R v Keilan Roberts

When sentencing for causing death by careless driving while over drink or drug limits, the applicable guideline requires separate assessment of the overall level of intoxication and the degree of carelessness. Drug use must not be treated as increasing the category of driving culpability.

Although actual impairment is not an ingredient of the drug-limit offence, it is relevant to seriousness. A sentencing court should assess impairment where the evidence permits. It must exercise caution before inferring impairment solely from drug levels set under a zero-tolerance regime.

The offender drove after consuming alcohol and controlled drugs, lost control of his car, and caused the death of his 17-year-old passenger. He pleaded guilty to four offences under Road Traffic Act 1988, section 3A, reflecting excess alcohol and three drugs.

At Cardiff Crown Court, the judge imposed concurrent sentences of three years and nine months’ imprisonment. The Attorney General referred the sentences under section 36 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988 as unduly lenient. The central issue was the correct application of the sentencing guideline to combined alcohol and drug offending, including the significance of evidence of impairment.

1. Reference allowed. The court granted leave, quashed the concurrent sentences of three years and nine months, and substituted concurrent sentences of five years and three months’ imprisonment. It also increased the total driving disqualification to 12 years and 7½ months.

2. The sentencing judge erred by first placing the alcohol offending in the lowest intoxication bracket and then moving to a higher driving-culpability category because of the drugs. Under the Guideline, the sentencing category depends separately on the level of alcohol or drugs and the degree of carelessness. The alcohol and drug evidence had to be assessed together when selecting the intoxication category.

3. The Road Traffic Act 1988 drug-limit offence can be committed at low drug levels because the limits follow a zero-tolerance policy. Actual impairment is therefore not an ingredient of the offence. It is nevertheless relevant to seriousness. Following R v Mohamed [2020] EWCA Crim 596 and R v Adebisi [2020] EWCA Crim 1446, a sentencing court should consider impairment where it has material enabling it to do so. It may use expert evidence or appropriate inferences from other evidence, but should not assume impairment merely from a multiple of the statutory limit.

4. Here, the combined drug levels, alcohol level, observable intoxication, and surrounding evidence established substantial impairment. The correct category was therefore high drug toxicity coupled with the lowest category of carelessness, producing a six-year starting point. A one-year adjustment for aggravating and mitigating features, followed by 25% credit for the guilty plea, produced five years and three months.

5. The judge’s treatment of other aggravating and mitigating features was within the permissible evaluative range. Sentencing involves judgment rather than precise calculation, as explained in Attorney General’s Reference (No. 4 of 1989) [1991] WLR 41. A full one-third guilty-plea reduction was unavailable because no plea indication had been given at the magistrates’ court.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division): On the Attorney General’s reference under section 36 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988, the court held the sentences unduly lenient, quashed them, and substituted concurrent sentences of five years and three months: [2023] EWCA Crim 1023.

• Crown Court at Cardiff: On 6 June 2023, His Honour Judge David Wynn Morgan imposed concurrent sentences of three years and nine months’ imprisonment for four offences of causing death by careless driving while over prescribed drink or drug limits.