//
© 2026 Zoe. All rights reserved.
Zoe is a legal information platform. Always consult the Federal Register of Legislation for authoritative text.
[2025] QCA 228
respondent. Application for leave to appeal sentence refused. The concurrent sentences, including the 12-year sentence for count 25, were not disturbed.
The applicant argued that his 12-year sentence was too high, relying in part on the sentence upheld in Buchanan and the credit due for his guilty pleas. The Court of Appeal refused leave. It considered the offending materially different from Buchanan: it involved repeated offending over six occasions, multiple serious sexual offences, and the exploitation of a vulnerable complainant within a domestic relationship. The judgment says comparable cases are useful points of reference, not fixed limits. The sentencing judge had treated the pleas as significant mitigation and had given detailed reasons for the sentence. The Court was not persuaded that the sentence showed an appealable error.
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.
1,913 words · generated 07/10/2026
In R v RBP [2025] QCA 228, the Queensland Court of Appeal considered an application for leave to appeal sentence. The applicant had pleaded guilty to 23 counts of rape, one count of sexual assault and one count of stupefying to commit an indictable offence. The judgment identifies the offences as domestic violence offences ([1]).
No linked legislation citations have been extracted yet.
The offending occurred on six occasions during the applicant’s relationship with the complainant. The complainant was drunk, unconscious or barely conscious, and incapable of giving consent. The conduct included multiple forms of rape and sexual assault. The applicant filmed the occasions. On one occasion he placed Amyl Nitrate on a pillowcase and put it over the complainant’s face ([6]–[7]). The Court did not consider it necessary or desirable to describe the offending in further detail ([6]).
The sentencing judge imposed concurrent sentences: eight years for each rape count other than count 25, five years for the sexual assault and stupefying offences, and 12 years for count 25. The judge declared count 25 a serious violent offence and, following the approach referred to as R v Nagy, treated that sentence as representing the applicant’s overall criminality ([2]). The applicant argued that a sentence of 10 to 11 years was the appropriate range for his overall criminality ([3]).
Brown JA delivered the reasons for the Court. Boddice JA and Henry J agreed. The Court refused leave to appeal sentence ([28]–[31]).
The applicant’s circumstances included a limited criminal history, previous imprisonment for sexual offences against a child, and being on probation when the present offending occurred ([9]–[10]). He pleaded guilty after a committal hearing at which the complainant was cross-examined and some footage was played ([12]). A forensic psychologist identified protective factors, but the applicant had given the psychologist an account suggesting he believed the complainant was consenting. The sentencing judge rejected that account and found that it did not establish reduced moral culpability or remorse ([13]–[15]).
The Court applied the appellate threshold described at [21]. It said intervention is justified only if, after considering all relevant sentencing factors, including differences from comparable sentences, the appellate court is driven to conclude there was a misapplication of principle or that the sentence was unreasonable or plainly unjust. The question was not whether the appellate judges would have selected the same sentence themselves. It was whether the applicant had established a basis for appellate intervention.
The sentencing judge’s treatment of the guilty pleas was central to the applicant’s argument. The applicant submitted that he should have received considerable credit. The Court observed that the sentencing judge had expressly treated the pleas as a significant mitigating factor. The pleas were not early: they followed committal cross-examination and the playing of some footage. Nevertheless, the sentencing judge recognised their value in avoiding a trial, further cross-examination of the complainant, the playing of video material to a jury, and potential harm to jurors ([17], [22]). The Court did not accept that the pleas had been overlooked or given inadequate recognition.
The Court also rejected the proposed comparison with R v Buchanan [2016] QCA 33 as a basis for finding error. Buchanan involved one violent rape by an intruder, and a 13-year sentence was upheld. The Court identified important differences: RBP’s offending was sustained and repeated over six occasions; each occasion involved multiple offences; the complainant was vulnerable and unable to defend herself; the applicant exploited the domestic relationship; and he filmed the acts ([23]–[25]). The Court also noted that domestic violence was an aggravating feature in RBP, whereas it was not a feature of Buchanan ([24]).
