R v Logan Nathan Perumall

In sentencing sexual offences, attempting to make a complainant consume alcohol may fall within the sentencing guideline’s treatment of alcohol used to facilitate offending. Even where it does not independently justify the highest culpability category, the attempt remains an aggravating feature. A sentence will not be interfered with as manifestly excessive or wrong in principle merely because the offending might fall on the borderline between culpability categories. The sentencing judge must address personal mitigation, but careful sentencing remarks dealing with the available mitigation will ordinarily answer an allegation that it was overlooked.

The applicant renewed an application for leave to appeal against a total sentence of 12 years’ imprisonment imposed by the Crown Court at Kingston upon Thames. The sentence followed convictions for one count of attempted rape, contrary to section 1 of the Criminal Attempts Act 1981, and two counts of assault by penetration, contrary to section 2 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003.

The single judge had refused leave on the papers. The applicant argued that the sentencing judge had wrongly classified culpability as category A because alcohol was used to facilitate the offending, and had failed to take account of personal mitigation. The central issues were the proper effect of the attempted use of alcohol and whether the sentence was manifestly excessive or wrong in principle.

1. Application refused. The renewed application for leave to appeal against sentence was refused because the proposed appeal was not arguable as a challenge to a sentence that was manifestly excessive or wrong in principle.
2. The applicant had bought whiskey using the complainant’s bank card and repeatedly put it to her lips in an unsuccessful attempt to make her drink it. The court inclined to the view that this conduct constituted the use of alcohol to facilitate offending within the relevant sentencing guideline.
3. Alternatively, even if that conduct did not fall within the guideline feature justifying culpability category A on its own, the attempt to use alcohol was plainly an aggravating feature relevant to culpability. The possible argument that the offending was borderline between categories 2A and 2B therefore did not establish an excessive sentence.
4. The court rejected the contention that personal mitigation had been ignored. The sentencing remarks carefully addressed the relevant aggravating features and the available mitigation, including the matters relied upon by the applicant.
5. In those circumstances, a sentence of 12 years for one count of attempted rape and two counts of assault by penetration was not arguably manifestly excessive, even on the assumption that the offending should have been treated as borderline category 2A/2B.

• Crown Court at Kingston upon Thames: Her Honour Judge Kent sentenced the applicant to a total of 12 years’ imprisonment for one count of attempted rape and two counts of assault by penetration.
• Single judge: Leave to appeal against sentence was refused on the papers.
• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division): The renewed application for leave was refused. [2024] EWCA Crim 1593