MK, R. v

A sentencing court may properly treat as serious aggravating features the reckless administration of a dangerous drug to a very young child, an abuse of a position of care and trust, and a failure to disclose the cause of the child’s life-threatening condition to those providing medical treatment. On a sentence appeal, the Court of Appeal will not intervene where the sentencing judge has carefully weighed the relevant aggravating and mitigating matters, the sentence is not wrong in principle, and it is not manifestly excessive.

The appellant pleaded guilty at the Crown Court at Luton to administering methadone to a three-year-old child so as to endanger the child’s life, contrary to section 23 of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861. The child became unconscious and suffered respiratory arrest. Medical evidence showed that the dose was life-threatening.

The appellant said that he had used the child’s urine in an attempt to obtain a methadone prescription and had not foreseen serious illness. He summoned an ambulance after the child became seriously ill, but did not tell the ambulance staff or doctors that he had administered methadone. He received four and a half years’ imprisonment after full credit for his guilty plea.

He appealed on the grounds that the sentence was manifestly excessive and insufficient weight had been given to his age and relative good character.

1. Appeal dismissed. The sentence of four and a half years’ imprisonment was neither wrong in principle nor manifestly excessive.
2. The appellant’s conduct was a clear case of recklessness. Although the accepted basis of plea established that he did not foresee the grave consequences, his age, drug history and responsibility for a three-year-old child meant that mature reflection should have alerted him to the significant risk created by administering methadone.
3. The sentencing judge was entitled to regard three matters as aggravating: the abuse of trust involved in using a child in his care for the appellant’s own purpose; the life-threatening condition caused; and, most seriously, his failure to tell the medical professionals what he had done. That failure left doctors without the relevant information, may have prolonged the child’s suffering, and created a further substantial risk to the child’s wellbeing.
4. The judge had given full credit for the guilty plea and had taken account of the absence of an intention to injure. The Court of Appeal held that the judge had carefully considered all relevant mitigating and aggravating factors. No reduction was warranted.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division): The appeal against sentence was dismissed: [2008] EWCA Crim 425.
• Crown Court at Luton: On 13 November 2007, following a guilty plea, the appellant was sentenced to four and a half years’ imprisonment for an offence under section 23 of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861.