His Majesty's Attorney General v Chay Bowskill & Anor.

A kidnap committed in the context of domestic abuse is not less serious because of that context. An abusive personal relationship will usually aggravate the offence. Sentencing requires a close assessment of the circumstances, including foreseeable harm, vulnerability, restraint, humiliation, the number of offenders and prior criminal behaviour.

Under section 63 of the Sentencing Act 2020, a court must take serious foreseeable harm into account when assessing seriousness. An acquittal on an allegation that the offender pushed the victim does not prevent a sentencing finding that the victim jumped from a moving vehicle in fear. Youth may mitigate, but only to a proportionate extent.

At Leicester Crown Court, Chay Bowskill was convicted of controlling and coercive behaviour, kidnap and perverting the course of justice. Rocco Sansome was convicted of kidnap. The victim suffered catastrophic brain injury after leaving a fast-moving van during the kidnapping. Bowskill received a total of seven years and six months’ detention; Sansome received 21 months’ detention.

The Solicitor General referred the kidnap sentences under section 36 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988 as unduly lenient. Bowskill also sought leave to appeal against his sentence as manifestly excessive. The central issues were whether the judge had wrongly excluded the victim’s harm from the assessment of the kidnap’s seriousness and had over-discounted Bowskill’s sentence for youth.

1. Disposition. The court allowed the Attorney General’s reference concerning Bowskill, holding his kidnap sentence unduly lenient. It quashed the sentence of three years and three months’ detention for kidnap and substituted 12 years’ detention in a young offender institution. The sentences for controlling and coercive behaviour and perverting the course of justice remained unchanged but were concurrent. The court dismissed the reference concerning Sansome and refused Bowskill leave to appeal.
2. The descriptions in R v Spence & Thomas (1983) 5 Cr App R (S) 413 of domestic abductions as a lower category of kidnapping should no longer be followed. Domestic abuse and an abusive personal relationship are aggravating, often seriously so. The court instead applied the close, fact-sensitive approach in Attorney General’s Reference (Nos 92 and 93 of 2014) [2015] 1 Cr App R (S) 44.
3. The judge had erred by treating the victim’s catastrophic injury as incapable of aggravating the kidnap because the jury had acquitted Bowskill of offences under sections 18 and 20 of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861. Those verdicts established only that the jury were not sure that Bowskill had pushed her. They did not preclude the sentencing finding that she jumped from the moving van in fear. That was a reasonably foreseeable consequence of forcibly placing her in a van which then travelled at speed. Section 63 of the Sentencing Act 2020 required the harm to be considered, and it was seriously aggravating.
4. Bowskill’s age gave some mitigation, but he was 19 when he offended and 20 when sentenced. It could not justify the substantial reductions made by the judge. An eight-year or greater sentence for the kidnap alone was justified; totality supported a 12-year sentence.
5. Sansome’s role was subsidiary. His youth, remorse, good character and different involvement meant that, although a longer sentence was available, his 21-month sentence was not unduly lenient.
6. The court also imposed the required surcharges, recorded the slip-rule variations in open court, and replaced Sansome’s unlawful 12-month driving disqualification with a 22.5-month disqualification. Applying R v Needham and others [2016] EWCA Crim 455, the court included a mandatory extension period.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division): On an Attorney General’s reference under section 36 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988, the court increased Bowskill’s kidnap sentence and left Sansome’s sentence unchanged. It refused Bowskill leave to appeal against sentence.
• Leicester Crown Court: On 26 January 2022, Bowskill was sentenced to a total of seven years and six months’ detention and Sansome to 21 months’ detention following their convictions on 25 January 2022.