Turner, R. v

Credit for a guilty plea must be assessed first by reference to the offence to which the plea relates and the defendant’s first reasonable opportunity to plead. A defendant who absents himself from a plea and trial preparation hearing cannot treat a later plea, entered after arrest, as having been made at that first opportunity.

However, where the same failure to attend both reduces plea credit and founds a separate Bail Act sentence, a consecutive sentence creates double counting, or a material risk of it. The Bail Act sentence should therefore be concurrent.

The appellant appealed, with leave of the single judge, against a sentence imposed on 3 October 2019 for fraud offences and a consecutive 14-day sentence for failing to surrender to bail.

He had not entered a plea at the magistrates’ court because no charge sheet was available. He then failed to attend the plea and trial preparation hearing while on bail. After arrest under a bench warrant, he pleaded guilty to the Bail Act offence and later pleaded guilty to the fraud counts.

The sentencing judge reduced a three-year starting point for the fraud by 25 per cent rather than the full one-third. The central issues were whether the appellant had pleaded at the first reasonable opportunity and whether the reduced credit and consecutive Bail Act sentence amounted to double counting.

1. The appeal was allowed only to the extent of varying the Bail Act sentence. The 14-day term for failing to surrender to bail was made concurrent rather than consecutive. Subject to that variation, the appeal against sentence was dismissed.

2. The proper sequence was first to assess the fraud offences and the appropriate credit for the guilty pleas. The appellant did not plead guilty at the first reasonable opportunity. Although he could not sensibly enter a plea at the first magistrates’ hearing because no charge sheet was available, he then failed to attend the plea and trial preparation hearing while on bail. His later plea after arrest did not cure that failure.

3. The Sentencing Guidelines did not treat a defendant’s failure to attend a hearing at which he was bailed to appear as preserving a first reasonable opportunity to plead. The judge was therefore entitled to reduce the guilty-plea credit from 33 per cent to 25 per cent. On the available facts, that reduction was merited.

4. Once the reduced plea credit had been imposed because the appellant absented himself from the hearing, a separate consecutive sentence for the resulting Bail Act offence would double count, or risk double counting, that same conduct. The appropriate correction was concurrency, not restoration of full credit for the fraud pleas.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division): By [2020] EWCA Crim 160, varied the sentence by making the 14-day Bail Act term concurrent; otherwise dismissed the appeal against sentence.
• Minshull Street Crown Court: On 3 October 2019, sentenced the appellant to 27 months’ imprisonment for fraud offences and 14 days’ imprisonment, consecutively, for failing to surrender to bail.
• Stockport Magistrates’ Court: On 8 April 2019, no formal plea was recorded because a charge sheet was unavailable; the matter was sent to the Crown Court.