Mills, R v

When sentencing a threat to kill, the court must apply the relevant guideline category and give proper cumulative weight to material aggravating features. In a domestic context, those features may include a linked assault, intoxication, relevant previous violence and offending committed shortly after a suspended sentence was imposed.

Late efforts at rehabilitation remain relevant, but they cannot be treated as balancing serious aggravation where the offender has already breached the trust inherent in a recent suspended sentence and has shown poor compliance with it.

The Solicitor General referred, under section 36 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988, a sentence imposed at Portsmouth Crown Court as unduly lenient. The offender had pleaded guilty to making threats to kill and assault by beating his intimate partner. He had brandished a knife, made threats to kill, assaulted her and caused bruising.

The Crown Court imposed 22 months’ imprisonment, suspended for two years, for the threats to kill, with a concurrent suspended sentence for the assault. The reference concerned whether that sentence properly reflected the seriousness of the offending and the aggravating effect of the offender’s recent violence against a former partner and his extant suspended sentence.

1. The reference was allowed. The court granted leave and held that the 22-month suspended sentence for the threat to kill was unduly lenient.

2. The proper approach began with the seriousness of the threats to kill. Under the Intimidatory Offences Definitive Guideline, the visible knife placed the offending in culpability Category A. The victim suffered intermediate harm. Category 2A therefore supplied a starting point of two years’ imprisonment and a range of one to four years.

3. The sentencing judge had failed to give sufficient effect to the cumulative aggravation. The threat was followed by an assault causing significant bruising. It occurred in a domestic context, which involved a breach of the trust and security expected in an intimate relationship. Alcohol and drug use aggravated the offending. The offender also had a relevant conviction for assaulting a former partner and committed these offences only days after receiving a suspended sentence for that violence.

4. The recent suspended sentence was particularly significant. Its breach both aggravated the new offending and weakened the claimed mitigation of later rehabilitation, especially because the offender had also been in poor compliance with that order.

5. A sentence of at least three years before credit for the late guilty plea was required. Taking account of post-sentence probation engagement and the practical consequences of immediate custody, the court quashed the suspended sentence and substituted 30 months’ imprisonment. The four-month sentence for assault remained concurrent. The costs order was quashed, but the restraining order continued.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division): granted leave under section 36 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988, allowed the Solicitor General’s reference, and substituted an immediate sentence of 30 months’ imprisonment.

• Crown Court at Portsmouth: on 27 September 2019, imposed 22 months’ imprisonment suspended for 24 months for making threats to kill, with a concurrent suspended sentence of four months for assault by beating.