Ketteridge, R. v

Serious aggravating features may justify a sentence outside the guideline range applicable to an individual offence. Where repeated offending is reflected by consecutive sentences, however, the court must avoid double counting repetition as a reason also to exceed that range.

A driving disqualification may be imposed under section 147 of the Powers of Criminal Courts (Sentencing) Act 2000 where the statutory conditions are met and the vehicle facilitated the offending. A court may then take account of danger created for other road users when fixing the disqualification. It may not impose the order solely as punishment for an uncharged driving offence.

The appellant appealed, with the single judge’s leave, against sentences imposed at Sheffield Crown Court on 29 July 2014 for two offences of indecent exposure. He received consecutive terms of five and four months’ imprisonment and a 12-month driving disqualification.

Each offence involved exposure and masturbation while the appellant drove near young people. The second was committed shortly after he had been granted Crown Court bail in relation to the first. He had also recently received a caution for similar conduct.

The appeal challenged the offence categorisation under the sexual offences guideline, the decision to impose immediate custody rather than a community order with treatment, and the driving disqualification.

1. Appeal dismissed. The sentences of five months’ and four months’ imprisonment, made consecutive, were neither wrong in principle nor manifestly excessive. Although the sentencing judge had treated the offences as category 1, each sentence fell within the category 2 custody range when the identified aggravating features and credit for guilty pleas were taken into account.

2. Aggravating factors may be sufficiently serious to take a sentence beyond the range for the category into which an individual offence falls. Where repetition is reflected by consecutive sentences, the sentencing court must take care not also to use that repetition to sentence outside the appropriate range for each offence. On the facts, there had been no such double counting.

3. A community order was not so clearly indicated that immediate custody was wrong in principle. The appellant’s risk assessment and the availability of sexual-offence treatment did not make custody inappropriate in the circumstances.

4. Section 146 of the Powers of Criminal Courts (Sentencing) Act 2000 is a general additional punishment power: see Sofekum [2009] 1 Cr App R (S) 78. More importantly, section 147 authorised disqualification because the offences were punishable in the Crown Court by two years’ imprisonment or more and the appellant’s vehicle facilitated their commission. The car was the means by which both offences were committed.

5. Had danger to other road users been the sole basis for disqualification, the order would have offended principle because no driving offence was charged. Once section 147 independently authorised the order, however, the judge was entitled to take account of the obvious danger created by the appellant’s driving when assessing the propriety and length of the 12-month disqualification.

1. Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) — Appeal against sentence, brought with the single judge’s leave, dismissed.

2. Sheffield Crown Court — On 29 July 2014, the appellant was sentenced for two offences of indecent exposure to consecutive terms totalling nine months’ imprisonment and was disqualified from driving for 12 months.