Michael Kawana jailed for a decade for raping, sexually assaulting woman

A former chef found guilty of rape following a retrial has been sentenced, with a County Court judge finding him to be “highly culpable” and lacking remorse.

Geelong chef Michael Kawana has now been found guilty of rape by two juries, in 2023 and 2025.

A County Court judge has taken the exceptional step of handing a rapist who successfully appealed his conviction a longer jail sentence following a retrial.

Michael Kawana, 54, appeared in the County Court on Monday, where he was jailed for more than a decade – 10 years and seven months – by Judge Michael Tinney after being found guilty of five counts of sexually assaulting and two counts of digital rape.

Kawana must serve seven-and-a-half years before being eligible for parole, minus 556 days reckoned as time served.

The non-parole period is just one month shorter than the maximum sentence imposed on Kawana following his original trial.

The former chef was found guilty of the offences in 2023 and was jailed for seven years and seven months, with a minimum of five years.

Michael Kawana.

However the jury that found him guilty had just ten members and he successfully appealed his conviction and won a retrial.

That trial, before Judge Tinney, took place in March and Kawana was again found guilty of all charges, which stemmed from four incidents between 2018 and 2020, all against the same victim.

Reading from his 45-page sentencing remarks, Judge Tinney said he had “anxiously considered” how to balance the sentence previously imposed with his own discretion, a situation that caused him “real trouble”.

He said wasn’t free to simply ignore Kawana’s original sentence, and ordinarily a previous sentence would be the “upper limit” of what a judge may impose following a retrial.

While he paid “strong regard” to the previous sentence, Judge Tinney said he found himself “in a completely different sentencing range” and the previous sentence “wholly inadequate”.

Thus, Judge Tinney said he found himself in the “very rare position” of imposing a lengthier sentence after a retrial.

In 15 years as a judge, and passing several sentences following retrials, Judge Tinney said he had “never to this point exceeded the sentence imposed at the first trial”.

“None has ever done worse, until now … you are the exception,” Judge Tinney told Kawana.

Judge Tinney told Kawana that he had still exercised a degree of restraint and the sentence was still shorter than the one he would have imposed had it not followed a retrial.

Judge Tinney said Kawana’s conduct was “highly culpable” and must be met with stern punishment including a “very substantial prison term”.

Judge Tinney said the jury had accepted the victim’s account of what happened and clearly found her to be a “reliable and truthful witness”.

She had been profoundly impacted, both by Kawana’s crimes and the lengthy court proceedings, Judge Tinney said.

In sentencing Kawana Judge Tinney noted aggravating factors, including that Kawana was freshly released from prison and serving a community corrections order (CCO).

Mitigating factors put forward by his defence included delay in the case, risk of deportation, media coverage and Kawana’s good behaviour prior to 2017 and since mid-2020.

Judge Tinney was satisfied that Kawana’s upbringing had some disadvantage and dysfunction, however any link between ir and his offending was “completely speculative”.

Judge Tinney said he could not find Kawana had displayed any evidence of remorse.

Originally published as Michael Kawana jailed for a decade for raping, sexually assaulting woman