The applicant, who is 34 years old has a substantial record of offences of violence, commencing in 1981 when he was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to five years' imprisonment. Since 1986 there have been a further 14 offences of violence and one of threatening violence. Not all of these were serious, but five of them attracted custodial sentences and one a suspended sentence.

[2]

I do not propose to discuss this application at any length. The submission of the applicant's counsel was that the range within which the sentence should have been imposed was between two and four years' imprisonment and a sentence that should have been imposed was three years. The submission hardly reaches the threshold of a submission that the sentence of three and a half years was manifestly excessive.

[3]

Having regard to Anderson CA434 of 1995 and to some other cases which have been mentioned in submissions, I think that the concession of the range of possible imprisonment is a reasonable one. Counsel for the Crown also pointed out that this sentence is to be served concurrently in part with a sentence of one year and three months, which the applicant was then serving, and it seems to me that that does have a slightly tempering effect upon the effect of the two sentences in combination.

[4]

In all the circumstances, without further discussion, I can see no merit in the application for leave to appeal against sentence and I would refuse it.

[5]

McPHERSON JA: I agree. I would only add that, whatever may be said of the action of the jury in acquitting on count one and convicting on count two, it would have been not merely irrational but perverse of the jury to have acquitted on count two in view of the evidence before them.

[6]

McPHERSON JA: The order of the Court is that the appeal against conviction is dismissed and the application for leave to appeal against sentence is refused.

Parties

Applicant/Plaintiff:

# R

Respondent/Defendant:

D'Arcy \[2001\] QCA 20

Cases Cited (2)

[2001] QCA 20

P. [1999] QCA 411; [2000] 2 QdR 401.