A sentencing judge is required to analyse the significance of cogent evidence of an offender's mental condition in assessing moral culpability and the objects of sentencing, even where defence counsel fails to develop the issue in submissions. An applicant is not precluded from raising the significance of mental health evidence on a sentence appeal merely because the point was inadequately developed at first instance, particularly where the evidence was cogent and uncontradicted. The ultimate question in sentence appeals is whether the applicant was sentenced according to law, not whether the point was taken below.
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