How the AG’s constant appeals could change sentencing trends

The appeal of a sentence handed to a husband and wife convicted of raping a child is the latest protest from Queensland’s top law officer as the government pushes its tough on crime agenda through the justice system.

Attorney-General Deb Frecklington revealed on Friday she had asked the Director of Public Prosecutions to appeal the sentence handed to Christopher Luke Hili and Lee Kathleen Hili, who were jailed earlier this year for raping a 15-year-old girl at the couple’s house following a party.

The pair were sentenced in Brisbane’s Supreme Court in April following a five-day trial. Lee was slapped with a prison sentence of six years while Christopher was handed seven years through the added offence of supplying cannabis to a child.

Attorney-General Deb Frecklington.Credit: Jamila Filippone

“This was sickening offending against a young and vulnerable victim and I do not believe the sentences meet community expectations,” Frecklington said.

“My thoughts are with the victim and her family.”

The rebuke is at least the fifth request for a sentence to be appealed by Frecklington since the Liberal-National government was elected last year on a promise to crack down on crime.

The state government has already set higher punishment requirements for mandatory sentences of youth offenders through its “adult crime, adult time” suite of laws.

And criminal lawyer and former Queensland Law Society president Bill Potts said regular appealing of sentences is another avenue for the state government to flex its tough on crime narrative.

He said sentence appeals, regardless of whether they were triggered by the attorney-general or the defendant, were only successful in about one-third of cases.

But Potts said the regular appeals had the potential to eventually set a higher standard of sentencing, if they are routinely successful and harsher jail terms are ultimately slapped on offenders.

“What happens is that the Court of Appeal is often called upon to set, effectively, a standard by which the other courts are bound,” he told the masthead.

“So when you come along to do a sentence before, for example, a District Court or a single Supreme Court judge, generally the only cases or precedents that are quoted to them are Court of Appeal decisions.

“It may well be that this is another attempt by the government to effectively ask the Supreme Court to effectively set a standard for the lower courts to follow.”

A source within the justice system, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to comment publicly, said the recent trend from the government was placing many legal figures on notice.

They said prosecutors were pushing for sentences on the weaker side amid a supposed culture of judges less willing to give harsher penalties to offenders.

But Frecklington’s regular rebuke of judge decisions may lead to prosecutors pushing for longer jail sentences, the source said.

During the trial of Christopher and Lee Hili, Crown prosecutor Melissa Wilson said the 15-year-old victim attended an evening party at the couple’s 12-hectare property in the Gold Coast region in December 2021.

“Christopher Hili rolled a joint of cannabis and offered it to [the girls] and they smoked it,” Wilson said.

The prosecutor said the girl was taken downstairs by the Hilis and thought she was being taken to her friend but was instead taken to the couple’s bedroom.

The girl said she passed out when Christopher Hili started touching her and then woke up naked while being sexually assaulted by the couple as a pornographic movie played on a TV in the bedroom.

If the current sentence is upheld, Lee Hili will be eligible for parole from September 30 this year and Christopher Hili will be eligible for parole from March 31 next year, after both spent 346 days in pre-sentence custody.

With AAP

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