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Morris’s mother and father came from Jamaica with modest resources, court heard. His father died when Morris was seven and his mother worked to support them, requiring frequent absence while living in social housing.

I can understand why a man of your background, a young Black man, suffering from trauma, with such limited opportunities, with feelings of despair, being influenced by others, may think that I will have that gun

His upbringing was “influenced by the streets.”

Morris found school challenging and he was placed in a special needs school, but felt unsafe crossing rival neighbourhoods to get there and was often absent, court heard. He didn’t graduate high school and, when he tried to return as an adult, he dropped out after being stabbed while walking in his neighbourhood, losing his spleen and half his pancreas.

In 2014, he was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder.

“Recognizing, as the law must, that individuals are held responsible for the acts they commit that breach the criminal law, the reality is that this choice to act may be constrained by an offender’s life circumstances,” Nakatsuru writes.

The judge considered the societal backdrop to Morris carrying a gun and fleeing police.

“I can understand why a man of your background, a young Black man, suffering from trauma, with such limited opportunities, with feelings of despair, being influenced by others, may think that I will have that gun,” Nakatsuru writes.

Similarly, he did not see Morris running from police as a reason to enhance his sentence, accepting “systemic issues that have led to distrust between the police and Black men.”

The young man who makes the choice to pick up a loaded illegal handgun will not likely be a product of a private school upbringing who has the security of falling back upon upper middle class family resources

“I appreciate not every young Black child who is subject to the same pressures as you makes the choices you did. Nothing that I say here should be taken to mean that you did not have a moral choice when you committed these crimes. However, what I do say is that your choice was constrained by these forces.