R v Lennon Gomes

The totality principle requires a sentence for multiple offences to be just and proportionate overall. It does not prevent consecutive sentences for distinct, planned incidents of false imprisonment and blackmail, and for a separate continuing commercial drugs conspiracy, where the structure avoids double counting.

Blackmail sentencing is fact-sensitive. Relevant considerations include the relationship between the demand and the victim’s means, and the psychological harm caused or intended. False imprisonment sentencing must reflect the duration and conditions of detention, violence, threats, weapons, planning and victim impact.

The appellant pleaded guilty at Reading Crown Court to possession of cannabis. After trial, he was convicted of false imprisonment, blackmail, and two conspiracies to supply cocaine and heroin. The offences arose from his significant role in an organised crime gang which controlled drug runners.

On 29 October 2021, HHJ Real imposed a total sentence of 18 years’ imprisonment. The appellant challenged only the totality of that sentence. He contended that it was excessive for a 22-year-old with limited previous convictions. The appeal also raised two ancillary sentencing-record issues.

1. The appeal was dismissed. The 18-year sentence was just and proportionate. The sentencing judge had applied the totality principle, taken account of the appellant’s age and limited relevant record, and substantially reduced the notional standalone terms.
2. The false imprisonment and blackmail offences in April and December were separate, planned incidents. Internal concurrency properly recognised that each blackmail was part of the associated false imprisonment. Consecutive sentences for the two incidents were nevertheless justified. The December offending was repeat criminality against the same victim, and neither incident inevitably followed from the other.
3. The class A drug conspiracies properly attracted consecutive sentences as the most serious offending. They concerned a continuing commercial operation which extended beyond the two runners who were the victims of the imprisonment and blackmail. The imprisonment incidents were not integral to the day-to-day operation of that wider conspiracy.
4. There was no error in the judge’s assessment of the appellant as having a significant role in a category 2 drugs operation. Applying the factors in Attorney General’s References Nos 92 and 93 of 2014 (R v Gibney) [2014] EWCA Crim 2713, the individual false-imprisonment sentences could not be criticised. The violence, weapons, threats, planning, group participation and profound effects on the victims supported that conclusion. The court also applied the relevant sentencing considerations for blackmail identified in R v Hardjou (1989) 11 Cr App R(S) 29 and R v Ford [2015] 2 Cr App R(S) 17.
5. Where the sentencing remarks and court record conflict, the sentence pronounced by the judge prevails. Following R v Venison (1994) 15 Cr App R(S) 624, the Crown Court record was directed to show no separate penalty on count 7. A surcharge order made before adjourned confiscation proceedings concluded was unlawful, but the court declined to interfere because no exceptional disadvantage to the appellant was shown.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division): The appellant’s sentence appeal was dismissed.
• Reading Crown Court: The appellant was convicted after trial on 9 September 2021 of false imprisonment, blackmail and conspiracies to supply class A drugs. On 29 October 2021, HHJ Real imposed a total sentence of 18 years’ imprisonment.