Stannard & Ors, R v

For sentencing decisions made before 14 July 2008, imprisonment for public protection under section 225 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 was mandatory where its conditions were met and life imprisonment was inappropriate. The assessment of future dangerousness had to use all available information, including earlier offending committed before 4 April 2005. The greater gravity of that earlier offending could not justify disapplying the statutory regime for a qualifying later offence.

The minimum term had to reflect the totality of the offender’s criminality. However, imprisonment for public protection could not be imposed unless the relevant offence was proved to have been committed after the Act came into force.

Three unconnected appeals against sentence raised a common issue about the transitional operation of imprisonment for public protection under the Criminal Justice Act 2003. Each appellant had committed sexual offences both before and after 4 April 2005, or was alleged to have done so.

Stannard and Andrew received determinate or extended sentences after judges treated their earlier, more serious offending as a reason not to impose imprisonment for public protection. Clarkson received imprisonment for public protection for an offence alleged to have occurred across the commencement date. The Crown accepted that the date of that offence could not be established with sufficient certainty.

The central questions were whether earlier and more serious offending displaced the statutory duty to impose imprisonment for public protection for later qualifying offences, and whether the sentence was available where the post-commencement date of the relevant offence was not proved.

1. The court dismissed Stannard’s and Andrew’s appeals, but allowed Clarkson’s appeal. It held that, before the amendments taking effect on 14 July 2008, section 225 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 required imprisonment for public protection where an offender aged 18 or over had committed a qualifying serious offence after 4 April 2005, presented the statutory significant risk of serious harm, and life imprisonment was inappropriate.

2. The dangerousness assessment was directed to future protection of the public. Under section 229, it required consideration of all information before the court, including the nature and circumstances of the offences, any relevant pattern of behaviour, and pre-commencement offending. The seriousness of earlier offences could not remove the statutory duty arising from qualifying later offences. The observation in R v Lang and others [2005] EWCA Crim 2864 had been misread: it addressed when no separate penalty might be imposed for earlier offences, not the disapplication of the new regime.

3. Where imprisonment for public protection was imposed, the minimum term had to reflect the totality of the offending. Serious earlier offences should generally receive determinate sentences so that their victims were properly recognised, although those sentences would be subsumed in fixing the minimum term.

4. Stannard should have received imprisonment for public protection, but the error favoured him. In the absence of an Attorney General’s reference, the court could not increase or alter his sentence. Andrew’s severe determinate sentence was not manifestly excessive, although his later offences and entrenched sexual obsession strongly supported an assessment of dangerousness.

5. For Clarkson, the prosecution could not establish that the offence supporting the sentence occurred after 4 April 2005. The Crown Court therefore lacked jurisdiction to impose imprisonment for public protection. That sentence and its minimum term were quashed. The court substituted concurrent sentences of two years on counts 1 to 5, 12 months concurrently on count 6, and 12 months consecutively on count 8, making three years’ imprisonment overall.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) — In conjoined sentence appeals, the court dismissed the appeals of Stannard and Andrew and allowed Clarkson’s appeal, quashing imprisonment for public protection and substituting determinate sentences: [2008] EWCA Crim 2789.
• Crown Court at Snaresbrook — Stannard received extended sentences for pre-commencement offences, with no separate penalty for later offences.
• Crown Court at Lincoln — Andrew received a total determinate sentence of 17 years’ imprisonment.
• Crown Court at Canterbury — Clarkson received imprisonment for public protection with a minimum term of two and a half years.