The Court did not minimise the significance of the comparison. It explained its limits. Comparable sentences can help a sentencing judge understand how common factors have been treated, but they do not determine the sentence or define the outer limits of discretion ([26]). The different factual patterns meant that the sentence in Buchanan did not provide a ceiling for RBP’s sentence.
Finally, the Court considered the seriousness of the offending and the sentencing purposes identified in the reasons. It noted that deterrence, both personal and general, and denunciation called for a heavy sentence. The domestic-violence character of the offences was an aggravating feature. Mitigating factors had some weight, but the Court described them as not significant; rehabilitation prospects were unclear given the applicant’s lack of remorse and insight ([27]). Taken together, those considerations did not satisfy the appellate threshold.
The judgment does not announce a new sentencing rule or state that it changes the law. Its approach is framed as an application of existing appellate sentencing principles. At [3], the applicant invoked the final category of House v The King. At [21], the Court expressed the intervention threshold in terms of whether the appellate court is driven to conclude that there was a misapplication of principle or that the sentence was unreasonable or plainly unjust.
The judgment also confirms the limited function of sentencing comparisons. A comparable decision is a yardstick, not a tariff. At [26], the Court says that such decisions assist with the treatment of factors in common but do not determine the sentence or mark the outer bounds of discretion. The point is especially relevant where the cases differ significantly in the number of offences, duration of offending, relationship between offender and complainant, and circumstances of vulnerability.
The reasons refer to R v Nagy only to explain the sentencing judge’s approach to count 25 as representing overall criminality ([2]). The judgment does not set out the doctrine from Nagy in detail. Similarly, it cites House v The King as the source of the applicant’s asserted category of error, then states the applicable appellate threshold at [21]. The judgment should therefore be read as a fact-specific application, rather than a comprehensive restatement of either authority.
“Before and after” must be understood narrowly here. The text establishes what this Court applied on 14 November 2025. It does not describe an earlier legal position that was displaced, nor does it establish a later change in the law. On the material provided, the decision confirms the role of appellate restraint and comparative cases in the particular sentencing appeal.
At [21], the Court states that intervention requires the appellate court to be “driven to conclude” there was a misapplication of principle or that the sentence was “unreasonable or plainly unjust”. In plain English, disagreement about the sentence is not enough. The appellate court must identify a sufficiently serious problem after considering the sentencing factors as a whole.
At [22], the Court says it was “plain” that the sentencing judge gave considerable weight to the pleas, despite their timing and the strength of the video evidence. In plain English, the Court found that the guilty pleas had been addressed as a substantial mitigating consideration, even though the judge did not regard them as demonstrating remorse.
At [26], the Court describes comparable cases as “yardsticks”. The translation is that other sentences can help orient a sentencing decision, but they are not a formula. A sentence in another case does not automatically set a maximum or minimum in a case with materially different facts.
At [27], the Court calls the offending “objectively serious and extreme” and identifies deterrence, denunciation and the domestic-violence aggravating feature as supporting a heavy sentence. In plain English, the Court considered that the gravity and context of the offending justified a severe sentencing response, while still acknowledging the mitigating factors.
At [28] and [31], the Court states the result: the application for leave to appeal sentence was refused. The operative outcome was not a resentencing or variation of the sentence.
The decision is most directly relevant to sentence appeals where an applicant argues that a sentence is unreasonable or plainly unjust, and where the appeal relies on comparing the sentence with one or more other cases. The judgment highlights that the comparison must account for factual similarities and differences rather than simply comparing headline sentence lengths.
The factual features that mattered in RBP included prolonged offending over six occasions, multiple offences on each occasion, the complainant’s incapacity to consent, the exploitation of a domestic relationship, filming, and conduct that demonstrated disregard for indications that the complainant did not want the acts to occur ([7], [18], [24]). The Court also considered the applicant’s limited mitigating circumstances, the timing and value of the pleas, his lack of remorse and insight, and the uncertain rehabilitation prospects ([15], [17], [27]).
