Walker, R. v

A sentencing court may properly impose consecutive custodial terms and activate a suspended sentence where a persistent offender commits further offences shortly after sentence and while on bail. The appellate court will not interfere where the individual terms, the activation of the suspended sentence, and the decision to make them consecutive are appropriate in all the circumstances.

The applicant had received a ten-month suspended sentence for burglary and attempted burglary on 6 November 2007. Within twelve days he committed theft and possessed a bladed article. After being released on bail, he committed a further theft eight days later.

At Leeds Crown Court on 24 January 2008, Judge MacGill imposed consecutive terms totalling 18 months for the new offences. He activated six months of the suspended sentence consecutively, producing a total of two years’ imprisonment. The applicant, a persistent thief with a longstanding drug addiction and extensive previous convictions, challenged the sentence after a single judge had refused leave.

The issue was whether the overall sentence and the consecutive ordering were excessive or otherwise wrong in principle.

1. The application was refused. The court held that the sentences imposed by Judge MacGill were unimpeachable and that the application was misconceived.

2. The new offences were committed almost immediately after the suspended sentence had been imposed. The second theft was committed after the applicant had been released on bail for the first theft and possession of the knife. Those circumstances demonstrated a rapid return to offending despite the opportunity provided by the suspended sentence.

3. The court took account of the applicant’s longstanding drug addiction and the sympathetic matters identified in the probation report. It nevertheless treated his extensive history of theft and related offending as highly material. He had 48 previous convictions for 74 offences and asked the court to take 89 further offences into consideration.

4. In those circumstances, the judge was entitled to activate the suspended sentence, although reducing the activated term from ten months to six months, and to order it consecutively to the 18 months imposed for the fresh offences. Consecutive sentencing was appropriate in all the circumstances. The resulting total sentence of two years’ imprisonment therefore stood.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division): The application challenging sentence was refused. The court upheld the total sentence of two years’ imprisonment.
• Crown Court at Leeds: On 24 January 2008, Judge MacGill imposed consecutive terms totalling 18 months for two thefts and possession of a bladed article, and activated six months of an earlier suspended sentence consecutively.
• Crown Court: On 6 November 2007, the applicant received ten months’ imprisonment suspended for two years for burglary and attempted burglary.