R v Vernon Steele

When sentencing for multiple offences, the totality principle requires the court to reflect the offender’s overall criminality without simply multiplying the sentence for one offence by the number of offences. Separate offences committed on different occasions may require a significant uplift for seriousness and persistence. Where the offences involve the same victim and the complaint is that the aggregate sentence is too low, the court may reflect the overall criminality by increasing the sentence on the principal count and making other sentences concurrent.

Following his conviction by a jury for four rapes, the offender was sentenced by the Crown Court at Gloucester to an aggregate term of eight years’ imprisonment. The sentencing judge placed the offences in category 2B, involving a particularly vulnerable victim, and structured the sentence as six years on count 1, with two-year sentences on counts 2 to 4 concurrent with one another but consecutive to count 1.

The Solicitor General referred the sentence under s.36 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988 as unduly lenient. The central issue was whether eight years adequately reflected four separate rapes committed against the same victim, applying the totality principle.

The court granted leave to refer the sentence under s.36 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988 and allowed the reference.

1. Sentence for a single offence. Although the aggravating features tended to outweigh the mitigating features, a sentence of eight years for one rape, viewed in isolation, was within the range reasonably open to the sentencing judge. There was no justification for going significantly below that level.
2. Totality and multiple offences. The judge had sentenced for four rapes committed on separate occasions over approximately seven to ten days. An aggregate sentence of eight years did not adequately reflect the seriousness and persistence of the conduct. The totality principle did not require simply aggregating four single-offence sentences, but the uplift from eight years had to be significant and was assessed as no less than a further four years.
3. Structure of the sentence. Although separate incidents could support consecutive sentences, the court considered that the essential complaint concerned the inadequacy of the aggregate sentence and that all offences involved the same victim. It therefore quashed the sentence on count 1, substituted twelve years on that count, and directed that the sentences on counts 2, 3 and 4 remain unchanged but be concurrent.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division): On a reference by the Solicitor General under s.36 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988, leave was granted. The sentence on count 1 was quashed and replaced with twelve years’ imprisonment; the sentences on counts 2 to 4 were made concurrent.
• Crown Court at Gloucester: The offender was sentenced to an aggregate term of eight years’ imprisonment for four rapes.