Thug who stomped on stranger’s head wins appeal against severity of sentences

A violent thug who stomped on a stranger’s head in Melbourne has had his appeal against the severity of his sentences granted.

Jay Stephens, 23, successfully appealed his cumulative sentence of five years and nine months’ imprisonment and had it discounted to four years and three months. His non-parole period was also reduced to two years and nine months.

Stephens, who pleaded guilty to one count of causing injury intentionally and one count of affray, also had lesser sentences of three years and nine months and one year and six months imposed on those charges.

Stephens and his father, Jared Pihlgren, 53, followed and attacked a random man and left him in a life-threatening state that included a knife slash to the head, exposing his skull.

Justices Karin Emerton and Stephen McLeish granted Stephens’ appeal on the grounds that his sentence was too extreme for his crimes.

“In our view, each of the individual sentences was at least very high,” they wrote.

Judge Helen Syme on September 1, 2023 sentenced Stephens to four years and nine months’ jail and one year and nine months respectively for his two charges.

In the early hours of December 17, 2021, Stephens and Pihlgren followed Jingo Kim, 35, in the middle of the Melbourne CBD and argued with him before a fight broke out.

Court documents relayed how Stephens “punched Mr Kim, aggressively and without apparent warning, multiple times to the head and upper body” and then chased Mr Kim onto the road when he tried to escape.

Stephens proceeded to punch him at least 14 times.

As the brawl escalated, Pihlgren intervened and stabbed Mr Kim in the shoulder so “the knife penetrated deeply, injuring his spinal bone and leaving a puncture wound that penetrated through to his lung”.

Pihlgren then grabbed Mr Kim’s head and “forcefully drew the knife across the back of his head”.

“This created a deep wound, described later by a forensic expert as spanning from ear to ear

and leaving a large skin flap with Mr Kim’s skull on view,” the documents state.

“After being stabbed twice by Mr Pihlgren, Mr Kim flopped to the ground and lay motionless for a few seconds.

“Seven seconds after having stood up, Mr Stephens moved rapidly back to Mr Kim and then, while Mr Kim remained lying on the footpath, jumped in the air and stomped one foot, with considerable force, on the side of his head.”

The judgment spoke of how “every aspect of Mr Kim’s life had been detrimentally affected by the offending”.

“He suffered real physical and psychological damage,” the justices wrote.

They went on to detail how Mr Kim continued to suffer from ongoing pain, breathing problems, facial scarring, PTSD, anxiety and panic attacks among other afflictions.

Pihlgren, who pleaded guilty to intentionally causing serious injury, also appealed his sentence on several points, including alleged factual errors in the initial hearing, manifest excess, and a Covid-related clause known as the Worboyes discount.

The discount was introduced during the pandemic and suggests a guilty plea during lockdown should warrant a greater discount given conditions in prison were particularly tough in that time.

However, Pihlgren’s appeals were dismissed because there was “no substance” in one of the appeals and “nothing more than infelicitous language” behind another.

The justices said while they deemed his sentence “stern”, it was not “outside the range of sentences available to the judge”.

“Although the plea was entered at the first available opportunity, the judge found it was not indicative of remorse,” the justices wrote.

“There was also nothing before the judge to suggest that Mr Pihlgren had good prospects of rehabilitation.”

He was ultimately granted leave to appeal on one ground but otherwise refused.

His total effective sentence of 12 years’ imprisonment remains with a non-parole period of eight years.