New Case in Focus explores appeal against sentences for serious assault

Media release

Tuesday, 22 September 2020

The Queensland Sentencing Advisory Council’s latest Case in Focus considers an appeal against sentences for the serious assault of two police officers and attempting to unlawfully enter a vehicle with intent to commit an indictable offence, with violence.

The subject of the Case in Focus is timely given the Council is preparing to publicly release its Final Report into penalties for assaults on police and other frontline emergency service workers, corrective services officers and other public officers, after delivering the review to the Attorney-General at the end of August 2020.

Breaking down the Court of Appeal judgment in an easy to understand way, the Case in Focus looks at how a Mr Cooney (R v Cooney [2019] QCA 166) was charged and sentenced for attempted unlawful entry of a vehicle with intent to commit an indictable offence, with violence and two counts of serious assault of police while acting in execution of duty. It then provides an insight into the factors considered that lead to one ground of appeal being dismissed and a second ground of appeal succeeding.

The Case in Focus series is designed to make cases from the Court of Appeal and other appellate courts readily accessible for everyone from lawyers to non-lawyers and aims to help inform the community about how sentencing principles and factors are applied in cases, and the basis on which appeals are initiated and decided.

Cases summarised as part of the series are linked to the actual judgment on the Queensland Courts website for those who want more in depth information.

*Case in Focus summaries are incomplete summaries of the Court’s reasons and are not legal advice. The summaries include explanations of legal concepts that are not necessarily set out in the judgments. The summaries are not approved by, or affiliated with, Queensland Courts and are not to be regarded as a substitute for the Court of Appeal’s judgments.

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