Crossley v Cole

The appeal in this case is from the sentences imposed by Magistrate Wheeler at the Magistrates Court of Western Australia. The appellant, Dean Peter Crossley, was sentenced to a term of imprisonment for the offence of assaulting a police officer and a fine for the offence of breaching a police order. The respondent, Pauline Cole, is the state director of public prosecutions. The appeal raises two issues. The first concerns whether there was a miscarriage of justice due to the appellant's counsel not being aware of the existence of a suspended imprisonment order. The second concerns whether the learned Magistrate erred in the imposition of a term of imprisonment for the offence of assaulting a police officer by giving undue weight to the seriousness of the offence, failing to consider alternative dispositions to imprisonment, and failing to give sufficient weight to mitigating factors. The appeal was dismissed. In relation to the first issue, the court found that while there was a material irregularity in the solicitor's failure to seek a short adjournment for the purposes of seeking further instructions from his client, it was unlikely that this irregularity affected the outcome of the sentencing process. In relation to the second issue, the court found that while the sentence imposed was at the higher end of the scale, it was not so high as to be outside the exercise of appropriate sentencing discretion or to indicate undue weight had been given to the nature of the offence. The court also found that the learned Magistrate had taken into account the mitigating circumstances for the offender and that the requirements of s 35(1) of the Sentencing Act had been met.