Boakye & Ors, R v

For an Attorney General’s reference, a sentence at the bottom of the appropriate range is not necessarily unduly lenient. The appellate court must assess the gravity of the offending, the guidance for comparable offences, the individual offenders’ roles and mitigation, and the sentencing judge’s position in having conducted the trial.

A carefully planned ransom kidnapping involving prolonged detention, violence, threats and a substantial demand is very serious. Nevertheless, where the sentencing judge has made a difficult assessment of relative culpability and the sentences remain within the permissible range, the court will not interfere merely because longer sentences could properly have been imposed.

The Attorney General applied under section 36 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988 to review sentences imposed on six offenders for conspiracies to kidnap, falsely imprison and blackmail Mohsin Patel.

The offenders executed a planned kidnapping for ransom. The victim was held for about 23 hours, bound and blindfolded, assaulted, burned and threatened while demands for money were made to his brother. Two offenders were convicted after trial and four pleaded guilty at differing stages. The Recorder imposed concurrent sentences ranging from four years’ detention in a young offender institution to eight years’ imprisonment.

The central issue was whether those sentences were unduly lenient rather than merely lenient when measured against the seriousness of the offending and the relevant sentencing guidance.

1. The Attorney General’s references were not upheld. Leave to refer was granted, but the court held that the sentences, although lenient, were not unduly lenient and would not be increased. Boateng’s own application for leave to appeal against sentence was without merit.

2. The court endorsed the Recorder’s assessment that this was a very serious, carefully planned criminal enterprise. Its aggravating features included a substantial ransom demand, violence, threats of grave injury or death, detention for almost 24 hours, and the serious fear caused both to the victim and to his brother.

3. The court applied the sentencing guidance in R v Spence and Thomas (1983) 5 Cr App R(S) 413. Planned abductions involving ransom occupy the upper end of seriousness, and violence or prolonged detention ordinarily calls for substantially longer sentences. The guidance nevertheless leaves room for sentencing judgment according to the particular circumstances.

4. The Recorder had presided over the trial, seen the victims give evidence, assessed the offenders’ respective roles, and faced uncertainty about responsibility for the torture. He had also allowed appropriate credit for guilty pleas and taken account of youth, previous character and other mitigation where applicable.

5. The eight-year starting point for the principal organiser, and the differentiated sentences for the others, lay at the lowest end of the appropriate range. Longer sentences could properly have been imposed, but the statutory threshold for intervention was not crossed. The existing sentences therefore remained undisturbed.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division): The Attorney General’s references under section 36 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988 were considered. Leave to refer was granted, but the court declined to interfere because the sentences were lenient but not unduly lenient.
• Crown Court at Southwark: On 30 March 2009, the Recorder sentenced the six offenders for conspiracies to kidnap, falsely imprison and blackmail, imposing concurrent custodial terms from four years’ detention to eight years’ imprisonment.