R v Leighton Williams

For the rebuttable dangerousness assumption in section 229(3) of the Criminal Justice Act 2003, the sentencing court must make a genuine evaluative assessment of the available information. It will usually be unreasonable to maintain the assumption unless that information shows a significant risk of serious harm from future offending.

A prior violent conviction does not itself establish a relevant pattern of behaviour. The court must assess the context and motivation of each offence, the offender’s maturity and development, and factors which may reduce future risk. An appellate court may intervene where the dangerousness conclusion involved an error of principle or was not properly open to the sentencing judge.

The applicant was convicted at Cardiff Crown Court on 4 June 2008 of causing grievous bodily harm with intent, contrary to section 18 of the Offences against the Person Act 1861. He was then aged 20. On 26 June 2008, the recorder imposed an indeterminate sentence of detention in a young offender institution for public protection, with a minimum term of 30 months.

In 2023, after trial counsel had originally advised against an appeal, he sought a substantial extension of time and leave to appeal against sentence. His sole ground was that the recorder had wrongly found him dangerous under the statutory regime. The central issue was whether his two section 18 offences, committed at ages 17 and 19 in materially different circumstances, justified a finding of significant future risk of serious harm.

1. Extension, leave and appeal allowed. The court granted the lengthy extension of time, granted leave to appeal and allowed the appeal against sentence.

2. The statutory dangerousness assessment under sections 225 and 229 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 required an evaluative judgment. Applying R v Lang [2005] EWCA Crim 2864, the section 229(3) assumption could not properly be maintained unless the information about the offences, any pattern of behaviour and the offender showed a significant risk of serious harm from further offending. An appellate court does not interfere merely because it would have reached another view, but may do so for error of principle or where the conclusion lay outside the proper range.

3. The recorder wrongly treated the two section 18 offences as a relevant pattern. The earlier offence involved violence in the course of robbery. The later offence involved drunken violence during a confrontation. Their differing motivations and contexts did not make either type of future offending more likely by reason of the other.

4. The recorder also failed to give sufficient weight to the applicant’s immaturity. The first offence was committed at 17 and the second at 19. Turning 18 is not a bright-line transition to maturity. Poor thinking skills and continuing emotional development may remain material to dangerousness. The pre-sentence report also identified alcohol as the driver of the violence and recorded the applicant’s wish to address it, which reduced the future risk.

5. Had those matters and the guidance in R v Lang [2005] EWCA Crim 2864 been applied, the section 229 assumption would have been unreasonable and the dangerousness criterion would not have been met. The contrary conclusion was not properly open to the recorder. The IPP sentence was quashed and replaced with five years’ detention in a young offender institution, resulting in immediate release. The applicant was directed to report immediately to probation for available post-sentence supervision.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division): In [2024] EWCA Crim 686, the court granted an extension of time and leave to appeal, allowed the appeal against sentence, quashed the IPP sentence and substituted five years’ detention in a young offender institution.
• Crown Court at Cardiff: On 4 June 2008, the applicant was convicted of causing grievous bodily harm with intent. On 26 June 2008, Mr Recorder Rouch QC imposed an indeterminate sentence for public protection with a 30-month minimum term.