R v Joshua Enodolomwanyi

Sentencing for kidnapping, including attempted kidnapping, requires close analysis of the facts and circumstances. Relevant factors include duration, location, violence, weapons, threats, victim impact, planning, the number of offenders, torture or humiliation, criminal purpose and vulnerability. For an attempt, those factors must be assessed in that context, and a reduction from the sentence for a completed offence is generally appropriate. Dangerousness may be established where the evidence and professional risk assessments show a significant risk of serious harm from further specified offences. An aggravating finding of intended serious sexual harm must, however, be supported by the evidence as a whole, including psychiatric evidence.

Following a trial at the Crown Court at Chester, Joshua Enodolomwanyi was convicted of attempted kidnapping and sentenced to an extended determinate sentence of nine years and six months, comprising five years and six months’ custody and a four-year extended licence period.

He appealed against sentence with leave. He challenged both the finding that he was dangerous and the custodial term as manifestly excessive. The issues included the assessment of an attempted kidnapping, the effect of his mental disorder, the alleged sexual motivation, personal mitigation and the evidence of future risk.

The appeal was allowed in part. The challenge to dangerousness failed, but the custodial term was reduced.

1. Assessment of gravity. The authorities on kidnapping, including Attorney General's Reference Nos 92 and 93 of 2014 (R v Atkins and Gibney) [2014] EWCA Crim 2713; [2015] 1 Cr App R(S) 44 and Attorney General's Reference (R v Bowskill) [2022] EWCA Crim 1358; [2023] 1 Cr App R(S) 12, required a close analysis of the facts and circumstances. Relevant factors included duration, circumstances and location, violence, weapons, threats or demands, the effect on the victim, planning, the number of offenders, torture or humiliation, criminal purpose and victim vulnerability. Those factors also applied to attempted kidnapping, with duration assessed in the context of an attempt.

2. The Recorder had properly considered the attempt, its persistence, the five-to-ten-minute duration, the limited actual violence, the threat to punch the victim, the effect on her, limited planning, the appellant’s mental disorder, lack of previous convictions and family circumstances. The kidnapping guideline did not affect the sentence because it applied only to offences sentenced after 1 April 2025.

3. The Recorder was entitled to regard the conduct as predatory and serious. However, on the evidence as a whole, including the psychiatric evidence, he could not safely infer that the appellant intended serious sexual harm. The evidence suggested that the appellant believed the victim was the woman with whom he should form a relationship. That did not justify an inference that he intended to cause serious sexual harm.

4. In the unusual circumstances of the case, five years and six months’ custody was manifestly excessive. A custodial term in the region of four years was appropriate.

5. The Recorder was nevertheless entitled to conclude that the appellant satisfied the statutory dangerousness test. The circumstances of the offence and the pre-sentence and addendum reports supported a significant risk of serious harm to women through further offences. An extended sentence was therefore justified.

6. The extended determinate sentence of nine years and six months was quashed. An extended determinate sentence of eight years was substituted, comprising four years’ custody and a four-year extended licence period.

1. Court of Appeal (Criminal Division): The appeal against sentence was allowed in part. The dangerousness ground was dismissed, the custodial term was reduced, and a new extended determinate sentence of eight years was substituted.
2. Crown Court at Chester: Following conviction for attempted kidnapping, the Recorder imposed an extended determinate sentence of nine years and six months.