R v Ryan Brown

In a sentencing appeal involving several offences, the court must stand back and assess the offending in the round. The relevant question is whether the aggregate sentence is manifestly excessive in light of all the offending, not whether one component appears excessive in isolation. Sentencing guidelines should not be applied mechanistically. Totality may be achieved through a lead sentence, concurrent sentences for related offending and a short consecutive sentence for a distinct offence, provided the overall sentence properly reflects the criminality and is not excessive.

The applicant pleaded guilty to harassment, threatening to disclose a private sexual image and witness intimidation arising from one relationship, and to two offences of assault occasioning actual bodily harm arising from another. A recorder imposed an aggregate sentence of 50 months’ imprisonment. A single judge refused permission to appeal against sentence. On renewal, the applicant challenged the sentence for harassment and argued that insufficient allowance had been made for totality. The central issue was whether the sentence, viewed across all the offending, was manifestly excessive.

1. Renewed application dismissed. The Court agreed with the single judge’s assessment that the aggregate sentence of 50 months’ imprisonment was not manifestly excessive.
2. The recorder was entitled to increase the post-trial sentence for harassment from 2 years and 6 months to 3 years. The increase reflected a combination of aggravating features, including the domestic context, a relevant previous stalking conviction and the threat to disclose a private sexual image. The fact that the separate image-disclosure offence attracted a lower sentence did not make the harassment sentence excessive.
3. The correct approach to totality is to stand back and view all the offending in the round, without an unduly mechanistic application of sentencing guidelines. The appellate question is whether the overall sentence for all the offences is manifestly excessive, rather than whether a particular component is excessive when considered separately.
4. The sentence structure was consistent with that approach. The two serious assaults were sentenced concurrently. The harassment sentence operated as the lead sentence for the offending involving Ms Richardson, with a formal concurrent sentence for threatening to disclose the image. Witness intimidation merited a short consecutive sentence. The court was entitled to assess the combined criminality by reference to the seriousness of the domestic abuse, the previous convictions, the late pleas and the circumstances of the individual offences.
5. The sentences for each group of offences, and the overall sentence, were not excessive as a matter of totality. The renewed application was therefore dismissed.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division): On 22 September 2023, dismissed the renewed application for permission to appeal against sentence: [2023] EWCA Crim 1216.
• Single judge: Refused the initial application for permission to appeal against sentence.
• Recorder: Imposed an aggregate sentence of 50 months’ imprisonment for the offences involving the two complainants.