22/09/2025

Claims that there is a problem with 'soft sentencing' by WA District Court judges are simply wrong, says the Australian Lawyers Alliance.

The West Australian reported on Saturday that the State's Director of Public Prosecutions Robert Owen is concerned about an increasing number of appeals for 'manifestly inadequate sentences'.

Australian Lawyers Alliance spokespeople, Mr Tom Percy KC and Mr Greg Barns SC say that while Mr Owen is referring to an extended time period, his comments are not borne out by data for the 2024-2025 financial year.

“In that period there were 1650 sentences handed down by the District Court. According to Mr Owen, he filed 17 appeals (only 14 of which succeeded) on the basis of the sentence handed down being manifestly inadequate,” said Mr Percy KC. “This means that in 1633 cases the DPP did not see fit to appeal. Or to put it another way in 98 percent of cases there was no appeal by the DPP.

“Claims that there is a problem with 'soft judges' are simply not right. In fact, these claims are nonsensical. In almost 100 per cent of cases the DPP is not appealing. There is no crisis, there should be no community concern.”

“We are concerned that claims of 'soft sentencing' damage the community's confidence in the courts. The reality is that our courts get it right the vast majority of the time, and the District Court is no exception," said Mr Barns SC.