Daniel Christopher Leitch & Ors v R

A Crown Court sentence is the sentence pronounced by the judge in open court. A court record, warrant or administrative entry cannot correct, supplement or replace it.

Within 56 days, Sentencing Act 2020 section 385 permits variation or rescission under the prescribed procedure, including a variation that is more onerous. The decision and reasons must nevertheless be announced at a public hearing. Outside that period, common law permits only the highly limited correction of the record to match the sentence pronounced. Any appellate correction is constrained by section 11(3) of the Criminal Appeal Act 1968, which prohibits more severe treatment.

Six unconnected sentencing appeals and applications were heard together because each raised an issue about a purported administrative amendment made after sentence had been pronounced in the Crown Court.

The individual matters also raised challenges to sentence. They concerned serious violence and sexual offending, stalking and sexual communications, historic child sexual abuse, handling stolen goods and driving offences, and aggravated vehicle taking.

The central question was whether court staff, or a judge acting other than through a publicly announced hearing, could alter a sentence or ancillary order after the sentencing hearing.

1. The court allowed some appeals or applications only to the limited extent stated, dismissed the remaining merits challenges, and refused Fleet’s renewed application for leave. It held that an administrative amendment not publicly pronounced was ineffective.

2. The controlling principle is that the sentence is that pronounced by the judge in open court. If it conflicts with a court record, the transcript prevails. The record must reflect the judicial pronouncement; it cannot itself create an order or sentence.

3. Section 385 of the Sentencing Act 2020 provides a 56-day statutory power to vary or rescind a sentence. The procedure in Part 28.4 of the Criminal Procedure Rules 2020 permits preparatory discussion, written applications, private hearings, and in appropriate cases a hearing without attendance. But the decision, with reasons, must be announced at a public hearing. The power may now produce a more onerous sentence if the procedural safeguards are met.

4. After 56 days, the residual common law power is normally confined to correcting the record so that it corresponds with what was pronounced. A substantive error can then be corrected only by the Court of Appeal, which may not make the offender more severely dealt with under section 11(3) of the Criminal Appeal Act 1968.

5. Applying those principles, the court set aside administrative additions of special custodial sentences and a restraining order in DS’s case, and an administrative extension of Fleet’s Sexual Harm Prevention Order. It corrected PB’s mandatory special custodial sentences because the substituted sentences did not make him more severely dealt with. It also corrected Adams’s unlawful fines and driving orders. The substantive sentencing challenges failed except to those limited extents.

6. The court further held that a formal diagnosis is unnecessary before severe psychological harm may be found from a victim personal statement; that sentencing ranges ordinarily address a single offence and may be exceeded to reflect multiple offending and totality; and that statutory notification requirements operate by law rather than judicial imposition.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division): In [2024] EWCA Crim 563, the court determined the conjoined sentencing appeals and applications, declaring ineffective administrative alterations that had not been publicly pronounced.

• Crown Court: Separate sentences and ancillary orders had been imposed at Exeter, Burnley, Caernarfon, Winchester, Oxford and Wood Green. Several were subsequently purportedly amended administratively or through incomplete slip-rule processes.