On a plea of guilty involving representative counts, the sentencing judge is entitled to rely on the Crown opening as the agreed factual basis and is not required to independently investigate the frequency or detail of the represented conduct. In cases of intra-familial sexual abuse, the importance of general deterrence overrides any minor relevance that evidence of the victim's forgiveness might have. An offender's own childhood sexual abuse, while relevant to moral culpability and rehabilitation, may be given little weight where the offender's own account of that abuse as distressing undermines the claim of obliviousness to the harm caused.
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