Questions of weight in the exercise of a sentencing discretion are matters for the first instance judge, and the circumstances in which matters of weight will justify appellate intervention are narrowly confined. Crown appeals based solely on manifest inadequacy, without identification of specific legal error in the sentencing process, face a particularly high threshold. The mere fact of accumulation of sentences may not of itself constitute 'special circumstances' under s 5(2) of the Sentencing Act 1989, though this point was left open.
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