Cook, R. v

For a bomb-hoax offence, immediate custody may be unavoidable and substantial even where the offender has personality disorder and limited intellectual functioning. Sentencing must nevertheless reflect the offender’s early guilty plea and the extent to which mental-health difficulties do, or do not, contribute to the offence.

On the particular facts, a sentence of three years’ imprisonment for communicating false information intending to induce belief that a bomb would explode was excessive. A sentence of two years’ imprisonment properly reflected the seriousness of the false emergency call, the offender’s record and the mitigating material.

The appellant pleaded guilty in the Magistrates’ Court to communicating false information to a 999 operator, intending to induce a belief that a bomb was about to explode at Canary Wharf, contrary to section 51 of the Criminal Law Act 1977, and to wasting police time.

At Southwark Crown Court, he received three years’ imprisonment for the first offence, with no separate penalty for the second. He appealed against sentence with the leave of the single judge. The central issue was whether the three-year term was excessive in light of the seriousness of the call, his record, his early plea and the psychiatric evidence.

1. Appeal allowed to the extent of reducing the sentence. The Court substituted a sentence of two years’ imprisonment for the three-year term imposed for the section 51 offence.

2. The offence was grave. The appellant falsely told a 999 operator that he was at Canary Wharf and intended to blow it up. The call caused police attendance, the commencement of a search and enquiries to trace the caller. His record included violence, dishonesty and public-order offending, offences committed while on bail, and repeated failure to comply with non-custodial sentences.

3. The psychiatric material did not provide a basis for a hospital order or a community disposal. The reports diagnosed personality disorder and described impulsive behaviour and brief psychotic episodes. They did not identify a mental illness warranting detention under the Mental Health Act, and the offence was not judged to be related primarily to mental illness. A substantial prison sentence was therefore inevitable.

4. However, the appellant had pleaded guilty at the earliest opportunity after charge. Taking that plea and the psychiatric material into account, the Court concluded that three years was too high for this offence and offender. Two years’ imprisonment was the proper sentence.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division): Allowed the appeal against sentence and reduced the term from three years’ to two years’ imprisonment.

• Southwark Crown Court: On 28 October 2005, imposed three years’ imprisonment for the section 51 offence and no separate penalty for wasting police time.

• Magistrates’ Court: On 14 June 2005, the appellant pleaded guilty to both offences.