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[2025] QCA 117
respondent. Application for leave to appeal against sentence refused.
The Court of Appeal accepted that SEP had substantial personal mitigating circumstances. It nevertheless concluded that her role in facilitating the delivery of a commercial quantity of cocaine, her conviction after trial and the sentence structure together did not make the sentence manifestly excessive. The early parole release date was an important part of how the sentencing judge had allowed for mitigation. The Court refused leave to appeal.
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2,251 words · generated 07/10/2026
The Queensland Court of Appeal considered SEP's application for leave to appeal against sentence. Brown JA and North and Henry JJ delivered the judgment on 27 June 2025. The order was: “Application for leave to appeal against sentence refused” ([39]).
SEP faced eight drug charges. She pleaded guilty to seven and was tried and convicted by a jury on the most serious charge, unlawfully supplying cocaine with her brother in November 2022 ([1]). The sentencing judge imposed three years' imprisonment for that charge. There were concurrent one-month sentences for five cannabis-supply charges, a concurrent nine-month sentence for possessing cannabis, and a conviction without further punishment for possessing a phone used for supply ([2]). Although she had been convicted after trial on the principal charge, her parole release date was set after 11 months ([3]).
2 cited instruments linked from this judgment.
The cocaine came to police attention when Australian Border Force intercepted two packages arriving in Sydney on the same flight on 24 November 2022. Each had been sent from the same United Kingdom address and was labelled as containing shoes. The package addressed to SEP's brother contained 286.625 grams gross weight and 211.915 grams pure weight of cocaine. The Court described this as a “substantial, inherently commercial quantity”, worth about $100,000 if sold in gram amounts ([6]–[7]).
The prosecution case on SEP's role was that she nominated her brother's address as the delivery address. Telephone messages supported the inference that she supplied the address to the overseas supplier or an associate. The messages also showed her functioning as a communication conduit, and she expected payment for facilitating the delivery. The Court noted that she told a psychologist she knew the conduct was “dodgy” and had accepted an offer of $1,000 because she had no money or job ([11]–[14]).
The sentencing judge had heard the trial and therefore had access to the detail of the messages, which informed the assessment of SEP's culpability ([13]). The Court also considered evidence of other drug offending, including the discovery at SEP's home of a cryovac bag containing 420 grams of cannabis, and phone evidence relating to cannabis supply to her boyfriend ([9]).
The Court's reasoning had two connected parts: the objective seriousness of the cocaine offending and the way the sentence accounted for personal mitigation.
On seriousness, SEP's conviction arose from a single act of nominating the delivery address, but the Court considered that act in the context of the evidence about her wider role. It found that messages showed she had knowingly helped move a wholesale quantity intended for commercial distribution, and expected payment ([11]–[15]). The Court considered three years' imprisonment proportionate to that level of criminality and within the lower part of the appropriate range ([15], [18]).
The cited Queensland cases supplied comparisons, not a single tariff mechanically controlling this sentence. In R v Cooney, the Court had refused leave in a case involving a courier with 641.007 grams of pure cocaine and an eight-and-a-half-year sentence. In R v Richards, it had resentenced a transporter of 176.6 grams of pure methylamphetamine to four years, suspended after 20 months ([16]). The judgment also referred to an often-quoted range of two-and-a-half to four years for commercially motivated possession of a substantial quantity of methylamphetamine, citing R v Hesketh and R v Hawke ([17]). The judgment used those comparisons to support its view that the three-year head sentence was within range, while recognising SEP's lesser role as an aider rather than principal ([18]).
The Court did not overlook mitigation. SEP was 18 and 19 during the offending and had no prior convictions. It described her youth, particularly alongside the absence of convictions, as “undoubtedly significant” mitigation ([20]). The judgment recounts a childhood involving separation from her mother, abuse by her father, unstable care, later homelessness or reliance on friends, depressive symptoms, self-harm and intermittent mental-health treatment ([21]–[24]). A psychologist considered that she likely had complex post-traumatic stress disorder, major depressive disorder, borderline personality disorder and cannabis dependency, and described her as vulnerable to manipulation and motivated by a need to belong ([24]).
The Court considered the statutory provisions concerning domestic violence in s 9 of the Penalties and Sentences Act 1992 (Qld). It treated the domestic-violence history as relevant, and the adverse psychological effects as mitigating. It distinguished this case from one where domestic violence has a direct causal role in an offence. On the Court's assessment, SEP's offending was at most partly attributable to the indirect effects of her history and vulnerability. That factor had been considered by the sentencing judge, but had to be weighed with the other relevant factors ([25]–[26]).
