A drug rehabilitation counsellor who gives false evidence and undertakings to courts in bail and sentencing proceedings is properly characterised as 'a person embedded in the legal system', and such offending is at least as serious as equivalent offending by an expert witness. Courts are particularly reliant on the assurances and undertakings of persons in such positions, and conduct undermining that trust strikes at the heart of the therapeutic approach to bail conditions. A Narcissistic Personality Disorder will not reduce moral culpability under Verdins principles 1 and 2 unless it is of sufficient severity to produce the effects identified in Verdins. A pecuniary penalty order made after sentencing constitutes fresh evidence on a sentence appeal.
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