Skilling, R v

In sentencing for robbery, the offender’s individual culpability must be assessed separately from that of a co-offender. Where the harm is more than minimal but less than serious psychological harm, it falls within category 2. An offender who knowingly assists a planned robbery, but is not shown to have known of a threatened weapon, may fall within culpability category C.

Aggravating features, including a serious and persistent record, targeting a visitor and valuable property, and taking victims to an isolated place, may justify moving above the category starting point. The resulting sentence must nevertheless remain proportionate to the offender’s role and the applicable guideline range.

The appellant pleaded guilty at Manchester Crown Court to robbery. He and a co-defendant had offered two intoxicated visitors a lift, driven them to an isolated area and robbed one of a valuable Rolex watch. The co-defendant made the victim believe that he had a knife. The appellant accepted that he knew a robbery would occur and that his presence assisted it, but denied knowledge of a threat involving a weapon.

The Recorder sentenced the appellant to five years and four months’ imprisonment after placing the offence in category 2B of the robbery guideline and allowing 10% credit for his late guilty plea. The appellant challenged the categorisation of culpability, the finding of significant planning and the length of the pre-credit sentence. The central issue was the proper guideline category and proportionate sentence for his role in the robbery.

Appeal allowed. The court quashed the sentence of five years and four months’ imprisonment and substituted a sentence of three years and six months.

1. The Recorder was entitled to regard the appellant’s basis of plea with suspicion. A robbery planned against two passengers in a car necessarily involved, at least, a threat of violence. The appellant’s assertion that he knew a robbery would occur but did not anticipate any threat was unrealistic.
2. The offence involved more than minimal, but less than serious, psychological harm. It therefore fell within harm category 2 of the robbery guideline. The appellant’s individual culpability was category C, rather than category B. The appropriate guideline starting point was consequently three years’ imprisonment, with a range of two to five years.
3. Three features justified an upward movement from that starting point: the appellant’s grave and persistent criminal record; the deliberate targeting of a visitor and his valuable watch; and the removal of the victims to an isolated location to commit the robbery. Those factors justified a pre-credit sentence of four years, but did not justify the Recorder’s six-year pre-credit figure.
4. The late guilty plea warranted 10% credit. Allowing for that credit, and to some extent the delay of more than six months between plea and sentence, the proper sentence was three years and six months’ imprisonment.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division): In [2018] EWCA Crim 2471, the court allowed the sentence appeal, quashed the sentence of five years and four months’ imprisonment, and substituted three years and six months.
• Crown Court at Manchester: On 19 January 2018, the Recorder sentenced the appellant to five years and four months’ imprisonment following his guilty plea to robbery.