Parity did not alter the outcome. SEP's brother received two-and-a-half years with parole release after nine months. The Court considered his less active role and the absence of SEP's additional drug offending relevant to the difference. Her boyfriend had a three-and-a-half-year sentence and parole eligibility after 11 months, but he had pleaded guilty. The Court found no disparity producing a justifiable sense of grievance ([27]–[28]). SEP's substantial admissions at trial were mitigating, but the Court considered remorse claims deserving of little material weight because she denied guilt despite a strong circumstantial case ([29]–[31]).
The sentence structure was decisive. The Court held there was no requirement to express mitigation only by reducing the head sentence. A sentencing judge could use a shorter parole release or eligibility period, or a combination ([33]). The 11-month release date was less than one third of the head sentence and represented a substantial allowance, particularly because parole release generally tends not to be set earlier than halfway for offenders who plead not guilty ([32]). The Court considered it open to preserve the head sentence's general deterrent effect while reflecting mitigation through the early release date ([34]).
The judgment does not identify a change in the law or announce a new statutory test. It applies established sentencing and appellate principles to the particular combination of a substantial commercial quantity, an aiding role, personal mitigation and an early parole release date.
The appellate threshold is expressed through the language of manifest excess. The application relied on the House v The King inference that a sentence so unreasonable or plainly unjust may indicate error ([4]). The Court framed the issue as whether the sentence was so harsh as to bespeak error, not whether a different judge could have imposed a more generous sentence ([36]–[38]). It expressly accepted that greater allowance, particularly for youth, could properly have been made, but said that possibility did not establish error ([38]).
The judgment's clarification concerns the mechanics of mitigation. It states that a sentencing judge is not required to reflect mitigation only in the head sentence. Mitigation can instead be reflected through an earlier parole release or eligibility date, or partly through both means ([33]–[35]). That proposition is attributed to R v Ponsonby at [33], and is applied to SEP's sentence structure.
The statutory discussion likewise applies, rather than revises, ss 9(2)(gb) and 9(10B) of the Penalties and Sentences Act 1992 (Qld). The Court considered the history and effects of domestic violence, and the extent to which the offence was attributable to those effects ([25]–[26]). It concluded on these facts that the connection was indirect and partial, not that such evidence is generally weak or irrelevant.
Accordingly, the judgment's “before and after” significance is limited on the material provided: it confirms the Court's approach to a sentencing structure in which a substantial head sentence is paired with an early parole release date. The judgment itself does not say that it displaces a prior rule or creates a new sentencing range.
At [33], the Court states: “There exists no requirement that in arriving at a just sentence a sentencing judge must reflect allowance for mitigating considerations only by moderation of the head sentence.” In plain English, a judge may account for personal circumstances by setting an earlier parole date, rather than expressing all mitigation as a shorter prison term.
At [34], the Court says it was open to preserve the generally deterrent effect of the head sentence and make substantial allowance through an earlier parole release date. In plain English, the judge could retain a three-year sentence while allowing SEP to be released on parole much earlier than the head sentence's end.
At [38], the Court observes: “A more generous allowance could properly have been made, particularly because of the applicant's youth, but that is not the test of error here.” This distinguishes a sentence that might have been more lenient from one that is so harsh it reveals an error warranting appellate intervention.
At [15], the Court describes SEP as actively aiding the supply of a schedule 1 drug, in a context where she must have known it was a wholesale quantity destined for commercial distribution and expected payment. This explains why the Court regarded the offence as objectively serious even though SEP's conviction rested on nominating an address.
At [26], the Court says the domestic-violence effects were, at highest, an indirect and partial contributor to SEP's offending. In plain English, the history mattered to sentence, but the Court did not consider it to have directly compelled or caused the cocaine offence.
The judgment is most directly relevant to sentence appeals where an applicant argues manifest excess despite a sentence that includes a substantial early parole release or eligibility date. Its specific reasoning concerns whether mitigation must be reflected in the head sentence itself. The answer given is no: the sentencing structure may distribute the effect of mitigation between the head sentence and parole settings ([32]–[35]).
It is also relevant where the offender's role in a commercial drug operation is limited to an assisting act, such as facilitating a delivery address, but the evidence indicates knowing participation in movement of a wholesale quantity and an expectation of payment ([11]–[18]). The Court considered both the specific act supporting the conviction and the surrounding communications relevant to culpability.
