R v Tyrell Gomez

In an unduly lenient sentence reference, the court must assess the overall seriousness of the offending by applying the relevant guideline category, all aggravating features and any proper mitigation. A mental disorder may carry some mitigating weight even when it did not contribute to the offending. An early indication of a guilty plea may justify full credit despite later procedural failures, although that result may be generous. A sentencing judge may decline to find dangerousness where the available information, the offender’s progress, youth and sentence length support that discretionary judgment.

Where a sustained domestic assault involves strangulation, a knife, serious injury and breach of a court order, the overall sentence must properly reflect the cumulative seriousness of those features.

The Solicitor General referred the respondent’s sentence as unduly lenient. The respondent had pleaded guilty to wounding with intent, contrary to section 18 of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861, and breach of a restraining order. He had received four years’ imprisonment for the wounding and a concurrent three months’ imprisonment for the breach.

The offending was a prolonged domestic assault involving repeated violence, strangulation, threats with a knife, a stab wound and serious eye injury. The reference challenged the treatment of mental-health mitigation, the full one-third credit for plea, the absence of a dangerousness finding, and principally the adequacy of the overall sentence.

1. The court granted leave and allowed the reference. The four-year sentence for wounding with intent was unduly lenient. It was increased to five years’ imprisonment. The concurrent three-month sentence for breach of the restraining order remained unchanged.

2. The sentencing judge was entitled to give some mitigating weight to evidence of mental disorders and medication. The material did not establish a link between those conditions and the offending, but it could still be taken into account as mitigation. The precise weight was a matter for the judge.

3. The full one-third credit for guilty plea was generous because the respondent did not attend the first and adjourned pre-trial hearings. However, he had indicated at the Magistrates’ Court, with legal representation, that he would plead guilty on a full-facts basis. The Court of Appeal could not say that retaining full credit was wrong.

4. The judge had sufficient information to decline to find dangerousness and not to impose an extended sentence. The offending and previous convictions were serious, but the judge also had evidence of prison progress, engagement with work addressing offending, the respondent’s youth, and the sentence length.

5. The wounding fell at the top of culpability category A and at the bottom of harm category 2. The prolonged assault, strangulation, knife use, serious eye injury, relevant previous convictions, domestic-abuse context and breach of the restraining order required a sentence after trial of at least eight and a half years before mitigation. Applying a one-year allowance for mitigation and then the one-third plea reduction produced a sentence of five years.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division): On the Solicitor General’s reference under section 36 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988, the court allowed the reference and increased the sentence for wounding with intent from four to five years.
• Crown Court at Chichester: On 12 December 2024, the respondent received four years’ imprisonment for wounding with intent and a concurrent three months’ imprisonment for breach of a restraining order.