A cocaine courier busted with drugs potentially worth a six-figure sum has complained that the judge who locked him up was "not properly informed" about his circumstances.
David Achanfuo Yeboah, 43, was refused bail in the ACT Court of Appeal on Thursday after unsuccessfully arguing he could not prepare his case from behind bars.
He has been in Canberra's Alexander Maconochie Centre for about six weeks, having been sentenced in early June to two years and five months in prison for offences of drug trafficking and dealing with the proceeds of crime.
Justice Geoffrey Kennett imposed that sentence in the ACT Supreme Court after rejecting the submissions of Legal Aid lawyers, who argued for an intensive correction order.
Yeboah, now representing himself, subsequently challenged the severity of his sentence and applied for bail, arguing he should be released to await the hearing of his appeal.
Dressed in a suit on Thursday, he told Justice Michael Elkaim he wished to have bail in order to organise new legal representation, to receive treatment mostly related to his eyes, and to gather documents that included medical material relevant to his appeal.
Yeboah said there was "controversy in the sentencing remarks" of Justice Kennett, who had described finding it difficult to accept some of the offender's claims because of a "bogus document" the 43-year-old gave the authors of two pre-sentence reports.
The offender claimed his personal circumstances had not been given enough consideration by Justice Kennett, in part because the sentencing judge was "not properly informed" by the pre-sentence reports.
"I spoke to one of them for about two minutes," he said of a pre-sentence report author.
Yeboah also told Justice Elkaim he had "never, ever breached bail".
To support his application, he raised the fact he had been bailed in similar circumstances in 2016 as he awaited the hearing of an appeal against another drug trafficking sentence.
Prosecutor Katie McCann opposed bail, agreeing with Justice Elkaim when he asked her if she believed the strength of Yeboah's appeal was "not that great".
Ms McCann also noted that prison authorities were obliged to provide appropriate care for inmates, even if that meant taking them to medical facilities outside jail for treatment.
Justice Elkaim ultimately found Yeboah had not established the special circumstances required for bail in this case, warning that his recent decision to release convicted home invader Alexander Warne should not be seen as "a general ticket to obtain bail pending an appeal".
He said Yeboah's notice of appeal listed the grounds as being that his total sentence and his 15-month non-parole period were both "manifestly excessive".
However, Justice Elkaim could not identify any aspect of Justice Kennett's sentencing remarks that suggested the appeal had "any marked degree of strength".
Ms McCann told the Court of Appeal Yeboah's case would likely be heard in February 2023, by which time the 43-year-old would have served some eight months behind bars.
