R v Luther Takawira & Anor

In sentencing very large-scale drug conspiracies, the Sentencing Council guideline permits departure from its category table where the operation is on the most serious and commercial scale and the quantity significantly exceeds category 1. The offender’s role remains material. A judge should indicate during mitigation if departure is contemplated, but an agreed table-based approach does not bind the judge. On appeal, the court asks whether the sentence is manifestly excessive and is slow to interfere with findings based on trial evidence. Where a separate supply offence involves the same class of drugs, period and conspiracy, and is barely distinguishable from it, no additional imprisonment is merited. Guilty plea credit must be reflected even if it does not alter time in custody. An omitted surcharge cannot be added administratively by the Crown Court where the appellate court lacks power to increase custody.

This was an appeal against sentence with leave of the single judge. On 15 March 2024, the Crown Court at Winchester sentenced Luther Takawira and Kai Jerome Williams for their involvement in a large-scale conspiracy to supply cocaine. Takawira had been convicted after trial and received 15 years’ imprisonment for the conspiracy, with a concurrent three-year sentence for transferring criminal property. Williams had pleaded guilty and received 16 years and six months for the conspiracy, together with a consecutive 18-month sentence for supplying cocaine to Takawira.

The appeals concerned departure from the Sentencing Council guideline, the assessment of each appellant’s role and knowledge of the conspiracy, the imposition of consecutive sentences, credit for Takawira’s guilty plea, and the Crown Court’s administrative addition of a surcharge.

The appeals were allowed in part.

1. Williams: The challenge to the conspiracy sentence failed. Although the judge had not expressly stated that Williams knew the scale of the operation, his finding that Williams was the organiser’s right-hand man necessarily implied awareness that the operation involved large-scale commercial supply. His close relationship with the organiser, encrypted communications, substantial financial gain, dealings in large quantities and direction of couriers provided evidence from which the judge could reach that conclusion. The quantity involved was very significantly above the 5-kilogram indicative amount for a category 1 cocaine offence. The conspiracy therefore justified moving outside the guideline table and adopting a notional sentence of 19 years before credit for the guilty plea.
2. The 18-month sentence for supplying cocaine to Takawira should have been concurrent. The supply involved drugs of the same class and nature, within the conspiracy period, supplied by one conspirator to another, and sourced through the same operation. Whether technically part of the conspiracy or so closely related as to be barely distinguishable from it, it merited no additional term. Williams’s overall sentence was consequently reduced to 16 years and six months.
3. Takawira: The judge was entitled to depart from the guideline table because the conspiracy involved at least 133 kilograms of cocaine and was on a serious commercial scale. It was best practice to warn the parties during mitigation if such a departure was contemplated, but the parties’ agreed table-based approach did not bind the judge. The conspiracy sentence was not manifestly excessive. The judge was entitled to distinguish Takawira from couriers by relying on his close association with Williams, his records of cash payments, evidence of drug dealing and evidence that he understood the extent of the operation. The court was slow to interfere with conclusions drawn from evidence heard at trial.
4. Credit for Takawira’s guilty plea to transferring criminal property had to be reflected even though it did not alter the time he would serve. The three-year sentence was quashed and replaced by one of two years and three months. The Crown Court had no power to add the surcharge administratively. As the Court of Appeal had not increased the custodial term, the surcharge reference was deleted from the court record.

1. Crown Court at Winchester: On 15 March 2024, sentenced Takawira and Williams for conspiracy to supply cocaine and related offences.
2. Court of Appeal (Criminal Division): Allowed Williams’s appeal so that the supply sentence ran concurrently; allowed Takawira’s appeal to reflect guilty plea credit and deleted the surcharge reference; otherwise dismissed the challenges to sentence.