Gonsalves, R. v

Deliberate and persistent lies which divert a murder investigation, and may expose innocent people to suspicion, properly attract an immediate custodial sentence with a substantial deterrent element. However, sentencing remains individualised. Mercy may justify a reduced sentence where the offender acted initially in shock, was afraid of and dominated by the principal offender, has previous good character and low risk of reoffending, and subsequently demonstrates exemplary conduct in custody despite serious anxiety.

The appellant pleaded guilty at Cambridge Crown Court to acts tending and intended to pervert the course of public justice after she gave police a false account designed to conceal her partner's murder of a customer in their public house. She helped remove potentially incriminating material and maintained the account during the early investigation.

She was sentenced on 9 February 2007 to two years and six months’ imprisonment. The sentencing judge stressed the need to deter those who deliberately mislead a murder inquiry. The appellant appealed with leave, relying on her fear of and domination by her partner, her initial shock, good character, and new evidence of exemplary prison conduct and anxiety symptoms.

1. Appeal allowed to the extent of sentence. The court quashed the sentence of two years and six months’ imprisonment and substituted 18 months’ imprisonment. The 44 days served on remand were to count towards the substituted sentence.

2. The court fully endorsed the sentencing judge’s condemnation of the offence. The appellant knew that a man had died and deliberately sought to divert a murder investigation by inventing foreign assailants. Her persistence in the false account, including after caution and arrest, and the risk of suspicion falling on innocent people made a deterrent custodial sentence plainly appropriate.

3. Nevertheless, the court held that mercy could properly reduce the sentence in the exceptional personal circumstances. French had instigated the deception; the appellant feared him and was dominated by him. She entered into the initial lies while suffering shock after witnessing the killing, although she later continued them when she should have told the truth. She had not identified particular innocent people at the nightclub.

4. The court also took account of material unavailable to the sentencing judge: an exemplary prison report and medical evidence of anxiety and panic attacks during custody. Against her previous good character, otherwise respectable life and very low prospect of reoffending, those matters justified reducing, but not removing, the deterrent custodial sentence.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division): Allowed the appeal to the extent of substituting an 18-month sentence for the sentence of two years and six months: [2007] EWCA Crim 1408.

• Cambridge Crown Court: The appellant pleaded guilty on 5 December 2006 to acts tending and intended to pervert the course of public justice. On 9 February 2007, she was sentenced to two years and six months’ imprisonment.