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Criminal procedure — sentence — factors affecting — offer of restitution — can be mitigating — where not made by accused no reason for trial court effectively to put words into his mouth.
An offer of restitution, if made genuinely and with a realistic hope of achieving it, is a mitigating feature which in appropriate circumstances may help keep an offender out of prison. Similarly, voluntary acts of restitution or statements of an intention or desire to make restitution can properly be taken into account as compelling evidence of remorse and of the probability that the accused's rehabilitation is not an idle hope.
Where, however, an accused person at his trial makes no such statement, there is no good reason why the magistrate, before assessing sentence, should have created for the accused an opportunity of stating that he wished to make reparations virtually by putting words into his mouth. A statement by the accused in those circumstances could not easily be regarded as a genuine expression of remorse.
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