//
© 2026 Zoe. All rights reserved.
Zoe is a legal information platform. Always consult the Federal Register of Legislation for authoritative text.
[2006] QCA 197
respondent. Application for leave to appeal against sentence refused.
The applicant asked the Queensland Court of Appeal for permission to appeal his sentence for money laundering. The Court refused. It considered that the applicant's offending while on parole for the related trafficking offending was a central difference between him and co-offenders who received fully suspended sentences. The Court also held that the sentencing judge was not required to avoid the automatic parole consequences of s 151, and that a mistaken amount recorded at sentencing did not establish that the sentence was excessive.
AI-generated legal information, not legal advice. Zoe can make mistakes. Check the cited source, and for advice about your situation consult a qualified Australian lawyer.
2,067 words · generated 02/10/2026
Jeff Soborg Christensen applied for leave to appeal a sentence imposed after he pleaded guilty to money laundering. On 20 March 2006, the Supreme Court sentenced him to 18 months' imprisonment, suspended after six months for an operational period of three years. The Court of Appeal heard the sentence application on 7 June 2006. De Jersey CJ, McMurdo P and Keane JA gave separate reasons, but each agreed that leave should be refused.
No linked legislation citations have been extracted yet.
The money being dealt with was connected to an earlier drug-trafficking operation led by Christensen's brother Kim. The judgment describes the trafficking operation as large, operating over about four years and generating profits of approximately $500,000. Kim had been sentenced to 10 years' imprisonment, and a pecuniary penalty order was made against him for $500,000. A considerable part of the money remained unaccounted for. From prison, Kim arranged for others, including the applicant, to disburse money.
The applicant's part concerned a total of $27,000. He arranged for two amounts totalling $17,000 to be channelled through an associate to Ashley, his brother-in-law. Ashley applied those funds, together with other tainted money, towards a Toyota Prado for Kim's former wife. Kim later instructed Ashley to report the vehicle stolen. It was recovered and sold at a loss. The applicant also paid $10,000 in cash to a law firm to fund a proposed High Court special-leave application for Kim.
The applicant had been sentenced in November 2001 to three and a half years' imprisonment for earlier drug offences. The new offending began in February 2004, after he had been released on home detention the previous December. The Court's reasons describe him as being on parole or post-prison community-based release for the earlier offending. The release status mattered because the money-laundering offending was connected to the trafficking proceeds that had led to the earlier sentence.
The applicant relied on his guilty plea, the absence of personal financial benefit, pressure from Kim, and his reported progress on release, including employment and support for his son and mother. He also argued that his sentence was disproportionate to those received by other participants. The Court rejected the application. It considered that the applicant's parole status and the relationship between the two sets of offending justified treating him differently from co-offenders who received wholly suspended sentences.
The reasons focus on the individual circumstances of the applicant and the comparison with co-offenders, rather than treating the offence or the participants as interchangeable.
For de Jersey CJ, the applicant's offending while on parole was a particularly important feature. The Chief Justice said that the conduct was, in a sense, an outgrowth of the trafficking offending that had led to the earlier sentence and the release on parole. He accepted that pressure from Kim and the applicant's motivation to assist his mother were relevant matters raised for him. But those matters did not displace the significance of committing another serious offence while on release. The Chief Justice considered actual imprisonment justified and found nothing excessive in the sentence.
The Chief Justice also addressed the effect of s 151 of the Corrective Services Act 2000 (Qld). The applicant's parole was automatically cancelled when he was sentenced on 20 March 2006. The Chief Justice noted that a wholly suspended sentence might have avoided that automatic cancellation, but said it was not the sentencing judge's role to shape the sentence to avoid s 151. The point is about the proper sentencing task as described in these reasons: the judge was to assess the offence and relevant circumstances, not to design a sentence around avoiding a statutory consequence.
