R v Dale Thomason

The totality principle requires an aggregate sentence to reflect the overall harm and culpability of all offending, together with offence-specific and personal aggravating and mitigating factors, while remaining just and proportionate.

Sentencers must avoid double-counting aggravating features, including where a statutory minimum already incorporates an uplift for previous convictions. A guilty-plea reduction must also respect the statutory floor under the Sentencing Act 2020. Where the applicable floor produces a fractional number of months, the calculation must be made accurately rather than rounded against the offender.

The appellant appealed, with leave, against an eight-year-and-four-month sentence imposed by Mr Recorder Jones KC at the Crown Court at Preston on 15 March 2024. He had pleaded guilty to three domestic burglaries, common assault and threatening another with a knife in a private place.

The appeal challenged the credit given for the guilty pleas, the assessment of mitigation, the treatment of the offending and the application of totality. The principal issues were whether the aggregate sentence before guilty-plea reductions was manifestly excessive, how the burglary offences should be categorised, and how the statutory minimum sentences affected the permissible reductions.

The court allowed the sentence appeal in part and substituted a materially shorter sentence.

1. The principal issue was totality. The aggregate sentence before guilty-plea reductions had to reflect all the offending, overall harm and culpability, the relevant aggravating and mitigating factors, and remain just and proportionate. The court found the original pre-credit total of 10 years and six months manifestly excessive.
2. None of the high-culpability features relied on for category 1A burglary was present. The three burglaries therefore fell within category 1B, with a two-year starting point and a one-to-four-year range. The presence of a victim in the home was the relevant harm factor in one burglary and could not be counted again as a separate aggravating factor.
3. Previous convictions were a very significant aggravating factor, but the court had to avoid double-counting. The statutory minimum for one burglary under the Sentencing Act 2020 already included a one-year uplift for previous burglary convictions. The appellant’s youth at the time of most earlier offences and his previous custodial sentence also required consideration. Count 2 did not warrant five years before credit; three years and six months was appropriate. The knife-threat offence was different in kind and represented an escalation, so its two-year-and-six-month sentence remained consecutive. The sentence for the third burglary properly remained concurrent.
4. The 20 per cent reduction for the knife-threat offence was appropriate because the guilty plea was indicated late. For the first and third burglaries, the recorder had wrongly rounded the reduction. Under sections 73(3) and 314 of the Sentencing Act 2020, the sentence could not be less than 80 per cent of the otherwise mandatory sentence. Eighty per cent of three years was 28.8 months, requiring a sentence of two years and 146 days. For the second burglary, the plea indicated in the Magistrates’ Court ordinarily attracted one-third credit, but the statutory floor produced the same sentence.

The sentences on counts 1, 2 and 5 were quashed and substituted. The concurrent sentence on count 3 and consecutive sentence on count 4 remained unchanged. The total sentence became six years and 292 days.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division): In [2025] EWCA Crim 484, the court quashed the sentences on counts 1, 2 and 5 and substituted sentences of two years and 146 days on each count, with counts 3 and 4 unchanged.
• Crown Court at Preston: On 15 March 2024, Mr Recorder Jones KC imposed an aggregate sentence of eight years and four months’ imprisonment after guilty pleas to five offences.