Disgraced doctor who trafficked ‘breathtaking’ amount of prescription drugs to bikies loses bid to overturn sentence

A disgraced doctor jailed for trafficking a “breathtaking” amount of prescription drugs to a bikie gang using his Brisbane-based clinic has suffered another court blow while trying to appeal his sentence. Dr Robert John Ullman is serving a 6½ year jail term after pleading guilty to one count of trafficking in dangerous drugs between January 1, 2018 and September 22, 2020, and nine counts of supplying a dangerous drug. Over the two years, Ullman unlawfully trafficked schedule 2 prescription drugs – mostly benzodiazepines – through his Chermside clinic and through an unqualified gym owner who handed out drugs and received cash payments from the customers. They were predominantly sold to members of the Comanchero outlaw motorcycle gang, at times booked in for normal appointments. At his sentencing in April, Brisbane Supreme Court was told Ullman sold the drugs to 31 different people on 76 occasions. The court was told the turnover was more than $1.5m. Six months after his sentence was imposed, Ullman launched an appeal to challenge his 2028 parole eligibility date – claiming the sentence was “manifestly excessive”. He argued the sentencing judge’s reasons did not reveal how the mitigating circumstances had been taken into account in arriving at the parole eligibility date. Ullman submitted there was a departure from the norm of imposing a parole eligibility date of one-third of that sentence with no explanation. In its published judgment, the Court of Appeal dismissed Ullman’s appeal, stating his legal team had not demonstrated why the sentence was excessive. Justices Bradley, Doyle and Wilson said it was wrong to view the “starting point” of Ullman’s sentence – being the 6½ year period – as the head sentence when his mitigating factors were taken into account, then to ask whether a standard non-parole period should be applied. “This requires an approach which artificially fragments the sentencing process,” Justice Doyle wrote in the judgment. “The sentencing judge retains the discretion to determine the appropriate early parole date, and that discretion is not so rigidly fettered in the way that the applicant’s case assumes.” At the end of the police operation targeting Ullman, his house and clinic were searched. Police located luxury products, cash in the amount of $338,760 and a large amount of benzodiazepine and testosterone. “It was accepted that his professional earnings, apart from his trafficking and supply earnings, were significant and would have either enabled or contributed to the collection of the luxury products,” the judgment states. The Court of Appeal noted some of the circumstances of Ullman’s offending and how serious they were. They included Ullman being a medical practitioner “in whom the public reposed faith and confidence, abused that to traffic drugs on a sustained scale”, that he did it for commercial gain and the trafficking was “carried out in an attempted clandestine form, being paid in some instances in cash, using encrypted communication devices”. Ullman only stopped when detected by police and he encouraged customers to turn to the black market for drugs he could not supply, the judgment continues. “Everything that could sensibly be urged in mitigation was said on the applicant’s behalf and taken into account by the sentencing judge,” the judgment states. “The result is not in my view manifestly excessive. “The outcome … would not be disturbed if this court was called upon to re-exercise the sentencing power.” Ullman’s mitigating factors included the loss of his professional standing and career, the loss of his family relationship and his rehabilitation efforts in the four years since. It was also submitted that he may have been in over his head being involved with supplying customers “who were members of an outlaw motorcycle gang”. The trafficking charge carried a maximum penalty of 25 years’ jail. In 2020, the Health Ombudsman suspended Ullman’s registration as a medical practitioner when the charges were first laid. He has no approval to practise in any employment or practice location.