Karrar & Ors v R.

Where the conditions in section 225 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 are met, a life sentence is required if the offending is serious enough to justify it. The statutory inquiry requires an assessment of the offending, relevant convictions, future danger and available sentences. A discretionary life sentence outside that regime also remains available for offences of the utmost gravity.

Definitive sentencing guidelines must be considered, but they are not an inflexible starting point. In an exceptionally grave campaign of sexual offending, the guideline structure and earlier sentencing comparisons may provide only limited assistance. The court must impose the sentence required by the individual criminality, aggravating features and harm caused.

Four applicants were convicted at the Central Criminal Court of conspiracies to rape, rape, arranging or facilitating child prostitution, and trafficking for sexual exploitation. The offences formed part of a sustained campaign of sexual exploitation of vulnerable young girls in the Oxford area.

All received life sentences with minimum terms and concurrent determinate sentences. Three applicants renewed applications concerning sentence. The first applicant renewed applications against both conviction and sentence.

The conviction challenge concerned the prosecution's unpursued pre-trial application to adduce a previous conviction as bad character evidence. The principal common issue was whether the life sentences and their notional determinate terms were wrong or manifestly excessive.

1. Disposition. The court refused the first applicant's renewed application for leave to appeal against conviction. It granted all four applicants leave to appeal against sentence, but dismissed each sentence appeal.
2. Life sentences. The dangerous-offender conditions in section 225 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 were met. The trial judge was entitled to find each applicant dangerous and the seriousness of the offences justified life imprisonment. The court also held that the evidence independently justified a discretionary life sentence.
3. Statutory framework. Following R v Saunders and others [2013] EWCA Crim 1027, discretionary life sentences outside the statutory regime remained available after the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012. Under the current statutory regime, however, the former denunciatory-value threshold was not an additional requirement. Applying the guidance in Attorney-General's Reference (No 27 of 2013) (R v Burinskas) [2014] EWCA Crim 334, the seriousness inquiry required consideration of the offending, prior convictions, future danger and alternative sentences.
4. Terms of imprisonment. Definitive guidelines had to be considered, but did not supply a starting point for this exceptionally serious campaign. The offences involved multiple child victims, grooming, drugs, threats, extreme violence, repeated rape, sexual exploitation for profit, degradation and profound lasting harm. Earlier sentencing decisions were of limited assistance. The trial judge had carefully distinguished the individual roles and culpability of each applicant. The minimum terms of 17 years for each Dogar brother, 12 years for Jamil and 15 years for Bassam Karrar, with the concurrent terms imposed, were not excessive.
5. Conviction challenge. The prosecution was not obliged formally to withdraw its earlier bad-character application. The possibility that it might be revived if the applicant gave evidence did not constitute improper pressure or deprive him of a free and advised choice. The proposed conviction ground was unarguable.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division): Renewed applications against sentence were permitted, but the appeals were dismissed; the renewed application for leave to appeal against conviction was refused: [2015] EWCA Crim 850.
• Central Criminal Court (Old Bailey): The applicants were convicted on 14 May 2013 and sentenced by HHJ Rook QC on 27 June 2013 to life imprisonment with minimum terms and concurrent determinate sentences.