R v Zholia Alemi

In applying the totality principle, consecutive sentences may be appropriate where offending is separate, involves separate victims and causes separate harm. A sentencing court may consider earlier offending as aggravating the current offending without resentencing for the earlier offences. An offender remains responsible for the consequences of fraud even where another body failed to detect it. A sentence is not impermissibly consecutive where it takes effect on the day imposed under Sentencing Act 2020, s.225.

The applicant was convicted at the Crown Court at Manchester of forgery, using a false instrument, obtaining a pecuniary advantage by deception and fraud. She received a seven-year sentence for the present offences and had previously received a five-year sentence for separate Carlisle offending. After the Single Judge refused applications for an extension of time and leave to appeal, she renewed them. The conviction grounds concerned the conduct of the trial and representation. The sentence grounds concerned totality, alleged double counting of the earlier offending, and whether the sentence was unlawfully consecutive under s.225 of the Sentencing Act 2020.

Renewed applications refused. The court refused the renewed application for an extension of time and the renewed applications for leave to appeal against conviction and sentence.

1. The court identified no arguable ground against conviction and considered the conviction safe.
2. Section 225 of the Sentencing Act 2020 requires a sentence to start on the day it is imposed. The imprisonment order showed that the sentence took effect on the date of imposition. The sentencing remarks addressed totality and did not make the sentence unlawfully consecutive to the earlier Carlisle sentence.
3. The totality principle did not preclude consecutive sentences if the earlier and present offences had been sentenced together. The offending was separate, involved a separate victim and caused separate harm. The judge was entitled to take count 8 as the lead offence, aggregate the criminality in the present case and impose a sentence within the permissible range. The overall sentence was not shown to be excessive.
4. The Carlisle offending was properly treated as an aggravating feature of the present offending. This did not amount to resentencing for the earlier offences or impermissible double counting. The earlier offending showed how the fraudulent qualification had been used to exploit a vulnerable person and forge a will. In any event, its effect on the sentence was not shown to be substantial.
5. The judge had taken account of the applicant’s autism, age and the additional difficulties of imprisonment. The General Medical Council’s failure to detect errors in the original application did not mitigate the applicant’s conduct, since she remained fully responsible for the consequences of her fraud.

1. Court of Appeal (Criminal Division): refused the renewed applications for an extension of time and for leave to appeal against conviction and sentence.
2. Single Judge: refused the original applications for an extension of time and leave to appeal.
3. Crown Court at Manchester: convicted the applicant and sentenced her to seven years’ imprisonment on the lead count, with concurrent sentences on the other counts.