75ZT Community

Nothing specific this time just an illustration of a perverse situation.

Last thing this afternoon, we sentenced a defendant to prison under somewhat controversial circumstances. The rather over flamboyant defence advocate immediately applied for appeal against sentence and demanded that his client be released on bail in the interim.

That probably sounds a bit odd but is a well tried tactic and is based on the possibility that the defendant might well have served the whole of the prison sentence before the appeal is heard, making the whole exercise academic but it also means that one Bench can sentence to custody and another Bench can release on interim bail, pending the appeal hearing. Slightly perverse?

What happened next though, is that, as we were the last Court still sitting, there was no choice but for us to hear the defence argument for bail.

So, what we were asked to de here, is to say that we were satisfied that the defendant had met the requirements for committal to custody but that we were prepared to let him out on bail just in case we might have made a mistake.

Hmm...