Bechara v The Queen

The appeal concerned a sentence imposed on the appellant by the District Court of South Australia for 13 counts of trafficking in a controlled drug. The appellant had pleaded guilty to these charges, which arose from a covert police operation where she sold various drugs, including cocaine, cannabis, and methylamphetamine, to undercover operatives and civilians between February and October 2019. The sentencing judge characterised the appellant as a persistent, recidivist street dealer, and in some instances, a wholesale dealer, who trafficked consistently over an extended period.

The legal issues before the Court of Appeal were whether the sentence imposed was manifestly excessive, whether the Sentencing Judge erred in refusing to accept the appellant's version of events, and whether the Sentencing Judge correctly rectified an arithmetical error in the sentence calculation after appellate proceedings had commenced. The appellant also raised issues regarding the disparity between her sentence and that of a co-accused, and the appropriateness of the 20 per cent reduction for her early guilty plea.

The Court of Appeal granted permission to appeal on one ground but ultimately dismissed the appeal. It found that the sentence was not manifestly excessive, holding that the Sentencing Judge had correctly sentenced the appellant on the basis of her offending, which involved trafficking multiple types of drugs in both street-level and wholesale quantities over an extended period. The court also determined that the Sentencing Judge did not err in refusing to accept the appellant's version of events, and that the 20 per cent reduction for the guilty plea was appropriate. Furthermore, the court held that the Sentencing Judge had correctly rectified an arithmetical error pursuant to section 20(1) of the Sentencing Act 2017 (SA), and was not precluded from doing so by the commencement of appellate proceedings. The disparity in sentences between the appellant and her co-accused was found to be explicable by the differing circumstances of their offending and the factual bases upon which they were sentenced.