R v Jake Cooke

In sentencing a young offender for multiple sexual offences, the court must assess the whole offending and all aggravating and mitigating features. Sentencing guidelines are not applied mechanically. Significant planning may be established by a planned abduction, isolation of victims and movement to a remote location. Youth warrants an offender-focused reduction, but it is not automatically equivalent to immaturity. ADHD provides limited mitigation where the offending was planned rather than essentially impulsive. Multiple victims, severe psychological harm, prolonged abduction, threats, previous convictions and offending during a Youth Rehabilitation Order may justify a substantial uplift. A sentence of five years’ detention was unduly lenient; nine years’ detention on each rape count, concurrently, was substituted.

The respondent, aged seventeen at sentence and a little under sixteen and a half when offending, was convicted at Bradford Crown Court of two child abductions under section 2(1)(a) of the Child Abduction Act 1984 and three rapes of two thirteen-year-old girls. The Recorder imposed five years’ detention under section 250 of the Sentencing Act 2020 on each rape count, to run concurrently, with no separate penalty for abduction.

The Solicitor General sought leave to refer the sentence as unduly lenient. The central issues were whether the rapes should have been placed in a higher guideline category, the appropriate weight of the aggravating features, and the reductions justified by youth, maturity and ADHD.

Leave was granted and the sentence was increased.

1. Planning and offence category. The Recorder’s findings inevitably established significant planning. The planned purpose of the abduction, locking the taxi doors, disabling location services and taking the victims to an isolated disused church could not properly be characterised otherwise. The rapes therefore individually started in Category A, with an adult starting point of ten years and a range of nine to thirteen years.
2. Overall sentencing exercise. The Guidelines were guidelines, not tramlines. The court had to assess all the offending and all aggravating and mitigating features, avoiding a mechanical exercise. Even if the rapes had started in Category 2B, the ultimate conclusion would have been the same. The psychological harm was severe after seventeen months and likely to continue. Material aggravating features included four rapes against two particularly vulnerable victims, the prolonged abduction, threats of violence, the loss of S’s virginity without contraception, the use of cannabis and nitrous oxide, previous convictions and cautions, and offending during an existing Youth Rehabilitation Order. The abduction alone justified an increase measured in years, subject to totality and avoiding double counting.
3. Mitigation. ADHD was capable of management by medication and did not significantly reduce culpability, since the offending was planned rather than essentially impulsive. Youth was not automatically equivalent to immaturity. There was no evidence that the respondent was less mature than other children of his age, so a reduction of about 40 per cent was appropriate.
4. Disposition. The appropriate adult sentence after trial was at least fifteen years. Applying the reduction for age produced nine years’ detention. Five years was unduly lenient. The period of detention on Counts 4, 5 and 6 was increased to nine years on each count, concurrently; the remaining sentence was unaffected. The totality approach accorded with the guidance in Robinson [2020] EWCA Crim 866.

1. Court of Appeal (Criminal Division): On 18 January 2024, the court granted leave to refer the sentence as unduly lenient and increased the detention on each rape count to nine years, concurrently. The remaining sentence was unaffected. [2024] EWCA Crim 104
2. Crown Court at Bradford: Following conviction after trial, the Recorder sentenced the respondent to five years’ detention on each rape count, concurrently, with no separate penalty for the abduction counts.