JUDGMENT
The appellant and a co-accused were charged with murder. They pleaded “guilty” to manslaughter. No conviction was recorded by the judge. The appellant was sentenced to eleven years’ imprisonment, his co-accused to seven years; the disparity apparently being due to the fact that the judge considered that the appellant was clearly the author, that it was his fight and that he had persuaded his co-accused to join him.
In his statement of the facts State counsel said that both the appellant and his co-accused started fighting the deceased and, in the course of the fight, the deceased was stabbed. The advocates representing the appellant and his co-accused then made pleas in mitigation, in which each blamed the other. We think, with respect, that the judge erred in making a distinction between the two accused persons before him on the basis of these conflicting statements. There was, we think, insufficient material before him to impose disparate sentences.
Having regard to the facts …