McMurdo P emphasised the maximum penalty and the purpose and detection context of the offence. The President recorded that s 250 of the Criminal Proceeds Confiscation Act 2002 (Qld) set a maximum penalty of 20 years' imprisonment. The Act's stated object was to remove financial gain and increase the financial loss associated with illegal activity. The President observed that offences of this kind were not generally easy to detect and that both specific and general deterrence mattered, especially where offending occurred on parole. These observations formed part of the explanation for why the applicant's mitigating circumstances did not establish manifest excess.
The parity argument required comparison with the co-offenders. Kim was the leader, and his 15-month sentence was cumulative on a 10-year term already being served. The sentencing judge had reportedly considered a three-year term warranted, but moderated the sentence in light of the existing long sentence. The Chief Justice concluded that the applicant's sentence was not discordant with Kim's treatment.
Ashley received a 12-month fully suspended sentence. Although his involvement was described as more substantial than the applicant's, he had no presently significant prior criminal history. The applicant's mother, Leila, received a nine-month fully suspended sentence and was 64 years old, with no prior criminal history. McDonald received a fully suspended six-month sentence; he had received a $500 benefit but had no relevant prior criminal history. Brian Christiansen dealt with more than twice the amount attributed to the applicant, but also had no prior criminal history. The Court treated the applicant's parole status and relevant history as important differences. Its conclusion was not that co-offenders must receive identical sentences, but that these comparisons did not show an unjustified disparity on the circumstances described.
Keane JA addressed a separate factual error. The sentencing judge had accepted that the applicant assisted in laundering $41,000, but the Court of Appeal said that amount was erroneous and that the correct amount was $27,000. The error arose because $41,000 had been put to the sentencing judge as common ground. Keane JA concluded that the mistake did not demonstrate excess and was not a ground to set the sentence aside. The Chief Justice expressly agreed with that point.
The judgment does not set out a comprehensive account of the law before this decision, and the supplied text does not establish a change in the law after it. It is therefore more accurate to describe the decision's contribution as an application of sentencing considerations to the facts before the Court, rather than as a new general rule.
The Court refers to the concepts of manifest excess and parity, and considers earlier decisions cited by the applicant: R v Powell [1999] QCA 416, R v Gadaloff [1998] QCA 458, R v Daniel Peter Dewar and R v Steven Geoffrey Scott. The Chief Justice says that, allowing for similarities and differences, none cast doubt on the reasonableness of the sentence. The reasons do not give detailed accounts of those decisions or explain a broader doctrinal test derived from them.
The judgment does make two specific statements relevant to the issues argued. First, the Chief Justice says a sentencing judge should not craft a sentence to avoid s 151 of the Corrective Services Act 2000 (Qld). Secondly, the President identifies deterrence as important for money-laundering offences, particularly when committed on parole. These statements should be read in the setting of this application and the reasons supplied, not extended into broader propositions that the judgment does not state.
The decision also illustrates how parity was considered in this case: the Court looked at individual roles, prior criminal histories, the sentences imposed and the applicant's offending while on release. The result was that differences in the co-offenders' circumstances supported distinguishing the applicant from those who received fully suspended sentences.
The Chief Justice said: “it was no part of the role of the sentencing Judge in March to craft a sentence to avoid the operation of s 151. It would have been quite wrong to do so.” In plain English, the sentencing judge was not supposed to choose a sentence for the purpose of preventing the statutory parole consequence described in the judgment. The decision does not say that the consequence was irrelevant to every possible sentencing question; it rejects the proposition that the judge's task was to construct a sentence to avoid it.
The President said that “[p]articular and general deterrence are important aspects in determining the appropriate sentence for offences of this kind, especially when, as here, the offence is committed on parole.” This means the Court considered the sentence's capacity to discourage both the individual and others to be important in the circumstances, with particular emphasis on the applicant offending while on release.
Keane JA said the amount error “does not constitute a ground on which this Court should set that sentence aside.” In plain English, the mistaken $41,000 figure did not, by itself, make the sentence appealable on the reasoning before the Court. The Chief Justice agreed.
The Chief Justice described the applicant's behaviour as “brazen in the overall context.” That assessment reflects the Court's view of the conduct in the circumstances, particularly its connection to the earlier trafficking offending and the applicant's release status. It is not a separate legal test stated in the judgment.
