R v Carl Dunning

A summing-up must be assessed fairly and as a whole. It is not unfair merely because it identifies a prosecution inference that is supported by the evidence, provided that the judge also fairly reminds the jury of the defence case and explanation.

Knowing assistance to an offender may properly attract an immediate custodial sentence where it includes concealing the offender’s identity and actively misleading the police after very serious associated offending. A judge should expressly address the Imposition Guideline, but that omission will not make a sentence wrong where its relevant considerations were plainly considered and the seriousness of the offence requires immediate custody.

R v Carl Dunning concerned renewed applications for leave to appeal against conviction and sentence. The applicant had been convicted at Birmingham Crown Court of assisting his son, who had stabbed the deceased and was later convicted of manslaughter. The assistance consisted of giving his son clothing after the stabbing and providing the police with a false direction of travel for the assailant.

The applicant was sentenced to two years’ imprisonment. He contended that the trial judge’s summing-up had favoured the prosecution and that the sentence was excessive and should have been suspended.

The central issues were whether the conviction was arguably unsafe because of the summing-up, and whether the immediate two-year sentence was arguably manifestly excessive.

1. The court dismissed both renewed applications for leave to appeal. The conviction was not arguably unsafe and the two-year sentence was not arguably manifestly excessive.

2. The judge had not invented an unsupported theory that the applicant went to the scene to create a false trail. That was part of the prosecution case, founded on the applicant’s false account to police of the direction in which the assailant had fled. When defence counsel raised concern about that point, the judge specifically reminded the jury of the applicant’s evidence and explanation.

3. The jury were entitled to infer that, after speaking to his son and giving him clothes, the applicant knew of the assault because he went immediately to the scene. They were also entitled to reject his account that an unidentified person had told him that someone had been stabbed. Read as a whole, the summing-up fairly presented the defence case and did not amount to judicial endorsement of the prosecution. The evidence against the applicant was strong, particularly his presence at the scene and his lie to police designed to protect his son.

4. On sentence, the judge had considered the mitigation, including the applicant’s efforts to assist the deceased. He was nevertheless entitled to regard the offending as extending beyond the provision of clothing: the applicant had also sought to divert police attention and enable his son to evade apprehension. In the setting of a manslaughter, that conduct seriously damaged the administration of justice.

5. The judge’s starting point of two years and six months, reduced to two years, was well within the proper range. R v Memmory and others [2023] EWCA Crim 186 indicated a three-year starting point for this type of offence. Although the judge should expressly have referred to the Imposition Guideline, he had its relevant considerations and the mitigation in mind. The seriousness of the offending made immediate custody the only appropriate sentence; suspension was therefore properly refused.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division): In R v Carl Dunning [2025] EWCA Crim 464, the court dismissed renewed applications for leave to appeal against conviction and sentence.

• Crown Court at Birmingham: His Honour Judge Simon Drew KC convicted the applicant of assisting an offender on 2 February 2024 and sentenced him to two years’ imprisonment on 8 March 2024.