Overview
- The Court of Appeal allowed the Crown’s challenge, calling the original community-based term a clearly unreasonable departure from proportionality.
- Jae Won Lee, an Australian-born permanent resident, had received a conditional sentence of two years less a day after pleading guilty to aggravated assault and possessing a dangerous weapon.
- The panel replaced that order with a 42-month prison sentence, less time served, and emphasized that the immigration consequence at issue was the loss of a right to review.
- Judges said deportation exposure follows from the nature of the offence, not from the sentence, cautioning against reducing punishment on that basis.
- The court described the 2024 stabbing as violent and unprovoked, noting the victim needed 18 stitches and 50 staples, and it cited public-safety concerns including a prior switchblade incident.