Vigilante conduct as an aggravating feature in sentencing does not require premeditation; it encompasses any conduct where the offender takes the law into their own hands by way of reprisal, regardless of when the intention to act was formed. The effluxion of time between a provocative act and the offence is a relevant consideration in assessing provocation, and where an offender does not give evidence, a sentencing judge may draw inferences from agreed facts to assess the significance of provocation. A sentencing judge may give greater weight to subjective mitigating factors in setting the non-parole period than the head sentence without error, given the different purposes of each.
The full text is available to signed-in members, including the 5 later cases that cite this judgment.