Crown Prosecution Service v Newcastle-Upon-Tyne Youth Court

When deciding whether a defendant under 18 should remain in the Youth Court, the court must assess whether there is a realistic prospect of a sentence substantially exceeding the Youth Court’s powers. It must consider the available sentencing range and the particular facts, rather than predict the sentence that it would impose or select the most favourable outcome for the defendant. Numerical sentencing guidelines assist the assessment but must not control it. A previous relationship between the parties does not reduce the seriousness of rape and may involve a breach of trust. Judicial review in criminal proceedings must be brought with promptness and, where necessary, speed. Although a venue decision may be erroneous, relief may properly be refused where prosecutorial delay has caused substantial prejudice to the defendant.

The Crown Prosecution Service sought judicial review of a decision made by a District Judge in the Newcastle-upon-Tyne Youth Court on 21 April 2010. The judge retained Youth Court jurisdiction over MP, who was charged with rape and witness intimidation, because he considered that the likely sentence for the rape would not exceed the Youth Court’s two-year detention and training limit.

MP had intended to plead guilty and did so while still aged 17. The CPS subsequently decided to challenge the venue decision but issued proceedings only after a substantial period of internal consideration. By then MP had turned 18, and a transfer to the Crown Court would have exposed him to age-related sentencing and rehabilitation consequences. The central issues were whether the District Judge had applied the correct test and, if so, whether relief should nevertheless be refused because of the CPS’s delay.

1. Venue test. The application was substantively well founded. Section 24(1) of the Magistrates Courts Act requires a Youth Court to retain jurisdiction unless the offence is sufficiently grave and there is a real prospect that the defendant may require a sentence within the scope of section 91 of the Powers of Criminal Courts Sentencing Act 2000. A sentence of about two and a half years is substantially beyond the Youth Court’s ordinary powers, but it is not an inflexible bottom limit.
2. The decision-maker must consider what sentence is realistically possible within the non-manifestly-excessive range. The exercise is not a prediction of the likely sentence and is not an assessment of what the Youth Court itself would impose. Sentencing guidelines provide useful assistance in establishing a bracket, but figures are subordinate to the evaluative assessment of the facts, the defendant’s age, the guilty plea, aggravating features and other relevant matters.
3. The District Judge had erred by adopting an arithmetical approach, making his own assessment of MP’s maturity, treating the previous relationship as mitigating, and taking the facts at their most favourable to MP. The rape’s circumstances could realistically be regarded as aggravating, including the breach of trust, the victim’s vulnerability, and ejaculation. It was therefore not open to the District Judge to conclude that there was no realistic prospect of a Crown Court sentence exceeding two years.
4. Judicial review must be brought promptly, with speed particularly important where criminal proceedings and an interlocutory venue decision are involved. The CPS’s successive internal reports and consultations delayed proceedings for about five weeks. That delay caused more than minimal prejudice, including the loss of age-related sentencing consequences and increased uncertainty, and was not attributable to MP.
5. Despite the reviewable error, it would be unjust to quash the venue decision after the CPS’s delay. The application was dismissed, the stay was lifted with immediate effect, and there was no order as to costs. The Youth Court retained jurisdiction to proceed to sentence.

The decision under review was made by the Newcastle-upon-Tyne Youth Court on 21 April 2010. The High Court (Administrative Court) held that the District Judge had applied the wrong approach but refused to quash the decision because the CPS’s delay had prejudiced MP.