R v Michael Forbes

For assault on an emergency worker, the sentencing guideline requires the court first to assess the basic assault and then to make a proportionate, fact-sensitive uplift. An appellate court will intervene only for an error of principle or a sentence outside the reasonable range. A defendant must be sentenced on the factual basis advanced and admitted. A charge of going equipped to steal from cars cannot be aggravated on the unpleaded basis of intended domestic burglary. In bladed-article cases, a theoretical possibility of disorder does not establish a risk of serious disorder. A real and appreciable risk of serious alarm or distress may nevertheless justify the highest harm category.

The appellant pleaded guilty in the Crown Court at St Albans to assaulting an emergency worker, going equipped for theft, two offences of possessing a bladed article in a public place, and possessing class B drugs. He received an aggregate sentence of 24 months’ imprisonment.

He appealed on the grounds that the sentencing judge had misapplied the relevant guidelines for the assault, going-equipped, and bladed-article offences, and had failed properly to apply totality. The central issue was whether the individual sentences and their consecutive and concurrent structure were manifestly excessive.

1. Appeal allowed to a limited extent. The court quashed the nine-month concurrent sentence for going equipped and substituted five months’ imprisonment concurrent. The remaining sentences and the total sentence of 24 months’ imprisonment were unaffected.

2. The assault-on-an-emergency-worker guideline required the judge to identify the category, position the basic common assault within it, and then apply an appropriate uplift. The extent of that uplift was a discretionary and proportionate assessment. The judge was entitled to take account of the higher statutory maximum for assaulting an emergency worker. No error of principle was shown, and the 12-month sentence after credit for plea was within the reasonable range.

3. Thornton [2022] EWCA Crim 1902 and Adam [2023] EWCA Crim 324 were fact-specific illustrations of guideline application. They laid down no principle applicable to the present sentence appeal and gave no useful guidance on the extent of the uplift.

4. The going-equipped sentence was founded partly on an impermissible basis. Until sentencing, the prosecution had put the case as equipment for theft from cars, which was also the basis of the guilty plea. It was illegitimate to treat the appellant as equipped to commit domestic burglary. The proper classification was greater harm and medium culpability, with a sentence of no more than 28 weeks before plea reduction.

5. The knife offences were correctly placed in culpability Category A. Possession of a large knife which might be produced if confronted did not, without more, create a risk of serious disorder. However, the two frightening knives, one openly displayed on the bicycle, created a real and appreciable risk of serious alarm or distress. Harm Category 1 and a total pre-plea sentence of 16 months were therefore proper. The concurrent structure also gave proper effect to totality.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) — In [2024] EWCA Crim 971, the court allowed the sentence appeal only by reducing the concurrent sentence for going equipped from nine months to five months.
• Crown Court at St Albans — On 10 May 2024, the appellant was sentenced to a total of 24 months’ imprisonment after guilty pleas to five offences.