The decision does not establish that every case involving these features must receive a particular sentence. Its stated approach is that all relevant factors must be considered, and that comparable cases do not set fixed limits. It is therefore a fact-sensitive authority on appellate review and the use of sentencing comparisons, not a sentencing scale for sexual offences generally.
The judgment was delivered on 14 November 2025. The material provided contains no later judgments discussing or applying R v RBP. Its subsequent treatment therefore cannot be established from this source.
What can be stated from the judgment itself is how the Court treated the earlier authorities before it. It referred to House v The King when identifying the applicant’s asserted basis for appellate error ([3], [21]); referred to R v Nagy concerning the sentencing judge’s treatment of count 25 as representing overall criminality ([2]); and distinguished R v Buchanan on its facts ([23]–[26]). The Court did not say that Buchanan was overruled or that its sentence was wrong. It considered it distinguishable and explained why its sentence did not show error in this case.
Any claim about later judicial treatment would require sources beyond the judgment reproduced here. This analysis does not infer that later courts have followed, distinguished or otherwise considered RBP.
The judgment leaves several matters outside its scope. It does not provide a detailed account of the authorities cited by the sentencing judge or explain their individual weight. It also does not set out the facts or reasoning in Nagy beyond the role attributed to that case at [2]. Those matters would require consultation of the cited decisions themselves.
The Court does not quantify the sentencing effect of each aggravating or mitigating factor. It records that the pleas were significant, the domestic-violence feature aggravated the offending, and the applicant’s personal mitigating factors were not significant overall ([17], [24], [27]). It does not specify a numerical discount for the pleas or assign a precise number of years to any individual factor.
Nor does the judgment set a general benchmark for repeated sexual offending in domestic relationships. Its reasoning depends on the particular combination of duration, repetition, multiplicity of offences, vulnerability, filming, personal history, pleas and lack of remorse described in the reasons. The Court’s express caution that comparable cases are not outer limits reinforces that the decision does not create a fixed range ([26]).
Finally, the reasons describe rehabilitation prospects as unclear, notwithstanding protective factors identified by the psychologist ([13], [27]). The judgment does not determine how those prospects might develop after sentencing. It resolves only whether the applicant established a basis for appellate intervention on the record considered by the Court.
This is general legal information, not legal advice. Zoe can make mistakes. Before acting on this, relying on it, or using any draft, 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.
[2025] QCA 228
COURT OF APPEAL
BODDICE JA / BROWN JA / HENRY J
CA No 169 of 2024 / DC No 473 of 2024
R
v
RBP Applicant
BRISBANE
FRIDAY, 14 NOVEMBER 2025
JUDGMENT
BROWN JA: The applicant was convicted after pleas of guilty of 23 counts of rape (domestic violence offence), one count of sexual assault (domestic violence offence) and one count of stupefying to commit an indictable offence (domestic violence offence).
In respect of each of the counts of rape other than count 25, he was sentenced to a term of imprisonment of 8 years. In relation to the count of sexual assault and stupefying with intent to rape, he was sentenced to a term of imprisonment of 5 years. In relation to count 25, a count of rape, he was sentenced to a term of imprisonment of 12 years. The sentencing judge declared that count 25 was a conviction of a serious violent offence. In accordance with the approach of the Court in R v Nagy, the sentence imposed for Count 25 represented the applicant’s overall criminality. All sentences were to be served concurrently.
The applicant contends the sentence of 12 years was unreasonable or plainly unjust such that this Court should infer error in accordance with the final category of House v The King. The applicant contends a head sentence of 10 to 11 years was the appropriate range to represent the applicant’s overall criminality for the totality of offending.
I do not consider that the applicant has established that the sentencing judge did err in the exercise of his discretion. Leave should be refused for the following reasons.
The circumstances of the offending
The sentencing judge considered the circumstances set out in an agreed statement of facts in some detail. The offending involved sustained and prolonged offending on six occasions.
It is unnecessary nor desirable to describe in detail the nature of the offending. The complainant had met the applicant online and they had commenced living together. They engaged in a consensual sexual relationship and the complainant had acknowledged that she was aware that the applicant was at times recording her when they had sex consensually.
