R v Jack Nicholas Daniels

In assessing whether a sentence is manifestly excessive, an appellate court must distinguish a sentence imposed after trial from the sentencing judge’s starting point. A concurrent sentence may properly aggravate the overall sentence. A quantity below the top of the relevant guideline range does not itself demonstrate excessiveness where quantity and role have been properly assessed. A role may fall on the cusp between two guideline categories. Credit for a guilty plea is governed by the Definitive Guideline. A defendant is not entitled to maximum credit merely because he delayed pleading guilty while awaiting the outcome of a challenge to the admissibility of evidence.

The applicant pleaded guilty to conspiracies to supply cocaine and ketamine in the Crown Court at Canterbury. On 3 March 2022, he was sentenced to seven years and eight months’ imprisonment on the cocaine count, with a concurrent sentence of three years and eight months for the ketamine count.

He renewed an application for leave to appeal after refusal by a single judge. He challenged the sentence as excessive, relying on the drug quantities, the assessment of his role in the ketamine conspiracy, and the credit allowed for his guilty pleas. The central issues were whether the sentencing judge had mischaracterised the sentence after trial and whether she had correctly applied the sentencing guideline and plea-credit provisions.

1. The renewed application for leave to appeal was refused. The proposed grounds were unarguable.
2. The sentencing judge’s figure of nine years and six months on the cocaine count was a sentence after trial, not a starting point. It was also aggravated by the concurrent sentence imposed for the ketamine conspiracy. The applicant’s criticism proceeded from a mistaken characterisation of the sentencing exercise.
3. The sentence was consistent with a proper assessment of the quantities involved. It did not assume that the quantity approached five kilograms. The fact that the cocaine quantity was between two and three kilograms did not make the sentence manifestly excessive.
4. The judge was entitled to assess the applicant’s role in the ketamine conspiracy as lying on the cusp between the leading and significant categories. Her conclusion did not treat him as having a purely leading role and disclosed no error of principle.
5. The challenge to plea credit was misconceived. The judge correctly applied the Definitive Guideline. The Court relied on R v Plaku [2021] 4 WLR 82 at [10], where the Court had explained why the submission that more generous credit should be allowed in such circumstances was untenable.

1. Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) The applicant renewed his application for leave to appeal after refusal by a single judge. The application was refused.
2. Crown Court at Canterbury On 3 March 2022, the applicant was sentenced to seven years and eight months’ imprisonment for conspiracy to supply cocaine, with a concurrent sentence of three years and eight months for conspiracy to supply ketamine.