A Queensland judge has given a violent Papua New Guinean immigrant criminal who was previously spared deportation by the courts immediate parole so his Australian visa would not automatically be cancelled.
Adrian Dami, 29, faced Townsville District Court for sentencing on Friday after pleading guilty to two domestic violence offences – strangulation and wilful damage – for smashing his girlfriend’s laptop and choking her until she passed out and urinated on herself on New Year’s Eve last year.
He was previously convicted for a 2020 liquor store robbery where he threatened to “eat, rape and murder” two men if they reported him to police, and for attacking an elderly taxi driver during a dispute over a fare in 2023, the Townsville Bulletin reported.
But Dami’s defence barrister Patrick Newman, instructed by Legal Aid, asked Judge Gregory Lynham to structure his client’s sentence so it would not result in automatic visa cancellation, which would be triggered by any jail term of 12 months or more, including declared pre-sentence custody.
Mr Newman argued that Dami needed to care for his son since the boy’s mother was in jail, and said his client, who had spent 325 days in pre-sentence custody, had been offered a job at a concrete manufacturing company.
“If his visa were to be revoked, mandatorily, he may be able to argue against the revocation but while that process is underway it may be the case that he’s held in immigration detention,” Mr Newman said.
“If that were to happen he would spend more actual time in custody, he would not be able to be with his son.”
Crown prosecutor Grace Ollason argued that Dami had been fortunate to be spared visa cancellation the last time he appeared in court, but Judge Lynham said he had to take into account the prospect of deportation when weighing up the burden of a custodial sentence.
Judge Lynham noted the Court of Appeal had ruled that a sentence could be not crafted solely to assist an offender to avoid being deported, but chose to structure the sentence given to Dami to make sure his visa would be not cancelled automatically.
He ordered the 325 days of pre-sentence custody be taken into account but not declared as time served, and sentenced Dami to two years and three months in jail with immediate parole.
Header image: Townsville District Court (Queensland Police).
