Jail sentences to heed 'disadvantage' after High Court ruling THE High Court has found the disadvantaged background of Australians needs to be taken into account when jail terms are handed down, allowing indigenous man William Bugmy to appeal against his extended sentence. Mr Bugmy was sentenced to seven and half years in prison for grievous bodily harm after he threw a pool ball at a guard at the Broken Hill Correctional Centre, blinding him in one eye. The sentence was imposed by the NSW Court of Criminal Appeal last October, which increased a previous six-year term of imprisonment handed down by the NSW District Court. But the High Court today found Mr Bugmy's circumstances of "profound deprivation" needed to be taken into consideration and should not be accorded less significance because of his past criminal record. It also found this principle should be applied broadly across the population, however it dismissed a separate appeal from another indigenous man seeking to overturn an extended jail sentence on grounds his disadvantaged background had not been taken into account. "The same sentencing principles apply irrespective of the identity of a particular offender or his or her membership of an ethnic or other group," the court found. The effects upon an offender of profound deprivation do not diminish over time and should be given full weight when sentencing the offender. Mr Bugmy, from Wilcannia in far western NSW, is a chronic alcohol who suffered from mental illness and has been almost continually incarcerated since he was 13 years old. He cannot read or write and his record of juvenile offending commenced when he was 12 years old. The High Court allowed him to appeal the tougher sentence because it was not satisfied the NSW Court of Criminal Appeal had properly addressed the key point argued by the Director of Public Prosecutions that the initial sentence was "manifestly inadequate." In relation to the case of West Australian indigenous man Ernest Munda, the High Court was not as generous. It dismissed his attempt to appeal an extended sentence for the manslaughter of his partner in 2010 because his personal circumstances had not been taken into account. Mr Munda, from the remote Fitzroy Crossing community in Western Australia, had been drinking at a pub with his partner before he assaulted her at home, punching her and repeatedly ramming her head into a wall. The next morning, they had sex and Munda left the house briefly but when he returned his partner wasn't breathing. She was pronounced dead on arrival at hospital. The WA appeals court ruled that limited weight should be given to factors of social deprivation in Munda's background and increased his sentence from five years, three months to seven years and nine months. A majority of the High Court today found that the WA appeals court was justified in its decision.