A sentence structured as a non-parole period with an additional term of life imprisonment is not authorised by s 431B of the Crimes Act 1900 (NSW). Where an offender's psychiatric and psychological profile, including depression exacerbated by substance abuse and relationship instability, influences the commission of murder, the offence cannot be characterised as a worst case example under R v Twala, even where the killing is brutal and execution-like. However, such mitigation of objective criminality is minimal, and the subjective features of the case (including early guilty pleas and onerous custodial conditions) can have only minimal further effect on sentence where the objective gravity is at the very top of the next category below worst case.
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