Bikie wins sentence reduction on appeal

OFF THE WIRE
By Kim Lyell

A member of a motorcycle gang sentenced to 13 years in jail for cutting off a man's ears on Queensland's Gold Coast has had his sentence reduced by the Court of Appeal.

Aaron Drew Scheers was a member of the Lone Wolves when he kidnapped a man involved in a drug deal in which the motorcycle gang had lost $40,000.

Scheers drove the man to a national park and made him walk up a dirt track, saying that a grave had been dug for him.

Scheers broke the man's cheek bone, severed one of his ears and cut off the bottom half of the other before accepting the man had not stolen the money.

The offences occurred while Scheers was on bail for incidents at a tattoo parlour and a nightclub.

The Crown also alleged Scheers had paid the victim not to give evidence and he had disappeared.

Scheers pleaded guilty to all the offences and was sentenced in the District Court in Southport to a head sentence of 13 years for grievous bodily harm to reflect the other offences committed by the applicant.

In the Court of Appeal judgement handed down today, Justice Holmes said the offence had been simply appalling in the cold bloodedness of its commission.

But he said it did not have the ongoing physical, psychological or financial consequences for the victim of other such cases.

The Court of Appeal ordered the sentence to be reduced to 10 years, to be served cumulatively with a three-year sentence for the attempt to pervert the course of justice.