COMPETING appeals against the 17-year jail term given to predator Brett David Hill for the five-hour abduction and repeated rape of an 11-year-old girl who was walking to school at Adamstown Heights will be heard concurrently in the Court of Criminal Appeal in July.
The Newcastle Herald revealed in January that lawyers for Hill had filed a severity appeal with the Court of Criminal Appeal and intended to argue that the maximum 23 year and six month sentence handed down by Newcastle District Court's Chief Judge Roy Ellis was "manifestly excessive".
The Court of Criminal Appeal received that notice of intention to appeal six days after Hill was jailed in December. And then on March 5, the CCA received another appeal in the matter of R v Brett David Hill, with the prosecution now intending to argue the sentence was "manifestly inadequate". The inadequacy appeal was mentioned at a callover in the NSW Supreme Court on Thursday where the matter was set down for hearing in the CCA on July 13.
The appellate court will hear both the inadequacy appeal and severity appeal concurrently on that date.
Hill is currently not eligible for parole until June, 2035.
