Considerations of mercy may inform the appropriate sentencing range but cannot justify a manifestly inadequate sentence. Addiction to drugs or gambling, while it may explain offending, is not ordinarily in itself a mitigating factor. Where co-offenders are sentenced by different judges, the principles of equal justice and consistency require that the earlier sentence be given weight as a comparable case informing the applicable sentencing range, even if the parity principle cannot be directly invoked by the Crown to increase a sentence.
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