The Court refused the Crown's detention application under s 22B of the Bail Act 2013 (NSW), finding that special or exceptional circumstances existed justifying the continuation of bail for an offender convicted of manslaughter pending sentencing. The Court declined to express a view on whether full-time imprisonment was 'realistically inevitable' (per DPP v Van Gestel), preferring to avoid the appearance of pre-judgment given the judge would also sentence the offender. The combined circumstances — the very short period until sentencing (approximately one month), the offender's significant emotional dysregulation evidenced during proceedings, the stringent quasi-custodial bail conditions already endured, and the offender's lack of prior criminal history — were held to cumulatively satisfy the special or exceptional circumstances threshold, even though no single factor was sufficient on its own.
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