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[2025] QCA 194
respondent. Application for leave to appeal against sentence refused.
The Court of Appeal refused Heidke leave to appeal his sentence. It held that the sentencing judge had not resolved disputed inferences without applying the required process under s 132C, because the relevant inference about the son’s role and financial benefit was not challenged at sentencing. The “Port Royal 50k” marking was treated as evidence of money moving through the trafficking operation, not as proof of a $50,000 payment to the son as remuneration. The Court also regarded the two years and four months between charge and sentence as ordinary in context, not extraordinary delay. Since the excessive-sentence argument depended on the rejected delay contention, the Court found no basis to disturb the sentence.
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2,339 words · generated 07/10/2026
In R v Heidke [2025] QCA 194, the Queensland Court of Appeal considered an application for leave to appeal against sentence. The applicant, Colin Edward Heidke, had pleaded guilty to one count of permitting his home to be used for trafficking in a dangerous drug, three counts of supplying methylamphetamine, three counts of possessing money obtained from drug trafficking while believing it had been so obtained, and one count of possessing methylamphetamine ([2]).
No linked legislation citations have been extracted yet.
The offending occurred in the context of the applicant’s son’s trafficking business. Over about eight months from 10 February 2022, the son trafficked methylamphetamine in Mowbray near Port Douglas and elsewhere in Queensland. The sentencing judge accepted that the son’s activity had two strands: local sales, and a substantially more serious wholesale operation in which he acted as a “warehouser for reward”. The applicant’s residential property was used in that operation. On 25 occasions, drugs, money or both were delivered to, or collected from, the property by couriers travelling to and from Brisbane and Townsville. At least one transaction involved $15,000 in cash. The precise quantities were not known, but the sentencing judge accepted that the operation was wholesale in nature ([5]).
The applicant was not merely a passive homeowner. The Court recorded that he permitted the property to be used as a clearing house and personally participated in supplies of drugs or money on at least six occasions, usually when his son was not available to facilitate the transfers. All but one of those supplies was wholesale in nature ([6]). The sentencing judge found that the applicant acted from a “misplaced sense of loyalty” to his son and did not receive a financial benefit. Although the applicant told his son part-way through the offending that he was “sick” of the business, he continued for about four more months ([6]).
On 25 and 27 February 2025, the sentencing judge imposed an effective three-year head sentence for the permitting-use-of-place offence, suspended after the applicant had served six months, with an operational period of three years. Lesser concurrent terms were imposed for the other offences ([3]). The judge considered the applicant’s age, guilty pleas, limited and dated criminal history, work and community history, and physical ailments. The pleas were treated as “constructively early”; his mobility problems were considered likely to make imprisonment more difficult than it would be for a younger, fitter prisoner ([8]). The sentencing judge nevertheless concluded that some actual imprisonment was necessary, and that six months in custody could meet the justice of the case without unduly detracting from general deterrence ([9]).
The applicant advanced three grounds: an alleged error under s 132C of the Evidence Act 1977 (Qld), failure to take delay into account, and manifest excess ([4]). The Court of Appeal refused leave.
The first ground concerned the sentencing judge’s treatment of facts and inferences. Section 132C(2) allows a sentencing judge to act on a factual allegation that is admitted or not challenged. If an allegation is not admitted or is challenged, the judge must be satisfied on the balance of probabilities before acting on it, with the required degree of satisfaction varying according to the adverse consequences of the finding: s 132C(3) and (4), as summarised by the Court at [10].
The Court also referred to R v RBE (2021) 8 QR 358 at [23]. As Burns J explained, s 132C is not confined to primary facts. It also governs allegations based on inferences said to arise from those facts. The prosecution must allege the proposed inference, and the judge must decide whether to accept it where it is not admitted or is challenged ([10]).
The applicant argued that two allegations were contentious: the son’s role in the trafficking business, and the significance of the words “Port Royal 50k” on packaging found at the applicant’s home ([11]). The Court rejected both aspects of the argument. At the sentencing hearing, the applicant’s counsel had described the son as “in effect, a warehouser for reward” and accepted that he was receiving some money, effectively a salary. Although the defence argued that the son was not making significant sums, it did not dispute that he received some financial benefit ([12]). The Court therefore considered the sentencing judge entitled to accept the inference that the son received a substantial but unquantified benefit.
The packaging point depended on a different misreading of the sentencing judge’s reasons. The judge had recorded that the prosecution invited, and the defence did not resist, an inference that $50,000 had been paid to the son at some point. The Court explained that this referred to money delivered as part of the trafficking operation, not $50,000 paid to the son as remuneration. The judge had separately concluded that the son’s financial benefit could not be ascertained ([13]–[14]). The inference about the transfer supported the conclusion that the operation was wholesale, but did not establish the son’s remuneration ([14]).
