G, R v

Where detention under section 91 is required for a child because the offending is too serious for the maximum detention and training order, the length of detention must still reflect the offender’s youth, immaturity, previous good character and personal vulnerabilities. A sentence may be excessive where those substantial mitigating features have not received sufficient weight.

G, aged 14 at the time, was convicted at Cardiff Crown Court of three counts of rape of a child under 13 and two counts of sexual assault of a child under 13. The offences concerned one ten-year-old complainant.

On 8 August 2008, the judge held that G was not dangerous but that the offending required detention under section 91. He imposed concurrent terms of four years’ detention for rape and two years’ detention for sexual assault.

G appealed against sentence. The issue was whether, despite the seriousness of the offending, a total term of four years gave adequate weight to his age, immaturity and other mitigation.

1. Appeal allowed as to sentence. The court quashed the concurrent four-year detention sentences for rape and substituted concurrent sentences of three years’ detention. The total sentence was therefore reduced to three years.
2. The offending was sufficiently serious to require a period of detention exceeding the maximum available under a detention and training order. Detention under section 91 was therefore inevitable.
3. However, four years was excessive. G was only 14 when the offences occurred and had no previous convictions, warnings or reprimands. The sentencing judge had also accepted that he was immature, naïve, fragile and unsophisticated, and that he had attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.
4. Those mitigating features justified reducing the appropriate concurrent sentence for each rape count to three years’ detention. The two-year concurrent sentences for sexual assault were unaffected.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division): allowed the sentence appeal and reduced the total term from four years to three years’ detention.
• Crown Court at Cardiff: on 8 August 2008, convicted G of three rapes and two sexual assaults of a child under 13, and imposed concurrent detention sentences totalling four years.