Supreme Court of Victoria23 March 2016
Summary of Judgment
Dong v The Queen[2016] VSCA 51
23 March 2016
The applicant was found guilty by a jury of one charge of importing a marketable quantity of methamphetamine, one charge of dealing in property reasonably suspected of being the proceeds of crime, and one charge of trafficking methamphetamine.
The applicant is a Chinese national who entered Australia on a student visa. She was aged 22 at the time of offending. The sentencing judge found that the applicant played an important role in a drug trafficking business operated by her and her former boyfriend and that she was certain to be deported upon release from prison. In assessing the burden of imprisonment the sentencing judge took into account her concern about how her life in China would be affected by the convictions and took into account her isolation from her family. The applicant was sentenced in the County Court to a total effective sentence of 5 years and 9 months’ imprisonment with a non-parole period of 3 years and 6 months.
The day before sentence the applicant had found out that she was pregnant. She did not tell her legal advisors of this fact. The applicant has since given birth. She is caring for her child in prison. On the appeal, counsel for the applicant sought to admit evidence of the applicant’s pregnancy in prison, the birth of her child, and the fact of the applicant’s caring for a child in custody, contending that these circumstances threw significant new light on the burden of imprisonment.
The Court of Appeal granted the application on the basis that the pregnancy and the need to care for her child in custody adds a significant new dimension to factors which the sentencing judge did take into account in assessing the burden of imprisonment in her case; in particular, her anxiety in relation to deportation and the consequences of returning to China, and her isolation from her family. The Court re-sentenced the applicant to a total effective sentence of 5 years’ imprisonment with a 3 year non-parole period.
NOTE: This summary is necessarily incomplete. It is not intended as a substitute for the Court’s reasons or to be used in any later consideration of the Court’s reasons. The only authoritative pronouncement of the Court’s reasons and conclusions is that contained in the published reasons for judgment.
Summary of Judgment –Dongv The Queen [2016] VSCA 51Page 1 of 2