R v Greenwood

[1996] QCA 549

[1996] QCA 549  

COURT OF APPEAL

DAVIES JA
McPHERSON JA
MOYNIHAN J

CA No 475 of 1996

THE QUEEN

v.

KAREN LINDA GREENWOOD  Applicant

BRISBANE

..DATE 04/12/96

JUDGMENT

1         

MOYNIHAN J:  This is an application for leave to appeal 

against sentences to 18 months' imprisonment suspended for two
years after a term of six months' imprisonment was served. 

The sentences were imposed in respect of convictions after a

trial before a jury for three offences, assault occasioning

bodily harm while armed with an offensive weapon, wilful

destruction of property and unlawful detention.  The offences

arose in circumstances where the applicant conceived that the

complainant had stolen her purse which contained a large sum

of money from a hotel bar, I think it was, at which they were

drinking.  Later that night the complainant was procured to

come outside where she was assaulted by the applicant ‑

punched a few times in the face, stabbed with an object

similar to a penknife or the like, in the arm.  Her false 

teeth were smashed by being stomped on.  She was taken to a 

house where apparently she maintained that she was not 

responsible for taking the purse and assisted in a search for 
it.  

The complainant and the applicant met again on the following 

day, that seems to have been fairly amicable, but then she was
approached by the applicant and invited to get into the boot

of a car.  She declined that invitation but was put in the

car, taken to a deserted house where the applicant and a male

companion were joined by another man.  The complainant was

tied up to a clothes line, whipped with a piece of rope,

leaving injuries which the examining doctor described the

complaint as more severely flogged than anyone he had seen in

civilian life.  She was tied up under the house while the

applicant, as she described it, was up out of the mosquitoes

but came down to the complainant from time to time.  All this

was apparently directed to having her sign a document

admitting that she had stolen the purse containing some $800. 
Her signature to such a document prepared by, one might

assume, the applicant was finally procured and she was

released.  

The complainant was pregnant.  She was kicked between the legs 
by the applicant in the course of this outrageous conduct. 

She had injuries; small penetrating stab-like wounds to the 

arms, bruises to the arms, to the face, the eyes, the cheek, 

grazes to the cheek, bruising to the jaw, marked bruising to 

the chin, over her ear, to the left side of her chest wall, 

and various other bruises to the lower part of her body.  

The applicant has a criminal history of some consequence in

that there are a number of convictions for assault, and others
for property offences, driving offences, possession of

cannabis.  

The trial Judge really seems to have been influenced by two 

factors in sentencing the applicant which he regarded as

mitigating.  One is that it could not be certain that the 

applicant inflicted all the injuries.  I interpolate that one

could safely infer however that in so far as she did not she

procured their infliction by invoking the assistance of the

two who were involved in the assault at the house.  The trial

Judge also seems to have regarded the fact that the applicant

believed the complainant had taken her purse as mitigating.

I am not sure that that is a mitigating factor at all.  Such a
belief certainly does not justify or even particularly

satisfactorily explain the outrageous course of conduct that

the applicant embarked on.  

We are told that the appeal, among other things, is motivated 
by the fact that the applicant cannot take care of her five-

year-old child while she was in prison.  All that can really

be said about that is that she should have thought of that

before she embarked on the course of conduct that she did 

embark on, or at least thought of it during the course of 

conduct and desisted from pursuing it.  

I really cannot see any merits in this application.  Indeed,

in my view the applicant was fortunate in the sentence that

was imposed.  I would refuse leave.

McPHERSON JA:  I agree.

DAVIES JA:  I agree.

McPHERSON JA:  The application for leave to appeal is refused.  

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