Mirza, R. v

Where a defendant pleads guilty to a new count close to trial, credit depends on when the defendant first communicated a willingness to plead, rather than merely on when the count was added. Informal discussions between advocates do not normally constitute the required indication. A defendant who continued to deny responsibility until days before trial is not entitled to the full one-third credit or to credit appropriate at the plea and trial preparation hearing. The sentencing court retains discretion to select a proper late-plea reduction. In assessing plea credit for a young offender, the reduction for youth must precede the reduction for the guilty plea. A sentencer who has allowed for pandemic custody conditions need not quantify that allowance.

The appellant, who was just short of 17 when the offences were committed, pleaded guilty in the Crown Court at Preston to wounding with intent contrary to section 18 of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861 and to assault occasioning actual bodily harm. He had initially denied both offences and denied possessing a knife. Days before his rescheduled trial, an indictment count alleging wounding with intent was added and he pleaded guilty to it.

He received 6 years and 8 months’ detention for the wounding. A concurrent sentence for the assault was later replaced with no separate penalty because section 91 of the Powers of Criminal Courts (Sentencing) Act 2000 was unavailable for that offence. His appeal challenged the credit for his guilty pleas and the allowance made for custodial conditions during the Covid-19 pandemic.

1. Appeal dismissed. The sentence was neither wrong in principle nor manifestly excessive.

2. The appellant had not indicated, before 17 August 2020, that he would admit the wounding. His earlier formal position was a complete denial. Following R v West [2019] EWCA Crim 497, an informal discussion between advocates does not normally entitle an accused to an earlier guilty-plea discount. The court must normally be notified, usually in open court and with the accused present, of willingness to plead to the alternative offence.

3. The late plea, entered only days before trial after months of denials, could not attract the full one-third reduction or the 25% reduction available at the plea and trial preparation hearing. The sentencing judge was entitled to allow a reduction of about 15%. When the reductions were calculated in the proper order, with the one-third reduction for youth applied before plea credit, the sentence reflected credit of nearly 17%. R v Shuli & Toska [2020] EWCA Crim 181 concerned unequivocal guilty indications at the first magistrates’ hearing and did not assist the appellant.

4. The judge expressly took account of the difficult prison conditions caused by the pandemic. She was not required to quantify the resulting reduction, and there was no basis to infer that the allowance was inadequate. The court also observed that the judge could have increased the sentence for the wounding to reflect the additional knife assault on the separate victim, despite imposing no separate penalty for that offence.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division): Sentence appeal dismissed in [2021] EWCA Crim 522.
• Crown Court at Preston: On 4 November 2020, the appellant was sentenced to 6 years and 8 months’ detention for wounding with intent. On 30 November 2020, the concurrent sentence for assault occasioning actual bodily harm was varied to no separate penalty because section 91 of the Powers of Criminal Courts (Sentencing) Act 2000 did not apply.