The fundamental principle of sentencing is that a sentence must be proportionate to the gravity of the offence and the degree of responsibility of the offender. On its face this may seem simple, but in practice this can be a challenge. No two offences or offenders come before the court in identical situations. There are simply so many variables involved in crafting a sentence that this can be one of the most challenging decisions a judge has to make.

Awareness continues to grow in relation to the frequency of false confessions. There are many famous examples where people have been exonerated years after confessing. With the knowledge that false confessions do occur, the question becomes how does the court handle situations where an accused alleges at trial that their confession was false.

The concept of an alibi is fairly simple. In the context of a prosecution, an alibi is a claim that a person – usually a person charged with an offence – was elsewhere when the allegedly criminal conduct took place, and thus it was impossible for him/her to have committed it.