1A failure to comply with s 5B(5) of the Sentencing Act 1991 (Vic) by not expressly stating how the sentence imposed relates to the standard sentence does not, by itself, reopen the sentencing discretion or vitiate the sentence, provided the reasons otherwise fully identify the facts, matters and circumstances bearing on the instinctive synthesis, because s 281 of the Criminal Procedure Act 2009 requires both error and that a different sentence should be imposed.
2A complaint that a sentencing judge gave insufficient weight to a guilty plea is not a freestanding ground of specific error; it is properly a particular of a manifest excess ground and must be assessed by asking whether, giving appropriate weight to all relevant sentencing considerations including the plea, the sentence was within the available range.
3An unprovoked, armed, group attack on a stranger in a public place, involving pursuit and multiple stabbings, can properly be assessed as falling in the upper range of seriousness for murder, notwithstanding the absence of premeditation and a mental state of recklessness as to really serious injury rather than intent to kill.
