Rex v Carrie McGuinness

For the dangerous-offender sentencing provisions, past and future intimate partners are within the class of members of the public. In assessing retained responsibility for manslaughter by diminished responsibility, a court must evaluate all the medical and other relevant information. An offender’s conduct, including choices made despite known risks, may support a medium assessment. A sentencing feature may also be aggravating without impermissible double counting where it bears on a distinct aspect of the sentencing exercise.

The applicant pleaded guilty to manslaughter by reason of diminished responsibility after fatally stabbing her partner. The psychiatric evidence established severe alcohol dependency, depression and anxiety, and accepted that an abnormality of mental functioning had impaired her self-control.

On 20 January 2023, the sentencing judge imposed an extended determinate sentence of 18 years and six months, comprising 15 years and six months’ custody and a three-year licence extension. After a single judge refused leave on the papers, the applicant renewed her application. She challenged the dangerousness finding, the assessment of retained responsibility as medium rather than low, and the treatment of aggravating and mitigating factors.

1. The renewed application for leave to appeal against sentence was refused. The sentencing judge was entitled to find that the applicant was dangerous. The pre-sentence report identified a high risk of serious harm to past and future intimate partners, and the judge could not safely conclude that treatment would adequately mitigate that risk on release.
2. Past and future intimate partners are within the statutory class of members of the public for the dangerous-offender provisions. The applicant’s contrary submission was rejected.
3. The guideline required assessment of retained responsibility by reference to the medical evidence and all relevant information. Although the applicant’s alcohol dependency made her drinking involuntary and impaired self-control, the judge was entitled to find a medium level of retained responsibility. She knew that violence was likely when she and the deceased drank together, continued the relationship despite bail conditions intended to prevent contact, and drank substantially more than usual without psychiatric explanation.
4. There was no impermissible double counting. A feature such as offending while on bail could bear on retained responsibility by showing awareness of the relationship’s dangers, while also aggravating sentence because it involved breach of a court order. The failure to obtain medical assistance after using a knife was also capable of aggravating seriousness.
5. The judge had properly considered the mitigation, including the single stab wound and lack of intent to kill. He was entitled to conclude that the aggravating features outweighed mitigation and that a notional post-trial sentence of 17 years was not too high.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division)—The court refused the renewed application for leave to appeal against sentence in [2023] EWCA Crim 847.
• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division)—Eyre J had refused leave on the papers.
• Sentencing court—On 20 January 2023, Kerr J imposed an extended determinate sentence of 18 years and six months following the applicant’s guilty plea to manslaughter by reason of diminished responsibility.