Adeojo, R. v

In sentencing robbery, the seriousness assessment under the definitive guidelines may move an offence involving minimal force to a higher level where the aggravating features are exceptionally serious. Relevant features include planning, group participation, anticipated profit and the deliberate targeting of a vulnerable victim.

A planned gang robbery of a cash-in-transit security guard may therefore justify a sentence at the border of levels 2 and 3 even where no weapon is used and no injury is caused. A disparity between co-offenders’ sentences is not unjustified where it reflects youth, welfare, reduced culpability and other individual mitigation.

The appellants pleaded guilty at the Crown Court at Inner London to robbery after participating with others in the attempted theft of a cash box containing £25,000 from a security guard delivering money to an ATM. Adeojo received four years’ detention in a young offender institution and Mugambwa received five years’ imprisonment.

They appealed with leave, contending that their sentences were manifestly excessive, outside the Sentencing Guidelines Council’s definitive robbery guidelines, and unjustifiably disparate from the community sentence imposed on their 16-year-old co-offender. The central issues were the appropriate guideline seriousness level and whether the difference in sentences created a proper sense of grievance.

1. The appeals were dismissed. The sentences were fair and appropriate and disclosed no manifest excess.

2. The definitive robbery guidelines ordinarily treated the force used to remove the cash box as level 1 seriousness. However, the court was entitled to move an offence to a higher level where its aggravating features were exceptionally serious. This offence involved advance planning, a stolen getaway car with altered numberplates, group participation, an expectation of substantial gain, and the deliberate selection of a vulnerable cash-in-transit security guard. Those features placed it on the border between levels 2 and 3.

3. The offence fell short of the professionally planned, armed commercial robberies addressed in Turner. The definitive guidelines therefore remained relevant, although the wide gap between their range and the guidance for armed commercial robberies meant that they could provide only limited assistance in fixing sentence.

4. The judge’s notional starting points were not excessive. The absence of weapons and injury did not outweigh the planning, gang operation, anticipated high profit and vulnerable victim. The judge also gave proper credit for the guilty pleas.

5. The substantially more lenient sentence imposed on the co-offender did not create an unjustified disparity. He was a child when the offence was committed, had no previous convictions, had a less culpable accepted basis of plea, and was subject to a demanding community intervention. Those matters explained the difference consistently with sentencing principle.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division): In [2008] EWCA Crim 1552, dismissed both appeals against sentence.
• Crown Court at Inner London: Following guilty pleas to robbery, sentenced Adeojo to four years’ detention in a young offender institution and Mugambwa to five years’ imprisonment.