R v Roberts [2002] QCA 105

Court of Appeal (Qld)|2002-03-20|Before: Group J, Murdo P, Byrne J, Philippides J

The applicant's major complaint concerning this aspect of the sentencing remarks was that the Judge's recognition of remorse was restricted to the remorse emerging from the guilty pleas, rather than that evidently expressed at the group meeting.

It is not, I think, possible to take the view that considerations of remorse were not sufficiently regarded.

The subject of remorse is expressly referred to in the sentencing remarks.

Other mitigating or material circumstances upon which reliance was placed included contentions that the sentence failed to reflect the applicant's intention to resume caring for her young children as soon as her home on Palm Island could be properly renovated by the local council, and that as unlawful woundings go, the case fell, so it was said, at the very bottom of the scale of seriousness.

However, the Judge plainly appreciated the nature and extent of the relatively small injury; and there is no reason to suppose that the material mitigating circumstances were ignored or accorded insufficient weight.

Especially in view of the applicant's prior conviction and that the offence with which the Judge was concerned occurred during the operation of a community service order, in my opinion it has not been demonstrated that the sentencing discretion miscarried.

THE PRESIDENT: I agree. The Judge's sentencing remarks reflect the tension between, on the one hand, the compassionate recommendations in the helpful report of the Palm Island Community Justice Group which focus on the applicant's rehabilitative prospects and her reaction to earlier threatened violence and, on the other, to questions of general deterrence to bring home to members of all communities, including Palm Island, that violent responses are not acceptable.

The particularly serious aspect of this offence is that it occurred whilst the applicant was under a community-based order for an offence of violence against the same complainant. Despite the applicant's otherwise sound record and her plea of guilty, it cannot be said that the sentence was manifestly excessive.

I agree the application for leave to appeal should be refused.

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