An intellectual disability (including an IQ of 70 in the borderline range) does not automatically enliven the Verdins principles reducing moral culpability; a causal connection between the disability and the offending must be established. Where an offender denies committing the offences, it may be very difficult (but not impossible as a matter of principle) to establish the necessary causal connection. In some cases involving intellectual disability, the circumstances of the offending and the nature or level of the disability may themselves bespeak a relevant causal nexus, but a psychologist's statement that the offender 'must have been affected by his intellectual impairment at the time of his offending' is no more than a statement of the obvious and does not establish the required causal link.
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