Breach of a family violence intervention order that is a prelude to violent indictable offences must be treated as a serious offence warranting a substantial sentence, and total concurrency with sentences for related indictable offences is inappropriate where the breach involves distinct criminal conduct (such as prior telephone threats and approaching the protected person's premises). The totality principle may be applied in conjunction with s 16(3B) of the Sentencing Act 1991 (Vic) by moderating individual sentences, but must not be applied so as to undermine the legislative policy of cumulation on cancelled parole terms. An offender's subjective perceptions that prior breaches of intervention orders were innocuous or insignificant cannot bear upon the gravity of the present breach.
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