R v Nicola Stewart

A sentence within the applicable guideline range will not be shown to be wrong merely because the sentencing judge did not articulate every adjustment to the starting point. The appellate court will assess the sentence as a whole, including the quantity of drugs, relevant previous convictions, mitigation and the final position within the range.

A mental disorder and efforts to address addiction may justify mitigation where sufficiently connected with the offending. No additional allowance for delay is warranted where the offender caused the delay by failing to surrender or attend trial.

The appellant was convicted at the Crown Court at St Albans of possession of heroin with intent to supply and of possessing crack cocaine, cannabis and Subutex. The heroin comprised 28 wraps and weighed 3.69 grams.

She received three years and six months’ imprisonment for the heroin offence. The sentencing judge treated it as a Category 3, significant-role street-dealing offence and imposed no separate penalties for the other drugs.

She appealed on the grounds that the starting point was excessive, excessive weight had been given to previous convictions, insufficient weight had been given to mental-health and addiction mitigation, and there should have been a discount for delay.

1. Appeal dismissed. The sentence of three years and six months’ imprisonment was within the Category 3 significant-role range for supplying a class A drug and was not manifestly excessive.

2. The sentencing judge’s precise adjustment from the four-and-a-half-year guideline starting point was not clear. That did not establish error. Twenty-eight wraps of heroin were not a particularly small quantity for street dealing, and the final sentence was at the bottom of the applicable range after aggravating and mitigating factors had been considered.

3. The judge was entitled to give substantial weight to the appellant’s relevant drug convictions, including convictions in 2013 for possession of heroin and cocaine with intent to supply. Those convictions were recent in relation to the offending and concerned similar class A drug supply.

4. The judge had properly taken account of the appellant’s mental disorder and her later efforts to address addiction. The judge accepted the psychologist’s conclusions and reduced the sentence to the lowest point of the range, while being entitled not to reduce her role from significant to lesser.

5. No further reduction for delay was justified. The appellant had failed to surrender to bail and then failed to attend the first trial date. The judge had not increased the sentence for that conduct. The court also recorded that the failure-to-surrender offence under the Bail Act attracted no separate penalty.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division): dismissed the appeal against sentence in [2022] EWCA Crim 1650.

• Crown Court at St Albans: following conviction on 2 May 2022, imposed three years and six months’ imprisonment on 29 July 2022 for possession of heroin with intent to supply; no separate penalties were imposed for the remaining possession offences.