Former rugby league player Martin Kennedy has been jailed for four years for wildlife smuggling after an appeal court ruled a good-behaviour bond wasn't a tough enough penalty.
The former Sydney Roosters and Brisbane Broncos prop - whose NRL career ended with a doping ban in 2016 - was immediately taken into custody on Friday after the NSW Court of Criminal Appeal decision.
Martin Kennedy in action for the Roosters against the Dragons in 2013.Credit: Anthony Johnson
The 30-year-old pleaded guilty in 2018 to six offences including attempting to export shingleback lizards to Sweden, importing alligator snapping turtles and neotropical stingrays from Thailand, and illegally possessing two pythons at his Sydney home.
A District Court judge ruled he had excellent prospects of rehabilitation and sentenced him to the longest good-behaviour bond available to judges.
Martin Kennedy with a snake around his neck.Credit: roosters.com.au
But the appeal court on Friday agreed with prosecutors that the sentence was manifestly inadequate.
"This is some of the most serious offending of its kind which has come before the courts," Justices Anthony Payne and Elizabeth Fullerton said.
Justice Christine Adamson said the original sentences for each individual offence were also too low which explained in part the inadequate total term.
She said not jailing Kennedy would mean others weren't deterred from committing the same offence. "I consider general deterrence to be a highly significant factor in the present case," Justice Adamson said.
AAP