Ozzie Cush & Ors v R

In sentencing serious public disorder, the court must assess an offender’s conduct in its whole context. Individual acts remain relevant, but participation in widespread violence, threats and alarm may substantially increase seriousness and the need for deterrence.

A sentencer must follow relevant guidelines, select the category which most resembles the case, and avoid double counting. Deterrence does not automatically rule out a suspended sentence; the decision remains fact-specific. Exceptionally powerful personal mitigation may nevertheless make suspension compatible with just punishment. A prison sentence is unavailable for an offender under 21, who must instead receive detention in a Young Offender Institution under the Sentencing Act 2020.

Four applicants sought leave to appeal sentences imposed after early guilty pleas for offending during violent public disorder in England in July and August 2024.

• Ozzie Cush was sentenced for assaulting an emergency worker during a volatile Whitehall protest.
• Paul Williams, Dylan Willis and Aminadab Temesgen were sentenced for violent disorder arising respectively in Sunderland, Middlesbrough and Plymouth.

The appeals raised the proper application of offence-specific sentencing guidelines in widespread disorder, including contextual aggravation, deterrence, double counting, suspension, mitigation, and the correct custodial disposal for offenders under 21. The central question was whether the sentences were wrong in principle or manifestly excessive.

1. The applications of Cush and Williams were refused. Their sentencing judges were entitled to treat the wider disorder as a serious contextual feature. In public-disorder sentencing, the offender’s own acts must be assessed as part of the whole disturbance, consistently with R v Caird and others, R v Fox and Hicks and R v Blackshaw and others.

2. The purposes in section 57 of the Sentencing Act 2020, including deterrence and public protection, justified swift sentencing and may give deterrence particular weight where violence risks spreading nationally. A sentencer must nevertheless follow the applicable guideline under section 59, select the category which most resembles the case under section 60(4), and consider all relevant mitigation.

3. Contextual seriousness may place an offence high within the relevant guideline category. It does not make the offender’s individual role immaterial. At the aggravation stage, an offender’s active and persistent participation or personal use of missiles may be taken into account without double counting where those features go beyond the factors used to classify the overall disorder.

4. The need for deterrence does not itself exclude a pre-sentence report or a suspended sentence. Suspension remains a fact-specific decision under the Imposition Guideline. In serious disorder immediate custody may be necessary, but the exceptionally strong combined mitigation in Willis’s case meant that appropriate punishment could be achieved by a suspended 14-month detention sentence.

5. In Temesgen’s case, opposing groups using or threatening violence against each other did not satisfy the category-A factor of a group targeting an individual or a smaller group. The correct category was B1. The resulting 14-month term was not excessive, but imprisonment was unlawful because Temesgen was under 21. Under section 227 of the Sentencing Act 2020, it was replaced with detention in a Young Offender Institution.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) — leave to appeal was refused for Cush and Williams. Willis’s appeal was allowed and his 14-month detention was suspended for two years with a rehabilitation activity requirement. Temesgen’s appeal was allowed only to replace unlawful imprisonment with 14 months’ detention in a Young Offender Institution.

• Crown Court at Inner London — Cush was sentenced to 46 weeks’ detention in a Young Offender Institution.

• Crown Court at Newcastle upon Tyne — Williams was sentenced to 26 months’ imprisonment.

• Crown Court at Teesside — Willis was sentenced to 14 months’ detention in a Young Offender Institution.

• Crown Court at Plymouth — Temesgen was sentenced to 14 months’ imprisonment.