Where a juvenile offender's mental age is below the age of criminal responsibility (10 years) due to intellectual disability, this significantly lessens moral culpability such that retributive, denunciatory and deterrent aspects of sentencing are less relevant, and a non-custodial sentence may be appropriate even for the offence of rape of a very young child. The observations in R v KU as to sentencing range and recording of convictions are confined to the circumstances of that case and do not state general sentencing principles for juvenile rape.
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