A brothel madam who kept a sex slave in a Braddon apartment has had her sentence slashed by two years after a successful appeal in the ACT's highest court.
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Thai-born Watcharaporn Nantahkhum became the first person convicted of a slavery offence in the ACT, after a jury found her guilty in the Supreme Court early last year.
In 2007, she arranged to fly Thai women to Australia for sex work.
One of the women was struggling financially but met someone in Bangkok who promised her it could be arranged for her to work in Australia as a prostitute.
She was told the arrangement would cost $43,000, which she said seemed like a lot of money.
She spoke with Nantahkhum about the debt over the phone, with the madam telling her it would not take long to pay it back.
The victim was told she would not need to see many clients a day, with five being a busy day.
When she arrived in Australia, the woman was forced to give up her earnings until the debt was paid back.
It is believed that by the time the debt was cleared, the slave had serviced more than 700 clients, often as many as 14 a day.
Her passport was taken from her and she was never allowed to leave the house without the madam or a man, who the victim thought was Nantahkhum's boyfriend.
She was not given a key to the unit and was told she had to use her earnings to pay for rent.
The second victim came to Australia from Thailand thinking she would be performing massages only, not sex work.
But that changed when she arrived in Canberra and Nantahkhum began charging her $200 a day for rent and other services.
Nantahkhum, 46, of Kambah, was convicted of six offences relating to two victims, ranging from intentionally keeping a slave to attempting to pervert the course of justice and a number of Commonwealth migration offences.
She was sentenced to eight years and 10 months in jail, with a non-parole period of four years and nine months.
But she appealed against her sentence, with her lawyers arguing that she had been punished twice for similar offences, which they said amounted to double jeopardy.
They argued the trial judge had erred in sentencing.
Justice Hilary Penfold handed down the decision in the ACT Court of Appeal on Friday morning.
A full bench of the appeal court, consisting of former chief justice Terence Higgins, Justice Penfold and Justice John Dowsett, upheld Nantahkhum's appeal.
The total sentence was slashed by two years and her non-parole period was cut by 15 months.
Nantahkhum was resentenced to six years and 10 months, and will be eligible for parole in October 2015.
