Lowrie, R. v

In sentencing persistent public-nuisance offending involving hoax emergency calls, the court may give decisive weight to the protection of the public. Psychiatric mitigation does not require a reduced custodial sentence where the offender presents a high risk of repetition, has not responded to previous supervision or imprisonment, and the calls create a real risk that emergency assistance will be delayed for a person in peril.

The appellant appealed, with leave of the single judge, against concurrent sentences of eight years’ imprisonment imposed at Newcastle upon Tyne Crown Court for 12 offences of the common law offence of public nuisance.

The offences consisted of repeated hoax calls to the emergency services. The appellant had a long history of similar conduct and had resumed it shortly after release from an earlier five-year sentence. Psychiatric evidence identified a severe personality disorder and mitigation, but also a high risk of repetition and little prospect that treatment would reduce that risk.

The central issue was whether the lengthy concurrent sentences were excessive notwithstanding the guilty plea and psychiatric mitigation.

1. The appeal was dismissed. The concurrent sentences of eight years’ imprisonment were not excessive.

2. Sir Edwin Jowitt held that the appellant’s psychiatric condition provided mitigation, but it did not outweigh the need to protect the public. Previous supervision, probation, detention, licence conditions and a substantial custodial sentence had not prevented further offending. The psychiatric material gave no present reason to expect a change once the appellant regained liberty.

3. The seriousness of repeated hoax calls lay not only in the immediate disruption to emergency services. Each call could divert an ambulance, fire service, police or coastguard resource from a genuine emergency. Repetition increased the risk that a person in desperate need would not receive prompt assistance and might lose their life.

4. Society was entitled to expect the courts to protect against that risk. In the exceptional circumstances of persistent, high-risk offending and the absence of an effective alternative means of restraint or treatment, the lengthy sentences were justified despite their severity.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division): Appeal against sentence dismissed.

• Crown Court at Newcastle upon Tyne: The appellant was sentenced to concurrent terms of eight years’ imprisonment for 12 offences of public nuisance.