Pascoe v R 20 December 2007

The applicant, an Aboriginal youth aged 14 years at the time of sentence was, on 19 December 2007, sentenced to an aggregate of eight months detention following his pleas of guilty to one count of committing an act of gross indecency upon a child under the age of 16 years and to one count of indecently dealing with a child under the age of 16 years. It was ordered that the sentence be suspended after the applicant had served one month. The sentence was suspended upon certain conditions. An operational period of 12 months from the date of release was fixed. The applicant sought to have the application for leave dealt with urgently and also applied for bail pending the hearing of the appeal. Leave to appeal was granted on 20 December 2007 as was bail pending the hearing of the appeal.

The proposed grounds of appeal were that the sentencing judge erred:

1. In failing to apply or adequately apply the principles in relation to the sentencing of juveniles.

2. In imposing a sentence which was manifestly excessive.

Both applications were opposed by the Crown
.
Leave to appeal was granted on both grounds.

The appeal was heard on 28 April 2008 on which day the appeal was allowed. The court advised that written reasons will be provided at a later date. A pre-sentence report was ordered and further sentencing proceedings were adjourned to 17 July 2008. See under Decisions for the period 1 July 2008 to 30 June 2009 for a further note of the case.