The Bugmy principles regarding reduced moral culpability due to social disadvantage are not confined to cases of deprivation throughout early childhood; they extend to social disadvantage experienced during adolescence, including where an offender had an initially positive upbringing but subsequently entered an environment where criminality and substance abuse were normalised. The phrase 'profound childhood deprivation' in Bugmy is not a threshold test, and no causative link between the deprivation and the offending need be demonstrated, although if such a link exists there must inevitably be a reduction in moral culpability. A sentencing judge who treats Bugmy as inapplicable because of an initially positive childhood, without considering the impact of subsequent adolescent experiences, acts upon a wrong principle within the meaning of House v The King.
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