The Court of Appeal in R v Newman (a pseudonym) [2021] QCA 13, considered whether a defendant’s personal circumstances, including a disability, operates as a mitigating or aggravating factor or has no substantial influence at all. Ultimately the Court held that the relationship between the disability and the offending was of such a nature as to show that the offender is likely to reoffend, and entitled the Applicant to no reduction in sentence. FACTS In March 2018, when the Applicant was 14 years old, he went to Kmart at Wynnum Plaza after school. He loitered there for some time, watching school-aged …
Continue reading “Case Note – When disability is not a mitigatory factor.”