The Court of Criminal Appeal held that where an offender's central submission on sentence is that a recognizance release order should take effect immediately under s 20(1)(b)(i) of the Crimes Act 1914 (Cth), the sentencing judge must explicitly consider and provide reasons for rejecting that submission, rather than proceeding directly to determine the length of full-time custody. Applying YZ v R [2025] NSWCCA 165, the third step of the federal sentencing framework — considering alternatives to full-time imprisonment — ceases to be optional when such alternatives have been substantially argued. On resentence, the Court reduced the pre-release period from 24 months to 18 months, giving particular weight to the burdensomeness of incarceration for a mother separated from children residing in Laos, while declining to order immediate release given the seriousness of the offence involving a commercial quantity of heroin.
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