R v Philip Burdett

For gross negligence manslaughter sentencing, a prolonged failure to provide basic care is not a lapse in an otherwise satisfactory standard of care merely because satisfactory care was previously provided. Lower culpability is not established by mental disorder unless it substantially reduces responsibility.

Conduct between death becoming inevitable and death occurring may still aggravate or mitigate the offence. Steps to improve comfort, cleanliness and dignity remain relevant during that period. The sentence was upheld because it was neither wrong in principle nor manifestly excessive.

Following a jury trial in the Crown Court at Leicester, the appellant was convicted of the gross negligence manslaughter of his sister and sentenced to three years’ imprisonment. He appealed by leave of the single judge.

The appeal concerned the categorisation of culpability under the Sentencing Council’s definitive guideline for gross negligence manslaughter and the treatment as aggravating of the failure to provide care after death had become inevitable. The appellant also relied on mitigation, including his mental health and the effect of imprisonment on his elderly father.

1. Appeal dismissed. The sentence of three years’ imprisonment was not wrong in principle or manifestly excessive.
2. The sentencing judge was entitled to place the offending in the guideline’s medium-culpability category. The appellant’s sister had been left on the bedroom floor for a number of days while her condition deteriorated, without even basic care. That was not a lapse in an otherwise satisfactory standard of care; it amounted to an abandonment of the care previously provided. The judge was therefore entitled to reject the lower-culpability indicator based on such a lapse.
3. The judge was also entitled to conclude that there was no substantial reduction in the appellant’s responsibility by reason of mental disorder. The appellant had cared satisfactorily for his sister over a number of years despite his own health problems and inadequacies. The third factor listed in the guideline as indicating lower culpability was accepted to be absent. None of the three lower-culpability factors was therefore present, making the assessment between high and lower culpability appropriate.
4. The fact that the conduct causing death was complete in law when death became inevitable did not make the remaining days irrelevant. Before death, basic steps could still have been taken to make the victim more comfortable, cleanse her and lessen the indignity of her position. The failure to take those steps could therefore be relevant to aggravation or mitigation.
5. The judge had taken the correct starting point of four years, balanced the aggravating and mitigating factors, and reduced the sentence to three years because mitigation outweighed aggravation. No error justified appellate intervention.

1. Court of Appeal (Criminal Division): dismissed the appeal against sentence.
2. Crown Court at Leicester: following conviction for gross negligence manslaughter, sentenced the appellant to three years’ imprisonment.