BW, R (on the application of) v Caernarfon Youth Court & Anor

A Youth Court may retain a residual power under section 3C of the Powers of Criminal Courts (Sentencing) Act 2000 to commit a defendant for sentence after accepting summary jurisdiction and receiving a guilty plea. The phrase “summary trial” is apt to include such proceedings. The power is exceptional and depends on material emerging later which changes the assessment of seriousness or future risk.

The statutory dangerousness criteria must be applied carefully to a very young offender. The court must consider the risk of serious harm, the applicable sentence threshold, the offender’s age and development, and the likely effect of intervention and supervision. On the facts, committal was not reasonably open to the District Judge.

The claimant, aged 11, pleaded guilty in the Youth Court to serious sexual offences against a six-year-old child. The District Judge initially accepted summary jurisdiction because a sentence approaching two years’ detention appeared unlikely. After receiving pre-sentence reports, he concluded that the claimant posed a significant risk of serious harm from further specified offences and committed him to the Crown Court for sentence under section 3C of the Powers of Criminal Courts (Sentencing) Act 2000.

On judicial review, the claimant argued that there had been no “summary trial”, that the statutory criteria were not met, and that he had a legitimate expectation of sentence in the Youth Court. The central issues were the scope of section 3C and whether its dangerousness criteria were satisfied.

1. Interpretation of section 3C. The claim succeeded in substance. “Summary trial” in section 3C includes summary proceedings in which the Youth Court has accepted summary jurisdiction and the defendant subsequently pleads guilty. The absence of an opening, evidence and submissions on guilt does not prevent the proceedings from being a summary trial.
2. The Youth Court has a residual power, in very exceptional circumstances, to commit a defendant for sentence under section 3C after accepting summary jurisdiction. Later evidence, including pre-sentence reports, may materially alter the assessment of the seriousness of the offending and the risk of repetition. The claimant therefore had no legitimate expectation that sentence would necessarily take place in the Youth Court.
3. The relevant statutory question was whether there was a significant risk of serious harm to members of the public from further specified offences and whether the sentence criteria in sections 226(3) or 228(2A) of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 were met. Given the amendments, the judge also had to consider whether a determinate sentence of at least four years’ detention would have been appropriate after the guilty pleas. A sentence under the dangerousness provisions would therefore have required a starting point of six years’ detention.
4. Assessment of future risk in the case of a very young offender must take account of the likelihood of maturation and change, together with the effect of treatment, supervision and other intervention. The claimant’s young age, developmental immaturity, limited culpability, period without further sexual behaviour, favourable response to supervision and susceptibility to positive influence made it unlikely that the statutory criteria were satisfied.
5. Although the offending was alarming and the District Judge was entitled to be concerned about future risk, it was not reasonably open to him to conclude that an indeterminate or extended sentence could properly be imposed. The committal was quashed and the Youth Court was directed to proceed to sentence.

The judgment itself records no appeal from an earlier decision. Permission for judicial review was granted at the oral hearing, following an earlier adjournment of the permission application on 8 March 2013.