The Court’s conclusion followed from those distinctions: there were no competing inferences to resolve, so the judge had no occasion to undertake the fact-finding process relied on by the applicant ([15]). The judgment does not decide what standard would have applied had a material inference been genuinely disputed. It rejects the proposed ground because, on the sentencing record, the premise of a contested inference was not made out.
The second ground concerned the period between charge and sentence, which was two years and four months. The Court considered that period unremarkable given the extensive investigation involving multiple suspects and negotiations that resulted in discontinuance of a trafficking charge originally laid against the applicant ([16]). It contrasted the circumstances with “extraordinary delay”, referring to R v RBO [2024] QCA 214 at [123] and following. Burns J was not persuaded that the delay ground had merit ([16]).
The third ground was framed around the inclusion of actual custody. At the hearing, however, counsel accepted that the argument could not succeed unless the Court accepted both that there was operative delay and that it was sufficiently significant to reduce the weight of personal or general deterrence ([17]). The Court had rejected the delay premise. It therefore rejected the linked argument and stated that the overall sentence was within the sound exercise of the sentencing discretion ([17]).
The judgment does not announce a new statutory test or describe a change in the law before and after the decision. Its treatment of s 132C is expressly grounded in the existing statutory text and R v RBE (2021) 8 QR 358, particularly [23] of that decision, which the Court followed ([10]).
The practical clarification in Heidke is about identifying what was actually alleged and disputed at the sentence hearing. A submission that a sentencing judge failed to apply s 132C cannot be assessed only by isolating a phrase in the sentencing remarks. The judgment examined the sentencing submissions, the precise inference invited by the prosecution, what the defence accepted or disputed, and what the judge actually found ([11]–[14]). It distinguished an inference that money was delivered as part of the trafficking operation from an inference that the son personally received the same sum as remuneration.
The judgment also illustrates that s 132C extends to inferential allegations, not only to primary facts. But it does not treat every factual inference as contested merely because a party later characterises it that way on appeal. The Court relied on the sentencing record to conclude that the relevant inference had not been disputed below ([12], [15]).
On delay, the decision applies, rather than reformulates, the distinction between the unremarkable period in this case and the “extraordinary delay” discussed in R v RBO [2024] QCA 214. The Court’s assessment was contextual: it noted the investigation’s scale and the charge negotiations, rather than treating the elapsed period alone as determinative ([16]). The judgment does not set a numerical threshold at which delay becomes extraordinary.
At [10], the Court explains that s 132C concerns “the making of an allegation based on any inferences that are alleged to arise” from primary facts. In plain English, a sentencing dispute may be about what the facts imply, not just whether an event occurred. The court must attend to the alleged inference and whether the offender has admitted or challenged it.
At [12], the Court relied on the sentencing submissions, including counsel’s description of the son as “in effect, a warehouser for reward”. The Court considered the son’s receipt of some financial benefit was not disputed in the sentencing court. In plain English, a later appeal ground could not turn an inference accepted or left unchallenged at sentence into a contested issue simply by describing it differently.
At [14], Burns J separated two propositions about the “Port Royal 50k” marking. The accepted inference was that $50,000 had been delivered to the son in the course of the trafficking operation. The sentencing judge did not find that the son earned $50,000 as remuneration. The distinction mattered because the applicant’s proposed ground attributed to the sentencing judge a finding the judge had not made.
At [15], the Court stated that there were “no competing inferences to resolve” and consequently no need for the s 132C fact-finding process invoked by the applicant. In plain English, the statutory complaint failed at the threshold: the particular disputed-fact situation the applicant relied on did not arise.
At [16], the Court called the two years and four months between charge and sentence “unremarkable” in the circumstances. That passage should be read in context: the Court referred to an extensive police investigation and negotiations that led to a trafficking charge being discontinued. It did not establish that any period of the same length will always be unremarkable.
At [17], the Court said the sentence was “within the sound exercise of the sentencing discretion”. This was the conclusion on the manifest-excess ground after the Court rejected the delay argument on which the applicant’s revised argument depended.
The decision is most directly relevant where a sentence appeal alleges that a judge acted on an inference without applying s 132C. The inquiry illustrated here is whether the inference was actually alleged, whether it was admitted or challenged at sentence, and whether the sentencing judge made the finding the appeal attributes to them ([10]–[15]). The case is particularly useful where an appeal argument depends on a supposed finding about the meaning of an item or marking, but the sentencing remarks distinguish the item’s evidentiary significance from the conclusion alleged on appeal ([13]–[14]).
