Where law enforcement authorities facilitate the commission of a drug offence to a greater extent than the offender could have achieved alone, this may be treated as a mitigating factor in sentencing, but the discount is reduced where the offender's inability to progress was due to lack of capacity rather than lack of willingness. The fact that authorities allowed criminal conduct to continue is not itself a circumstance of mitigation. The absence of charges against co-participants (including informants and police) is irrelevant to sentencing, though relevant to the s 138 Evidence Act discretion. A plea of guilty entered immediately after an unsuccessful (but not hopeless) challenge to the admissibility of evidence may be treated as entered at the first reasonably available opportunity, though with reduced utilitarian value.
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