ZTR, R v

The statutory assistance regime in the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 is unavailable where its express conditions are not met. At common law, the Court of Appeal will ordinarily not reduce a sentence for assistance first offered after sentence. Its function is to review the sentence imposed below, not to conduct a fresh sentencing exercise or reward post-sentence conduct.

An apparent exception permits later material to be considered where assistance was given, or was to be given, before sentence and its value later becomes clear. The statutory recognition of post-sentence assistance did not justify altering that established common-law rule. A person with significant post-sentence assistance may instead consider the Secretary of State's statutory power.

The applicant had previously been convicted of murder and other serious offences. He was serving life imprisonment with a substantial minimum term, together with determinate sentences for the other offences.

While in prison, he gave significant assistance to the police concerning matters arising long after his conviction. He sought a reduction in the murder minimum term. The statutory scheme was unavailable because he had been convicted of an offence carrying a sentence fixed by law and had not pleaded guilty.

The central issue was whether the common-law rule stated in R v A and B [1999] 1 Cr App R(S) 52 should be modified so that assistance first supplied after sentence could justify a reduction.

1. The court refused to reduce the applicant's minimum term. The statutory scheme in sections 73–75 of the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 did not apply, by virtue of section 74(13).
2. The court followed the established common-law principle in R v A and B [1999] 1 Cr App R(S) 52. Where a defendant denied guilt, was convicted after a contested trial, and had neither supplied valuable information nor indicated a willingness to do so before sentence, the Court of Appeal will ordinarily not reduce sentence for assistance first given afterwards. The court is a court of review and ordinarily reviews the material available to the sentencing court.
3. The later-material qualification did not assist the applicant. It applies where assistance had been given, or an undertaking to assist made, before sentence, but its value could only later be assessed or was not brought to the sentencing judge's attention. R v A [2006] EWCA Crim 1803 was an illustration of continuing pre-sentence assistance, not an exception for wholly new post-sentence cooperation.
4. The court declined to alter the rule. The pragmatic value of incentivising assistance, recognised in R v P and Derek Blackburn [2007] EWCA Crim 2290, had always informed the law but did not require a fresh appellate sentencing jurisdiction. Such a change would also risk encouraging the manufacture of assistance after conviction in the hope of reducing a long sentence.
5. The Parole Board could not reduce the minimum term. The applicant could consider an application to the Secretary of State under section 30 of the Criminal Justice Act 1997, although the court expressed no view on whether the facts justified its exercise.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) The court refused the applicant's request to reduce the minimum term: [2015] EWCA Crim 1427.
• Crown Court The applicant had earlier been convicted of murder and other serious offences, receiving life imprisonment for murder and determinate sentences for the other offences. The date and citation of that decision were not stated.