It also concerns an offender who has facilitated a family member’s drug trafficking operation through use of residential property and direct participation in transactions. The Court records that the applicant’s role extended beyond permitting use of the property: he personally participated in supplies on at least six occasions, mostly wholesale ([6]). That factual context formed part of the sentencing background, but the judgment does not formulate a general rule that every similar role attracts a particular sentence.
On delay, the case may be relevant where the period between charge and sentence is said to mitigate sentence, particularly where the chronology includes a substantial investigation and negotiations affecting the charges. Its holding is limited to the Court’s assessment of this two-year-and-four-month period in the circumstances before it ([16]). It does not supply a general time limit or decide the consequences of delay in materially different circumstances.
Finally, it concerns a manifest-excess argument where the asserted excessiveness was expressly made dependent on delay reducing the significance of deterrence ([17]). It shows how the failure of a necessary premise can dispose of a ground as argued, but does not provide a standalone sentencing tariff or a general assessment of the effect of age, health, or family loyalty.
The judgment itself does not identify any later decisions that considered or applied Heidke. It was delivered on 17 October 2025, and the supplied judgment contains no subsequent-court history. Accordingly, later treatment cannot be established from this source.
The authorities it does identify are earlier decisions. R v RBE (2021) 8 QR 358 is followed for the explanation that s 132C extends to allegations based on inferences from primary facts ([10]). R v RBO [2024] QCA 214 is cited in considering extraordinary delay and possible mitigating consequences ([16]). Those references show the authorities relied on in Heidke, not how later courts have treated Heidke itself.
The judgment does not determine how s 132C should operate where a proposed inference is clearly disputed at sentence, because the Court found there was no such dispute on this record ([15]). Nor does it specify how a sentencing judge should record the applicable standard of proof in a case where a contested allegation is material. The first ground failed because the alleged competing inferences were not established, rather than because the Court decided a broader question about the form of sentencing reasons.
The decision also does not define when delay becomes “extraordinary”. It characterises the particular two-year-and-four-month period as unremarkable against the investigation and charge-negotiation background, while referring to RBO for the contrasting category ([16]). The judgment does not set a general threshold, or determine what mitigating consequences would follow in another case with different causes, duration or effects of delay.
Finally, the Court did not assess the sentence by isolating the applicant’s age, physical conditions, guilty pleas, or family relationship from the full circumstances. It recorded those personal factors and the sentencing judge’s reasoning, including the need for some actual custody and the reduction of the custodial component ([8]–[9]). Its conclusion was that the sentence was within the proper exercise of discretion on the grounds argued, not a general rule about the sentence appropriate for older offenders who facilitate a relative’s trafficking.
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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 Heidke [2025] QCA 194
PARTIES: R / v / HEIDKE, Colin Edward / (applicant)
FILE NO/S: CA No 31 of 2025 / SC No 81 of 2024
DIVISION: Court of Appeal
PROCEEDING: Sentence Application
ORIGINATING COURT: Supreme Court at Brisbane – Dates of Sentence: 25 February 2025; 27 February 2025 (Henry J)
DELIVERED ON: 17 October 2025
DELIVERED AT: Brisbane
HEARING DATE: 16 April 2025
JUDGES: Bradley JA, Burns and Ryan JJ
ORDER: Application for leave to appeal against sentence is refused.
CATCHWORDS: CRIMINAL LAW – APPEAL AND NEW TRIAL – APPEAL AGAINST SENTENCE – GROUNDS FOR INTERFERENCE – SENTENCE MANIFESTLY EXCESSIVE OR INADEQUATE – where the applicant pleaded guilty to one count of permitting use of place for trafficking in a dangerous drug, three counts of supplying a dangerous drug, three counts of possessing property obtained from trafficking in a dangerous drug and one count of possessing a dangerous drug – where the applicant was sentenced to an effective head sentence of three years imprisonment, suspended after serving six months – whether the sentencing judge erred in the application of s 132C of the Evidence Act 1977 (Qld) – whether the sentencing judge failed to take delay into account as a relevant mitigating feature – whether the sentence imposed was manifestly excessive in all the circumstances / Evidence Act 1977 (Qld), s 132C / R v RBE (2021) 8 QR 358; [2021] QCA 146, followed / R v RBO [2024] QCA 214, cited
COUNSEL: M J Hynes for the applicant / S J Gallagher for the respondent
SOLICITORS: AW Bale & Sons for the applicant / Director of Public Prosecutions (Queensland) for the respondent
BRADLEY JA: I agree with Burns J.
