Cooper family call for appeal

by Mark Cooper

Under the Westminster System which our Judiciary is based on, when multiple charges are found to be proved, the charge with the highest sentence under law is the charge that the first sentence should be based on for a prison term. It does not matter whether the accused pleads guilty or not to any of the charges, but when all found proved, the higher sentence must be considered first.

In Damians case with the Crown against Theera Om Paranort, the prosecutor, Susan Borg, was asked about order of sentencing. Under the Westminster System she errored in her answer to Judge McInerney and Judge McInerney should not have asked this question. The felony of FALURE TO STOP has a 10 year possibility and therefore was the more serious crime at the time, for sentencing. The Victorian Parliament made sure of this in the sentencing act, Road Rule Amendments 2006. The Judge should have found this charge proved first as this was the first item Paranort pleaded guilty to. The second charge should have been failure to render assistance, which he also pleaded guilty to and the third Dangerous Driving. If the judge wasn’t lazy, he would have put more time in to this consideration. If McInerney had have used cumulative sentencing, which requires a bit more brain power to work out instead of concurrent he would not have been faced with this error.
 
I am totally against concurrent sentencing. Why should a prisoner be offered a buy one getone free voucher. He is facing court not McDonalds.
 
Next step, Parliament needs to ban concurrent sentencing.