The offences to which the applicant pleaded guilty relate to six occasions when the applicant engaged in unlawful sexual activity with the complainant when she was drunk, unconscious or barely conscious and was incapable of giving consent. On one of those occasions he placed a stupefying drug, Amyl Nitrate, on the pillowcase and put it over her face. The applicant filmed the occasions when he offended. On each occasion the applicant engaged in multiple offences. They included multiple occasions where he engaged in penile oral rape, penile vaginal rape, and penile anal rape. He also engaged in digital and object anal rape and digital vaginal rape. On one occasion the applicant forced the complainant’s mouth open with some sort of metal spring loaded device to prevent the complainant from closing her mouth. On another occasion the applicant pushed the complainant’s bottom jaw open, urinating in her mouth for approximately 22 seconds until she began to choke, subsequently coughing and gagging. To the extent that the complainant had periods where she showed she was conscious of the offending that was occurring, her actions indicated it was not consensual.
The sentencing judge accurately described the offending as “protracted, repetitive, degrading, grossly deviant and exploitative of the complainant”.
Applicant’s antecedents
At the time of the offending the applicant was 37 years of age. He had generally maintained employment. He had a limited criminal history in Queensland, New South Wales and Western Australia, but it relevantly included three counts of sexually penetrating a child over 13 but under 16 which resulted in his being imprisoned for 2 years. He has a supportive family.
At the time of his offending he was on probation, having been convicted of a number of drug and weapons offences.
His pre-sentence custody for the present offending straddled the nine-month sentence imposed as a result of the breach of the probation order and other offences. 787 days pre-sentence custody was declared. The balance of 384 days was taken into account but not declared.
The applicant pleaded guilty, which was a timely plea after a committal hearing when cross-examination of the complainant occurred and some of the footage was played.
The applicant was reviewed by a forensic psychologist, Mr Hatzipetrou. A report was tendered on behalf of the applicant. The applicant gave Mr Hatzipetrpou an elaborate version of events indicating he thought the complainant was consenting to the sexual acts being engaged in, notwithstanding her state at the time made her incapable of giving consent. According to Mr Hatzipetrou, the applicant had a “distorted understanding of consent”. Mr Hatzipetrou considered that in terms of prospects of rehabilitation, the applicant had a number of protective factors given his intellectual capacity, apparent motivation to address his offending and support of family as well as participation in drug and alcohol programs.
At sentence, the applicant sought to contend that his moral culpability was reduced to some extent and that the basis upon which the applicant fell to be sentenced was on the basis of recklessness, in that he was indifferent to whether or not the complainant was consenting to various acts or not. The applicant particularly relied on the report of Mr Hatzipetrou.
The sentencing judge found that the agreed facts had been proven and rejected any suggestion that the applicant had an honest belief, based on the nature of his relationship with the complainant, that she consented to him in engaging in the acts concerned. The sentencing judge found that he was satisfied that the applicant “offended with full knowledge that the complainant had given you no permission or consent for such acts. I do not accept the submission, based upon those self-serving statements made by you to Mr Hatzipetrou, that your moral culpability is reduced because of ‘distorted understanding of consent’”. The sentencing judge considered that the report given demonstrated the applicant’s lack of acceptance of responsibility for his offending and the absence of any true remorse. Those findings are not challenged and quite rightly so.
The sentencing judge took into account the applicant’s plea of guilty and that he had served imprisonment during COVID-19, which imposed additional hardship during custody.
Consideration
The applicant contends that the court would infer error and consider the sentence unreasonable and plainly unjust because he should have received considerable credit for his pleas of guilty and because a comparison of the present case with the case of R v Buchanan [2016] QCA 33 would lead this Court to conclude that the sentence ought not have gone beyond ten years. That cannot be accepted.
In a case such as this, appellate intervention will only be justified where after considering all of the relevant sentencing factors, including the degree to which the impugned sentence differs from sentences that have been imposed in comparable cases, the court “is driven to conclude there must have been some misapplication of principle”, or that the sentence is “unreasonable or plainly unjust”.
