Jailed woman's home detention bid fails
In December, Summer Jade Roughan, 25, was jailed for four years, two months after a jury found her guilty of wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm.
A Court of Appeal decision released yesterday revealed Roughan did not think the sentencing judge adequately considered her personal circumstances and she should have been eligible for home detention.
The panel of appeal judges considered the circumstances of the offending on October 28, 2023.
Roughan had been drinking alcohol and consuming LSD and MDMA in town while celebrating Halloween.
About 3am when the bar closed, she was picked up with a group of people and taken to her address in Otatara.
She invited the group inside to keep partying. This included the 26-year-old victim.
Inside, the man started bragging about drink-driving, which upset Roughan.
An argument broke out and the man called Roughan a "whore".
Roughan got up and began punching the man in the head, telling him to leave her house.
The victim retaliated by striking her in the head, causing her to bleed, and shoving her into the door frame.
Roughan's partner called an associate and asked him to take the victim away from the house.
The victim walked nearly 80m down the winding driveway to the road to be collected.
Meanwhile, inside the house, Roughan had selected a small kitchen knife from a knife block and walked down the driveway with her partner.
They found the victim and Roughan stabbed him up to eight times with a "hammer-fist" type action.
The knife punctured the man's lung and the outer membrane of his heart.
When Roughan saw blood on the knife she ran back to the house and changed out of her nun costume.
She took no steps to seek medical attention for the victim.
Counsel Sonia Vidal told the Court of Appeal the sentence imposed was "manifestly excessive" and Roughan should have been sentenced to home detention.
She argued the sentencing judge did not give enough weight to the fact the victim was unwelcome in Roughan's home and retaliated when he was told to leave.
Ms Vidal said the judge's approach to sentencing was a "formulaic" rather than "nuanced" process and failed to sufficiently consider the defendant's youth, the fact she was the mother of a young child, her otherwise clean record and good prospects for rehabilitation.
The panel of appeal judges rejected her arguments.
"We do not accept that the judge sentenced Ms Roughan in a formulaic or otherwise inappropriate way," the appeal decision said.
They noted the offending involved "life-threatening" violence and said they thought the credits allowed by the sentencing judge were appropriate.
The original sentence was upheld.
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