22 Dec 2020
VALE v NEW ZEALAND POLICE [2020] NZHC 3520
- Citation
- [2020] NZHC 3520
- Court
- High Court
The District Court mixed Senior and Taueki approaches and thereby risked double counting Mr Vale's criminal history; treating the index offending in isolation warranted a nine month starting point, a three month uplift for prior burglaries, and a 40% mitigation discount (including guilty plea), resulting in an appropriate substituted sentence of eight months' imprisonment; judges must avoid factoring criminal history more than once and must account for mental illness and poverty as mitigation where applicable.