Ryan v The Queen [1982] HCA 30

High Court of Australia Gibbs C.J. Stephen, Aickin, Wilson and Brennan JJ. Ryan v The Queen [1982] HCA 30

ORDER Application for special leave to appeal granted. Appeal allowed. Order of the Court of Criminal Appeal of the State of Victoria be varied by setting aside so much of that order as increased the sentences on counts 3, 4, 5 and 6 and as fixed the minimum period to be served by the applicant before becoming eligible for parole. Restore the sentences imposed by the trial judge on those counts and order that no minimum term be fixed.

Cur. adv. vult.

The following written judgments were delivered:—

May 11 Gibbs C.J.

I have had the advantage of reading the reasons for judgment prepared by my brother Wilson. I entirely agree with them and would accordingly grant special leave to appeal and allow the appeal.

Stephen J.

Section 569(1) of the Crimes Act 1958 Vict. has for many years been a part of the criminal law of Victoria and has its equivalents in the statute law of other Australian States and of England where it finds its origin in s. 5(1) of the Criminal Appeal Act 1907 U.K.. Yet so seldom has this provision been applied that the experienced members of the Court below, the Victorian Court of Criminal Appeal, have described it as "rarely, if ever, invoked in this Court". Of its English equivalent Lord Goddard said in 1956 that, in his experience, it had never previously been sought to be applied: Reg. v. Lovelock [1] . The provision does not appear to have been the subject of any Australian authority and although applied in Lovelock, and later in Reg. v. Craig [5] , the question whether it was properly applied in such circumstances as existed in Lovelock was expressly left open by their Lordships in the later Privy Council appeal of Reg. v. Edirimanasingham [2] .