The three Australian Capital Territory Court of Appeal judges unanimously rejected the 61-year-old former army lawyer’s appeal against the severity of a five years and eight months prison sentence imposed a year ago.

The judges also rejected McBride’s argument that as a military officer he had sworn an oath to Queen Elizabeth II and therefore had a sworn duty to act in the “public interest.”

“It is my own conscience and the people of Australia that I answer to. I have kept my oath to the Australian people,” McBride said in the lawyers’ statement.