Isle & Anor, R. v

Sentencing guidelines guide the court but do not impose a ceiling. A sentencing judge may impose a sentence outside a guideline range where the offence’s seriousness justifies that course, provided that the judge recognises the departure and gives adequate reasons.

In assessing whether a sentence is manifestly excessive, the court may uphold a substantial departure where multiple features of greater harm and higher culpability take the offence beyond the guideline category, and aggravating factors, including relevant previous convictions, justify the resulting sentence.

The appellants pleaded guilty to a night-time dwelling burglary committed while the 18-year-old occupier and her two-year-old son were at home. One appellant entered the victim’s bedroom, demanded money and intimidated her. The burglary caused enduring trauma which prevented the victim from returning home. Isle also pleaded guilty to assaulting an emergency worker, and Harrison to handling stolen goods.

At the Crown Court at Kingston upon Hull, Judge Thackray imposed concurrent principal burglary sentences of eight years and one month for Isle and six years and four months for Harrison, after credit for guilty pleas, with consecutive three-month sentences for the additional offences. The appellants contended that the pre-credit burglary sentences of nine and eight years were manifestly excessive because they exceeded the category 1 guideline range. The central issue was whether the judge was justified in departing from that range.

1. The appeals were dismissed. The sentences were not manifestly excessive.

2. The applicable definitive guideline identified category 1 burglary as involving greater harm and higher culpability, with a starting point of three years’ custody and a range of two to six years. That range did not prevent a sentence above it. The maximum sentence for burglary was fourteen years, and some offences would properly fall outside the guideline because of their seriousness and the trauma inflicted on the victim.

3. This burglary was such a case. Multiple features of greater harm and higher culpability, considered without the additional aggravating factors, took it beyond the guideline range. The victim was a young mother at home with her child during a prolonged night-time burglary. She was intimidated in her bedroom and suffered trauma beyond that normally expected from domestic burglary. The offenders acted together, had gone equipped, exploited the victim’s vulnerability, and moved a knife from the kitchen to the living room.

4. The judge was then entitled to take account of aggravating matters, particularly the appellants’ previous convictions. Isle’s serious record and prior substantial custodial sentences were especially material. The respective pre-credit sentences of nine years for Isle and eight years for Harrison were therefore justified.

5. Sentencing guidelines are guidelines only. A judge may depart from them where the circumstances justify it, but must recognise the departure and explain the reasons. Judge Thackray had done so adequately. The resulting sentences, although high, could not properly be described as manifestly excessive.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) Dismissed both appeals against sentence.
• Crown Court at Kingston upon Hull On 3 October 2019, imposed the appellants’ sentences for burglary and their respective additional offences.