Personal circumstances may engage the judgment's analysis where there is youth, no prior criminal history, trauma, mental-health evidence, vulnerability, or a history of domestic violence. The decision does not treat these factors as automatic grounds for a particular reduction. It explains that their significance depends on the evidence, their connection to the offending and their place among all aggravating and mitigating circumstances ([20]–[26]).
The judgment also bears on parity arguments involving co-offenders. The comparison turned on differences in role, additional offending and pleas, not merely on shared involvement in the same cocaine charge ([27]–[28]). Its reasoning is therefore fact-sensitive. The judgment does not establish that every similar quantity or role should receive the same sentence.
The supplied judgment contains no references to decisions made after 27 June 2025 and therefore does not establish how later courts have treated R v SEP. It would be unsupported to claim that a later court has followed, distinguished or limited it.
Within this judgment, the Court itself relies on earlier authorities. It invokes House v The King in relation to the inference of error ([4]); refers to Cooney, Richards, Hesketh and Hawke as sentencing comparisons for serious commercial drug offending ([16]–[17]); cites McLean concerning youth and the absence of prior convictions ([20]); and refers to BEM on the treatment of domestic-violence effects ([26]). It applies Lowe in considering parity ([28]) and Ponsonby for the proposition that mitigation need not be expressed only through a reduced head sentence ([33]).
That treatment shows how the Court situated its reasoning among the authorities it cited. It does not answer the separate question of subsequent treatment. Any assessment of later use would require later judgments not included in the supplied material.
The judgment leaves the ultimate weighting of individual mitigating factors to the sentencing discretion in the circumstances of each case. It recognises that a more generous allowance for SEP, especially given her youth, could properly have been made, but does not specify how much weight youth, trauma or mental-health evidence should receive in another case ([38]).
Nor does the judgment prescribe a formula for selecting a parole release date. It establishes that an earlier date can be used to reflect mitigation, but does not set a general proportion between the head sentence and parole date. Its observation that parole release generally tends not to be set earlier than halfway for an offender who pleaded not guilty is made in explaining why SEP's 11-month date was a substantial allowance ([32]).
The decision also leaves fact-specific questions about attribution. The Court assessed SEP's offending as only indirectly and partly attributable to the effects of domestic violence and her upbringing ([26]). It does not provide a universal test for measuring the causal connection between trauma and offending, beyond identifying the relevant statutory provisions and applying them to the evidence before it ([25]–[26]).
Finally, the judgment does not determine how other sentencing considerations would affect a different offender, quantity, role, plea or parole structure. Its conclusion is that this sentence, considered as a whole and on this record, did not meet the manifest-excess threshold. The reasons should not be read as fixing a tariff for cocaine supply or as deciding cases with materially different evidence.
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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 SEP [2025] QCA 117
PARTIES: R / v / SEP / (applicant)
FILE NO/S: CA No 256 of 2024 / SC No 138 of 2023
DIVISION: Court of Appeal
PROCEEDING: Sentence Application
ORIGINATING COURT: Supreme Court at Townsville – Date of Sentence: 1 November 2024 (Sullivan J)
DELIVERED ON: 27 June 2025
DELIVERED AT: Brisbane
HEARING DATE: 2 June 2025
JUDGES: Brown JA and North and Henry JJ
ORDER: Application for leave to appeal against sentence refused.
CATCHWORDS: CRIMINAL LAW – APPEAL AND NEW TRIAL – APPEAL AGAINST SENTENCE – GROUNDS FOR INTERFERENCE – SENTENCE MANIFESTLY EXCESSIVE OR INADEQUTATE – where the applicant was convicted by a jury of unlawfully supplying cocaine – where the application for leave to appeal was premised on an inference the sentence was so unreasonable or plainly unjust that there must have been error – where there were significant mitigating considerations – whether the sentence structure allowed for mitigating considerations – whether the sentence was manifestly excessive / Penalties and Sentences Act 1992 (Qld), s 9 / House v The King (1936) 55 CLR 499; [1936] HCA 40, cited / Lowe v The Queen (1984) 154 CLR 606; [1984] HCA 46, cited / R v BEM [2024] QCA 175, cited / R v Cooney [2004] QCA 244, cited / R v Hawke [2021] QCA 179, cited / R v Hesketh; Ex parte Attorney-General (Qld) [2004] QCA 116, cited / R v McLean [2021] QCA 70, cited / R v Ponsonby [2024] QCA 229, cited / R v Richards [2017] QCA 299, cited
COUNSEL: P J Wilson for the applicant / M A Sheppard for the respondent
SOLICITORS: Legal Aid Queensland for the applicant / Director of Public Prosecutions (Queensland) for the respondent
THE COURT: The applicant was indicted on eight drug charges and pleaded guilty to seven of them. She went to trial and was convicted by a jury on the most serious charge: that she and her brother unlawfully supplied cocaine in November 2022.
