A mother will not have her jail term increased for the death of her four-year-old daughter who suffered massive injuries after repeatedly crashing a motorbike she was forced to ride.
South Australia's Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) had sought an increase in the sentences imposed on Ashlee Polkinghorne and her then-partner, Benjamin McPartland, for manslaughter.
But the Court of Criminal Appeal on Thursday refused to grant the DPP permission to appeal, noting even if it were given, the challenge would inevitably fail.
Chloe Valentine died from massive head injuries after being forced to ride a motorbike that repeatedly crashed over a three-day period in her Adelaide backyard in January 2012.
Polkinghorne, 22, was jailed for at least four years and nine months, while McPartland, 28, received four years and two months.
The couple, who waited more than eight hours before calling an ambulance after Chloe eventually became unconscious, pleaded guilty to manslaughter through criminal neglect.
The DPP had contended that the sentences were manifestly inadequate and shocked "the public conscience".
But Justice David Peek, sitting with Justices Tim Stanley and Kevin Nicholson, said the prosecution was only granted permission to appeal in exceptional cases.
He noted the DPP did not assert the sentencing judge committed a legal error, or mistook what the facts were, or failed to have sufficient regard to the facts or wrongly relied on some identified irrelevant factor.
The DPP had a "high hurdle" to clear if the only complaint was that the sentence was "manifestly inadequate", he added.
The judge referred to the sincere outpourings of the grief by the 10 people who wrote victim impact statements in the case.
"It is difficult not to share that grief and to react against the respondents in an angry way," he said.
"It is no doubt cold comfort for the authors, and others close to the child, to be reminded that the Courts must not act in an angry way but in a measured consistent way."
The "substantial" sentences imposed could only be revisited by "applying the law and not emotion".
The judges concluded it was far from established that the sentencing judge gave inadequate weight to matters such as the need for personal and public deterrence.
McPartland received a maximum term of seven years while Polkinghorne received eight years.
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