The parity principle is concerned with ensuring just sentencing relativities between co-offenders, not with reducing the sentence of the more culpable offender to match the less culpable. Where co-offenders in a common criminal enterprise are convicted of materially different numbers and types of offences, the imposition of identical total effective sentences may constitute an unjustifiable absence of disparity giving rise to a legitimate sense of grievance on the part of the less culpable offender. The parity principle applies to participants in a common criminal enterprise even where they are not charged with precisely the same offences, though practical difficulties increase as the differences between the charges grow.
The full text is available to signed-in members, including the 17 later cases that cite this judgment.
7 of the 17 citing cases carry a classified treatment. How each court treated it is available to signed-in members.