Butt, R. v

When deciding whether the statutory maximum is an appropriate sentencing starting point, a court should assess the worst type of offence that ordinarily comes before it. It should not imagine an unlikely, theoretically worse case. The relevant band may be broad where the maximum sentence is low.

In dangerous-driving cases, the gravity depends on the actual danger created. Driving while affected by alcohol and drugs, deliberately fleeing police, travelling against traffic on a dual carriageway, and causing other road users to take evasive action may justify a starting point at the maximum even though no person is seriously injured.

The appellant pleaded guilty in the Crown Court at Blackfriars to dangerous driving. He received 18 months’ imprisonment, having been disqualified from driving for two years and ordered to take an extended retest.

He had driven after consuming alcohol and with traces of heroin and Temazepam in his blood. When police officers approached his stationary car, he drove away, led them through residential streets, drove against traffic on the A4, and collided with two vehicles. No other person was injured.

With leave of the single judge, he appealed against sentence. The central issue was whether the judge had erred in taking the two-year maximum sentence for dangerous driving as the starting point.

1. Appeal dismissed. The sentencing judge was entitled to take the statutory maximum of two years’ imprisonment as the starting point and to reduce it to 18 months for the guilty plea.

2. The Court reaffirmed that the maximum sentence is reserved for the worst type of offending ordinarily encountered by the courts. Sentencers must not construct an unlikely hypothetical case in order to identify an even worse example. The fact that a more serious outcome might have occurred does not reduce the gravity of dangerous driving which created a real risk of that outcome.

3. The appellant’s conduct was exceptionally dangerous. It was not momentary driving. He deliberately drove away from police when affected by alcohol, heroin and prescription drugs, drove at speed through residential roads, travelled the wrong way along a restricted dual carriageway, and caused oncoming traffic to take evasive action. It was providential that nobody was seriously hurt.

4. Examples involving greater speed, longer distances, deliberate damage, or an intention to injure did not establish that this offending fell below the maximum band. Those circumstances may affect gravity or generate further charges, but the danger of this driving had to be assessed on its own facts.

5. Although the Court observed that the maximum for dangerous driving appeared out of line with the later maximum for causing death by dangerous driving, that was a matter for Parliament. The sentence was neither manifestly excessive nor wrong in principle. There was no order for recovery of defence costs.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division): Sentence appeal dismissed: [2006] EWCA Crim 47.
• Crown Court at Blackfriars: The appellant pleaded guilty to dangerous driving and was sentenced to 18 months’ imprisonment, disqualified for two years, and ordered to take an extended retest.