Turner, R v

Credit for a guilty plea in a murder case must be assessed on the individual circumstances. A defendant who promptly admits the fatal conduct and reasonably advances diminished responsibility on available psychiatric evidence may deserve material credit, even though the defence is rejected and full credit is unavailable.

A sentencer must not reduce plea credit by relying again on the gravity of the offence where that feature has already increased the minimum term. A sentencing judge may, however, give limited mitigation for mental-health difficulties after properly preferring evidence that the disorder did not amount to diminished responsibility and that the offender's conduct contributed to the risk.

The appellant was convicted of murder at the Crown Court at Reading after a jury rejected his partial defence of diminished responsibility. He had admitted killing the deceased soon after his arrest and had indicated, at the first practical opportunity, that he would plead guilty to manslaughter on that basis.

The trial judge imposed life imprisonment with a minimum term of 16 years less 306 days. The appellant appealed the minimum term, contending that the judge gave insufficient weight to his mental-health difficulties and early admissions, and overstated aggravating features.

1. Appeal allowed. The minimum term was reduced from 16 years less 306 days to 15 years. Time spent on remand continued to count towards sentence.

2. The judge was entitled to increase the 15-year starting point to 18 years before mitigation. The killing was a random, unprovoked and sustained attack upon a stranger. It involved repeated kicking and stamping while the victim lay prone. The appellant also left the victim at the scene and had relevant antecedents while subject to a community order.

3. The judge was also entitled to make only limited allowance for the appellant's mental-health difficulties. Having heard the expert evidence, the judge could prefer the Crown psychiatrist's view that the appellant did not suffer from schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder at the time. The judge could take account of the appellant's failure to take medication despite prior warnings, and of his cannabis use.

4. However, the one-year reduction for the appellant's admissions and plea was insufficient in principle. He accepted the killing within 24 hours, never disputed the underlying facts, and reasonably pursued diminished responsibility in light of several psychiatric opinions. He could not receive maximum credit, because that would equate his position with an early guilty plea to murder. But R v Markham [2017] EWCA Crim 739 confirmed that the issue is fact-sensitive.

5. The severity of the attack had already been reflected in the aggravating uplift. It could not properly be relied on again to restrict credit for plea. A two-year, rather than one-year, reduction was appropriate.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division): By [2019] EWCA Crim 1300, allowed the sentence appeal and reduced the specified minimum term to 15 years.

• Crown Court at Reading: Following conviction for murder on 11 February 2019, imposed life imprisonment with a specified minimum term of 16 years less 306 days.