R v Awadh Saleh

Time spent on remand need not reduce a life-sentence minimum term where, throughout that period, the offender was serving imprisonment for unrelated offences. The sentencing court must nevertheless apply totality and set a minimum term that is fair and proportionate in light of the earlier sentence, the period already served, and the unserved custodial element.

A difference between co-offenders may be justified where one spent time on remand for the murder before being sentenced for an unrelated offence, while the other was already serving the unrelated sentence throughout the remand period.

The applicant was sentenced at the Central Criminal Court on 12 June 2024 to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 36 years for murder, with concurrent sentences for associated weapons offences.

He had been remanded in custody after earlier, unrelated offending. He was sentenced in March 2022 to 16 years’ imprisonment for that offending before he was charged with the murder in April 2023. At the murder sentencing, the judge declined to reduce the minimum term for the subsequent remand period. The applicant renewed an out-of-time application for an extension of time and leave to appeal against sentence.

The central issue was whether the minimum term should have been reduced to reflect time spent in custody awaiting trial for the murder.

1. The renewed application for an extension of time and leave to appeal was refused. The proposed appeal was not properly arguable and the 36-year minimum term was not manifestly excessive.
2. The judge correctly treated the February and April offending as unconnected and not associated offences for the purposes of section 322 of the Sentencing Act 2020. Throughout the relevant remand period, the applicant was serving imprisonment for the unrelated February offences. Applying sections 240 ZA(4) and 240 ZA(10) of the Criminal Justice Act 2003, those days were not deductible from the notional minimum term.
3. The judge was nevertheless required to consider totality. He did so by taking account of the applicant’s earlier sentence, the more than three years already served, and the significant custodial element of that sentence which remained when it was subsumed by the life sentence. The resulting minimum term was fair and proportionate in light of two separate episodes of exceptionally serious offending.
4. The 30-year starting point was correctly selected under paragraph 3 of Schedule 21 to the Sentencing Act 2020 because the murder involved a firearm. Serious planning, public commission of the offence, steps to avoid detection, the applicant’s role in the stabbing, and his offending history justified a substantial uplift.
5. The comparison with the co-defendant did not show unfairness. The co-defendant received credit only for 125 days spent on remand for the murder before sentence for an unrelated matter. For the later overlap between remand and that unrelated sentence, the judge adopted the same approach as for the applicant.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) — Renewed application for an extension of time and leave to appeal against sentence refused: [2025] EWCA Crim 720.
• Central Criminal Court — On 12 June 2024, the applicant received life imprisonment for murder with a 36-year minimum term. On 27 June 2024, the judge declined to adjust that minimum term for the disputed remand period.