R v James Cunningham

When sentencing a young adult, the critical task is an individualised assessment of maturity and its effect on culpability and sentence. A judge need not expressly recite the overarching guideline if the sentencing remarks show that this assessment was made.

For an aggravated offence, the court should assess the basic offence range, adjust for relevant features, and then apply a suitable uplift for aggravation. Under the three-stage totality approach, consecutive terms may be justified for distinct offending against different victims. The aggregate sentence must nevertheless be tested to ensure that it is just and proportionate to the offending as a whole.

The appellant, aged 18, pleaded guilty to 12 offences committed over 1 and 2 December 2024. They included assaults on emergency workers, racially aggravated threatening behaviour, and criminal damage. The offending occurred at his mother’s home, at hospital and at a police station, and involved 11 individual victims.

At the Crown Court at Bournemouth, His Honour Judge Fuller KC imposed a total of 24 months’ detention in a young offender institution. The appellant appealed on the grounds that the judge had insufficiently allowed for his youth and immaturity, and had failed to give proper effect to totality by imposing consecutive sentences for what was said to be one connected series of offences.

The central issue was whether the individual and aggregate sentences were wrong in principle or manifestly excessive.

1. Appeal allowed in part. The court rejected the complaint concerning youth and immaturity. The sentencing judge had expressly considered those matters and the pre-sentence report. The decisive question was whether he had made an individualised assessment of this particular young adult’s maturity and its effect on culpability and sentence. His remarks showed that he had done so. He was not required to spell out his awareness of the relevant overarching guideline or of Clarke [2018] EWCA Crim 185.

2. The individual sentences for the aggravated assaults and threatening behaviour were not wrong in principle or manifestly excessive. Under the applicable guidelines, the court must identify the range for the basic offence, adjust for aggravating and mitigating features, and then apply an appropriate uplift for the aggravated version. The uplift may considerably exceed the basic-offence category range. On the aggravating features found, an after-trial sentence of 26 weeks for charge 7 was within the sentencing judge’s discretion.

3. The judge was also entitled to regard the conduct as several distinct clusters of offending rather than a single incident. It occurred over about 24 hours, at different locations, involved three kinds of offence and 11 victims, and included separate racial and sexual aggravation. Those features could justify some consecutive sentencing. The court noted the comparable approach previously approved in R v Greaves [2023] EWCA Crim 1764.

4. However, the final totality stage required the aggregate sentence to be tested for justice and proportionality. Although substantial custody and some consecutive terms were warranted, a notional after-trial total of 36 months was considerably beyond a just and proportionate sentence for this young offender. The least appropriate after-trial total was 27 months, which became 18 months after full credit for the guilty pleas.

5. The court quashed the sentences on charges 2 and 7 and made them concurrent rather than consecutive. It rearranged the sentence on charge 10 to run consecutively to charge 6, and imposed the mandatory surcharge of £187.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division): In [2025] EWCA Crim 513, allowed the sentence appeal in part and reduced the total sentence from 24 months to 18 months’ detention in a young offender institution.
• Crown Court at Bournemouth: On 25 February 2025, His Honour Judge Fuller KC imposed a total of 24 months’ detention in a young offender institution following guilty pleas to 12 offences.