MJL, R. v

When sentencing repeated rape offences, the court must apply the definitive guideline by assessing harm and culpability before reflecting the multiplicity of the offending. Significant psychological harm, sustained conduct and additional degradation or humiliation may justify a category assessment at the boundary between harm categories 2 and 3. The guideline factor of abuse of trust concerns relationships of recognised responsibility, rather than an ordinary marital or quasi-marital relationship. Earlier rape and associated physical violence may nevertheless amount to previous violence for later counts and support culpability A. Once an appropriate sentence for a single offence has been fixed, an increase may properly reflect multiple offences committed over an extended period.

The appellant appealed against concurrent sentences of 11 years’ imprisonment imposed at Leicester Crown Court after a jury convicted him of five rapes of his former partner. The offences occurred over about two and a half years within a controlling and abusive relationship.

The sentencing judge treated the harm as on the boundary between categories 2 and 3 under the definitive sexual-offences guideline, and culpability as on the boundary between categories A and B. He selected eight years for a single offence and increased the sentence to 11 years for the five offences. The issue was whether that approach and sentence were excessive.

1. Appeal dismissed. The concurrent sentences of 11 years’ imprisonment were justified and disclosed no merit in the challenge to sentence.
2. The sentencing judge correctly treated the harm as lying at the boundary between categories 2 and 3. The complainant had suffered significant psychological harm. The offending was sustained, and its degrading and humiliating features were capable of moving the case towards category 2. Although there had been violence, it did not go beyond violence inherent in the offences.
3. The judge correctly excluded the guideline factor of abuse of trust. As explained in R v Forbes [2016] EWCA Crim 1388, that factor concerns relationships of recognised responsibility, such as teacher and pupil, rather than a marital or quasi-marital relationship. The relationship nevertheless involved a serious ordinary abuse of trust and power. More importantly, the earlier rape and associated violence meant that counts 2 to 5 could properly have been placed in culpability A by reason of previous violence. The judge’s boundary assessment between A and B was therefore generous to the appellant.
4. An eight-year starting point was properly available for one offence. The aggravating and mitigating features balanced each other for that purpose. The judge was then required to sentence for five offences, not one, and was entitled to increase the concurrent terms to 11 years to reflect the multiple offending over a prolonged period.
5. The court also directed that the convictions be recorded against both the appellant’s former and deed-poll names.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division): In [2019] EWCA Crim 232, dismissed the appellant’s appeal against sentence.
• Leicester Crown Court: Following jury convictions for five offences of rape, imposed concurrent sentences of 11 years’ imprisonment on 29 March 2018. No lower-court citation was stated.