Alcohol-fuelled offences of violence committed by young men in public places require substantial weight to be given to general deterrence, even for young offenders. There is no single category of 'one-punch manslaughter' cases revealing a range of sentences; the myriad circumstances of manslaughter offences render it unhelpful to speak in terms of a range or tariff for a particular form of manslaughter. Where an offender has a history of alcohol-fuelled violence and commits further offences while subject to conditional liberty, specific deterrence is magnified as a sentencing factor. A sentencing judge's characterisation of repeated attacks over an extended period as 'spontaneous' constitutes error where the offender's cumulative acts and words demonstrate an ongoing course of violent conduct.
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