8 Aug 2025
The judge did not err: the combined approach to cocktail drugs was properly applied using ketamine as the base and enhancing for cocaine; the two offences were separate occasions with different facts so a partly consecutive sentence was justified; the totality principle and guilty plea discount were correctly applied; accordingly leave to appeal against sentence was refused.
3 Apr 2025
Leave to appeal against sentence was granted because it was reasonably arguable that the starting point and resulting sentence for the drug driving count was manifestly excessive and that the totality of the overall sentence may be excessive; the factual finding that the consumed drug was not referable to the trafficked drug supported treating the offences as separate but did not preclude review of totality.
13 May 2022
Although the sentencing judge had considered totality and other relevant factors, the total effective sentence of 12 months by ordering full consecutive execution was manifestly excessive on the facts and the appellant's true overall culpability; the appropriate overall sentence is 10 months achieved by leaving each count at 6 months but ordering that 4 months of Count 2 run consecutively to Count 1 (partial concurrency), therefore appeal allowed in part and total sentence reduced to 10 months.
3 Jan 2020
Charges 3 and 4 were distinct offences (sale and possession for sale) and Charge 4 added to the appellant's culpability in relation to Charge 3; the sentencing judge correctly sentenced each offence with appropriate starting points, applied a 6‑month enhancement for Form 8 recognizance status, gave one‑third discount for guilty pleas, and applied the totality principle to arrive at an overall sentence of 3 years and 8 months; no error of law in declining to combine the quantities for a single starting point.
13 Sept 2019
The court held that the one‑transaction rule did not apply to Charges 1–3 but it was reasonably arguable that Charges 3 and 4 derived from a common stock and should have been treated together for sentencing; consequently the judge may have erred in the exercise of the totality principle by imposing excessive consecutive elements for Charges 3 and 4 and leave to appeal on that limited basis was granted.
30 Apr 2019
The court held that a 3-year starting point on each deception charge was manifestly excessive for this small‑scale opportunistic single genuine card offence with limited actual loss and a card limit of $20,000; the appropriate starting point was 2 years on each deception charge, reduced by one third for the guilty plea to 16 months concurrent on charges 2-4, with the 6‑month theft sentence partly consecutive as to 3 months, yielding a total effective sentence of 19 months imprisonment.
10 Feb 2015
Leave to appeal was granted because the Court of Appeal certified questions of law of great and general importance concerning the application of the rule against duplicity to s25 money‑laundering offences, whether such offences can be continuing offences, and the applicability of established duplicity exceptions to charges alleging multiple dealings; the appeal was listed for hearing on 9 June 2015.
15 May 2013
Where a defendant, with intent to kill or cause grievous bodily harm, renders a victim unconscious and thereafter disposes of the body in a manner that causes death, those acts may be regarded as one transaction such that the defendant is guilty of murder; whether they form one transaction is a question of fact for the jury and a lapse of time does not as a matter of law prevent such a finding where disposal was done to conceal the earlier unlawful act.
3 Oct 2011
The Court held that the indecent assaults substantially increased the offender's culpability for the false imprisonment (and vice versa), that consecutive sentences were justified, and that despite the trial judge's failure to address mitigation and the totality principle the aggregate term of six years was not manifestly excessive; leave to appeal was granted but the appeal was dismissed.
19 Nov 2002
The trial judge did not properly apply the totality principle to the consecutive element of the sentence; the Court of Appeal allowed the appeal in part, holding that while the starting points and concurrent handling of the related corruption counts were not objectionable, the consecutive portion imposed for charges 34–38 should be reduced so that only eight months run consecutively to the main conspiracy sentence, producing an overall term of four years and two months imprisonment.