R v Martin Julian Roberts

When an adult is sentenced for offences committed as a child, the court must apply the Children guideline and reconstruct the sentence likely to have been imposed shortly after the offending. It must consider the statutory maximum and custodial options available at that time for an offender of the relevant age. A modern adult sentence does not determine the appropriate historic sentence for a child offender. Comparator cases must be assessed against differences in age and offence seriousness. On appeal, the total sentence is generally more important than its concurrent or consecutive structure. A four-year total sentence for serious sexual offences committed at ages 15 to 16 was not unduly lenient.

The Attorney General referred the offender’s Court-Martial sentence under section 273 of the Armed Forces Act 2006, alleging undue leniency. In July 2024, the Military Court at Catterick, before Assistant Judge Advocate General Smith, sentenced him to four years’ imprisonment for nine serious sexual offences committed in 1985 when he was aged between 15 years 9 months and 16 years 9 months. The judge considered modern sentencing guidelines and historical custodial options, including detention under section 53 of the Children and Young Persons Act 1933. The Attorney General relied principally on historical adult sentencing and a comparator decision, and also challenged the sentence structure by reference to release provisions. The central questions were whether the total sentence was unduly lenient and whether the structure disclosed an error of principle.

Leave to refer was refused. The four-year total sentence was not so lenient that the court should interfere.

1. Historical sentencing exercise. The court endorsed the approach in Ahmed and others [2023] EWCA Crim 281. When sentencing an adult for offences committed as a child, the court must follow the Children guideline, have regard to the statutory maximum at the time of offending, and start from the sentence likely to have been imposed shortly afterwards. It must also consider the types and lengths of custody then available for an offender of the relevant age. In the notional 1986 exercise, youth custody of up to 12 months or detention under section 53 of the Children and Young Persons Act 1933 was available.
2. Adult sentencing comparator. Having regard to R v Billam [1986] 1 WLR 349, an adult sentenced in about 1986 for raping a young child would have received substantially more than five years’ imprisonment. That did not mean that a 16-year-old convicted of the present offending would have received four years or substantially more. The court distinguished R v SJ [2023] EWCA Crim 651: the offender there was older and the offending materially more serious.
3. Overall assessment. The court accepted the seriousness of the offending, the victim’s very young age, the series of escalating offences, the threats and grooming, and the lasting impact on the victim. It also gave weight to the offender’s age at the time, good character, health and the additional hardship of imprisonment away from his home and family. A total sentence of four years, if lenient at all, was not unduly lenient.
4. Sentence structure. On a sentence for multiple offences, the total sentence is generally more important than whether individual terms are concurrent or consecutive. The judge was entitled to impose a consecutive term to reflect the increased criminality of the other offences. He had not altered the sentence to achieve a particular result under the release provisions, and no error of principle was shown.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division): On 4 December 2024, refused leave for the Attorney General to refer the sentence under section 273 of the Armed Forces Act 2006.
• Military Court, Catterick: In July 2024, convicted the offender of nine offences and imposed a total sentence of four years’ imprisonment.