Wrong man in Vic court for murder sentence

Corrections Victoria has been forced to apologise after the wrong prisoner was taken to Melbourne's Supreme Court to be sentenced for a brutal murder.

Peter Brown was taken to court to be sentenced by Justice John Champion on Thursday morning, but it wasn't the 57-year-old killer Peter Raymond Brown who pleaded guilty to murdering Melbourne mum Simone Fraser in March.

What the department officially labelled a "case of mistaken identity" delayed proceedings for almost two hours.

Justice John Champion ordered an explanation after handing down a 30-year prison sentence to the correct man, telling a lawyer for the department minor mistakes have cascading effects for all those attending, including families of the victim and offender, and the offender themselves.

"Be mindful that courts like the one we're in are traumatic places," he said.

"Small glitches like this ... are capable of having enormous impacts on the trauma (experienced by) people attending."

He earlier said it was the second time the mistake had occurred in this case.

Fronting up to explain, government solicitor Debra Coombs revealed Corrections Victoria still uses an old blue screen MS-DOS computer system to record prisoner details.

Prison officials searching for Peter Brown in their system would have come up with every Peter Brown in prison, as well as every former prisoner with that name dating back to the 1980s, she said.

Ms Coombs said the wrong Peter Brown also had matters before the Supreme Court and had attended more regularly than the Peter Brown in the matter.

A junior officer in training was blamed for the mistake, having assumed it was the former Peter Brown who was required.

Though she noted a supervising officer failed to check the details, including date of birth and prison identification number, matched the right person.

Justice Champion told Ms Coombs he expected some effort would be made to ensure the mistake was not repeated.