Jeremy Gans, ‘The Charge for Serving Fat Tony: Elias v The Queen; Issa v The Queen’ (10 July 2013).

In Elias v The Queen and Issa v The Queen, the High Court upheld the Victorian Court of Appeal’s decision to sentence both Elias and Issa to eight years imprisonment after they were convicted of perverting the course of justice for their role in assisting prominent gangland figure Tony Mokbel’s escape. Elias and Issa sought to appeal their sentences on the basis of an earlier Victorian Supreme Court ruling, R v Liang, which they argued stood for the principle that sentencing judges should consider lower maximum penalties for other charges that the prosecutor might have ‘appropriately’ brought (in this case, a federal charge with a five year maximum). The High Court rejected the purported ‘principle’ of Liang as unsound and dismissed both appeals.