R v Lee James Thorpe

On an appeal against sentence, categorisation under Sentencing Council guidelines must reflect actual harm and culpability. A prolonged assault causing a broken bone and involving resistance to arrest may amount to high culpability and Category 1 harm. Assaulting an emergency worker in the course of duty is a statutory aggravating feature under the Sentencing Act 2020. A guideline for analogous offensive-weapon offences may be applied to possession of a corrosive substance under section 6 of the Offensive Weapons Act 2019. Totality concerns the overall sentence, not its precise allocation between concurrent counts. Delay does not require a reduction where statutory custody-credit rules apply and the prosecution proceeds reasonably.

The appellant pleaded guilty in the Crown Court at Newcastle upon Tyne to assault occasioning actual bodily harm, contrary to section 47 of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861, and possessing a corrosive substance in a public place, contrary to section 6 of the Offensive Weapons Act 2019. He received concurrent sentences of three years and nine months’ imprisonment on each count.

He appealed against sentence, arguing that the assault had been placed in the wrong guideline category, that insufficient mitigation had been allowed, and that delay in prosecution should have resulted in a reduction. The central issues were the proper categorisation of both offences, totality, and the effect of delay following the appellant’s recall to prison.

The court dismissed the appeal against sentence.

1. Assault. The assault was properly treated as high culpability and Category 1 harm. It was prolonged and persistent, involved a bite, caused a broken hand and included an attempt to use the officer’s baton. The broken bone justified the finding of serious physical injury. The further threat to use ammonia was initially left aside to avoid double counting.
2. Aggravation and mitigation. The appellant’s serious record of violent offending and weapon possession justified a substantial increase from the two-and-a-half-year starting point. The assault was also committed against an emergency worker acting in the course of duty. Under section 67 of the Sentencing Act 2020, the court stated that the offence was statutorily aggravated. An unsupported self-report of autism spectrum disorder and ADHD did not establish mitigation, and no explanation showed how those conditions related to the violent conduct.
3. Corrosive substance offence. Although the guideline for bladed articles and other offensive weapons did not expressly apply to section 6, it was closely analogous. The offences concerned offensive weapons in public, carried the same four-year maximum sentence, and the guideline expressly identified corrosive substances as highly dangerous weapons. Applying it was therefore appropriate. The ammonia justified culpability A and Category 1 harm because it was strongly alkaline, capable of causing severe burns and eyesight damage, and was carried and threatened to be used in circumstances risking serious disorder.
4. Totality. The notional five-year sentence after trial adequately reflected the combined criminality. The sentence of three years and nine months after 25 per cent credit for guilty pleas was severe but not manifestly excessive. Although it would have been more orthodox to place the principal sentence on the assault count and impose a shorter concurrent sentence on the second count, the court was concerned with the total sentence rather than its precise structure.
5. Delay. Section 240ZA of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 provides that custody following recall does not also count as remand time to be deducted from a later sentence. The delay was not especially lengthy and the prosecution proceeded with reasonable dispatch. The judge therefore acted correctly in refusing a reduction for delay.
6. Given the seriousness of the offending and the appellant’s record, immediate imprisonment was inevitable and the judge was entitled not to obtain a pre-sentence report.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) — On 5 September 2025, dismissed the appeal against sentence: [2025] EWCA Crim 1334.
• Crown Court at Newcastle upon Tyne — On 21 January 2025, imposed concurrent sentences of three years and nine months’ imprisonment on each count.