An aggregate sentence of 3 years and 8 months' imprisonment is within range for recklessly causing serious injury involving stomping on a defenceless victim's head causing brain damage, where the offender is a young person with a prior conviction for similar violent offending. Sentencing statistics and comparable cases involving punches rather than kicks to the head of a grounded victim, and resulting in less serious injuries, are not 'like' cases. Where a young offender has not been deterred by a prior non-custodial sentence for similar violent offending, mitigating factors of youth and rehabilitation must assume secondary importance to specific deterrence, denunciation and community protection.
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