The Court of Appeal yesterday reserved its decision after hearing a Crown argument that a Hawke's Bay man sentenced to home detention for breaking his infant daughter's legs should have been jailed.
Sitting in Wellington, the three judges hearing the Solicitor-General appeal against the 12-month home detention sentence imposed on James Robert Hall were told by Crown counsel Annabel Marham it was manifestly inadequate and did not reflect a sterner approach being taken in child abuse cases.
Hall had admitted causing grievous bodily harm relating to incidents leading to his 4-month-old daughter's admission to Hawke's Bay Hospital in March last year.
At the sentencing in the High Court in Napier in August, Crown prosecutor Russell Collins had asked Justice Mary Peters for a sentence calculated from a starting point of four years.
But defence counsel Scott Jefferson argued home detention was possible if she started at two and a half years, with deductions acknowledging Hall's youth and admissions which had prevented any need for a trial.