Where a sentencing judge accepts evidence of an offender's mental health condition, the judge must address whether that condition will make custody more onerous, even where the same condition has already been taken into account in declining to impose a life sentence under s 61(1) CSPA. Failure to do so constitutes a failure to take into account a material consideration under House v The King. However, the mitigatory effect of onerousness of custody does not automatically reduce the sentence — it may be balanced in the instinctive synthesis by the need for community protection and specific deterrence. The case also illustrates that members of the CCA may agree on the existence of sentencing error but disagree on whether the error warrants a lesser sentence.
The full text is available to signed-in members, including the 4 later cases that cite this judgment.
2 of the 4 citing cases carry a classified treatment. How each court treated it is available to signed-in members.