Queensland's attorney-general has appealed the sentence given to a high-school student who tried to kill another pupil in a frenzied knife attack.
The boy was sentenced to four years' detention, to be suspended after two years, for the attack on a 14-year-old girl at St Columban's College at Caboolture, north of Brisbane, in May 2012.
Lawyers for Attorney-General Jarrod Bleijie told Queensland's Court of Appeal on Tuesday that the sentence was manifestly inadequate.
The then 16-year-old boy stabbed the girl in the head, neck and back during an unprovoked attack in a toilet block.
She managed to fight her attacker off before he dragged her back into the toilet block to continue the assault.
Barrister Walter Sofronoff said the horrific and calculated attack was particularly heinous, and the victim only survived through luck and courage.
The court also heard the boy was "troubled" but psychiatrists were confident that with treatment there was a low risk he would reoffend.
Barrister for the teen, David Shepherd, argued the sentence was proper, and his client clearly had mental health issues but they were being addressed.
Court of Appeal judges Margaret McMurdo, John Muir and Robert Gotterson reserved their decision.
