R v ACP

Sentencing an adult for sexual offences committed as a child requires a structured assessment of seriousness, aggravating factors, personal mitigation, guilty plea and overall review. Individual sentences may be calculated under the applicable offence guidelines, but the final sentence must reflect totality, the offender’s age at each offence and relevant vulnerabilities. Where custody is unavoidable, the adult guideline may assist with determining length. Any reduction for offenders aged 15 to 17 is only a rough guide and must not be applied mechanically. The sentencing judge should state the overall term appropriate for an adult and then the term imposed after age-related and personal mitigation. An unexplained final term that fails to reflect those adjustments may be manifestly excessive.

The appellant was convicted at the Crown Court at Sheffield on seven serious sexual offences committed against his stepbrother between 2011 and 2015, when the appellant was aged between 12 and 16 and the victim between 6 and 9. On 18 March 2024, the appellant received a total sentence of 11 years’ imprisonment. He appealed against sentence with permission.

The grounds relied on the appellant’s age at the time of the offences, personal vulnerabilities and psychological evidence. The central issue was whether the sentencing judge had properly applied the guidance for offences committed by children and properly assessed the overall sentence under the principle of totality.

The appeal against sentence was allowed in part. The 11-year term on count 7 was quashed and replaced with a term of 9 years. The other concurrent sentences remained unchanged.

1. The sentencing judge had correctly calculated the individual sentences under the sexual-offence guidelines. She had also correctly applied totality and treated count 7 as the lead offence because the appellant was 16 when it was committed. Those individual sentences were not open to proper criticism.
2. The error concerned the unexplained final fixing of 11 years to reflect the offending as a whole. The appropriate approach was to state the overall term that would have been imposed on an adult, and then state the term imposed after allowing for the offender’s age at the time of the offences and particular vulnerabilities.
3. Two alternative routes led to a term of 9 years. A hypothetical adult sentence for the offending as a whole would have been about 16 years, substantially reduced for age and vulnerabilities. Alternatively, the five-step approach identified in R v Ahmed [2023] EWCA Crim 281 produced the same result. R v ZA [2023] EWCA Crim 596 added nothing to that approach.
4. The five steps required assessment of seriousness, aggravating factors, personal mitigation, guilty plea and final review of sentence. The case involved coercive penetrative offending, numerous serious offences, prolonged offending, planning, grooming and substantial age disparity. Before personal mitigation, a term of about 11 or 12 years was justified. The appellant’s disabilities and vulnerabilities reduced that term to about 9 years. The suggested half-to-two-thirds reduction for offenders aged 15 to 17 was only a rough guide and was not to be applied mechanistically.
5. The court also confirmed that the reporting restriction under the Sexual Offences (Amendment) Act 1992 continued to apply.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division): under [2025] EWCA Crim 1140, allowed the appeal against sentence in part, quashing the 11-year term on count 7 and replacing it with 9 years.
• Crown Court at Sheffield: convicted the appellant on 25 January 2024 and sentenced him on 18 March 2024 to a total of 11 years’ imprisonment.