A legal loophole may allow convicted ACT child sex predator Stephen Mitchell to have his sentence halved on appeal, and Attorney General Shane Rattenbury has told the distressed and emotionally scarred victim-survivors he cannot act to prevent it happening.
An abuse survivor says inaction by the ACT government is certain to cause more trauma for victims, all of whom were between 11 and 16 at the time of Mitchell's offending. At least one still firmly believes that institutions were complicit in allowing the paedophile's offending to continue for years.
In October 2022, after an investigation known by police as Operation Pyrite, the-then 55-year-old Holt man was charged with 28 offences, including four counts of sexual intercourse with a child under 16 and multiple acts of indecency without consent upon a young person.
These offences directly related to his role as a national rock climbing and youth coach. He met five of his six victims through rock-climbing or his work with the Police Community Youth Club (PCYC) and met the other girl through a social activity.
He preyed on his victims between 1994 and 2008, committing sexual offences against them in the ACT, NSW and overseas.
Mitchell originally pleaded not guilty but then changed his plea when it was apparent the evidence against him was compelling.
Many of the child sex assault charges were "rolled up" prior to sentencing and even today, the paedophile is yet to face charges relating to allegedly fraudulent information he provided to the Department of Home Affairs in order to maintain his senior public service role and gain access to highly secure government information.
Mitchell was sentenced in May last year to 13 years and five months in jail, with a non-parole period until May 2032.
In the sentencing of Mitchell, Justice David Mossop described how "although the offender, post-2008, moved on with his life, the victims have been left with decades-long impacts".
"Those impacts, in turn, affect their partners, parents and children. It is that long-term and widespread impact which has been recognised by the legislature and requires appropriate recognition in the sentences imposed," he said.
But then out of the blue, a bombshell email notice arrived in the inbox of Ms Hall on April 8.
It came from the ACT Director of Public Prosecutions.
It advised her that the penalties applied in the Mitchell case were contrary to those from a previous ACT Supreme Court of Appeal ruling, and therefore grounds for an appeal could not be denied and the offender would be re-sentenced.
She couldn't quite believe it: the man who wrecked so many young, innocent girls' lives was now intending to use flawed technicalities in legislation - which specifically applies to Section 56 (1) of the Crimes ACT where sex offences were committed between December 1991 and March 2018 - to seek leave to have his sentence reduced to a maximum penalty of seven years' jail.
Mitchell has a directions hearing on April 24 which will set a future date for his appeal. His current sentence has now been set aside.
On Friday the response from the ACT government was, effectively, that its hands were tied; that the "Attorney-General is unable to assist in your matter", ostensibly because the matter was now considered legally "live".
The advice said: "mainly, it would be inappropriate to intervene in this matter and affect the sentencing outcome".
"We appreciate that this is not the response that you were hoping for and that it might be difficult to receive," the Attorney-General's office said.
Mr Rattenbury said that "the courts and the Director of Public Prosecutions are responsible for matters such as sentencing and prosecution appeals".
"The government must respect the independence of these institutions and cannot get involved in individual matters," he said.
Ms Hall and her mother, Lee de Percy, were filled with despair and anger at the response and say they feel "completely let down by the members of the ACT Legislative Assembly, who were complicit in this", and the Attorney General, "who says he is on the side of the victim-survivors but then when put to the test on supporting them, lets them down completely".
"I've expressed my complete and utter disappointment with Mr Rattenbury and the Assembly," she said.
"We thought our job was done. We had already endured enough.
"I am outraged that my daughter's trauma, our trauma, is being deepened.
"A lack of any attempt to rectify this extreme miscarriage of justice by you, our chief law maker, would be an utter disgrace."
