The Aslan principles concerning the effect of mental illness and intellectual impairment on sentencing are not a prescriptive formula that must be intoned in every case; it is the substance of the sentencing judge's reasoning that determines whether appropriate regard has been given to the offender's mental condition. General deterrence remains a relevant consideration even where an offender has reduced cognitive capacity, particularly in the context of firearms offences, provided the offender understood the nature of their acts. A uniform period of internal accumulation across offences of differing seriousness does not of itself give rise to a totality error where the aggregate sentence properly reflects the totality of criminality.
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