REGINA v MARC RICHARD STOKES-DENSON

Psychiatric evidence concerning stress or an adjustment disorder is inadmissible on the issue of intent where it provides no assistance beyond the jury’s ordinary assessment of the defendant’s evidence. An opinion that the defendant may not have considered the consequences of conduct does not negate intent; it may instead be relevant to mitigation.

In sentencing an offender who arranged sexual activity with a supposed child, the absence of an actual child may justify a reduction from the notional sentence for the intended conduct. It does not prevent a high guideline assessment where the communications disclose sustained, planned and serious intended sexual offending.

The applicant was convicted at Liverpool Crown Court of arranging or facilitating sexual activity with a child, contrary to section 14(1) of the Sexual Offences Act 2003, and attempting a sexual communication with a child, contrary to section 1(1) of the Criminal Attempts Act 1981. The supposed mother and 12-year-old child with whom he communicated were undercover police officers.

He maintained that he had been role-playing in order to expose a person willing to abuse a child. At trial, the judge excluded a psychiatrist’s proposed evidence that stress following the end of a relationship might have caused an adjustment disorder. The applicant renewed applications for leave to appeal conviction and sentence, with extensions of time, after refusal by the single judge. The central issues were the fairness of the exclusion ruling and whether the determinate sentence and indefinite Sexual Harm Prevention Order were excessive.

1. The applications were refused. The court refused leave and the necessary extensions of time in respect of both conviction and sentence. Neither proposed appeal had any real prospect of success.
2. The proposed psychiatric evidence was properly excluded. Dr Ho’s opinion did not assist on the decisive question: whether the applicant possessed the requisite intent. The report itself left that question for the jury. The suggested effect of stress and adjustment disorder—that the applicant might not have considered fully the consequences of his conduct—did not bear on intent and was capable of bearing only on mitigation. The jury could understand the applicant’s account of stress and chaotic circumstances without expert assistance.
3. The court upheld the distinction from R v Huckerby & Power [2004] EWCA Crim 3251. That case concerned post-traumatic stress disorder as an explanation for a particular omission during a robbery. It did not make the proposed evidence relevant on the materially different facts of this case.
4. The sentence was not arguably manifestly excessive. The judge was entitled to assess the seriousness of the intended underlying section 9 conduct under the Sexual Offences Act 2003, classify it in Category 1A, and select a notional sentence reflecting the prolonged, deliberate and explicit plan. He then made a substantial reduction because no actual child existed, followed by a further reduction for personal mitigation. The concurrent term for attempted sexual communication properly reflected that additional offending and totality.
5. The trial judge was entitled to dispense with a pre-sentence report because it would have served no useful purpose. He was also entitled to find dangerousness on the evidence heard at trial, to impose a determinate rather than extended sentence, and to impose an indefinite Sexual Harm Prevention Order as sufficient further protection for the public.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) Refused the renewed applications for leave to appeal conviction and sentence, and refused extensions of time: [2022] EWCA Crim 999.
• Liverpool Crown Court The applicant was convicted on 6 July 2021 and, on 9 July 2021, received five and a half years’ imprisonment on count 1, a concurrent 18-month term on count 2, and an indefinite Sexual Harm Prevention Order.