The decision is most directly relevant to sentence applications involving money laundering connected with proceeds from earlier offending, where the accused commits the new offence while on parole or another form of post-prison release for the related earlier offending. The connection mattered here because the funds being disbursed arose from the trafficking operation underlying the applicant's earlier sentence.
It is also relevant where an applicant argues that a sentence is disproportionate compared with co-offenders who received suspended sentences. The judgment shows the Court examining distinctions including the applicant's parole status, the co-offenders' criminal histories, their roles and the amounts involved. It does not establish that a particular difference will always determine parity; its reasoning is tied to the comparisons in this case.
The decision may also be pertinent where a sentencing judge relied on an amount later shown to be inaccurate. Keane JA's treatment indicates that the existence of an error did not automatically require the sentence to be set aside. The Court considered whether the error suggested that the sentence was excessive. The judgment does not establish that every error about an amount is immaterial.
Finally, the s 151 discussion is relevant where a sentence's interaction with parole cancellation is raised. The Chief Justice's statement is that the sentencing judge's role was not to craft the sentence to avoid that statutory operation. Any application to a different statutory scheme or different release circumstances would require examination of those sources and facts, which are not addressed in this judgment.
The supplied judgment contains no later decisions discussing R v Christensen [2006] QCA 197. It therefore does not provide a basis for stating whether later courts followed, distinguished, limited or otherwise treated it. The judgment itself cites Powell, Gadaloff, Dewar and Scott as decisions relied on by the applicant, and says they did not cast doubt on the reasonableness of the sentence in this case. That is the extent of the precedent treatment that can be established from the supplied text.
The reasons do not explain the full statutory operation of s 151 or set out the applicant's release history in a way that resolves every possible question about the relationship between the current sentence and the unserved balance of the earlier sentence. The President records that the applicant was required to serve an unserved balance of 14 months and that the current sentence was concurrent. The judgment also records the resulting dates for eligibility to apply for release and full-time discharge. It does not analyse those administrative consequences beyond their relevance to the application.
The Court does not provide a detailed framework for measuring parity among co-offenders, nor does it state how much weight each factor must receive in other cases. Its comparisons are concrete and fact-specific. It also does not explain the full reasoning behind the sentencing judge's assessment of the applicant's sentence, beyond observing that there was nothing to suggest a rigid or inflexible approach.
No paragraph numbers appear in the supplied judgment text, so the discussion above identifies passages by judge and topic rather than supplying paragraph references. The reasons are ex tempore and contain no numbered paragraphs in the text provided.
This is general legal information, not legal advice. Zoe can make mistakes. Before acting on or relying on this analysis, have a qualified Australian lawyer check it.
Source: Queensland Judgments (Supreme Court Library Queensland) (www.queenslandjudgments.com.au). Converted to plain text by ZoeLaw. Not the official version.
SUPREME COURT OF QUEENSLAND
CITATION: R v Christensen [2006] QCA 197
PARTIES: R v CHRISTENSEN, Jeff Soborg (applicant)
FILE NO/S: CA No 77 of 2006 SC No 762 of 2005
DIVISION: Court of Appeal
PROCEEDING: Sentence Application
ORIGINATING COURT: Supreme Court at Brisbane
DELIVERED EX TEMPORE ON: 7 June 2006
DELIVERED AT: Brisbane
HEARING DATE: 7 June 2006
JUDGES: de Jersey CJ, McMurdo P & Keane JA Separate reasons for judgment of each member of the Court, each concurring as to the order made
ORDER: Application for leave to appeal against sentence refused
CATCHWORDS: CRIMINAL LAW – JURISDICTION, PRACTICE AND PROCEDURE – JUDGMENT AND PUNISHMENT – SENTENCE – APPLICATION TO REDUCE SENTENCE – where applicant pleaded guilty to the offence of money laundering – sentenced to 18 months’ imprisonment suspended after six months for an operational period of three years – whether the sentence was disproportionate to those of the co-offenders / Corrective Services Act 2000 (Qld), s 151 / The following cases were cited: / R v Daniel Peter Dewar (Mackenzie J, 09/02/00) / R v Gadaloff [1998] QCA 458; CA No 384 of 1998, 23 November 1998 / R v Powell [1999] QCA 416; CA No 173 of 1999. 4 October 1999 / R v Steven Geoffrey Scott (Mackenzie J, 14/05/93)
COUNSEL: T D Martin SC with S R Lewis for the applicant / R G Martin SC for the respondent
SOLICITORS: Gleeson Lawyers for the applicant / Director of Public Prosecutions (Queensland) for the respondent
THE CHIEF JUSTICE: The applicant who seeks leave to appeal against sentence pleaded guilty to the offence of money laundering and was on the 20th of March 2006 sentenced to 18 months' imprisonment suspended after six months for an operational period of three years.
