Brett Hill's appeal against light sentence

The DPP appealed against Brett Hill’s sentence but it was dismissed. Picture: Facebook. An appeal by the Crown prosecutor arguing the aggregate sentence was ‘manifestly inadequate’ for a Hunter man who savagely kidnapped and raped an 11-year-old girl has now been dismissed. In December last year, Newcastle District Court Judge Roy Ellis sentenced 49-year-old Hill to 23 years and six months, with a non-parole period of 17 years, after he pleaded guilty to nine offences including aggravated kidnapping, aggravated sexual intercourse without consent and possessing child abuse material. The teenager was walking to school at Adamstown Heights on June 12 when Hill grabbed her and dragged her off the path into bushes at Hudson Park, and subjected her to a brutal five hour ordeal. He sexually assaulted the young girl on numerous occasions, tied her to a tree and threw her in his vehicle to take her to two other isolated bush locations, before finally releasing her near the Kotara train station. In the Criminal Court of Appeal, the DPP argued the court should intervene and set aside the aggregate sentence imposed as it was “plainly unjust, being so far below the range of sentences that could justly be imposed” and was “thereby likely to undermine public confidence in the proper administration of criminal justice”. Judge Derek Price said that while he believed the aggregate sentence might be regarded as lenient, he was not persuaded it was manifestly inadequate. The appeal was dismissed.