Mahmood, R v

In sentencing for Class A drug supply, the court may assess harm by considering both the drugs recovered and cash shown to derive from drug dealing. The conversion of cash into an equivalent drug quantity requires caution and must reflect the available evidence.

A leading role may be established by a commercial operation extending beyond street dealing, including substantial drugs and cash, safes and keys at separate addresses, links to source supply, and an expectation of substantial financial gain. The same cash may inform both harm and culpability without constituting double counting. Where both harm and culpability fall below the relevant guideline starting point, the sentence must be reduced accordingly.

The applicant pleaded guilty in the Crown Court at Aylesbury to possession of Class A drugs with intent to supply. He received eight years and two months’ imprisonment. The sentencing judge treated the offending as Category 2 harm and assessed him as having a leading role under the definitive drug-offences guideline.

Police recovered substantial quantities of heroin and cocaine, almost £30,000 in cash, keys, safes at separate addresses, and mobile telephones containing drug-dealing messages. The applicant contended that the cash could not reliably be converted into a drug quantity sufficient for Category 2, that his role was limited to street dealing, and that use of the cash in assessing both harm and culpability involved double counting.

The renewed application challenged whether the sentence was manifestly excessive.

1. Appeal allowed. Leave to appeal sentence was granted. The sentence of eight years and two months’ imprisonment was substituted with one of six years and nine months.

2. The court held that combining drugs and drug-dealing cash was a legitimate means of assessing the guideline category of harm. Cash may raise a case into a higher category even where the recovered drugs alone would not do so. The exercise requires caution. Here, the evidence supported Category 2, but did not support treating the cash with confidence as equivalent to a further half-kilogram of drugs. The offending was therefore below the indicative quantity of one kilogram within Category 2.

3. The judge was entitled to find a leading role. The substantial quantities of drugs and cash, safes and keys at different addresses, the uncut and likely high-purity heroin, the applicant’s likely links to the original source, and the expectation of substantial financial gain supported the conclusion that he conducted a commercial operation beyond mere street dealing. Although the judge was wrong to state that the applicant was not involved in street dealing, that error did not undermine the assessment of his wider role.

4. There was no impermissible double counting. Cash could be relevant both to the category of harm and to the indicators of culpability. Its relevance to more than one part of the guideline amounted to an ordinary application of the guideline.

5. The applicant was properly assessed as having a leading role and as falling within Category 2, but below the centre of each scale. The starting-point sentence of 11 years was consequently manifestly excessive. A pre-plea sentence of nine years, reduced by 25 per cent for the guilty plea, produced the substituted sentence.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division): Leave to appeal sentence was granted and the appeal allowed. The sentence was reduced from eight years and two months to six years and nine months’ imprisonment.
• Crown Court at Aylesbury: On 18 March 2019, the applicant was sentenced to eight years and two months’ imprisonment for possession of a Class A controlled drug with intent to supply. No separate penalty was imposed for two further counts.
• Single judge: Permission to appeal sentence was refused before the renewed application to the full court.