A sentencing judge's use of the expression 'worst cases' to describe the overall circumstances of offending, rather than to categorise any particular offence as warranting the maximum penalty, does not constitute the error identified in R v Kilic, provided the individual sentences imposed fall well short of the maximum. An overall total effective sentence of 19 years for serious child sexual offending across two indictments involving three victims (including a two-year-old daughter) was reduced to 16 years as infringing the first limb of the totality principle when compared with sentences in comparable cases.
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