Glyn, R v

In sentencing historic sexual offences, the court may use the modern equivalent offence and the current sexual-offences guideline as a measured aid. It must adjust for any difference between the historic and modern statutory maximums and avoid a mechanistic application of guideline ranges.

Overlapping features, such as breach of trust, grooming and age disparity, need not require an uplift within the applicable category range. The court must then give proper effect to mitigation, guilty-plea credit and totality. A sentence may be lenient without being unduly lenient, so that intervention on an Attorney General’s reference is not justified.

The Attorney General referred, under section 36 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988, sentences imposed at Norwich Crown Court on the offender for seven historic indecent assaults contrary to section 14(1) of the Sexual Offences Act 1956.

The offences, committed between 1979 and 1996 against six girls, included sexual touching and penetration. Most were committed while the offender was a teacher and the victims were pupils. He pleaded guilty on an agreed factual basis and received consecutive and concurrent sentences totalling five years’ imprisonment.

The central issue was whether that overall sentence was unduly lenient, having regard to the modern equivalent offences, current sentencing guidance, differences in statutory maxima, credit for plea, mitigation and totality.

1. Reference dismissed. Although the five-year total was lenient, it was not properly characterised as unduly lenient. The court therefore granted the Attorney General leave to refer the sentences but did not interfere with them.

2. The sentencing judge was entitled to use the modern equivalent offences and the sexual-offences guideline as an aid in sentencing historic offences. For the principal offences, the appropriate modern equivalent was section 9 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003, rather than section 16. The judge correctly recognised that the guideline required measured use because the maximum for the historic section 14 offence under the Sexual Offences Act 1956 was lower than the modern section 9 maximum.

3. The most serious offence was category 1A in terms of harm and culpability. Breach of trust, grooming and age disparity supported that assessment. However, those aggravating features overlapped. The Court of Appeal was not persuaded that they required an uplift within the category range before adjustment for the different statutory maxima, mitigation and guilty-plea credit.

4. If the most serious count had stood alone, a sentence of at least three and a half years’ imprisonment would have been expected, even allowing for the substantial mitigation. But it did not stand alone. The judge had to sentence a series of separate incidents involving separate victims. He imposed a number of consecutive terms and gave effect to totality in fixing the overall sentence.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division): On an Attorney General’s reference under section 36 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988, granted leave but declined to interfere with the five-year total sentence.
• Crown Court at Norwich: On 22 August 2017, imposed concurrent and consecutive terms for seven counts of indecent assault, totalling five years’ imprisonment.