R v Patrick Ince

In sentencing a leading participant in a cocaine conspiracy, a court may impose a sentence above the ordinary category 1 guideline range where the operation was conducted on the most serious and commercial scale. The extent to which drug quantities exceed the category 1 benchmark is an evaluative matter, not a simple mathematical exercise.

A sentencing judge may reject a basis of plea which relies on selective material where the evidence as a whole demonstrates equal leading culpability. A severe sentence will not be excessive where it properly reflects the scale, duration, organisation and harm of the conspiracy.

The applicant pleaded guilty in the Crown Court at Kingston to conspiracies to supply cocaine and to acquire criminal property. He received 20 years’ imprisonment for the drug conspiracy, after a 20 per cent reduction for his guilty plea, with a concurrent sentence of 67 months for the second conspiracy.

The sentencing judge found that he and a co-defendant jointly led a professionally organised network supplying cocaine on a large commercial scale. The applicant renewed his application for permission to appeal after a single judge had refused permission. He contended that his role was subordinate and that the sentencing assessment overstated the quantity of drugs involved.

1. The renewed application for permission to appeal was refused. The court agreed with the single judge that there was no arguable error in the sentencing judge’s assessment of either culpability or harm.

2. The sentencing judge was entitled to reject the basis of plea insofar as it asserted that the applicant’s role was junior to that of Eldridge. Its selected messages were not representative of the wider EncroChat material. That material supported the finding that the two men had equal culpability as joint leaders of the conspiracy.

3. The conspiracy was properly treated as a category 1 leading-role offence under the Drugs Guideline. The relevant narrative guidance permitted a sentence of 20 years or more where a drugs operation was at the most serious and commercial scale and involved quantities substantially exceeding the category 1 benchmark.

4. The later recalculation of the proven quantity from the figure used at sentence to 92 kilograms did not make the sentence arguably excessive. The degree to which harm exceeds the five-kilogram category 1 benchmark is not determined by arithmetic alone. Ninety-two kilograms over an established three-month period, coupled with the organisation of the network and its links to the source of supply, justified the 20-year sentence despite its severity.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division): renewed application for permission to appeal against sentence refused.
• Crown Court at Kingston: on 7 April 2022, the applicant was sentenced to 20 years’ imprisonment for conspiracy to supply cocaine and to a concurrent 67 months’ imprisonment for conspiracy to acquire criminal property.
• Single judge: permission to appeal against sentence was refused.