R v MC

In appellate sentencing, the totality principle requires the court to assess the offender’s overall criminality and impose a just and proportionate aggregate sentence. Offences against each victim may be grouped with concurrent terms, while separate victim groups may receive consecutive terms where that reflects distinct criminality. Totality operates to reduce the sentence to a proportionate level. It does not require consideration of victims’ interests as a sentencing objective. A period without offending may carry limited weight where the evidence indicates that the offender was being kept away from potential victims. Sentencing remarks should be read fairly and in context. They disclose no error where the judge used totality to calibrate the sentence for the offender.

The appellant pleaded guilty to offences on the Bradford indictment and was convicted after trial of further offences on the Leeds indictment. The offences involved four child victims and occurred over several decades. The Crown Court imposed an aggregate sentence which the appellant challenged as manifestly excessive.

He argued that the sentence failed to reflect his age when some offences were committed, the period without offending, and the principle of totality. He also relied on sentencing remarks addressed to the victims. The Court of Appeal considered those arguments, together with errors in the ordering of determinate and extended sentences, statutory references on the record sheet, release calculations, and the lawfulness of a surcharge order.

1. Disposition and corrections. The application for an extension of time and leave to appeal was granted. The appeal against the overall sentence was dismissed. The court corrected the order in which the sentences were to be served, corrected the statutory references and release explanation, and quashed the unlawful surcharge order.
2. Ordering of sentences. Applying the approach identified in R v Francis and Lawrence [2014] EWCA Crim 631 at paragraphs 50–57, the standard determinate sentences should be served first, with the extended sentences under section 278 of the Sentencing Act 2020 running consecutively thereafter.
3. Totality. The sentencing judge had properly assessed the overall criminality, which involved four victims, multiple offences and offending over a lengthy period. The sentences for each victim had been reduced to reflect totality. Concurrent sentences within each victim’s group and consecutive sentences between victims were an orthodox and proportionate structure.
4. The decade without offending did not materially alter the assessment. The evidence suggested that the family had been policing the appellant and keeping him away from other children. The judge was entitled to give that period limited mitigating weight.
5. The judge’s remarks to the victims did not demonstrate that their interests had been treated as the objective of totality. Read in context, the remarks explained that the sentence had been calibrated to produce a just and proportionate whole for the appellant. The sentence was significant, but it was neither disproportionate nor manifestly excessive.
6. The court declared that, under paragraph (4) of Schedule 27 to the Sentencing Act 2020, references to repealed provisions were to be treated as references to the corresponding provisions in that Act. The misrecording did not invalidate the orders. The court also applied section 244A(2)–(4) of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 to correct the release explanation for the extended sentences.

1. Court of Appeal (Criminal Division): On 10 May 2022, the court granted an extension of time and leave to appeal, corrected the sentencing structure and release explanation, quashed the surcharge order, and dismissed the appeal against manifest excessiveness: [2022] EWCA Crim 776.
2. Crown Court at Leeds: The appellant was convicted of nine offences on the Leeds indictment and sentenced on 9 July 2021.
3. Crown Court at Bradford: The appellant pleaded guilty to offences on the Bradford indictment and was sentenced on 9 July 2021 together with the Leeds offences.