R v Keeyan Thompson

Where offences were committed by a 17-year-old but sentence is passed after adulthood, the court should first identify the appropriate adult sentence and then make a distinct reduction for youth before applying credit for a guilty plea. The reduction must reflect diminished maturity and personal mitigation connected with the offender’s age.

The one-third guilty-plea reduction for a child or young person remains exceptional. It requires circumstances making an earlier indication unreasonable. A plea may be indicated subject to a determination of fitness to plead; awaiting that determination did not justify the full one-third reduction on these facts.

The appellant, aged 17 when the offences were committed, pleaded guilty after turning 18 to six robberies and one attempted robbery. The offences involved the targeting of passengers, including schoolchildren, on London buses, sometimes with accomplices and, in the lead offence, violence.

The Crown Court imposed an extended sentence of seven years, comprising four and a half years’ custody and a two-and-a-half-year extension period. The appellant challenged the sentence as manifestly excessive, principally because insufficient allowance had been made for his age and personal mitigation, and because he sought a one-third plea reduction.

The central issues were the proper sequencing and extent of the reduction for youth, and whether the circumstances justified the maximum guilty-plea credit.

1. Appeal allowed. The court quashed every Crown Court sentence and substituted concurrent custodial sentences of three years on all counts. It also corrected the victim surcharge to £34.
2. The recorder had properly used the adult robbery guideline to reach a six-year starting sentence for the lead offence. However, because the appellant was 17 when he committed the offences, the court should then have made a distinct reduction for his youth before allowing credit for his guilty pleas. The relevant guidance required the court to begin with the sentence likely to have been imposed when the offence was committed, while also taking account of the purposes of sentencing an adult offender.
3. On the facts, a reduction of one third from the adult sentence, from six years to four years, properly reflected the appellant’s age. It also adequately reflected his personal mitigation, which was substantially connected with his youth at the time of offending. The failure to make that reduction rendered the original sentence excessive.
4. The appellant was not entitled to a one-third guilty-plea reduction. Although there had been a need to establish fitness to plead, he could and should have indicated his intended pleas earlier, subject to that issue being resolved. The recorder therefore correctly allowed a 25 per cent reduction, reducing the four-year term to three years.
5. The substituted three-year term fell below the threshold on which the extended sentence had been imposed. The extended sentence was therefore replaced by concurrent determinate sentences of three years’ custody.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) — leave to appeal against sentence was granted and the appeal was allowed. The extended sentence was quashed and concurrent sentences of three years’ custody were substituted.
• Crown Court — on 17 March 2023, Recorder Broadfoot KC imposed an extended sentence of seven years, comprising four and a half years’ custody and a two-and-a-half-year extension period.