It is plain from the reasons that the sentencing judge gave considerable weight to the pleas of guilty, notwithstanding that the pleas were entered after the committal when cross-examination occurred with some of the footage having been shown and that the case was based on strong evidence insofar as the offending was the subject of video evidence.
It may be accepted that the present case is quite different to the case of Buchanan, which involved a single occasion where a violent rape occurred of a woman by an intruder; that incident involved considerable physical violence*.* The sentence of thirteen years imprisonment for rape was upheld in that case. The offender was somewhat younger than the applicant with a worse criminal history than the applicant and had been on parole at the time. The applicant had been on probation in the present case.
However in the present case there were acts of violence, including picking the complainant up by her hair, forcing a metal object into her mouth on more than one occasion and inserting objects into her vagina. She was in a vulnerable position unable to defend herself. Her position of vulnerability was in part because she was in a domestic relationship with the applicant, which he took advantage of when she was not in a state to resist. To the extent that the complainant did show signs that she did not want the offending to occur, it was ignored by the applicant. The present case unlike Buchanan, involved sustained offending with multiple offences occurring; on six occasions there was prolonged criminality. The applicant exploited the complainant’s physical state including by filming the acts concerned. Domestic violence was an aggravating feature of this case, unlike the case of Buchanan. The applicant had limited mitigating factors other than the pleas of guilty and that he served time in custody during COVID-19. In Buchanan, the plea of guilty was the only significant mitigating feature.
In neither Buchanan nor the present case was there evidence of remorse. In the present case, the applicant had sought to justify his conduct when being assessed by Mr Hatzipetrou, demonstrating not only a lack of remorse but a lack of insight into his offending.
R
RBP [2025] QCA 228
Application for leave to appeal sentence refused. The concurrent sentences, including the 12-year sentence for count 25, were not disturbed.
Detailed reasons were given by the sentencing judge for the sentence imposed. In particular, his Honour accepted the pleas of guilty were significant given they saved the complainant from the ordeal of cross-examination during a trial and further victimisation by the playing of the video material as well as harm and potential trauma to the jurors from viewing such material. His Honour stated that “the plea of guilty, notwithstanding not being an early one, and notwithstanding not being indicative of remorse, is a significant mitigating factor which should be reflected in your sentence”.
The sentencing judge considered the applicant’s behaviour was a gross breach of trust of a domestic relationship and demonstrated particularly callous regard for the personal integrity of the complainant.
The sentencing judge referred to the authorities and noted that the applicant’s counsel had submitted that sentences for rape of 10 years or over are usually cases in which there was an aggravating factor such as threats, extreme violence, use of weapons or rapes of strangers. The sentencing judge however observed that the applicant was to be sentenced for six episodes of serious sexual offending against a vulnerable and defenceless complainant. He stated that while violence used to affect those offences was not extreme, that was because of the state of consciousness of the complainant. The sentencing judge considered it wasn’t particularly useful to draw a comparison with any of the circumstances of comparable decisions, but insofar as they did provide yardsticks they led him to the conclusion that a 15 year sentence would have been appropriate if a trial had occurred. His Honour moderated the sentence to one of 12 years including to take account of “the significant utilitarian value of your pleas of guilty.”
While other sentences can serve as yardsticks to some extent, those comparable cases assist a sentencing judge to understand how factors in common should be treated but do not determine the sentence or mark the outerbounds of a sentencing judge’s discretion. The sentence imposed in Buchanan and its contrast with the present case does not indicate error in the exercise of the discretion in the circumstances of this case.
In the present case, the offending was objectively serious and extreme. Deterrence, both personal and general, as well as denunciation, called for a heavy sentence, as did the aggravating feature that the offences were domestic violence offences. The mitigating factors while of some weight, were not significant and the prospects of rehabilitation are unclear, notwithstanding the protective factors outlined by Mr Hatzipetrou, given the applicant’s lack of remorse and insight into his offending. The sentence reached by the sentencing judge involved careful consideration of all the competing factors in reaching the sentence in which he did.
The application should be refused.
BODDICE JA: I agree.
HENRY J: I agree.
BODDICE JA: The order of the Court is the application for leave to appeal sentence is refused.