Jameson, Re Reference By the Attorney General

On an Attorney General’s reference under section 36 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988, a sentence may be increased where it substantially understates the gravity of a connected course of offending. The court must assess the total criminality, including planning, danger to victims, offending while subject to an order and relevant convictions. It must also apply totality and make an appropriate allowance for the double-jeopardy element of a reference.

Comparative sentencing authorities must be used with attention to the level of violence and the procedural question considered in each case.

The offender pleaded guilty at Hull Crown Court to thefts, two robberies and an attempted robbery committed during a concentrated two-day crime spree. Stolen cars were used to facilitate offences against small retail premises and members of the public. In the attempted robbery, a cyclist was dragged by her bag alongside a moving car and injured.

The Crown Court imposed a total of three years and six months’ imprisonment, including concurrent sentences for the later offences and for breaches of a Community Rehabilitation Order. The Attorney General sought leave to refer the sentence as unduly lenient. The central issue was whether the total sentence adequately reflected the gravity of the connected offending.

1. Reference allowed. The court granted leave under section 36 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988. It held that the offender had been substantially under-sentenced and that a total sentence of five years’ imprisonment was appropriate.
2. The offending was a concerted and planned course of criminality. The theft of vehicles facilitated robberies and thefts at vulnerable premises and against vulnerable people. The attempted robbery of the cyclist created a serious and reckless risk of grave injury. The offender also committed the offences only months after an 18-month Community Rehabilitation Order and had a relevant criminal record.
3. The early guilty pleas, absence of weapons and limited actual violence were mitigating features. They did not, however, justify a total sentence which failed to reflect the full criminality. Applying totality, the court considered that six years would have been appropriate on the guilty pleas before allowing for double jeopardy.
4. The earlier Attorney General’s references provided useful sentencing comparisons. R v Greenland, [2003] 1 Crim App R (S) 375, was materially different because it involved much greater violence and concerned whether a six-year sentence was manifestly excessive rather than whether a sentence was unduly lenient.
5. The court quashed the concurrent 12-month sentence for attempted robbery on count 6 and substituted four years’ imprisonment, consecutive to the 12-month sentence on count 1 and concurrent with the other sentences. The resulting total was five years’ imprisonment.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) — granted the Attorney General leave to refer the sentence, held it unduly lenient, and substituted a total sentence of five years’ imprisonment.
• Hull Crown Court — following guilty pleas, imposed a total sentence of three years and six months’ imprisonment. Citation not stated in the judgment.