A WOMAN has been let off the hook in Tamworth District Court after the knife she used to harm her sister had to be disregarded on a technicality.
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In what defence solicitor Wendy McAuliffe called "the Curnow submission", 49-year-old Edith Ann Brown was released from custody on Tuesday after solicitor Ben Curnow made an earlier deal with prosecution in the local court that saw her charges downgraded.
The knife had to be disregarded because the lesser charge to which Brown pleaded guilty doesn't include the use of a weapon.
"It is completely absurd," Judge Jeffery McLennan said.
"We have an injury that must be regarded at the lowest end of objective seriousness caused spontaneously by provocation and minimum amount of force.
"If that's correct then the penalty is too severe, isn't it?"
In the plea deal, Brown's charges were downgraded from being armed with the intent to commit an indictable offence to assault causing grievous bodily harm.
She appealed yesterday against her 10-month sentence on the basis it was too harsh, given the lesser charge. Had she been convicted of the original charge, Brown could have faced a maximum penalty of seven years' imprisonment.
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DPP solicitor Andrew Baker asked Judge McLennan to consider the knife not as an aggravating factor but just as an "element of the offence".
There was no room for that under Judge McLennan's understanding of the law, he told the prosecutors, and instead asked that they remedy the situation by not making these kinds of deals in the future.
"I'd be awfully grateful if, when you get back to Newcastle, you tell them what I think about all this," he said.
"If my view of the law is completely wrong, I am more than happy for my view to be examined elsewhere."
The sentence that was being appealed meant Judge McLennan could only consider that there was an incident that "mysteriously" resulted in a cut to the victim's stomach.
"I will disregard the object used, because I feel I must," he said.
"If anyone in the public regards this as absurd, it is the result of local court proceedings and out of the control of the DPP representative who appeared on the appeal today."
Brown was at her mother's home when an argument resulted in a small, bleeding injury to the victim's abdomen.
When police arrived, Brown immediately expressed her remorse in a "full and frank" confession.
Judge McLennan described the case as "Pythonesque".
He allowed the appeal and reduced the penalty to one month and seven days, which expired on Tuesday.
Brown was released the same day.
Madeline Link
Madeline Link is a journalist at the Newcastle Herald, with a focus on Lake Macquarie City Council. To keep up with my stories, follow my Twitter @madeline_link, for tips email madeline.link@newcastleherald.com.au.
Madeline Link is a journalist at the Newcastle Herald, with a focus on Lake Macquarie City Council. To keep up with my stories, follow my Twitter @madeline_link, for tips email madeline.link@newcastleherald.com.au.
