Docking & Ors, R v

Earlier sentencing guidance for attempted murder does not remain an appropriate guide where the established tariff for carrying and using firearms has materially increased. Deterrent sentences may properly reflect the grave public danger posed by gun crime.

Nevertheless, totality may make a consecutive sentence for associated dangerous driving excessive when a very long term has already been imposed for attempted murder. On a sentence appeal, the court assesses the sentence by reference to the information before the sentencing judge. An offender who deliberately withheld mitigation below faces substantial difficulty in relying on it for the first time on appeal.

The four offenders were sentenced at Sheffield Crown Court on 8 August 2003 following convictions arising from two violent retaliatory expeditions. Docking was convicted of attempted murder, possessing a shotgun with intent to endanger life, dangerous driving and driving while disqualified. Wild, Lewis and Cook were convicted of conspiracy to cause grievous bodily harm and conspiracy to commit criminal damage; Cook was also convicted of unlawful wounding arising from an earlier and separate attack.

Docking appealed his 20-year total sentence with leave. Wild, Lewis and Cook renewed applications for leave to appeal against their respective sentences of eight, 14 and 14 years' detention in a young offender institution. The central issue was whether the sentences, including their consecutive elements, were manifestly excessive.

1. Docking’s appeal was allowed. His total sentence was reduced from 20 to 16 years' imprisonment. The court substituted 16 years for the 18-year sentence for attempted murder and directed that the two-year sentence for dangerous driving run concurrently rather than consecutively. The concurrent 15-year sentence for possessing the shotgun with intent to endanger life was left unchanged.

2. The court rejected the submission that White 13 Cr App R (S) 108 remained appropriate sentencing guidance for attempted murder involving firearms. Public and judicial concern about firearms had increased. The tariff for carrying and using firearms had risen, including by the authority of Avis [1998] 2 Cr App R (S) 178. The sentencing judge was therefore entitled to impose a deterrent sentence for an attempted killing with a shotgun, particularly as Docking was on licence and had pursued the victims at extreme speed.

3. However, a 20-year aggregate sentence was excessive. The attempted murder sentence adequately reflected the gravity of the conduct. A further consecutive term for dangerous driving was not appropriate in addition to that very long sentence.

4. The renewed applications of Wild, Lewis and Cook were refused. Wild had been essential to the armed expedition by providing transport and had seen the weapons and disguises. His lesser knowledge than the principal offenders was reflected in his sentence. The difference between his sentence and Grantham’s was justified by Grantham’s substantially lesser awareness.

5. Lewis and Cook were properly treated as prime movers who knew that a loaded firearm was being carried. The court found evidential support for that conclusion in Cook’s case, though the judge should preferably have identified it more fully. Cook’s earlier unlawful wounding was a wholly separate incident, so its consecutive sentence was proper. The court also held that an appellant faces serious difficulty in advancing mitigation that was expressly withheld from the sentencing judge.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division): Docking’s sentence appeal was allowed in part. His total sentence was reduced from 20 to 16 years. The renewed sentence applications of Wild, Lewis and Cook were refused.
• Sheffield Crown Court: On 8 August 2003 Judge Goldsack QC sentenced Docking for attempted murder and associated offences, and sentenced Wild, Lewis and Cook for conspiracy offences. Cook also received a consecutive sentence for unlawful wounding.