The prospect that an offender of advanced age with serious ill-health may die in prison is a significant sentencing consideration but does not render a sentence manifestly excessive where the gravity of predatory and persistent sexual offending against children, involving gross breaches of trust over a decade, warrants general deterrence and denunciation. Individual sentences of 1 to 2 years and 2 months on charges carrying a 5-year maximum, with modest cumulation of 1 to 4 months per charge, resulting in a total effective sentence of 4 years and 3 months with a non-parole period of just over 50%, were within range for such offending.
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