R v Caydon Hutchison

Sentencing a child or young person requires an individualised assessment of age, maturity and personal circumstances. Adult sentencing ranges may assist, but any reduction for youth must not be applied mechanically. Custody remains a sentence of last resort, yet may be necessary for a grave and premeditated group knife attack.

A sentencing judge must expressly address material personal mitigation. Where it balances identified aggravating features, a failure to make a corresponding adjustment is an error of principle requiring appellate intervention.

The appellant, aged 17 when he offended, pleaded guilty in the Youth Court to possessing a bladed instrument and to wounding with intent. He and two co-accused carried out an unprovoked attack outside a cinema. A co-accused used a large knife and the appellant later joined the violence while holding the blade.

At the Crown Court at Woolwich, the appellant was sentenced to three years and seven months’ detention in a young offender institution. He appealed, contending that immediate custody was unjustified and that the judge had failed to reflect substantial personal mitigation.

The central issues were whether custody was necessary and whether the sentence adequately accounted for the appellant’s mitigation as a young person.

1. The appeal was allowed in part. The court upheld the conclusion that immediate custody was necessary. The offending was a vicious, unprovoked and premeditated group attack involving a machete in a public place. The victim’s injuries were not life-threatening, but could easily have been fatal. The fact that the conduct was out of character did not reduce its seriousness.
2. The judge correctly treated the appellant as a young person and applied the principles in R v ZA [2023] EWCA Crim 596. Sentencing must be individualised. The welfare and maturity of a young offender require careful consideration, and custody is a last resort. However, those principles did not preclude immediate detention on these facts.
3. The judge was entitled to adopt an adult starting point of five years’ custody and to make a one-third age-related reduction after considering the appellant’s individual circumstances. The late guilty plea properly attracted a ten per cent reduction.
4. There was, however, an error of principle. The judge had identified aggravating features but had not expressly addressed the appellant’s substantial personal mitigation. He was of previous good character; the offence was out of character; he had responded well to Youth Offending Team work; and he had positive educational, employment and rehabilitation prospects. That mitigation balanced the aggravation.
5. The appropriate adult sentence was four years and six months’ imprisonment. Having regard to the appellant’s age, the court substituted three years’ detention under section 230 of the Sentencing Act 2020, less 198 days for the electronically monitored curfew. The transcript records that a sentencing-power error was later corrected by reopening the decision under rule 36.15 of the Criminal Procedure Rules.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division): Allowed the appeal to the extent that the sentencing judge had failed to adjust for substantial personal mitigation. It substituted three years’ detention, less 198 days for curfew time.
• Crown Court at Woolwich: Sentenced the appellant to three years and seven months’ detention in a young offender institution for wounding with intent.
• Bexley Youth Court: The appellant pleaded guilty to possessing a bladed instrument and later to wounding with intent.