R v Safina Bi

Leave to appeal against sentence is available only where the sentence is arguably manifestly excessive or the sentencing judge has arguably erred in principle. An appellate court will not intervene merely because mitigation can be re-presented or re-weighed.

In deciding whether to suspend an imprisonment term, a judge may properly conclude that only immediate custody can achieve appropriate punishment. A spontaneous or short-lived assault feature need not reduce the culpability assessment where the offender deliberately takes up and uses a weapon which causes life-changing injury.

The applicant pleaded guilty to inflicting grievous bodily harm contrary to section 20 of the Offences against the Person Act 1861. During a hostile verbal confrontation between neighbouring families, she threw a plank of wood over a hedge. It struck the complainant’s eye and caused complete loss of vision in that eye.

At the Crown Court at Preston, the Recorder placed the offence in category B1 under the applicable sentencing guideline and imposed two years’ imprisonment on 1 July 2024. The single judge refused leave to appeal. The applicant renewed her application, contending that the starting point was too high, mitigation deserved greater weight, and the sentence should have been suspended.

1. The renewed application for leave to appeal against sentence was refused. The court held that leave is available only where it is arguable that the sentence was manifestly excessive or that the sentencing judge erred in principle. Neither ground was established.
2. The offence was properly treated as category B1. Although the assault was short-lived, that feature did not require a lower starting point. The dominant culpability feature was the applicant’s deliberate act in taking up an available piece of wood as a weapon and using it to inflict life-changing injury. It was also the first physical violence in what had previously been a verbal confrontation.
3. The submission that the pre-plea term should have been lower merely re-advanced mitigation which the Recorder had considered. The Recorder was entitled to regard the mitigation and the aggravating feature of offending in the presence of children as balancing each other. A two-year sentence for the devastating injury could not be described as manifestly excessive.
4. The full one-third reduction for the guilty plea was more generous than the 25 per cent reduction indicated by the guideline. There had been no earlier indication that the applicant would plead guilty to the section 20 offence rather than the section 18 offence.
5. On suspension, the Recorder was not obliged to suspend the term. Under the Imposition Guideline, a conclusion that appropriate punishment can only be achieved by immediate custody may itself justify declining suspension. The Recorder had considered the guideline and the mitigation, and her conclusion disclosed no error of principle.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division): The renewed application for leave to appeal against sentence was refused: [2024] EWCA Crim 1219.
• Single judge of the Court of Appeal: Leave to appeal against sentence was refused.
• Crown Court at Preston: On 1 July 2024, the Recorder sentenced the applicant to two years’ imprisonment for an offence contrary to section 20 of the Offences against the Person Act 1861.