Mohammed Junaid v R

In assessing sentence for drug-supply offending, a court may move substantially above the guideline starting point where the evidence shows a sophisticated commercial operation extending beyond street-level dealing. The sentence must nevertheless reflect totality across separate drug enterprises and offences.

A guilty plea may justify a substantial reduction, but no further reduction is required where the sentencing judge has already allowed appropriate credit and the offender has relevant previous convictions. Consecutive sentences may properly reflect distinct offences, including driving while disqualified, provided the aggregate sentence is just and proportionate.

Mohammed Junaid appealed, with leave, against a total sentence of six years and three months’ imprisonment imposed in the Crown Court at Aylesbury on 24 October 2023.

He had pleaded guilty to drug-supply, fraudulent-evasion, criminal-property and driving-while-disqualified offences. The offending involved cocaine and cannabis, intercepted cannabis packages, cash, telephones, scales, and premises used to prepare drugs for supply.

The appeal challenged the categorisation and length of the drug sentences, the credit for the guilty plea, the treatment of previous convictions, the consecutive driving sentences, and the overall sentence as manifestly excessive.

1. Appeal dismissed. The total sentence of six years and three months’ imprisonment was not manifestly excessive. It was just and proportionate to the totality of the offending.

2. The judge was entitled to sentence the cocaine offence as significant-role, category 3 offending. The sophisticated commercial operation across three properties, including premises used to prepare and cut Class A and Class B drugs, justified a substantial upward movement from the four-and-a-half-year starting point to six years before credit for plea. The operation was materially above street-level dealing despite the quantity of Class A drugs recovered.

3. The 25% reduction for the guilty plea, reducing that sentence to four years and six months, was generous in the circumstances. No further reduction was required for previous convictions, prison conditions, or the overall non-violent and non-sexual nature of the offending.

4. The cannabis-importation operation was properly treated as a leading role. A consecutive sentence was justified because it was a separate enterprise, and its reduction to 18 months adequately reflected totality.

5. Three months’ consecutive imprisonment for the two driving-while-disqualified offences was justified. Although the sentencing judge should have endorsed the licence with six penalty points on each count, the court could not correct that omission under section 11(3) of the Criminal Appeal Act 1968; it made no order.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division): Appeal against sentence dismissed in [2024] EWCA Crim 1202.
• Crown Court at Aylesbury: On 24 October 2023, Judge Jonathan Cooper imposed a total sentence of six years and three months’ imprisonment following guilty pleas.