Mashoud, R. v

In sentencing offences of possessing class A drugs with intent to supply within prison, a court may impose a deterrent sentence directed to the recognised general problem of prison drug dealing. It must nevertheless impose a sentence proportionate to comparable sentencing decisions and to the offender’s circumstances, including the absence of credit for a guilty plea. A sentence is excessive where it materially exceeds the proper level indicated by those comparable cases. A sentencing judge may reject an offender’s account where the verdict and evidence support that conclusion.

The appellant was convicted at Northampton Crown Court of possessing 0.57 grams of cocaine and 9.57 grams of heroin with intent to supply. The drugs were found with a mobile telephone and chargers during a search of his prison cell while he was serving a four-year sentence for a previous heroin-supply offence.

The judge imposed concurrent sentences of 10 years’ imprisonment. The appellant challenged the factual basis of sentence, the use of deterrence, and the length of sentence by reference to comparable cases involving prisoners found with drugs.

1. Appeal allowed as to sentence. The concurrent sentences of 10 years’ imprisonment were quashed and concurrent sentences of seven years’ imprisonment were substituted. The order that 95 days already spent in custody should count towards sentence remained in force.
2. The judge was entitled to reject the appellant’s account that he held a package for another prisoner believing it contained only a telephone and chargers. The jury’s verdict, and the evidence, supported the conclusion that the appellant knowingly possessed the drugs for supply.
3. The judge was also entitled to impose a deterrent sentence. His observations were properly understood as referring to the well-known general problem of drugs in prisons, rather than as treating an unproved local problem at Wellingborough prison as an aggravating fact.
4. However, the 10-year term was excessive when compared with the sentences in R v Prince [1996] 1 Cr.App.R (S) 335, R v Appleton [1999] 2 Cr.App.R (S) 289, and Tanveer Waheed [2004] 1 Cr.App.R (S) 26. The first two involved five-year sentences following guilty pleas. Allowing for conviction after trial and the absence of plea mitigation, seven years was the proper sentence.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) — allowed the sentence appeal, quashed the concurrent 10-year sentences, and substituted concurrent seven-year sentences: [2008] EWCA Crim 2523.
• Crown Court at Northampton — on 23 May 2008, convicted the appellant of two counts of possessing class A drugs with intent to supply and imposed concurrent sentences of 10 years’ imprisonment.