Where an offender is sentenced for offences after having already served sentences for related offending committed at about the same time, the totality principle requires the prior sentences and time in custody to be taken into account as part of the instinctive synthesis, but does not require the sentencing court to determine what total sentence would have been imposed had all offending been sentenced together. The Mill v The Queen approach of fixing a notional combined sentence is confined to cases where a legal obstacle (such as interstate boundaries) precluded the matters being dealt with together. When making a sex offender registration order under s 11 of the Sex Offenders Registration Act 2004, the sentencing court must undertake the second-stage Bowden balancing exercise, weighing the identified risk against the serious consequences of registration, and the child-protection purposes of the Act are not necessarily served by registration of offenders against adults.
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