Dallow loses bid to slash jail sentence
SERIAL conman Kane Dallow, who was found to have defamed Liberal politician Michael Ferguson and subsequently scandalised the Federal Court of Australia, will need to serve every day of his nine-month sentence at Risdon Prison after losing his bid to appeal.
On Friday, Justice Stewart Anderson refused his application for an extension of time to file his appeal because his case had “no reasonable prospect of success”.
Dallow, 40, has been languishing behind bars since late June after he published what the court found were “grossly defamatory” videos about Mr Ferguson on his website and YouTube.
The court heard he then intentionally disobeyed Federal Court orders to take the videos down, even making a fourth video claiming the courts provided “a ring of protection for anyone that is involved in parliament”.
He was found guilty of four counts of contempt, including a charge of scandalising the court, earlier this year.
In his published judgment, Justice Anderson said Dallow did not file his notice of appeal within the required 28 days.
However, Dallow argued that he had faced a number of roadblocks in filing an appeal from Risdon Prison, including being subject to 15 lockdowns in 44 days due to staff shortages.
He was finally able to provide some instruction to his lawyer – Jeffrey Ian Thompson – by phone call from Risdon, noting he’d had trouble getting legal advice while behind bars. Justice Anderson accepted the prison delays were an acceptable reason Dallow had filed his appeal late – however, this was not enough to grant him a bid to fight the length of his sentence.
The judge disagreed with all six of Dallow’s grounds of appeal, including that the sentence was manifestly excessive and arbitrary.
Justice Anderson noted “the sentence imposed could not be said to fall outside the range of appropriate sentences for contempt”.
He also rejected Dallow’s claims that the sentencing judge had overstated the seriousness of the contempts because it “was unlikely many people would see” the videos on his website and YouTube.
Dallow’s prison term will continue until March 27.