Bryce Cliff's attempt to quash murder conviction over slain Wagga teen James Cleghorn denied by Supreme Court

James Cleghorn was 16 when he died from stab wounds inflicted by Bryce Cliff, the ex-boyfriend of his sister, while Cliff was in a substance-fuelled rage at the Cleghorn home in June 2016.

The Kooringal High School student suffered extensive injuries and defensive wounds as he was stabbed by Cliff around 30 times, including a fatal blow to the heart, in a unit below the Acacia Street home.

The Wollongong man pleaded not guilty to murder, but guilty to manslaughter, when he faced trial.

Judge Stephen Campbell sentenced Cliff to 30 years' jail in 2018, four months after a jury convicted him of murder.

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In a decision last week, NSW Supreme Court justices Jeremy Kirk, Ian Harrison and Robertson Wright last week granted Cliff an extension to apply for leave to appeal - which was filed nearly three years after notice of intention had expired - but ultimately refused it.

They were told at a hearing in September Cliff's lone ground of appeal was that Judge Campbell's directions to the jury on intoxication "undermined the onus and standard of proof such that there was a miscarriage of justice."

"Mr Cliff submits that the trial judge, by posing a series of questions, gave directions that reversed the onus of proof," Justice Kirk said.

During the trial, Cliff admitted to having used ketamine and methamphetamine and that he was intoxicated when the lethal attack on James Cleghorn was carried out, and also raised a partial defence of extreme provocation.

In his sentencing, Judge Campbell was "not persuaded that James in any way provoked" Cliff and accepted the conversation between the two had deteriorated prior to the frenzy at the mention of his sister and the relationship.

At the time, Judge Campbell said Cliff had "lost control and lashed out" due to his ongoing bitterness about the relationship - which had ended in 2013 - which was enhanced by his intoxication.

Cliff's attempt to seek an appeal was critical of at least 12 examples of language used by Judge Campbell around directions on intoxication, all but one delivered orally.

In one, Cliff suggested it was "unorthodox" and "perhaps a direction which does work some unfair prejudice to an accused in a case in which there can only be a conclusion that it is a spontaneous act of passion."

He also complained that Judge Campbell's posing of a series of questions and issues suggested taking a two-stage approach where the jury needed to make findings on intoxication separately from determining intent had been proved beyond reasonable doubt.

While Justice Kirk said there was room for criticism of the remarks highlighted by Cliff, and they could have been rephrased, contextually they held up.

"In isolation [the remarks] might be understood as suggesting that it was necessary for the jury to reach some positive, preliminary conclusion on whether and to what extent Mr Cliff was intoxicated," he said.

"It would have been better if they had been expressed differently. But the remarks must be understood in their context."

That Cliff's legal representation did not take issue at the time to raise a question about the effect of the trial judge's words were indicative of that.

"That fact that he did not do so tends to confirm that, viewed in the context of the whole trial, the impugned remarks did not have the effect of conveying what Mr Cliff now claims," Justice Kirk said.

"Mr Cliff has not shown that he has lost a real chance at acquittal ... nor more generally that there was any miscarriage of justice."

Cliff is also serving concurrent sentences of one year imprisonment for stealing a car and three years for an aggravated break and enter in his attempts to get away from the crime scene. He will be eligible for parole on June 6, 2040.

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