The Court sentenced the offender to 10 years and 9 months imprisonment with a non-parole period of 6 years and 6 months for manslaughter arising from throwing a Molotov cocktail into a residential backyard, causing the death of a 13-year-old child. On the contested discount issue, the Court held that where an offender pleads guilty to manslaughter after being committed for trial on murder, and the indictment is amended to include the manslaughter count, s 25D(4)(a) of the Crimes (Sentencing Procedure) Act 1999 applies because the facts establishing manslaughter are substantially the same as those in the original brief for murder, resulting in a 10% rather than 25% discount. The Court expressed doubt, without deciding, whether manslaughter inserted by amendment of a murder indictment constitutes a 'new count offence' at all, given murder and manslaughter are two descriptions of the one felony, and offered obiter criticism of the inflexibility of Division 1A's mandatory discount regime.
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