‘Nailed it’: Crisafulli backs bid to appeal against two sentences

Queensland Attorney-General Deb Frecklington has lodged notices of appeal in two cases, including the sentence of a juvenile who crashed a stolen car, killing three people and seriously injuring another, in Maryborough in 2023.

The other case is that of Brock Andrew McDonald, in relation to the alleged assault and deprivation of liberty of a young woman in October 2023.

Frecklington described the sentences as “manifestly inadequate” and argued they did not meet community standards.

Michale Chandler, 29, Kelsie Davies, 17, and Sheree Robertson, 52, were killed in a crash at Maryborough.

“I consider both sentences handed down to be manifestly inadequate,” the attorney-general said in a statement on Monday.

The decision to appeal against both sentences was supported by Premier David Crisafulli, who on Tuesday said Frecklington “nailed” the description of the lenient sentences.

“I think that she’s nailed it. That’s exactly what it is,” he told Nine’s Today program.

Crisafulli said the sentences would have been harsher under the LNP government’s centrepiece youth crime laws, which were urgently passed before Christmas.

The laws mean youth offenders as young as 10 will be sentenced as adults on a range of serious crimes, with a mandatory life term for murder and manslaughter.

“Now, bear in mind, these people [those subject to possible appeals] were tried under the former laws,” the premier said.

“We have put in place the strongest youth crime laws in the nation, and we’re serious about that.”

The first sentence to be appealed relates to the deaths of nurse Sheree Robertson, 52, Kelsie Davies, 17, and pastor Michale Chandler, 29, after a 13-year-old in a stolen car crashed into their vehicles in 2023 on Queensland’s Fraser Coast.

A fourth woman, 23-year-old Kaylah Behrens, was critically injured.

The youth, with other juveniles, stole a Mercedes-Benz from a Maryborough home on April 30, 2023, and drove at speeds between 180km/h and 200km/h.

The child is likely to be released in just over two years after being sentenced to six years’ detention in December.

In the second case, McDonald is alleged to have put a rope around a young woman’s neck before dragging her into a car in the early hours of the morning.

McDonald pleaded guilty to charges of deprivation of liberty and assault occasioning bodily harm.

He was sentenced to 2½ years but was released on parole in December, taking into consideration 413 days already served.

Crisafulli said the government would fight to have the two sentences appealed as neither reflected what members of the community wanted to see.

“We owe it to those families, and to every Queenslander, to put up a fight,” he said.

AAP