Queensland’s attorney general has ordered state prosecutors to appeal against two “manifestly inadequate” sentences handed down for high-profile crimes committed in 2023.
Deb Frecklington, also the state’s minister for justice and for integrity, said the two sentences “in my view, fail to meet community expectations”.
Frecklington said she had instructed the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions to lodge appeals against sentences for two 2023 crimes.
“The first appeal is in respect of a juvenile who crashed a stolen car near Maryborough in April 2023. This horrific incident killed three innocent people and left a fourth victim with serious injuries.
“The second appeal is in respect of Brock Andrew McDonald, in relation to the assault and deprivation of liberty of a young woman in October 2023.
“The victim had a rope put around her neck and was dragged into a car in the early hours of the morning on a Bundaberg street.
“I consider both sentences handed down to be manifestly inadequate.”
In the first case, a 13-year-old boy was driving a speeding stolen car that rear-ended another vehicle on Saltwater Creek Road at Maryborough, killing two women and a teenage girl. He was sentenced to six years in youth detention.
In the second case, Brock Andrew McDonald, 44, pleaded guilty to charges of deprivation of liberty and assault occasioning bodily harm over a random attack on an 18-year-old woman in October 2023.
McDonald approached the woman in a darkened Bundaberg Street at about 2.50am and wrapped a rope around her neck, before forcing her into the back of his car and pushing her head down. The woman escaped and called for help.
Judge David Kent described the attack as a “terrifying abduction” and sentenced McDonald to two and half years in jail but released him on parole, taking into consideration 413 days incarceration already served.
Queensland’s Liberal-National government – elected in October – came to power on a platform pledging a series of reforms to address what it described as a “youth crime crisis”.
It made a commitment to legislate for “adult time for adult crime” by dramatically increasing maximum sentences for youth crimes. Human rights groups argued that the reforms would not address the causes of youth crime and would disproportionately imprison Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children, and children with disabilities.
Frecklington conceded, in introducing the government’s making Queensland safer bill in November that the legislation would “directly discriminate” against children by limiting their “protection from cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment”.
The government’s tabled statement of compatibility with human rights also stated the laws would be “expected to have a greater impact on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children, who are already disproportionately represented in the criminal justice system”.
