Circumstances of deprivation, abuse and social disadvantage during an offender's formative years do not diminish with the passage of time and must be given due weight in the sentencing calculus, though their mitigatory relevance varies across different purposes of punishment: they may substantially reduce moral culpability while simultaneously increasing the importance of community protection. Where offences arise from one course of conduct involving discrete criminal offending, less cumulation will ordinarily be required than where sentences represent separate episodes or transactions. Sentencing statistics, while having limitations, may support a finding of manifest excess where sentences represent statistical extremes.
The full text is available to signed-in members, including the 214 later cases that cite this judgment.
23 of the 214 citing cases carry a classified treatment. How each court treated it is available to signed-in members.