R v Fartun Jamal

When sentencing a carer of young children, the court must review whether the sentence serves the best interests of the victim and other children in the offender’s care, while balancing that consideration against the seriousness of the offence. Its weight is reduced where substantial custody is appropriate. The sentencing court must give adequate weight to material mitigation, including relevant mental ill-health and personal circumstances, when adjusting a guideline starting point. Separate sentences may run consecutively, but the totality principle requires the aggregate sentence to reflect overall criminality without becoming excessive. Where offences form part of the same episode, concurrent terms may be necessary. Failure to give adequate weight to these matters can make a sentence manifestly excessive.

This was an appeal against sentence by a mother convicted after trial of causing the death of her child, contrary to section 5 of the Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Act 2004, and three offences of cruelty to a person under 16, contrary to section 1(1) of the Children and Young Persons Act 1933. The Crown Court at Harrow imposed an aggregate sentence of five years and six months.

The appellant challenged the offence categorisations, the weight given to mitigation, and the use of consecutive sentences. The central issue was whether the individual sentences and the aggregate term were manifestly excessive in light of her depression, personal circumstances, previous efforts to obtain help, the impact on her children and the totality principle.

The appeal succeeded and the aggregate sentence was reduced to three years and six months’ imprisonment.

1. The individual six-month sentences for the two child-neglect offences were not manifestly excessive. Consecutive sentences were permissible in principle, subject to the overriding requirement of totality.
2. The sentencing judge had failed to give sufficient weight to the appellant’s mitigation when moving from the guideline starting points. Relevant matters included her long-standing depression, personal circumstances, previous good character, genuine remorse, prior care of her children, express efforts to obtain professional help, and the effect of imprisonment on her surviving children. The appellant’s difficult circumstances did not excuse the offending, but they required proper weight in the sentencing exercise.
3. When sentencing a carer of young children, the court must take a step back and consider whether the sentence is in the best interests of the victim and other children in the offender’s care. That consideration must be balanced against the seriousness of the offence, and carries less weight where substantial custody is appropriate.
4. The categorisation of the two offences concerning the deceased child was upheld. The sentence for count 1 was reduced from five years to three years and six months. The sentence for count 2 was reduced from four years and six months to two years. The court corrected the stated sentencing range for count 2 to two to six years.
5. Applying totality, the six-month sentences on counts 3 and 4 were ordered to run concurrently with each other and with the sentences on counts 1 and 2. All four sentences were therefore concurrent, producing a total sentence of three years and six months.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division): In [2023] EWCA Crim 329, the appeal against sentence succeeded. The sentences were quashed and replaced with concurrent terms producing an aggregate sentence of three years and six months.
• Crown Court at Harrow: Following conviction, the appellant was sentenced to an aggregate term of five years and six months’ imprisonment on 29 April 2022.