R v Jamie Dean Bradford

A sentencing judge may find very serious psychological harm without expert evidence where a sufficiently detailed victim personal statement establishes its effects. The assessment may properly take account of increased post-traumatic stress, continuing anxiety, displacement from home and loss of support.

Where the sentencing category is available on the evidence, and substantial aggravating features justify movement from the guideline starting point, an appellate court will not interfere merely because mitigation, remorse or prison conditions were advanced. The approach in R v Chall & Ors [2019] EWCA Crim 865 was applied.

The applicant pleaded guilty, on the day fixed for trial, to arson being reckless as to whether life was endangered. He had set fire to the outside of the disabled victim's ground-floor flat after threatening him earlier that day. The victim later described severe and continuing psychological effects, including increased PTSD, anxiety and repeated moves home.

Recorder Fields, sitting at Luton Crown Court, sentenced the applicant to four years and five months' imprisonment after placing the offence in category 1B of the relevant definitive guideline. The single judge refused leave to appeal. The applicant renewed his application, contending that the offence had been wrongly categorised and that the judge had undervalued mitigation and prison conditions.

1. The renewed application for leave to appeal was refused. There was no arguable basis for saying that the sentence was manifestly excessive.

2. The offence involved category B culpability. The judge was entitled, although only just, to find category 1 harm. Expert evidence was not required before finding very serious psychological harm. Applying R v Chall & Ors [2019] EWCA Crim 865, a sufficiently detailed victim personal statement could establish that harm. The victim's increased PTSD, constant anxiety, repeated moves and loss of his established support network justified the finding.

3. In any event, the psychological harm could not realistically be described as absent or minimal. It was high within category 2. The pre-plea sentence of five years and six months was within the category 2B range, as well as below the category 1B starting point.

4. The judge was entitled to move significantly upwards from the starting point. The aggravating features included relevant convictions, offending while on bail or under investigation, planning, use of an accelerant, revenge as the motive, and the victim's vulnerability. The judge had considered the applicant's rehabilitative work and the difficult prison conditions, and made reductions for both the guilty plea and the pandemic. He was also entitled to reject genuine remorse in light of the applicant's earlier denials, rejected basis of plea, and absence of appreciation of the harm caused.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) — renewed application for leave to appeal against sentence refused: [2022] EWCA Crim 1812.
• Crown Court at Luton — Recorder Fields sentenced the applicant to four years and five months' imprisonment for arson reckless as to whether life was endangered.
• Single judge — refused leave to appeal against sentence.