She was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment on the charge of supplying cocaine. She received lesser concurrent sentences of imprisonment of one month each for five supply cannabis charges, nine months for a possession of cannabis charge and was convicted but not further punished on a charge of possessing a phone used for supply.
Notwithstanding that the applicant went to trial, her parole release date was set after she has served only 11 months, which is less than one third of the three year head sentence. Such an outcome bespeaks allowance for mitigating circumstances. Despite this the applicant seeks leave to appeal on the ground the ‘sentence imposed was manifestly excessive, as … his Honour failed to give adequate weight to matters in mitigation’.
The applicant’s outline of submissions raises the possibility inadequate weight was given to some mitigating considerations below, but discrete error is not alleged in respect of any of them. Rather the application for leave to appeal is premised on an inference, per House v The King,1 that the sentence was so unreasonable or plainly unjust that there must have been an error in the exercise of the sentencing discretion.
Leave should be refused because, in summary:
the offending, of which the applicant was convicted at trial, was objectively serious; and while
there were significant mitigating considerations;
the sentence structure allowed for the mitigating considerations; and
the sentence was not manifestly excessive.
The offending, of which the applicant was convicted at trial, was objectively serious
The applicant’s offending came to light when Australian Border Force intercepted two mail packages arriving at Sydney on the same flight on 24 November 2022. One package was addressed to the applicant’s brother, Patrick Sumido, at an address in Yolanda Drive, Annandale. The other was directed to George Bolch at an address in Hasson Street, Kirwan. Each package was marked as having been sent by the same person from the same address in the United Kingdom. Each was labelled as containing ‘trainers, shoes’. When opened, each package was found to contain a pair of shoes and a substantial quantity of cocaine.
It was the cocaine in the package addressed to the applicant’s brother which the applicant and her brother were charged with supplying. It had a total gross weight of 286.625 grams and a pure weight of 211.915 grams. This was a substantial, inherently commercial quantity. Even if its gross weight was not increased by use of a cutting agent, it was worth approximately $100,000 if sold in gram amounts.
Search warrants were executed at the Yolanda Drive and Hasson Street residences on 27 November 2022. Patrick Sumido was found at the Yolanda Drive address. The applicant’s boyfriend, Michael Seabrook, and Mr Bolch were found at the Hassan Street address. Seabrook had been actively involved in tracking the packages directed to both addresses.
A couple of months later police executed a search warrant at the applicant’s home address in Aitkenvale where she and Mr Seabrook were located. A cryovac bag containing 420 grams of cannabis and the applicant’s fingerprint was found at that residence. The applicant’s mobile phone was seized and found to contain evidence of five acts of supply of cannabis to Mr Seabrook in the context of them arranging to share and consume the drug in personal use quantities. These various finds gave rise to the charges to which the applicant pleaded guilty. The evidence found in the applicant’s seized phone, along with other communication records, founded the charge of supplying cocaine to which she pleaded not guilty.
Before turning to that evidence, it warrants emphasis that the applicant pleaded not guilty to the latter charge. True it is, as the learned sentencing judge acknowledged on sentence, the applicant did shorten the trial by making substantial admissions. However, it remains that she did not have the benefit she would otherwise have enjoyed in mitigation had she pleaded guilty to the charge of supplying cocaine, which was by far the most serious charge.
The particulars of that charge involved the single act of nominating Patrick Sumido’s address, as the delivery address for the package, to the sender of the package or to the sender’s associate. This, the particulars alleged, was done in preparation to, in furtherance of or for the purpose of transporting the cocaine and with the knowledge or expectation that all or some of the cocaine would be further distributed to another person. The content of telephone messages compellingly supported the inference that the applicant was the person who had provided her brother’s address as the delivery address to the overseas supplier of the drug.
