By ALESHA CAPONE
A WOMAN diagnosed with incurable cancer has won a reprieve from her prison sentence for cultivating narcotic drugs in Kings Park.
The Supreme Court of Victoria Court of Appeal recently heard the woman, aged 49, came to Australia from Vietnam.
Along with her husband, the woman overstayed her visa but was offered rent-free accommodation at a Kings Park home and $400 per week to help repay gambling debts.
After moving in, the married couple were instructed to plant and tend a cannabis crop.
In May last year, police executed a search warrant at the Kings Park premises and located 103 cannabis plants, weighing more than 73 kilograms.
The woman was interviewed at Sunshine police station and has been in custody since then.
During December 2012, she was sentenced to two years’ imprisonment after pleading guilty to cultivating a commercial quantity of cannabis.
She was sentenced to a further 28 days for dealing with property suspected of being the proceeds of crime.
Her total sentence was two years and 14 days’ imprisonment, with a non-parole period of 16 months.
However, last month the Court of Appeal heard the woman has been “diagnosed as suffering from incurable gastro-oesophageal cancer” since her judicial trial began.
The court heard the woman, whose earliest release date would have been in September this year, was only expected to live for a few more weeks.
The woman was resentenced so that she would be immediately eligible for release on parole, after serving more than 420 days in custody.
The court heard “considerations of compassion” were the determining factors for the woman’s latest court hearing, and there was “no suggestion that she has been receiving anything other than the appropriate care while in custody.”
