A sentence of 18 months' imprisonment for recklessly causing serious injury by stabbing with a knife, where the injury was life-threatening and the offender had a prior similar stabbing offence, is manifestly inadequate even where significant mitigating factors including early guilty plea, remorse, and rehabilitation are present. The appropriate sentence in such circumstances was 4 years and 6 months (from a starting point of 7 years before discount for plea and mitigation). Mitigating factors that are commonly put before sentencing judges, without anything exceptional or striking, cannot justify a sentence wholly outside the permissible range.
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