Jamie Jenkins v R

When fresh evidence shows that an offender’s serious mental disorder is chronic, relapsing and closely connected with offending, the court must assess the appropriate disposal by reference to all relevant circumstances. Where the statutory conditions are met, that assessment includes the need for treatment, the extent to which offending was attributable to the disorder, the punishment required, and public protection under the competing release and post-release regimes. A hospital order with restrictions may replace an IPP sentence on appeal where it offers the better means of managing continuing risk, particularly where medication compliance and specialist mental-health supervision are central. The assessment must account for the practical differences between release from prison and discharge under a restricted hospital order.

The appellant pleaded guilty to robbery in the Crown Court at Southwark in 2009 and received an indeterminate sentence of imprisonment for public protection under section 225 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003. The Criminal Cases Review Commission referred the sentence to the Court of Appeal on the basis of fresh psychiatric evidence concerning paranoid schizophrenia, personality disorder, treatment needs and risk.

The court also considered the effect of three later consecutive sentences: two Crown Court sentences for assault occasioning actual bodily harm and a magistrates’ court sentence for assault on an emergency worker. The central issue was whether the IPP should be replaced by a restricted hospital order and how the later consecutive sentences should be treated.

1. IPP appeal allowed. The court admitted the fresh psychiatric reports and oral evidence under section 23 of the Criminal Appeal Act 1968. It accepted that the appellant’s paranoid schizophrenia was chronic and relapsing, that it was of a nature making hospital treatment appropriate, and that the psychosis and personality disorder could not realistically be separated in assessing risk.
2. The governing considerations for a hospital order under sections 37 and 41 of the Mental Health Act 1983 were taken from Vowles [2015] EWCA Crim 45, as elucidated in Edwards [2018] EWCA Crim 595 and summarised in Surrey [2022] EWCA Crim 1279. The statutory medical recommendations were necessary but insufficient. The court had to consider all relevant circumstances, including the need for treatment, the relationship between the offending and the disorder, the punishment required, and public protection, paying close attention to the different release and recall regimes.
3. The evidence showed that the appellant’s risk increased when he stopped taking medication or became symptomatic. A restricted hospital order would provide closer supervision, specialist accommodation, treatment conditions, rapid recall and MAPPA involvement. Those arrangements offered better treatment and public protection than continued detention under the IPP and release through the Parole Board.
4. The IPP was quashed and replaced with a hospital order under section 37 with a restriction order under section 41, specifying the appellant’s place of detention and his disorders.
5. The court exercised its discretion, in the rare and exceptional circumstances of the case, to interfere with the two later Crown Court sentences. It granted leave, allowed those appeals and quashed the orders making them consecutive to the IPP, applying section 29(4) of the Criminal Appeal Act 1968. The court declined to rely on section 142 of the Magistrates’ Courts Act 1980 to vary the later magistrates’ court sentence because the available material did not establish a mistake, error of law or procedural defect; the sentence appeared lawful and any alleged error was more properly addressed by appeal.
6. The supplied judgment records that the court would immediately hear the appeal concerning the magistrates’ court sentence under section 108(1) of the Magistrates’ Courts Act 1980, with the constitution described at paragraph 61. Its final outcome is not stated in the supplied text.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division): The appellant was sentenced in the Crown Court at Southwark on 8 July 2009 to an IPP sentence. An earlier sentence appeal was dismissed: R v Jenkins [2010] EWCA Crim 1259. Following a CCRC reference, the present court allowed the appeal, quashed the IPP and substituted a restricted hospital order. It also allowed appeals concerning two later Crown Court sentences and quashed the orders making them consecutive. The supplied judgment then records that an appeal concerning a later magistrates’ court sentence was to be heard immediately after judgment.