Have you heard of 'totality'? - No?Let me help. It relates to the Law - er - sentencing? - Still no?
Then let me explain a disgraceful principle of sentencing guidelines for magistrates and judges.
It means - in the jargon - 'taking an overview of the totality of the offences'.
In practice this means that you sentence a shoplifter for the offence committed. So far, so good.
A second shoplifter appears who pleads guilty to six charges and has six more 'Taken into Consideration' as they want 'to get a clean slate' so they admit to offences not known to the police.
The 'totality' is then to consider the most serious offence and pay virtually no attention to the other eleven.
This may well mean that shoplifter two is sentenced identically to shoplifter one.
Maybe you can see the fairness in all of this - but I can't!
