R. v O

[1993] QCA 198

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL  [1993] QCA 198

SUPREME COURT OF QUEENSLAND

C.A. No. 32 of 1993

Brisbane

[R. v. O]

BETWEEN

THE QUEEN

v.

O

Mr Justice McPherson

Mr Justice Pincus

Mr Justice Demack

Judgment delivered                 2/06/93

Reasons for judgment by the Court

APPLICATION REFUSED

Counsel:Mr J. Hunter for Crown

Appellant in person

Solicitors:Director of Prosecutions for the Crown

Hearing Date:  2 June 1993

THE COURT OF APPEAL

SUPREME COURT OF QUEENSLAND

C.A. No. 32 of 1993

Brisbane

BeforeMr Justice McPherson

Mr Justice Pincus
Mr Justice Demack

[R. v. O]

BETWEEN

THE QUEEN

v.

O

REASONS FOR JUDGMENT - THE COURT

Judgment delivered 2/06/1993

The applicant O was sentenced to imprisonment for an effective term of 7 years for a series of sexual offences committed against one V.  In all there were 10 such offences charged in the indictment on which he was found guilty at his trial.  Seven were of indecent dealing with V, a boy then under 14 years of age; there was also one of indecent assault; and a further two of sodomy.  We have already dismissed the applicant's appeal against conviction.  This is now his application for leave to appeal against sentence.

There are several features that tend to place these offences in the more serious category.  The offences span a period of time of which the outer limits are, in the indictment, placed at 1975 to 1991.  On any view therefore, the offences continued over a long time.  The complainant V is the brother of the applicant's wife, or it may be his former wife, and there is some evidence to suggest that the applicant started committing these offences at about the same time as he began taking the complainant's sister out.  The complainant V was born in October 1967, and the first offence is charged as having taken place between October 1975 and 1 January 1977 at a time when the complainant was a boy no more than 10 years old.  The applicant is a man with 9 children of his own, who was 39 years old when sentenced for these offences.

Another matter very much against the applicant is his criminal history.  We have been provided with an updated version of it.  It records convictions for offences beginning in November 1971, including breaking and entering, possession of stolen property, breach of a domestic violence order, and numerous drink driving offences, as well as others.  More important for present purposes is his conviction in 1992 in respect of a count of indecent dealing, with circumstances of aggravation, with a child under 16 years, for which he was sentenced to community service for 120 hours.  Appeals in that matter were dismissed by this Court in July 1992.  His criminal history then lists his conviction for the subject offences early in January 1993.  It then goes on to record his conviction in March 1993 for an offence of indecent dealing with a child under 16 years, and, finally, further convictions in May 1993 for wilfully exposing a child under 12 years to an indecent act, the same with respect to a child under 16 years, and 3 instances of indecent acts against a child under 12 years, as well as one of indecent assault and one of sodomy.  We were informed from the Bar table that the child in question is the applicant's own son; to this the applicant responded by saying he was appealing in those matters.

The sentence imposed in the last case was imprisonment for a term of 6 years and 6 months, with a recommendation that the applicant not be released until he presented no further danger to young persons.  Those particular offences and penalties were not before the sentencing judge in this case as the applicant had then not yet been convicted of them; but they serve, together with all the other matters mentioned here, to confirm that the sentences imposed in respect of the subject offences were proper.  The effective 7 year sentence may be thought to be lenient in the light of what was said by the Court in R. v. David Walter Wilson (C.A. No. 287/1990) in reviewing sentencing trends in comparable cases.

No basis has thus been shown for interfering with these sentences and it follows that the application for leave to appeal against sentence should be refused.