Jumah, R v

Manslaughter caused by the use of a knife during a planned robbery is an offence of the utmost seriousness. Sentence must reflect the offender’s overall culpability, including planning, organisation, recruitment and knowledge that a knife might be used.

A sentence for a further homicide must provide real additional punishment, subject to totality. Under section 143(1) of the Criminal Justice Act 2003, however, an offender cannot receive additional punishment for a fatal stabbing that was outside the agreed robbery and of which he was acquitted.

The Attorney General referred as unduly lenient the sentences imposed on four members of a planned conspiracy to rob a store. During the robbery, one participant fatally stabbed the duty manager.

Jumah, Maina and Osei-Owusu were convicted of manslaughter because they knew that the principal offender carried a knife which he might use to cause some physical injury. Chambers was acquitted of murder and manslaughter but convicted of conspiracy to rob.

The central issues were whether the manslaughter sentences adequately reflected the killing, whether Maina’s sentence produced additional punishment for a second homicide, and whether the death could aggravate Chambers’s sentence for conspiracy.

1. The Attorney General’s Reference was allowed in part. Jumah’s sentence for manslaughter was increased from 14 to 18 years’ imprisonment. Maina’s detention for public protection, with a six-year minimum term, was ordered to run consecutively to his existing mandatory life sentence and its 14-year minimum term. The sentences of Osei-Owusu and Chambers were not altered.

2. Manslaughter by the use of a knife in a planned robbery is of the utmost seriousness. The court treated the sentencing approach reflected in Appleby and others [2009] EWCA Crim 2693, Wood [2010] 1 Cr App Re (S) 2, and R v M, AM and Kika [2009] EWCA Crim 2544 as emphasising both the increased seriousness of crimes resulting in death and the aggravating nature of knife use. Jumah organised and planned the robbery, recruited others and knew that a knife might be used. His original sentence did not reflect his overall criminality.

3. Maina’s original concurrent sentence produced no additional punishment for a second homicide committed while he was on bail for the first. The court accepted that totality and his age required restraint, but held that a consecutive public-protection sentence with a six-year minimum term was the appropriate practical solution.

4. Section 143(1) of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 could not be used to punish Chambers for homicide after his acquittal of murder and manslaughter. He had to be sentenced on the basis that he joined a robbery without knowledge that a knife or weapon would be used. The fatal stabbing was outside that agreement and was not a foreseeable consequence of his offending. His seven-year sentence for conspiracy remained within the reasonable ambit of the sentencing judge’s discretion.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division): Allowed the Attorney General’s Reference in part and varied the sentences of Jumah and Maina.
• Central Criminal Court: His Honour Judge Stephens QC sentenced the four offenders on 22 March 2010.