O'Meally v The Queen [1958] HCA 7

High Court of Australia Dixon C.J. Williams, Webb, Fullagar and Taylor JJ. O'Meally v The Queen [1958] HCA 7

ORDER Application for special leave refused.

Cur. adv. vult.

The Court delivered the following written judgment:—

Mar. 14 Dixon C.J., Williams, Webb, Fullagar and Taylor JJ.

This is an application for special leave to appeal against an order of the Supreme Court of Victoria sitting as a Court of Criminal Appeal. The order refused applications for leave to appeal against sentences imposed upon two prisoners, O'Meally and Taylor, who had been convicted of unlawfully and maliciously wounding with intent to do grievous bodily harm. The prisoners had been jointly charged with this offence, which depends upon s. 14 of the Crimes Act 1928 Vict., in an indictment which contained a separate count against each of them under s. 38 of the Gaols Act 1928 Vict. for escaping from gaol. To these separate counts they respectively pleaded guilty. To the joint count for maliciously wounding with intent to do grievous bodily harm they pleaded not guilty. They were both found guilty by the verdict of the jury. Upon his conviction for escaping from gaol each prisoner was sentenced to four years' imprisonment. Upon the conviction for maliciously wounding with intent to do grievous bodily harm each was sentenced to six years imprisonment and to be privately whipped with twelve strokes of the cat-o'-nine-tails. As to the extent to which the sentences of imprisonment should be served with existing terms of imprisonment that the prisoners were undergoing at the time of their escape, there was necessarily a difference made between them; for O'Meally was serving a life sentence without remission commuted from a capital sentence for murder. But nothing in this application turns on the difference.