A deliberate forensic decision by defence counsel not to seek severance of wrongly joined counts will ordinarily preclude an appeal on that ground unless the joinder produced actual unfairness amounting to a miscarriage of justice. For sentencing of online child sexual exploitation offences under s 474.26(1) Criminal Code (Cth), the relative closeness in age between offender and victim, the offender's youth and first offender status, and the totality principle may warrant significant moderation of cumulative sentences. An effective sentence of 8 years imprisonment (non-parole 4 years) was appropriate for a 19-year-old first offender convicted of multiple online child exploitation offences including coerced webcam sexual activity with a 13-year-old, posting the video online, propositioning a 14-year-old for sex, and possessing 181 images of child exploitation material.
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