BURNS J: On 28 August 2024, the applicant was arraigned alongside his son in the Supreme Court at Cairns on a joint indictment charging a range of serious drug offences. The applicant (aged 70 to 71 years at the time of the offending and 73 at the time of sentence) pleaded guilty to one count of permitting use of his home for trafficking in a dangerous drug, three counts of supplying methylamphetamine, three counts of possessing money obtained from trafficking in a dangerous drug believing it to have been so obtained and one count of possessing methylamphetamine. His son (aged 42 to 43 years at the time of the offences) pleaded guilty to one count of trafficking in methylamphetamine, three counts of possessing methylamphetamine (one of which involved possession of a quantity exceeding two grams) and one count of contravening an order about information for a digital device.
The sentence hearing proceeded on 24 February 2025. After hearing the parties’ submissions, the learned sentencing judge adjourned until the following day to consider the appropriate sentences to be imposed. The applicant was then sentenced to an effective head term of three years imprisonment, suspended after serving six months for an operational period of three years. That sentence was imposed for the permitting use of place offence. Lesser concurrent terms of imprisonment were imposed for the other offences. His son received an effective head sentence of nine years and three months imprisonment, with parole eligibility at the one-third mark.
The applicant seeks leave to appeal against the sentence imposed on him on the grounds that: (1) the sentencing judge “erred in the application of s 132C of the Evidence Act 1977 (Qld) by failing to record the applicable standard of proof before resolving competing inferences”; (2) the sentencing judge “failed to take into account delay as a relevant mitigating factor”; and (3) the sentence was “manifestly excessive in all the circumstances”. For the reasons which follow, there is no substance in any of these proposed grounds but, before turning to them, it is necessary to provide a brief overview of the offending as well as the factors personal to the offender.
Over an eight-month period commencing on 10 February 2022, the applicant’s son trafficked in methylamphetamine in Mowbray near Port Douglas and elsewhere within the State. There were two strands to his business. One involved selling to a small number of local customers in personal use quantities and, on occasion, in larger amounts for on-sale. The other strand was vastly more serious. Over the trafficking period, he was an important cog in the intrastate trafficking of wholesale quantities of the drug, acting as a “warehouser for reward” and utilising his father’s residential property in Mowbray to do so. On 25 occasions, drugs, money, or both were delivered to, or collected from, the property by drug couriers travelling to and from Brisbane and Townsville. At least one transaction involved the handing over of $15,000 in cash. When the investigating police moved to close down the operation, the applicant’s son was left owing $50,000 to a supplier. The precise quantities of drugs and money transacted were not known but, as the sentencing judge rightly accepted, there could be no doubt about the wholesale nature of the operation. The sentencing judge also accepted as a matter of reasonable inference that the applicant’s son “received some substantial financial benefit for running such a significant distribution process”.
As for the applicant, not only was he a willing participant in the sense that he allowed his property to be used as some sort of clearing house for his son’s trafficking enterprise, but he was also personally involved in the supply of drugs or money on no fewer than six occasions when, it seems, his son was not on hand to facilitate the transfers. All but one of those supplies was wholesale in nature. The sentencing judge found the applicant acted in these respects out of “a misplaced sense of loyalty” to his son and, further, that he did not receive any financial benefit for his wrongdoing. At around the mid-point of the trafficking period, the applicant told his son he was “sick” of the business, but he carried on regardless for another four months until apprehended.
The sentencing judge concluded:
“[The applicant] had to have been aware he was aiding a serious commercial criminal operation, and the abuse of his premises was a pivotally important part of that operation. He did not only permit use of the premises, he also actively participated in aiding his son in a drug trafficking business through the individual commission of offences”.
As to the factors personal to the applicant, his pleas of guilty were regarded by the sentencing judge as “constructively early”, having been indicated and then acted on in a timely way after a successful negotiation regarding the offences to which he was prepared to plead guilty. He spent no time in presentence custody. Otherwise, the applicant’s minor and dated criminal history meant that he was treated as being in “very much the same position as a first offender”. Although retired from the workforce at the time of sentence, the applicant had a long employment history in a variety of occupations as well as voluntary work for the community in the local rural fire service over four decades and these factors weighed in his favour. He also suffered from a range of physical ailments including mobility problems following two knee replacements and this, the sentencing judge considered, would make custody more challenging for him than a younger, fitter prisoner.