There were significant mitigating considerations
The applicant had no previous convictions. She was also still a very young adult, being aged only 18 and 19 during the offending period. Her youth, particularly in the absence of previous convictions, was an undoubtedly significant mitigating consideration.6
The applicant had a dysfunctional, traumatic upbringing. When she was six years old her father brought her to Australia, away from her Philippines based mother, who was a prostitute and drug addict. Her father repeatedly abused her and she endured unstable patterns of care arrangements until her mid-teens, after which she lived at various friends’ homes. A father of her boyfriend abused her and was convicted and sentenced to imprisonment for doing so.
Against that background of victimisation and abandonment the applicant struggled through her teenage years with depressive symptoms and episodes of self-harm. She left school in year 11 and worked in a variety of unskilled positions. She had some sporadic engagement with mental health professionals and took some antidepressant and antipsychotic medication.
The applicant’s difficult life history and her attempts to grapple with its consequences in her adulthood was evidenced in references and a letter to the court from the defendant. It was also discussed in the report of Mr Walkley.
He considered the applicant likely has complex post-traumatic stress disorder, major depressive disorder, borderline personality disorder and cannabis dependency. Mr Walkley opined the applicant had become involved in offending because she was ‘involved with a group of people for whom drugs played a central role in their lives’ and was ‘highly vulnerable to manipulation’ and ‘easily swayed’ because of her past abandonment and consequent ‘need to belong and to feel part of a group’.
The history of the domestic violence which had impacted the applicant’s upbringing was a relevant consideration generally by reason of ss 9(2)(gb)(i) and (iii) Penalties and Sentences Act 1992 (Qld). More specifically, the adverse psychological effects of a childhood blighted by such abuse upon the applicant fell to be treated as a mitigating factor per s 9(10B)(a). Whether the offending was wholly or partly attributable to those effects was generally relevant per s 9(2)(gb)(ii) and the extent to which it was attributable was a mitigating factor per s 9(10B)(b).
This was not a case where the effects of domestic violence had a direct causal role, as for example, where a domestically violent offender intimidates his battered partner into aiding his offending. At the highest the applicant’s offending was only partly attributable to the effects of domestic violence, and only to the same indirect extent that the other travails of her sadly dysfunctional upbringing left her more vulnerable to making the poor life decision to become involved in such offending. The learned sentencing judge expressly took that vulnerability into account. However, it was but one mitigating factor to be weighed in conjunction with all relevant mitigating and aggravating factors.
The sentence structure allowed for the mitigating considerations
An obvious difficulty for the applicant in the present application is that despite going to trial her parole release date was set at the 11-month mark. That is less than one third of the three year head sentence. It represented a substantial discount of the sentence because parole release generally tends not to be set earlier than the halfway mark for offenders who plead not guilty.
Whether sentencing after a plea of guilty or not guilty, there exists no requirement that in arriving at a just sentence a sentencing judge must reflect allowance for mitigating considerations only by moderation of the head sentence, as distinct from only by imposition of an earlier than usual parole release, or eligibility date.9 It is within the discretion of a sentencing judge to do one, or the other, or a bit of both, in order to arrive at a just sentence
It was well open to the learned sentencing judge here to preserve the generally deterrent effect of the sentence by not substantially moderating the head sentence to allow for the significant mitigating considerations and to instead make substantial allowance for them by imposing an earlier than usual parole release date. Plainly that is what occurred.
It was also open to the learned sentencing judge to have reflected the mitigating considerations by substantially reducing the head sentence. However, had that occurred, the proportion of the non-parole period to the head sentence might not have been as generous as it was.
The sentence was not manifestly excessive
The applicant’s argument, necessarily, is that despite the allowance for mitigating circumstances, the resulting sentence is nonetheless so excessive that there must have been some error in the exercise of the sentencing discretion.
That argument must be rejected. These reasons have demonstrated that the head sentence of three years imprisonment fell towards, albeit not at, the lower end of the appropriate range of sentence for involvement in this level of criminality. Given the head sentence was also accompanied by the setting of a parole release date after only 11 months, the resulting overall sentence made fair allowance for mitigating considerations which, while significant, did not include a plea of guilty.
A more generous allowance could properly have been made, particularly because of the applicant’s youth, but that is not the test of error here. That test, that the sentence was so harsh as to bespeak error, has not been met. The sentence was within range of a sound exercise of the sentencing direction following trial.
The Court’s order is:
Application for leave to appeal against sentence refused.
R
SEP [2025] QCA 117
(1936) 55 CLR 499
(1984) 154 CLR 606
Application for leave to appeal against sentence refused.
