R v Gopurenko

The case of R v Gopurenko involved the applicant seeking an extension of time within which to appeal against a sentence imposed by the District Court in Queensland. The applicant had previously been sentenced in Victoria and was extradited to Queensland where he was sentenced to imprisonment for armed robbery and fraud offences. The applicant contended that the sentencing judge had acted upon an incorrect assumption regarding the time to be served under the Queensland sentence in relation to his earlier Victorian sentence. The Court of Appeal previously refused an application for leave to appeal against the Queensland sentence, finding the sentence was not manifestly excessive. The applicant argued that the previous application was not decided on its merits due to a similar misapprehension, and he only became aware of the correct position in July 2016.

The legal issues before the court were whether an extension of time to appeal should be granted, whether the previous Court of Appeal ruling stood as a jurisdictional bar to the current application, and whether the application was an abuse of process. The court noted that a refusal of an earlier application for leave to appeal did not constitute a jurisdictional bar, and that the applicant's second application was without merit as there had been no change in circumstances since the earlier application was determined. The court also found that the sentence imposed was lenient, and that the applicant would have been required to serve a significantly longer sentence if the Victorian offences had been considered to have occurred in Queensland.

The court concluded that the application for an extension of time to appeal the sentence should be refused. It held that the previous application for leave to appeal was not decided on a misapprehension, and that the applicant had not identified any change of circumstance that would warrant a different outcome. The Victorian parole Board had not determined whether time served under the Queensland sentences would be taken into account in relation to the balance of the Victorian sentence, but the court noted that even if it was not, the sentence imposed was substantially less than the applicant would have been required to serve in any event. The court found that the applicant's application was an abuse of process as an impermissible attempt to re-litigate a case which had been conclusively determined on the merits.

The final orders of the court were that the application for an extension of time to appeal the sentence be refused. The court held that the sentence imposed was lenient and that any necessity to serve the whole of that sentence was due to the applicant having offended in a similar way whilst on parole. The court found that the applicant had been sentenced to a total of 11 years four months imprisonment, with parole eligibility after six years, substantially less than the at least eight years he would otherwise have been required to serve before any parole eligibility, if the head sentence had been 10 years imprisonment.