Ratcliffe, R v

In sentencing a very young offender for reckless criminal damage causing grave injury and a serious risk to life, the sentence must reflect both the actual and potential consequences. It must also give proper weight to the offender’s youth and to the fact that no death resulted. An adult starting point may be substantially reduced for age, but the final determinate sentence remains manifestly excessive if those mitigating features have not been given sufficient overall effect.

The applicant, aged 17 years and 8 months, pleaded guilty on the day fixed for trial to two offences of criminal damage reckless as to whether life would be endangered, contrary to section 1(2) of the Criminal Damage Act 1971.

He and an older co-accused dropped a 20.6kg block of bricks and mortar from a railway footbridge. It struck a passenger train and then the cab window of an oncoming freight train, seriously injuring its driver. At Worcester Crown Court, the applicant received two concurrent terms of seven and a half years’ detention under section 91 of the Powers of Criminal Courts (Sentencing) Act 2000.

His application for leave to appeal against sentence was referred to the full court. The central issue was whether the determinate term was manifestly excessive, having regard to the gravity of the conduct, the absence of a death, the applicant’s age, mitigation and the late guilty plea.

1. Appeal allowed. The concurrent terms of seven and a half years’ detention were manifestly excessive. The court substituted concurrent terms of six years’ detention.

2. The sentencing judge had correctly identified exceptional gravity. The railway driver suffered very serious and lasting injuries. The conduct was reckless, undertaken for amusement, and had potentially disastrous consequences because the driverless freight train travelled on before its automatic braking system operated.

3. The court did not fault the judge’s reasoning in selecting an adult starting point of ten years, reducing it by two years for the applicant’s age, or giving limited credit for a guilty plea entered on the first day of trial. The applicant had previously denied the offences and delayed his plea until trial.

4. Nevertheless, sentence had to be calibrated by reference to the fact that the victim did not die and that the applicant was a very young person. The court bore in mind R v Hancock and Shankland (1986) 82 Cr App R 264, in which adult offenders who killed a taxi driver after dropping a similar concrete block received substituted sentences of eight years’ imprisonment for manslaughter. Although sentences for involuntary manslaughter had increased since then, the comparison assisted the assessment of proportionality.

5. The offences were classified as serious specified violent offences under Schedule 15 to the Criminal Justice Act 2003. Dangerousness had therefore been considered, but the assessed low risk of serious harm meant that no indeterminate sentence was imposed. The appeal concerned only the appropriate determinate length.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division): Allowed the sentencing appeal and substituted concurrent terms of six years’ detention: [2008] EWCA Crim 471.

• Crown Court at Worcester: On 4 December 2007, imposed two concurrent terms of seven and a half years’ detention under section 91 of the Powers of Criminal Courts (Sentencing) Act 2000.