now going to have to live with this dreadful deed in your life always knowing that everywhere you go you go with this stigma of a convict who killed her husband.

11. I have given very careful consideration to those matters that were put before me in mitigation of punishment. It has been repeated time and again that killing in domestic surroundings are quite prevalent today as they were ten years ago, never diminishing but rapidly increasing. This is happening particularly in the settlements and low to middle class homes where struggle for survival takes its toll on those small income earners. While we can look at your predicament from this sad social perspective, the bottom line that we cannot avoid is that no matter where you are and who you are and what your level of intellect and sophistication maybe, never resort to a weapon in anger to resolve your differences irrespective of who the other person is. That is where you failed and as the result an innocent life is lost while in the prime of his life like yourself. The sentence that the court imposes on you must be one of general deterrence where the public can see and appreciate that anyone who heedlessly takes away innocent life during domestic fights will go to prison. There is no other punishment for murder but jail sentence. The only question is how much time in jail?

12. I have considered the guidelines on sentencing in murder cases discussed in Manu Kovi v The State [2005] unreported Supreme Court Judgment SC789 and using them as my guide and applying them to your case, I find the circumstances here to be not as aggravating as in Manu Kovi’s case. I therefore sentence you to 17 years in hard labour. I deduct the time you spent in custody awaiting trial which is from 24th December, 2005 to today which is exactly two (2) years and four (4) months. This will now leave you with fourteen (14) years and seven (7) months to serve.

________________________________________

Acting Public Prosecutor: Lawyer for the State
Paul Paraka Lawyers: Lawyer for the Defence