source : the age
The High Court has ruled in favour of the Queensland Attorney-General’s appeal and overturned a killer’s reduced sentence, in one of the state’s most high-profile youth-crime murder cases that contributed to the creation of the “adult crime, adult time” laws.
Emma Lovell, a Queensland mother of two, was fatally stabbed in the heart by a 17-year-old boy during a home invasion on Boxing Day 2022.
The teenager was sentenced to 14 years behind bars.
Lovell’s death and the attack on their family contributed to the Queensland LNP’s creation of “adult crime, adult time” laws, a central pillar of the party’s promise to crack down on youth crime in the lead-up to the election.
The family had been awoken to their dogs barking, with Lovell’s husband, Lee, opening their bedroom door to discover the teenager in the hallway of their home in North Lakes, north of Brisbane.
The parents pushed the teenager, and his co-accused, out of the house, with the attack spilling out onto the front lawn.
During the struggle, captured on CCTV, the teenager stabbed Ms Lovell in the chest, and Mr Lovell in the back. Ms Lovell suffered a 13-centimetre knife wound that penetrated her heart.
The boy was sentenced in 2024, with 70 per cent of his time to be served behind bars. His offending was deemed “particularly heinous” by the sentencing judge.
However, this was reduced by almost 18 months after an appeal by the teenager. The Queensland Court of Appeal ruled to reduce the sentence on the basis there were special circumstances, including an early guilty plea and the boy’s upbringing.
Attorney-General Deb Frecklington was granted leave to appeal that decision, taking the matter to the High Court of Australia.
On Thursday, the High Court found it was not open to the Court of Appeal to depart from the sentencing judge’s decision.
The High Court said that in his sentencing Justice Tom Sullivan undertook a comprehensive examination of the teenager’s personal circumstances, including parental neglect, violence in the context of excessive consumption of alcohol by adults, and cannabis use by adults.
Sullivan then turned to consider whether there were special circumstances to justify the teenager’s release from detention after serving less than the standard 70 per cent of the period of detention.
He ultimately ruled he was not of the view that the teenager’s childhood deprivation, his early plea or his expressions of remorse would be regarded as special circumstances warranting a reduction.
“There was nothing about the factors of [the teenager’s] early pleas of guilty, his deprived upbringing, and the positive signs of his ability to rehabilitate that means that it was unreasonable or plainly unjust for the sentencing judge not to reach a conclusion of special circumstances, particularly in light of the seriousness of the offence of murder and the age of the [teenager],” the High Court judgment said.
“Indeed, as the sentencing judge observed, the early pleas of guilty by [the teenager] were made against the background of an ‘overwhelmingly strong Crown case’.
“And the positive signs of [the teenager’s] ability to rehabilitate were found to show only ‘prospects of being able to be rehabilitated over time’ in circumstances where [the teenager] was found to have, ‘at least to a certain extent’, a lack of ‘willingness to confront the consequences of [his] own actions’.
“The decision in respect of special circumstances tolerated a range of outcomes on the facts.”
The High Court ruled that the Attorney-General’s appeal should be allowed, and the orders made by the Court of Appeal should be dismissed.
After the High Court hearing earlier this year, Frecklington said the government had listened to Queenslanders, and learned from the tragedy of Lovell’s death to change the laws.
“Had this matter happened under our government, this kid would have got life, and that’s the difference,” she said.
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