Owais, R. v

For causing serious injury by dangerous driving, a sentencing court may use the causing-death guideline as a guide to culpability and harm. However, where death did not result, the sentence after trial must be lower than the comparable sentence for causing death. The court must then give appropriate weight to personal mitigation. A good driving record is not automatically mitigating, but evidence of exemplary driving may be relevant. On resentencing, the mandatory disqualification and any extension period must be recalculated under the Road Traffic Offenders Act 1988.

The appellant pleaded guilty in the Crown Court at Warwick to causing serious injury by dangerous driving after overtaking several vehicles on an unfamiliar, unlit road at night and colliding head-on with an oncoming car. The complainant sustained serious and lasting injuries.

The Crown Court imposed two years’ imprisonment, a three-year driving disqualification and an extended re-test requirement. The appellant appealed his sentence, contending that the notional post-trial sentence was too high, that aggravating factors had been wrongly identified, that insufficient weight had been given to mitigation, and that the sentence should have been suspended.

The central issue was the correct sentence, after credit for the guilty plea, for serious injury caused by this dangerous manoeuvre.

1. Appeal allowed. The original sentence of two years’ imprisonment was manifestly excessive. It was quashed and replaced with a sentence of 16 months’ imprisonment.

2. The harm suffered by the complainant was substantial and the appellant’s culpability was high. Attempting to overtake on an unfamiliar road at night, in the prevailing traffic conditions, was plainly dangerous. The sentencing judge had, however, overstated the relevance of the SatNav. There was no evidence that it caused or contributed to the collision.

3. The court treated the causing-death-by-dangerous-driving guideline as an appropriate guide. The offending fell within level 3: brief but obvious danger arising from a seriously dangerous manoeuvre. There were no additional aggravating features under the guideline, and the appellant’s own serious injuries were an additional mitigating feature. A comparable causing-death offence would have had a starting point of about three years and, after personal mitigation, a post-trial sentence of about two and a half years. Since the victim had not died, two and a half years after trial was too high.

4. The correct starting point was about two years. The appellant’s injuries, family responsibilities, remorse, clean record over 21 years, and evidence of an otherwise exemplary driving history reduced the post-trial sentence to about 20 months. Applying the accepted 20% reduction for the late guilty plea produced 16 months.

5. Using the checklist in R v Needham & Ors [2016] EWCA Crim 455, the court recalculated the driving disqualification. Under the Road Traffic Offenders Act 1988, the obligatory 24-month disqualification was extended by eight months, being half the custodial term. The appellant was disqualified for 32 months and required to pass an extended driving test before recovering his licence. The victim surcharge order was not disturbed.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) Allowed the appeal against sentence, quashed the two-year custodial sentence, substituted 16 months’ imprisonment, and varied the driving disqualification to 32 months.
• Crown Court at Warwick On 13 December 2017, following a guilty plea to causing serious injury by dangerous driving, imposed two years’ imprisonment, a three-year disqualification and an extended re-test requirement.