At the time of committing the offences the applicant was 26 years of age. The period covered by the indictment is December 2003 to August 2004. In November 2001, he had been sentenced for the possession of powder containing 165.637 grams of pure methylamphetamine, and trafficking in methylamphetamine. He was then sentenced to three and a half years' imprisonment. His co-offender in that trafficking operation was his brother Kim, who was on the same day sentenced to 10 years' imprisonment. As evident from the reasons of the Court of Appeal, dismissing applications for leave to appeal against those sentences, the trafficking operation was of major proportion: over a four year period it generated profit of the order of $500,000. The motivation was purely commercial. Kim had enlisted the assistance of the applicant when Kim realised that he, Kim, was the subject of a police investigation.
Although a pecuniary penalty order was made against Kim in that amount of $500,000, a considerable part of that sum remained unaccounted for. Kim concealed its whereabouts. He set about disbursing the money from within prison by enlisting the support of others, including the present applicant. Kim thereby was able to deal with approximately $120,000.
This applicant arranged for the disposal of the total of $27,000 of that sum. He funnelled two lots of money, totalling $17,000 through an associate in Townsville to a co-offender Ashley, his brother-in-law, who applied the money together with other tainted money to the purchase of a Toyota Prado vehicle for Kim's ex-wife. As a further development of the operation, Kim later told Ashley to report that vehicle stolen. It was ultimately recovered by Ashley and sold at a loss. In addition, the applicant paid $10,000 in cash to a law firm to fund a proposed application by Kim to the High Court for special leave to appeal against the trafficking sentence.
The total amount disbursed by this applicant was, as I have said, $27,000. His offending commenced in February 2004. Significantly, he had been released on home detention the preceding December. In requiring the applicant to serve six months actual imprisonment the learned Judge recognised the significance of the applicants having committed this offence while on parole. Whatever the pressure put on him by Kim and whatever the significance in the end of the applicant's motivation in relieving his mother, his behaviour was brazen in the overall context.
Because of the operation of s 151 of the Corrective Services Act 2000 (Qld), the applicant's parole was automatically cancelled when he was sentenced on 20th March 2006. The current term was imposed concurrently. If the term imposed in March 2006 had been wholly suspended, as defence counsel had then sought, the applicant's parole would not have been automatically cancelled. But it was no part of the role of the sentencing Judge in March to craft a sentence to avoid the operation of s 151. It would have been quite wrong to do so. It is said with some emphasis that the applicant was progressing well on parole, gainfully employed and supporting his son and his mother, that is, the applicant's mother. On the other hand, the applicant was engaged in money laundering, even though he derived no financial benefit himself. He knew the risk he ran as the sentencing Judge observed and must now take the consequence.
None of the cases to which Mr T Martin referred for the applicant, the Court of Appeal's decisions in Powell, 173 of 1999, and Gadaloff, 384 of 1998, and Justice Mackenzie's decisions in Dewar, 9th February 2000, and Scott, 14th May 1995, allowing for similarities and differences, casts any doubt on the reasonableness of the term imposed here.
Mr Martin submitted that the sentence imposed was disproportionate to those imposed on the applicant's co-offenders in the money laundering operation.
