Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), R (On the Application Of) v South Tyneside Youth Court & Anor

In youth-court allocation cases involving offences within the Powers of Criminal Courts (Sentencing) Act 2000, the court must apply the statutory requirement to send a case for Crown Court trial where there is a real prospect that the young defendant may require detention beyond the youth court’s powers. Before the 2015 amendment, allocation was effectively irrevocable because no general power existed to commit a defendant for sentence after a youth-court trial. The amendment changed that position. The assessment should ordinarily be made after conviction, when the full circumstances of the offence and offender are known. Taking the prosecution case at its highest is no longer generally required. Crown Court trial remains reserved for the most serious cases.

A 16-year-old defendant faced charges under the Sexual Offences Act 2003. The South Tyneside Youth Court retained jurisdiction for trial, believing that it could commit him to the Crown Court for sentence if necessary. The decision was made on 13 March 2015, before the relevant amendment came into force. With permission, the Director of Public Prosecutions brought judicial review proceedings challenging the venue decision. The central issues were whether the District Judge had misunderstood the available committal powers and how the amended statutory scheme should operate in future cases.

The Divisional Court quashed the District Judge’s decision and remitted the matter for further consideration. The District Judge had wrongly proceeded on the basis that a general power existed to commit the defendant for sentence after retaining jurisdiction for trial. In March 2015, the only relevant routes to committal for sentence were an indicated guilty plea under section 3B or the dangerousness provisions under section 3C of the Powers of Criminal Courts (Sentencing) Act 2000. Neither applied. The venue decision was therefore effectively irrevocable, and the statutory question under section 51A of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 had to be addressed on that footing.

The court confirmed the general policy that defendants under 18, particularly those under 15, should wherever possible be tried in the youth court. Crown Court trial should be reserved for the most serious cases. The real-prospect test stated in R (H, A and O) v Southampton Youth Court [2004] EWHC (Admin) 2912 remained the appropriate interpretation of section 51A.

Section 53 of the Criminal Justice and Courts Act 2015 amended section 3B so that, after conviction in the youth court, a defendant may be committed for sentence where the Crown Court should have power to impose detention under section 91(3) of the 2000 Act. Because the allocation decision is no longer once and for all, the requirement in R (W and M) v Oldham Youth Court [2010] EWHC 661 to take the prosecution case at its highest no longer applies generally.

In future, the real-prospect assessment will usually be made after the full circumstances of the offence and offender are known. Cases in which detention of two years or more is a real prospect irrespective of those circumstances are likely to be rare. Homicide and offences subject to minimum terms under the Firearms Act 1968 remain outside the real-prospect test. The court expressed concern about delay but left future conduct of the prosecution to the CPS.

This was a judicial review claim in the Administrative Court challenging the South Tyneside Youth Court’s venue decision. The decision was quashed and remitted for further consideration.