Fevrier, R v

For serial, planned category 1 non-domestic burglaries committed professionally by an organised group, a sentence may properly exceed the guideline range where the sustained campaign, value and damage, harm to businesses, and aggravating features justify it. Totality does not require that later offences receive no additional sentence merely because related burglaries have already been sentenced. Where a sentencing judge clearly intended to allow the full one-third credit for guilty pleas but made an arithmetic error, the appellate court should correct the term to give effect to that intention.

The applicant pleaded guilty to nine non-domestic burglaries committed between December 2015 and April 2016. He was sentenced at Southwark Crown Court to four years and eight months’ imprisonment on each count, concurrently and concurrently with a 45-month sentence already being served for eight similar burglaries.

Seven offences had been committed for sentence under section 3 of the Powers of Criminal Courts (Sentencing) Act 2000; the applicant pleaded guilty to the remaining two on indictment. He challenged the five-year starting point, alleged double counting of aggravating features, and relied on totality. The central issues were whether the sentence was arguably manifestly excessive and whether the Recorder had correctly calculated guilty-plea credit.

1. Appeal allowed solely to correct an arithmetical error. The court granted leave, quashed the concurrent sentences of four years and eight months, and substituted concurrent sentences of four years and six months’ imprisonment.

2. The Recorder was entitled to treat the offending as a sustained, planned campaign of serial category 1 non-domestic burglaries. The applicant had a leading role in an organised and professional group. The offences involved substantial theft and deliberate damage, while the targeting of commercial premises created further harm through the loss of software and electronically stored information.

3. The court rejected the submissions that the five-year starting point was too high, that aggravating features had been double counted, and that totality required no additional sentence. When the nine offences were viewed with the eight similar burglaries sentenced in June 2016, there were 17 burglaries involving approximately £210,000 in stolen property and damage. The guideline’s top-end category 1 figure of five years did not preclude concurrent sentences above that range. A sentence of six years and nine months after a trial was not arguably manifestly excessive, particularly given the ten-year statutory maximum.

4. The Recorder had stated that full one-third credit was to be given for the guilty pleas. Reducing 81 months by one-third produced 54 months, namely four years and six months, rather than four years and eight months. The correction gave effect to the Recorder’s expressed intention. A favourable prison report did not justify any further reduction.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division). In [2017] EWCA Crim 2506, the court granted leave, quashed the four-year-eight-month sentence, and substituted four years and six months’ imprisonment.

• Crown Court at Southwark. On 14 October 2016, the Recorder sentenced the applicant for nine non-domestic burglaries to four years and eight months’ imprisonment on each count, concurrently and concurrently with an existing sentence.

• Magistrates’ Court. After guilty pleas, seven offences were committed for sentence pursuant to section 3 of the Powers of Criminal Courts (Sentencing) Act 2000.