The Court of Appeal held that for Commonwealth offences, a challenge to the adequacy of a discount for a guilty plea does not constitute a standalone appellable error and can only ever be a particular of a ground contending the sentence as a whole was manifestly excessive, following MMA v The Queen and Scerri v The Queen. The Court further held that the presumption of cumulative sentences in s 19(5) of the Crimes Act 1914 (Cth), while not excluding the totality principle, reflects a legislative intention that total effective sentences for multiple Commonwealth child sex offences should generally increase compared to those imposed before the 2020 Amendment Act, such that pre-Amendment Act comparable sentences have limited utility and may only indicate what would now be an inadequate sentence. The Court confirmed that in cases of extremely serious offending, an offender may forfeit any expectation of release, and mercy does not require sentence reduction on account of age or health where no particular circumstances take the case out of the ordinary.
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