The Court of Appeal held that there is no sentencing principle that actual custody must always be imposed for gratuitous public violence offences, even though such offending will ordinarily attract a period in actual custody. The instinctive synthesis required by s 9 of the Penalties and Sentences Act 1992 (Qld) is not fettered in that way, and a decision not to impose actual custody was within the range of proper sentencing discretion where the respondent was a young first offender with genuine remorse, completed rehabilitative steps, offered substantial compensation from his own savings, and had been a victim of domestic violence. The Court also confirmed it would not have exercised its residual discretion to intervene in any event, given the respondent's compliance with parole and rehabilitation progress in the year since sentencing.
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