Evidence of increased hardship of imprisonment resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic is not admissible to establish a stand-alone ground of appeal against sentence; such changes in circumstances are matters for the Executive under provisions such as s 58E(1) of the Corrections Act 1986 (Vic). However, if error is established on other grounds requiring resentencing, pandemic-related hardship evidence may be relevant to the new sentence. A history of domestic violence suffered by an offender, while relevant to moral culpability, is substantially outweighed by the objective gravity of retaliatory firearms offending endangering innocent persons.
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