Hill, R v

In assessing an offender’s role under the drug-offences guideline, the sentencing court must balance all relevant characteristics. A significant role may be established where the offender obtains drugs for personal use as an advantage and has some awareness of the operation’s scale. Claimed pressure from those higher in the supply chain may carry little weight where it results from the offender’s own offending.

The court should first determine the sentence that reflects the guideline and aggravating features, then reduce it for a guilty plea, and finally apply totality. Offending on bail is a serious aggravating feature. A stiff consecutive total sentence will not be disturbed unless it is manifestly excessive.

The appellant pleaded guilty to two offences of possessing Class A drugs with intent to supply, six offences of supplying Class A drugs, and possession of cannabis. The supply offences were committed while he was on bail after his arrest for the possession offences.

At the Crown Court at Snaresbrook, the judge treated him as having a significant role under the Sentencing Council’s Definitive Guideline on Sentencing for Drug Offences. She imposed concurrent sentences for each group of offences, with the second group consecutive to the first, producing a total of seven and a half years’ imprisonment.

He appealed against sentence. He contended that he had played a lesser role, that the judge had erred in addressing credit for guilty pleas, and that she had failed properly to apply totality.

1. Appeal dismissed. The total sentence of seven and a half years’ imprisonment was stiff and may have been at the upper end of the permissible range, but it was not manifestly excessive.
2. Under the drug-offences guideline, role is determined by balancing all relevant characteristics. The appellant’s prospect of receiving drugs for his own use was an advantage capable of demonstrating a significant role. His possession of appreciable drug stocks, cash and multiple telephones, together with his rapid return to street dealing after the first seizure, entitled the judge to find that he had some awareness and understanding of the scale of the operation.
3. The material was incompatible with his being merely a delivery person performing a limited errand. Although he was in a difficult position in dealings with those above him in the supply chain, the resulting pressure carried severely limited weight because it stemmed from his own criminal activity and his return to dealing while on bail. The judge was therefore entitled to classify his role as significant. The second group of offences, committed on bail, justified a starting point above the guideline starting point.
4. The sentencing judge’s statement that the aggravating feature of offending on bail reduced credit for a guilty plea was unhappily phrased. The correct sequence is first to determine sentence under the guideline, including aggravation; secondly to reduce that sentence for the plea; and finally to apply totality. The delayed pleas to the first group could attract no more than 15%, or at most 20%, credit. The early pleas to the second group justified one-third credit.
5. The judge had totality in mind. She was entitled to impose consecutive sentences for the separate groups while giving due weight to the serious aggravation of the later offending on bail.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division): dismissed the appeal against the total sentence: [2017] EWCA Crim 64.
• Crown Court at Snaresbrook: on 15 June 2016 imposed a total sentence of seven and a half years’ imprisonment for Class A drug offences, with ancillary forfeiture orders.