The Court imposed an aggregate sentence of 4 years imprisonment with a 2-year non-parole period for supply of a large commercial quantity of methylamphetamine (835.62g) and commercial quantity of heroin (538.62g), representing a very substantial departure from the standard non-parole periods of 15 and 10 years respectively. The Court applied the three-step Bugmy framework from NK v R [2025] NSWCCA 73, finding that the offender's profound childhood deprivation — including family violence, poverty, housing instability, and homelessness from age 14 — reduced his moral culpability, and that this reduction diminished the weight to be given to general deterrence notwithstanding the seriousness of drug supply offences. The Court also accepted, following Robertson v R [2024] NSWCCA 22, that a largely prosocial adult life between a disadvantaged childhood and late-onset offending does not preclude a finding of reduced moral culpability, and endorsed the Bugmy Bar Book as a reliable evidentiary resource subject to the threshold requirement that specific evidence of disadvantage must first be established before the general research becomes relevant.
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