R v Jacqueline Mulenga Mwila

On an appeal against sentence, the question is whether the sentence is manifestly excessive, regardless of the precise route by which the sentencing judge reached it. A judge need not assign specific numerical reductions to individual factors. Where concurrent sentences are imposed for several offences, the overall assessment must consider all the offences, together with their aggravating and mitigating features and any guilty-plea reduction. A materially different case may provide little assistance as a sentencing comparator. A reduction for one culpability factor does not require the sentence to be placed at the bottom of the applicable range.

Following a collision in April 2023, the applicant pleaded guilty to causing death by dangerous driving and two offences of causing serious injury by dangerous driving. The Crown Court at Caernarfon sentenced her on 4 October 2024 to concurrent terms of 7 years and 4 months, 16 months and 2 years’ imprisonment. The single judge referred applications for an extension of time and leave to appeal against sentence to the full court. The central issue was whether the sentence for causing death by dangerous driving was manifestly excessive because the judge had assessed culpability and the downward adjustment within the guideline range incorrectly.

Applications refused. The court refused both the extension of time and leave to appeal against sentence.

1. The appellate question was whether the sentence was manifestly excessive, irrespective of the precise way in which the sentencing judge had carried out the sentencing exercise. A sentencing judge is not required to attribute specific figures to each individual factor considered. That approach was supported by R v Hallam [2025] 4 WLR 33 at [26(iii)] and R v Ratcliffe [2024] EWCA Crim 498; [2025] 1 Cr App R (S) 45 at [81].
2. The fact that only one factor placed the principal offence in the highest culpability category called for a reduction, but it was not useful to attach a separate numerical value to that factor. The assessment had to be made alongside the aggravating and mitigating factors. Because the sentences were concurrent, the judge was effectively sentencing for all three offences. The two serious-injury offences independently warranted sentences of three years and two years before the guilty-plea reduction, and the additional injuries were aggravating features of the death-by-dangerous-driving offence.
3. The court declined to use R v Ahmed [2023] EWCA Crim 1537 as a helpful comparator because it arose from materially different facts, including a different pattern of injuries.
4. Viewed in the context of all three offences, the aggravating and mitigating factors, and the one-third reduction for guilty pleas, the sentence of 7 years and 4 months was not arguably manifestly excessive.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division): applications for an extension of time and leave to appeal against sentence refused: [2025] EWCA Crim 1425.
• Crown Court at Caernarfon: on 4 October 2024, imposed concurrent sentences of 7 years and 4 months, 16 months and 2 years’ imprisonment for causing death by dangerous driving and two offences of causing serious injury by dangerous driving.