The Court sentenced the offender to 3 years' imprisonment with a 15-month non-parole period for manslaughter by criminal negligence arising from accidentally injecting her partner with heroin and then failing to promptly seek medical help. The Court held that schizoaffective disorder attracting Verdins principles 5 and 6 did not meet the higher threshold under s 5(2H)(c)(ii) of the Sentencing Act for 'substantially and materially greater' burden or risks of imprisonment where the offender was medicated, drug-free and generally prosocial. The s 5(2H)(e) 'exceptional and rare' circumstances exception was also not established, notwithstanding the combination of low objective gravity, Doran-type admissions without which no prosecution could have been brought, childhood sexual abuse, mental illness and guilty plea — the Court characterising these as routine mitigating factors that did not meet the statutory threshold.
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