Protest penalty ruled too high Student’s fine axed on appeal

A STUDENT on youth allowance who chained herself to a North Queensland railway line has had her $10,000 fine quashed after she appealed the “excessive” penalty.

Freya Rowe Nolin, 21, will now have to fork out a fraction of that and the Queensland Police Service will have to pay her costs up to $1800 after she successfully appealed her sentence.

The West Australian woman pleaded guilty to trespassing on a railway, obstructing a railway and obstructing police and was stung with the biggest fine in Australian environmental history when the matter was heard in Bowen Magistrates Court in April.

Nolin trespassed on a railway line in Bowen on March 3 with a steel device which she locked her arms into and attached to the infrastructure.

She remained in that position for some three hours, stopping the rail traffic.

Police were called to the scene and the appellant refused a direction to leave the location. Eventually police removed her from the device, and she was arrested.

In April, the sitting magistrate fined Nolin $10,000 and ordered her to pay $1565.37 in restitution to cover police overtime costs and for the gloves and blades purchased to remove her from the railway line.

Nolin appealed the sentence on the grounds that she was 21 and on youth allowance with no criminal record.

“A fine of $10,000, the biggest in Australia’s environmental history, would be a significant financial burden to me and is not in proportion to the offence I committed,” Nolin said, according to court documents.

Court documents also stated Nolin was appealing as the magistrate and prosecution mentioned the sentence as being a deterrent to others, which she believed was unfair.

District Court Judge Ian Dearden accepted Nolin’s argument that the magistrate erred by “proceeding on the basis that the maximum penalty for the offence of obstructing a railway was higher than the maximum penalty available in a comparable case” and that he gave undue weight to the “supposed prevalence of offending of this type” in the local area.

Further, Mr Dearden ruled in favour of Nolin’s argument that the magistrate erred by not paying proper regard to financial circumstances and ability to pay a fine and restitution.

“… It is clear that the learned acting magistrate fell into error in respect of the quantum of the fine, and in respect of imposing an order for restitution,” he said.

Mr Dearden quashed the $10,000 fine and the restitution. He fined Nolin $1000 which was referred to SPER.

He also ordered the Queensland Police Service to pay the appellant’s costs, fixed at $1800.

Burdekin MP Dale Last said: “Every person is entitled to a fair hearing and to appeal under our justice system but this decision clearly shows that the current laws are not appropriate to deal with these types of incidents.”