A Canberra killer has lost an appeal against the severity of his sentence for fatally bashing a pub patron, with the ACT's top court rejecting suggestions the assault was not a vigilante attack.
Kerry Kourpanidis, 37, pleaded guilty to a manslaughter charge after he caused the death of Warren Hordpenko, 44, at the Kingston Hotel in July 2020.
What Justice Michael Elkaim described as "the tragic tale of two decent men" began with a drunken Mr Hordpenko "making a nuisance of himself" at the pub on the evening in question.
The NSW South Coast man touched Kourpanidis' daughter on the face and made inappropriate comments that upset the young girl.
Kourpanidis and his stunned family quickly left the pub and went to his nearby home in Griffith, where he put his daughter to bed.
He was then confronted by his tearful girlfriend, who criticised him for not standing up to Mr Hordpenko, prompting him to angrily drive back to the Kingston Hotel.
The tradesman entered the pub's poolroom and tackled Mr Hordpenko off a bar stool upon his return, saying "You f---ed with my daughter, c---" before punching him repeatedly in the head.
Kourpanidis was in and out of the hotel in just 46 seconds, taking only 16 of those seconds to inflict fatal injuries on Mr Hordpenko.
Justice Elkaim later sentenced him to seven-and-a-half years in jail, with a non-parole period of three years and nine months.
Kourpanidis challenged the severity of that jail term in the ACT Court of Appeal last month, hiring two senior barristers to argue Justice Elkaim made four errors.
Stephen Odgers SC argued Justice Elkaim had reached incorrect conclusions about the role of provocation, that the judge had wrongly assessed the seriousness of the crime, and that he had not considered reasons for leniency when setting the total sentence.
Margaret Jones SC, meanwhile, sought to convince the appeal court the jail term was "manifestly excessive".
Central to two of the appeal grounds was a claim that Justice Elkaim had incorrectly described Kourpanidis' actions as "vigilante conduct".
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While Mr Odgers accepted that Kourpanidis had returned to the hotel to confront Mr Hordpenko, he argued there was no evidence the killer had pre-planned a physical attack on the victim.
Three appeal judges, Justice David Mossop, Justice Wendy Abraham and Acting Justice Stephen Walmsley, said on Thursday that this did not matter.
"There is no reason why the decision to [attack] must have been formed before [Kourpanidis] returned to the hotel, to be characterised as vigilante conduct," they wrote in a joint judgment.
"Regardless of when the intention was formed, at the time the offence was committed, [Kourpanidis] ... was taking the law into his own hands, as he was acting in retaliation and extracting punishment for what he perceived had occurred.
"It was redress for a grievance. That is vigilantism."
The trio of judges ultimately agreed with ACT Director of Public Prosecutions Shane Drumgold SC, who had told the court none of Kourpanidis' grounds of appeal had been established.
They accordingly dismissed the appeal, meaning Kourpanidis' sentence will stand and he will be eligible for parole in April 2024.
