A repeat drink-driver has failed to avoid jail on appeal after drunkenly flinging two people into a tree on Lake Hume while towing them behind a boat.
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Jamie Dean Bleakley was imprisoned for at least two years in November 2022, after flicking his female friend, and Bleakley's partner's son, into a tree while speeding.
The pair were being towed on a biscuit.
The female victim was flown to The Alfred hospital intensive care unit with major injuries and the man was taken to Albury hospital.
Bleakley appealed the sentence, with two judges rejecting that appeal on Wednesday, May 8, and noting it had been a lenient jail term.
Bleakley, who had four drink-drive priors, had been drinking throughout the day at Ludlows Reserve and was speeding.
The female victim's father had been so concerned before the crash he asked Bleakley's fiancee "what the f- are you people thinking" after viewing Facebook footage of Bleakley's antics.
"Watch this, they are going to be so scared, I'm going to swing them near the trees," he told someone right before the crash.
The injured pair were both left unconscious and had to be dragged out of the water.
The woman was face down and bleeding and suffered blunt force head trauma, including a fractured skull and facial bones.
She was in a coma for six days.
The victims crashed at 4.20pm during the March 1, 2020, incident and Bleakley blew an alcohol reading of 0.149 at 5.54pm.
A blood test at Wodonga hospital returned an even higher reading of 0.164 and also found prescribed Fentanyl in his system, which would have further impaired his boat driving ability.
Bleakley, now 39, had been caught either drink-driving or refusing a breath test four times before the crash.
He received a minimum two-year term with a maximum of three years and three months.
He argued on appeal that conduct while driving a boat was less serious than in a car, as cars travelled at higher speeds, were closer to other vehicles and had pedestrians and structures nearby.
This argument was rejected.
It was also argued that the sentencing judge failed to take into account the value of a guilty plea entered during the COVID-19 pandemic and that the objective seriousness of the offending was overstated.
Those arguments were also dismissed, with justices Richard Niall and Louise Taylor noting the jail term had been lenient.
"As the judge observed ... the applicant's conduct 'brought with it a high risk of injury, or even more calamitous consequences'," they said.
"That the applicant was licensed to drive a registered boat and took some safety precautions does not detract from the negligence constituted by the speed and manner in which he drove the boat and his level of intoxication.
"The passengers on the biscuit were in a very vulnerable position.
"They had no means to steer or control the biscuit and their safety was almost entirely in the hands of the applicant as the operator of the boat.
"The need for care and the dire consequences of a breach of duty are obvious."
Bleakley remained in prison while the appeal was pending, and must now serve out the full sentence.