Kim was sentenced to 15 months imprisonment cumulative upon the 10 year term he was serving. Kim was the leader and the Judge said that a three year term would have been warranted but the sentence to be imposed had to be moderated because of the substantial term already being served. It is not possible to say the 18 months suspended after six imposed on the applicant was discordant with the treatment of Kim.
Ashley was sentenced to 12 months fully suspended. His involvement was more substantial than the applicant's. But Ashley had no presently significant prior criminal history. Starkly different from the position of this applicant.
The applicant's mother, Leila, was sentenced to nine months fully suspended. She was 64 years of age when sentenced, again with no prior criminal history. One McDonald, who had been enlisted by the applicant's mother, was sentenced to a fully suspended six month term. He received a $500 benefit but on the other hand he had no relevant prior criminal history.
Brian Christiansen was sentenced to 12 months imprisonment fully suspended. He dealt with more than double the amount with which the applicant was concerned but, again, Brian had no prior criminal history. It is the particular feature that this applicant committed this serious offence while on parole, an offence which, in a sense, grew out of the very trafficking which had led to the sentence which resulted in the parole which, in my view, justified his being actually imprisoned. There is nothing in the Judge's sentencing remarks to suggest that he approached his assessment of penalty in any rigid or inflexible way or that he fettered his sentencing discretion. He apparently weighed the relevant circumstances. But it is obvious that the applicant's commission of this type of offence, while on parole for the other, was highly significant and justified actual imprisonment notwithstanding the features on which Mr Martin relied, his performance otherwise while on home detention and the heavy pressure said to have been put on the applicant by his brother Kim.
There is nothing manifestly excessive, or indeed excessive, in my view, in the treatment the applicant was given and there is, in addition, no reasonable ground for concluding that his treatment lacked parity, when put into the context of the sentences visited upon his co-offenders. I would refuse the application for leave to appeal.
THE PRESIDENT: I agree. The applicant was sentenced to 18 months imprisonment suspended after six months with a three year operational period. Because he was on post prison community based release at the time of committing the present offence he is required to serve the unserved balance of the sentence imposed in the Supreme Court on 1 November 2001, a period we are told of 14 months imprisonment. The sentence he received in respect of this offence was ordered to be served concurrently with that sentence. We are told that his present date for eligibility to apply for post prison community based release is now 20 September 2006 and his full-time discharge date 26 July 2007.
The applicant pleaded guilty. He only became involved in this offence through the very significant importuning of his co-offender and brother Kim Christensen. The applicant received no financial benefit from his offending.
Despite his counsel's valiant attempt to persuade the Court otherwise, his position can be distinguished from that of his co-offenders who received fully suspended sentences, even though some of them also played a pivotal role in the offence and had a significant criminal history. At the time he committed this offence he was, as I have stated, on post-prison community-based release, but that was for the very offence which had produced the profits the subject of this money laundering charge.
Under s 250 of the Criminal Proceeds Confiscation Act 2002 (Qld) ("the Act") the maximum penalty for this offence is 20 years imprisonment. The object of the Act is said to be to remove the financial gain and increase the financial loss associated with illegal activity. Offences such as this are not generally easy to detect. Particular and general deterrence are important aspects in determining the appropriate sentence for offences of this kind, especially when, as here, the offence is committed on parole.
Despite the mitigating circumstances referred to by the applicant's counsel, the applicant has not established in all these circumstances that the sentence imposed was manifestly excessive.
KEANE JA: I agree with the reasons of the Chief Justice and the President. I would add that on the hearing of the appeal counsel for the applicant drew attention to the circumstance that the sentencing judge had accepted that the applicant had assisted in the laundering of $41,000. This figure was erroneous but it was based upon what had been put to his Honour as common ground by the parties at the hearing below. The error was not such as to suggest any excess in the sentence which was imposed by the trial judge and it does not constitute a ground on which this Court should set that sentence aside. I agree with the order proposed by the Chief Justice.
THE CHIEF JUSTICE: And I agree with what Justice Keane has just said on that point which I had intended covering and not said. The application is refused.
R
Christensen [2006] QCA 197
Application for leave to appeal against sentence refused.