A sentencing judge does not punish an offender for being a 'courier' or a 'principal'; the judge sentences for the offence in the circumstances admitted or proved, taking into account moral culpability. A sentencing judge's reference to an accused having gone to trial in the face of a strong Crown case may properly be understood as noting the absence of mitigation for remorse, rather than as penalising the exercise of the right to trial. A sentence of nine years' imprisonment with a five-and-a-half-year non-parole period for importing over 400 grams of cocaine was within the proper exercise of discretion where there was no guilty plea, no remorse, no cooperation, and no meaningful mitigating factors.
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