R v Martyna Ogonowska

For the 25-year starting point under paragraph 5A of Schedule 21, an offender need not take a knife intending an offensive use. It is enough that they take it intending that it be available as a weapon, including for defensive use if needed. Personal mitigation may justify a substantial reduction from that starting point without taking the offence outside the statutory norm. An appellate court will not reduce a minimum term unless it is manifestly excessive. A sentencing judge may give limited weight to prior knife-carrying when assessing good character, provided the offender is not punished for unconvicted offences.

The applicant was convicted by a jury at the Crown Court at Cambridge of murder and possessing a bladed article. She received life imprisonment with a minimum term of 17 years, less time spent on remand and qualifying curfew.

Her application for leave to appeal against conviction had previously been refused in the Conviction Ruling. She then sought an extension of time and leave to appeal against sentence, and permission to adduce further psychiatric and psychological evidence. She contended that the 25-year starting point under Schedule 21 to the Criminal Justice Act 2003 did not apply, that the judge had undervalued extensive mitigation, and that he had wrongly treated previous knife-carrying as tempering her good character.

The central question was whether the 17-year minimum term was manifestly excessive.

1. The court granted the extension of time and leave to appeal, but dismissed the appeal against sentence. It also refused the applications to adduce the additional expert evidence.

2. Paragraph 5A of Schedule 21 to the Criminal Justice Act 2003 applied. The provision does not require an offender to have taken a knife as a weapon of attack. An intention to have it available for defensive use, including use “just in case”, satisfies the requirement that it be available as a weapon. The applicant’s account therefore brought the murder within the normal 25-year starting point: [41]-[42].

3. The sentencing judge had identified the material mitigating circumstances, including the absence of an intention to kill, lack of premeditation, reduced culpability arising from mental disability and trauma, the deceased’s conduct, and the applicant’s age and immaturity. Those matters justified the substantial reduction from 25 to 17 years. They did not make the murder insufficiently serious for the statutory starting point or render the resulting term manifestly excessive: [42], [47]-[50], [76]-[79].

4. The further expert and documentary material did not undermine the trial judge’s rejection of the applicant’s account of rape in 2015, nor did it materially add to the evidence available at sentence. The trial judge was entitled to acknowledge trauma lowering culpability without defining its source or consequences more precisely: [55]-[70].

5. The judge did not punish the applicant for unconvicted knife-carrying. His limited observation that two previous occasions tempered the mitigating force of her good character was a legitimate assessment of character and did not materially affect the minimum term. It did not infringe the principle in R v Canavan [1998] 1 Cr App r 79: [71]-[75].

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) In [2025] EWCA Crim 604, the court granted an extension of time and leave to appeal but dismissed the substantive appeal against sentence.
• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) On 8 September 2023, the Conviction Ruling refused the applicant an extension of time for leave to appeal against conviction. Its citation is not stated in the judgment.
• Crown Court at Cambridge On 25 April 2019, the applicant was convicted of murder and possessing a bladed article. She was sentenced to custody for life with a 17-year minimum term, subject to the stated deductions, and a concurrent 18-month detention term for the bladed article offence.