Where an offender committed serious sexual offences as a child and is sentenced as an adult decades later, having undergone complete rehabilitation with no subsequent offending, the sentencing court must not permit the objective seriousness of the offending and its effects on the victim to overwhelm the mitigating factors of youth, reduced moral culpability, and rehabilitation. Following Boulton, a community correction order may be the appropriate disposition even for sexual penetration of a child under 10, where the purposes of punishment do not require imprisonment.
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