While the applicant’s conviction on the supply cocaine charge was thus only founded on the single act of nominating her brother’s address as the delivery address for the package to the overseas supplier, there was other evidence informing her level of criminality. Various messages sent before and after the offence demonstrated she had assumed the role of an active and knowing communication conduit to the supplier.
It is to be appreciated that the learned sentencing judge, having heard the trial, knew the full, unattractive detail of those messages. This put his Honour in a position of being able to make a more nuanced and better informed assessment of the applicant’s level of culpability than sometimes occurs when evidence is merely summarised at a sentence hearing.
The messages also showed the applicant had an expectation of being paid for facilitating the sending of the cocaine to her brother’s address. She later told Mr Walkley, a psychologist engaged to consult her and provide a report for sentence, that she knew what she was doing was ‘dodgy’. She said, ‘I had no money. I had no job, and I was offered $1,000 so I figured, why not’. She also told Mr Walkley that she had been paid to store the large amount of cannabis at her house.
The applicant actively aided in the supply of cocaine - a drug listed in schedule 1 Drugs Misuse Regulation 1987 (Qld) – in circumstances where she must have known she was aiding the movement of a wholesale quantity, destined for commercial distribution in the community, and where she expected to be paid for her role. A head sentence of three years’ imprisonment is not disproportionate to that level of criminality.
Decisions of this Court demonstrate that offenders who choose to aid the commercially motivated movement of wholesale quantities of schedule 1 drugs run the gauntlet of a wide range of potentially very significant terms of imprisonment. For example, in R v Cooney,2 this court refused Cooney’s application for leave to appeal a sentence of eight and a half years’ imprisonment with parole eligibility after three and a half years for his possession, as courier, of cocaine with a pure weight of 641.007 grams. The pure weight here is obviously lower, at 211.915 grams. But it is not as low as in R v Richards,3 where this court re-sentenced Richards to four years’ imprisonment suspended after 20 months for his possession, as transporter, of methylamphetamine with a pure weight of 176.6 grams.
That a three year head sentence is comfortably within range here is also demonstrated by the oft quoted range of two and a half to four years’ imprisonment for cases involving the commercially motivated possession of a substantial quantity of another schedule 1 drug, methylamphetamine – see for example R v Hesketh; Ex parte Attorney-General (Qld),4 and, more recently, R v Hawke.5
The head sentence imposed here appears to fall within an objectively appropriate range. That it falls towards, albeit not at, the lower end of that range is consistent with the applicant’s level of culpability as an aider rather than principal.
None of this is to suggest that the objective level of criminality is the sole determinant of an appropriate sentence. The subjective mitigating considerations discussed below are obviously relevant. But in a case where it is argued the sentence is so high as to manifest error, that argument is not aided by the head sentence apparently falling towards the lower end of an objectively appropriate range.
Parity is another factor said to have warranted a greater degree of mitigation. The applicant’s brother stood trial with her and was also convicted of the supply cocaine charge. He was only a year older than his sister and also had no previous convictions. The primary judge sentenced him to two and half years imprisonment with parole release after serving nine months. That he received a somewhat lesser sentence than the applicant is consistent with his role being less active than his sister’s and the fact that, unlike her, he was not sentenced for additional drug offending. Most of the applicant’s other offending was so minor as to be inconsequential in this context, but not so was the applicant’s possession of a cryovac bag of 420 grams of cannabis. It was evidence of her having a broader involvement in drug offending than her brother.
The applicant’s boyfriend Seabrook, who was older than her and had some criminal history, was sentenced, for collectively more serious offending than the applicant, to a head sentence of three and half years’ imprisonment with parole eligibility after 11 months. His sentence involves a longer head sentence and the same period of parole eligibility as the applicant. But he pleaded guilty. The applicant chose to go to trial. In the circumstances his sentence does not involve such a degree of disparity from the applicant’s as to engender a justifiable sense of grievance.8
While the applicant did not have the benefit in mitigation of having pleaded guilty to the most serious charge it was a mitigating consideration that she did make substantial admissions at trial.
A final mitigating factor to note is the positive progress made by the applicant while awaiting trial. She had regained employment and impressed her employers with her care and commitment. References spoke of her positive personal qualities, her new relationship and her disassociation from the illicit drug milieu.
Some references and the applicant’s letter to the court also spoke of her remorse. That claim was not deserving of material weight in circumstances where she chose to deny her guilt and go to trial in the face of a strong circumstantial case against her.