When assessing whether a murder falls within the worst category warranting life imprisonment under s 61(1), the court must consider the full range of comparable cases, and the absence of life sentences in comparable parental murder cases is a relevant consideration. Expert psychiatric evidence based on unchallenged clinical observations cannot be dismissed merely because the offender's self-reported history is found unreliable; a sentencing judge must distinguish between the observation-based and history-based components of the expert's opinion. The case confirms that impaired capacity for empathy associated with personality disorder features is relevant to moral culpability and may distinguish a case from the worst category.
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