Challenger, R v

A minimum term under a sentence of detention for public protection is the earliest point at which the Parole Board may consider release. It does not determine the date of release.

The minimum term must reflect the determinate sentence justified by the offending after credit for a guilty plea. Sentencing brackets for knife wounding are guidance rather than fixed limits. Exceptionally grave features, including an unprovoked pursuit and stabbing that nearly causes death, may justify a substantial sentence. However, the available sentencing guidance did not justify a minimum term equating to a determinate sentence of about ten years in this case.

The appellant, aged 17, pleaded guilty at Plymouth Crown Court to wounding with intent contrary to section 18 of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861. He had pursued a stranger who tried to escape and stabbed him twice with a folding knife. The chest wound penetrated the victim’s heart and would have been fatal without immediate surgery.

On 2 March 2007, the judge imposed detention for public protection with a minimum term of five years less 59 days. A concurrent four-month term was imposed for a common assault committed while the appellant was on remand. The appeal challenged both the dangerousness finding and the minimum term.

1. The appeal was allowed only as to the minimum term. The court refused the renewed challenge to detention for public protection. On the facts, the appellant’s antecedents, and the pre-sentence and psychiatric material, the judge was fully entitled to find a significant risk that he would cause serious harm to the public.

2. A minimum term is the period to be served before the Parole Board considers release. It is not a prediction of the period actually to be served. The appropriate minimum must therefore be assessed by reference to the determinate sentence that would have been imposed for the offence, with proper credit for the guilty plea.

3. The court declined to rely on the apparent four-and-a-half-year minimum term in Laing [2005] EWCA Crim 2864, because no argument about that term had been heard and the court had expressed no view on it. It treated the guidance in Attorney General reference No. 26 of 2004 (R v Hughes) [2004] EWCA Crim 1384, which referred to a three-to-eight-year bracket for knife wounding under section 18, as guidance only.

4. This was nevertheless an exceptionally serious example of knife wounding. It was an unprovoked attack on a stranger, followed by pursuit and two stab wounds. The victim came very close to death. The court also stressed the need for courts to deter the ready use of knives.

5. Even allowing for those grave features, the available authorities did not justify a minimum term of five years, equating to a determinate sentence after plea of about ten years. The minimum term was reduced to four years. The court observed that this did not mean that the appellant would necessarily be released then; release remained dependent on the Parole Board being satisfied that he no longer posed the relevant danger.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) — By [2007] EWCA Crim 2445, allowed the appeal to the limited extent of reducing the minimum term from five years less 59 days to four years. The challenge to detention for public protection was refused.

• Crown Court at Plymouth — On 2 March 2007, imposed detention for public protection with a five-year minimum term less 59 days for wounding with intent, and a concurrent four-month term for common assault.