Ali Hassan Bilal, 50, faced the ACT Supreme Court via audio-visual link from the Alexander Maconochie Centre on Thursday to hear Justice Geoffrey Kennett uphold his appeal.

The judge said he had found an error of principle in the reasoning relied upon by Chief Magistrate Lorraine Walker when she sentenced Bilal, in early August, to 13 months in jail.

Despite identifying the error, Justice Kennett re-sentenced Bilal to the same total term after finding the initial penalty had been substantially correct.

The judge knocked some time off the portion of the sentence Bilal must actually serve behind bars, however, reducing the period in full-time custody from four months to three months.

Bilal, a former Canberra Rebels president, is said to have "stepped away" from the outlaw motorcycle gang, of which he was also the national sergeant-at-arms, after being arrested in December 2021.

It was then that the Wollogorang man learned police had had his phone tapped throughout most of last year as he ranted and raved at a succession of people, including subordinate members of the Rebels.

Bilal later pleaded guilty to five charges of using a carriage service to either threaten serious harm or to menace the recipients of his calls, who were often baffled about why he was so angry.

His lawyers - barrister John Purnell SC and solicitors from Aulich - appealed Bilal's sentence on several grounds earlier this month.

While Justice Kennett rejected most of their arguments on Thursday, he concluded Ms Walker had erred in placing weight on matters of "common knowledge" surrounding the activities of the Rebels.

He noted Mr Purnell had argued there had been no evidence before Ms Walker that permitted her to find the Rebels had "a period of ascension in the territory", that the gang was "widely reputed to be involved in criminal activity", or that its members were believed to use standover tactics.

Justice Kennett found it was problematic that Margaret Jones SC, who represented Bilal during sentencing, had not had the opportunity to make submissions about the latter proposition.

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"This constituted contravention of a statutory precondition to any reliance on common knowledge to this effect, which can also properly be described as a denial of procedural fairness," the judge said.

"I have little doubt that, had this issue been ventilated before the magistrate, it would have resulted in her honour being provided with material vindicating her understanding that the Rebels were involved at relevant times in activity properly described as 'standover tactics' or something similar.

"However, I cannot exclude the possibility that this would not have occurred; and the error is, in any event, one of principle that requires the sentence to be set aside and [Bilal] to be re-sentenced."

Justice Kennett decided to slash a month off the time Bilal must spend behind bars "partly in recognition of the effect of his absence on his family".

He also believed Bilal's prospects of rehabilitation may improve if the former gangster had earlier access to counselling and other support services that would be available to him in the community.

Bilal will now be released from prison, with the remainder of his jail term suspended, in early November.

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