Seit, R. v

For a sentence for unlawful wounding, the court must distinguish the lesser intent required for a section 20 offence from the intent required for a section 18 offence. A serious injury caused by a single punch may justify immediate custody, particularly where there is aggravating conduct and no remorse. However, the sentence must remain proportionate to the offence and consistent with relevant sentencing authorities.

Where a consecutive sentencing structure properly reflects separate incidents, totality does not of itself require a further reduction.

The appellant was sentenced in the Crown Court at Teesside for unlawful wounding and common assault arising from incidents on 3 May 2006. He received three years’ imprisonment for unlawfully wounding a man by a single punch which fractured his jaw, and six months consecutively for assaulting the man’s daughter.

He also received concurrent six-month sentences, consecutive to those terms, for possession of an offensive weapon and affray. His total sentence was four years’ imprisonment. He appealed against sentence, contending principally that the three-year term for unlawful wounding was manifestly excessive and that totality required reduction.

1. The appeal was allowed only to the extent of reducing the sentence for unlawful wounding from three years to two years’ imprisonment. The total sentence was consequently reduced from four years to three years’ imprisonment.

2. The offending was serious. The assaults were bullying, abusive and cowardly, the appellant had shown no remorse, and the earlier possession of a machete was far from trivial. Immediate custody of some length was therefore inevitable. The separate common assault properly attracted a consecutive sentence.

3. Nevertheless, the three-year sentence for unlawful wounding was out of line with the relevant authorities. The Court stressed that the offence was one under section 20, not section 18. The differing intent required by those offences was important. That distinction did not diminish the seriousness of a single punch causing a fractured jaw, or the potential for such violence to have tragic consequences. It did, however, mean that the three-year term was excessive even allowing for the aggravated background.

4. There was no separate or additional basis for reducing the sentence on totality grounds. All other sentences remained unchanged.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) — by [2007] EWCA Crim 1108, allowed the sentence appeal only by reducing the unlawful-wounding term from three years to two years.
• Crown Court at Teesside — on 13 December 2006, imposed a total sentence of four years’ imprisonment for unlawful wounding, common assault, possession of an offensive weapon and affray.
• Magistrates’ court — on 1 August 2006, after guilty pleas to possession of an offensive weapon and affray, committed the appellant to the Crown Court for sentence.