Raza, R v

The totality principle applies where an offender receives a mandatory minimum sentence for possessing a prohibited firearm and a consecutive sentence for another offence. The court must ensure that the aggregate term is proportionate to the overall criminality. However, totality must not substantially reduce the otherwise proper consecutive sentence so as to undermine Parliament’s mandatory minimum for the firearm offence.

Where a firearm is possessed in connection with commercial drug supply, sentencing must retain properly deterrent and commensurate effect. A post-trial starting point of 10 years’ imprisonment was appropriate for possession of cocaine with intent to supply where the quantity exceeded 500 grams at 100 per cent purity.

The appellant was convicted at Preston Crown Court of possessing a prohibited firearm, possessing ammunition without a firearms certificate, and possessing cocaine with intent to supply. The cocaine had a total purity equivalent of about 770 grams at 100 per cent. The firearm and ammunition were found in a van containing the drugs and cash.

He received five years’ imprisonment for the firearm offence, two years concurrently for ammunition, and eight years consecutively for the cocaine offence, making 13 years. He appealed only against the cocaine sentence, contending that its 10-year starting point was excessive. Leave was granted so that the court could consider the proper application of totality where a five-year mandatory minimum firearm sentence was also required.

1. Appeal dismissed. The sentencing judge was entitled to adopt a 10-year post-trial starting point for possession of cocaine with intent to supply. The applicable sentencing approach, endorsed in R v Aroyewumi and Aranguren [1995] 16 Cr.App.R (S) 211 and Attorney General's References Nos 66 to 71 of 2006 [2006] EWCA Crim 2777, treated 500 grams or more at 100 per cent purity as warranting that starting point. The quantity here was about 770 grams.

2. The judge was also entitled to treat the appellant as a commercial drug dealer. The compressed high-purity block, street-level wraps, cash, firearm and ammunition supported that conclusion. There was no evidence that he was merely a custodian or involved only once at an insignificant level.

3. The totality principle applied despite the mandatory five-year minimum for possessing the prohibited firearm. The sentencing court had to ask whether consecutive sentences produced an aggregate term disproportionate to the offender’s overall criminality.

4. That principle had to be applied consistently with Parliament’s assessment of the culpability inherent in prohibited-firearm possession. It could not justify a substantial reduction in an otherwise appropriate consecutive sentence which would render the mandatory minimum nugatory. In a case involving drugs and weapons possessed to support drug supply, the aggregate sentence had to preserve deterrent and commensurate punishment.

5. The two-year adjustment made to the cocaine sentence adequately reflected totality. The concurrent ammunition sentence, the absence of a guilty plea, the greater-than-threshold cocaine quantity, and the mandatory firearm term supported the resulting total of 13 years’ imprisonment.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) — in [2009] EWCA Crim 1413, dismissed the appeal against sentence.
• Crown Court at Preston — on 9 October 2008, convicted the appellant of the three offences; on 6 November 2008, imposed consecutive sentences of five and eight years’ imprisonment, with a concurrent two-year ammunition sentence, totalling 13 years.