Bauld, R v

The totality principle requires sufficient allowance for the effective aggregate custodial term produced by sentences for closely connected offending. A sentence may be manifestly excessive where concurrent sentences, though individually within the applicable guideline framework, produce an excessive effective term when considered with sentences already imposed for related offences. The appellate court may quash those sentences and substitute concurrent terms that properly reflect the overall criminality.

The appellant pleaded guilty at Stafford Crown Court to two domestic burglaries and theft of a car, committed on 23 January 2018. He received concurrent sentences of 30 months’ imprisonment, ordered to run concurrently with an existing sentence.

He had been sentenced in March 2018 for a domestic burglary committed four days before the index offences. The appellant contended that the sentencing judge had adopted an excessive starting point and had made insufficient allowance for totality. The central issue was whether the effective custodial term for the three January 2018 burglaries and associated vehicle theft was manifestly excessive.

1. Appeal allowed. The court quashed the sentences of 30 months’ imprisonment imposed for each burglary and the concurrent sentence for theft.

2. The sentencing judge had placed the burglaries within Category 2 of the applicable Sentencing Council Guideline. She treated 40 months’ imprisonment as the post-trial starting point, applied credit for the guilty pleas, and imposed concurrent terms of 30 months. Those terms were also concurrent with the appellant’s existing imprisonment.

3. The court accepted that the sentencing exercise had made insufficient allowance for totality. The relevant aggregate was the effective custodial term for the domestic burglary committed on 19 January 2018 and the two burglaries and vehicle theft committed on 23 January 2018. The resulting effective term was excessive by reference to the applicable guideline.

4. The proper sentences were 12 months’ imprisonment on each of counts 1, 2 and 3, concurrent with each other and with the existing sentences. Their effective commencement date was 7 June 2019.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division): allowed the appeal against sentence, quashed the sentences imposed on counts 1 to 3, and substituted concurrent terms of 12 months’ imprisonment.

• Crown Court at Stafford: on 7 June 2019, sentenced the appellant following guilty pleas to two burglaries and theft.