That said, it is plain from the record of the proceeding in the court below that the sentencing judge gave proper consideration to whether an appropriate sentence needed to include a period of actual custody. In the end though, the sentencing judge concluded this could not be avoided but he reduced the custodial portion to around half of what it would ordinarily be following an early plea of guilty. His Honour explained:
“Bearing in mind his personal circumstances, I am persuaded the appropriate course is to require that he serve at least some of that period of time as actual jail time, but the majority of it as a partly suspended sentence. The justice of the case can adequately be met without detracting too much from the proper purpose of general deterrence in respect of this wicked drug by requiring that he serve six months actual imprisonment”.
“[Section] 132C is not merely concerned with the presentation by the prosecution of the primary facts; it also governs the making of an allegation based on any inferences that are alleged to arise from those facts … It is for the prosecution to allege what is to be inferred and, where that allegation is not admitted or challenged by the offender, it is for the sentencing judge to decide whether such an inference should be accepted”: R v RBE (2021) 8 QR 358, [23].
In this Court, the applicant argued that two allegations regarding what should be inferred by the sentencing judge about the facts were “contentious”. One was said to have concerned his son’s role in the intrastate trafficking business and the other related to the significance or otherwise of a marking – “Port Royal 50k” – found on some Cryovac packaging located by police at his residence.
As to the first of those allegations, the Crown asked the sentencing judge to infer that the applicant’s son was a “warehouse[r]/manager” for the distribution network in Cairns and neighbouring areas and that he received some unknown proportion of the money which passed hands for his trouble. That allegation was not disputed in the court below, with the applicant’s counsel describing his client’s son as “in effect, a warehouser for reward”. His counsel went on to accept that the applicant’s son was “getting some amount of money to do so” as “a salary, in effect”, although the absence of any trappings of wealth, it was submitted, suggested he had not been “making significant sums of money” from the enterprise. The sentencing judge was perfectly entitled to act on the inference alleged by the Crown that the applicant’s son received some substantial although unknown financial benefit from this strand of his business. As his Honour remarked, the drawing of this inference was “not resisted” by the applicant’s counsel and it otherwise arose as the “inevitable inference in the circumstances of the case”.
So far as the allegation regarding the packaging was concerned, it was submitted in this Court that the sentencing judge inferred from the marking that the applicant’s son was at some point paid the sum of $50,000 by way of remuneration for his participation in the trafficking enterprise in circumstances where the defence had disputed he was paid any significant sums of money. The problem with that submission is that the sentencing judge did not draw that inference. Rather, during the course of recording the “accoutrements” of trafficking found by the police, his Honour referred to the packaging and then remarked:
“The prosecution invited the inference, and it was not resisted in defence submissions, that that was evidence of $50,000 having been paid at some point to [the applicant’s son]”.
Having earlier found that the financial benefit received by the applicant’s son could not be ascertained, the sentencing judge was not by this remark referring to an amount received by way of remuneration. Rather, his Honour accepted the inference that a sum of money in that amount was delivered to the applicant’s son as part of the trafficking operation. This in turn provided support for the conclusion that the operation was at a wholesale level; it had nothing at all to do with the finding his Honour made about the level of remuneration paid to the applicant’s son.
In the result, and contrary to the submissions made in support of this proposed ground, there were no competing inferences to resolve and, therefore, there was neither the occasion nor the necessity to embark on the fact-finding exercise stipulated in s 132C(2) of the Evidence Act.
By the proposed second ground the applicant contended that the sentencing judge failed to take into account delay as a relevant mitigating factor. However, the period between charge and sentence – two years and four months – was unremarkable, particularly against the background of an extensive police investigation targeting multiple suspects and, in this case as well, negotiations between the Crown and the defence that resulted in the discontinuance of a charge of trafficking which had originally been preferred against the applicant. This was hardly a case involving “extraordinary delay”, to borrow the description used in cases such as R v RBO [2024] QCA 214, [123] ff, let alone one where the possible mitigatory factors consequent on such a delay which were discussed in that case fell for consideration here. I am quite unpersuaded there is any merit in this proposed ground.
Under the proposed third ground, it was originally submitted that the inclusion of a period of actual custody made the overall sentence manifestly excessive. However, on the hearing of the application, the applicant’s counsel conceded this ground could not be sustained unless the Court were to accept, first, that there was operative delay in this case and, second, that it was of such magnitude as to give personal and/or general deterrence reduced significance. For the reasons expressed in connection with the preceding ground, neither proposition can be accepted. The overall sentence was in any event within the sound exercise of the sentencing discretion.
Disposition
For these reasons, I would refuse the application for leave to appeal against sentence.
RYAN J: I agree with Burns J.
R
Heidke [2025] QCA 194
Application for leave to appeal against sentence refused.