Police documents tendered to the ACT Magistrates Court state that Lorenz Martin Daley, 20, was "tripping" on LSD when he accosted an unsuspecting couple as the pair sat in a car in Gowrie in late December.

He tried to yank the woman out the vehicle, then repeatedly punched her and her partner while boasting: "Look at me, I'm a stallion."

Daley had pleaded guilty to two counts of common assault over the attack, which one of the victims described as "animalistic, vicious and horrific".

In March this year, Special Magistrate Jane Campbell dismissed the charges and recorded no convictions.

"I am satisfied that Mr Daley has well and truly learnt his lesson and is unlikely to reoffend," she said.

In the ACT Supreme Court on Monday, the ACT DPP's deputy director Anthony Williamson said the appeal was based on four grounds: the objective seriousness of the offending was not properly assessed, the drug use must have been considered in a particular way to allow the outcome, a conviction would help other institutions know about his offending and other appeal decisions showing harsher penalties for similar offending.

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Mr Williamson said "there was no real apparent effort to assess the objective seriousness" and only referred to some evidence about it "in such brief and fleeting terms" by Special Magistrate Jane Campbell during sentencing in March.

"The prosecution accepts that in some circumstances drug-induced psychosis may be relevant to sentencing," he said.

"However, It's apparent in this matter that the relevance of the drug consumption was that the respondent did not appreciate and did not have foresight as to the violent conduct might follow from his drug use."

Mr Williamson said no medical records were tendered as evidence about whether Daley was experiencing a psychotic episode from the drugs.

"Appellant courts have been very clear that the community abhors this conduct ... that the community is sick and tired of this conduct and therefore sentences for this type of offending must involve a very significant degree of general deterrence and denunciation," he said.

"There is simply no objective way one could say that the sentence came close to involving the proper application of principles consistent with what's set out in those (other) cases."

He said agencies, including those that involving working with vulnerable people, have the right to know about a person's conviction.

In response, Michael Kukulies-Smith for Daley said his client's drug use "appears to be an aberration" and that there was "naivety as to the impacts".

He said the drug was not the only factor that led to the dismissal of the charges.

"There were a number of considerations and one which hasn't been touched upon but accepted by the courts and was the young age (of Daley).

"He was still a very young individual (at the time of the offending) and therefore entitled to some leniency."

Mr Kukulies-Smith said as a legislative matter, a recording of a non-conviction was unnecessary to making an offence reportable.

"The fact that an offence is proven against a person is still makes it reportable in this jurisdiction," he said.

"Whether or not a conviction is recorded is not a threshold ... it is whether an offence is proven - in this case, it was."

He said he conceded that the sentence was lenient but not manifestly inadequate as it did not fall outside the range of sentencing options.

The appeal was before Justice John Burns, who has reserved his decision.

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