R v Jonathan Shaun Sumner

Dangerous-driving culpability under the sentencing guidelines requires an assessment of the driving as a whole. The absence of a deliberate decision to ignore road rules, prolonged dangerous driving, or mobile-phone use at the critical moment does not prevent very serious omissions from placing conduct at the top of category B or the bottom of category A.

For pre-28 June 2022 causing-death-by-dangerous-driving offences, later increases in maximum sentence and minimum disqualification must not inflate the appropriate sentence. Where a qualifying custodial sentence is imposed after that date, release after two-thirds of the term determines the mandatory extension to disqualification under the Road Traffic Offenders Act 1988. A sentencing error based on an incorrect statutory minimum may be corrected if the resulting sentence is no more severe.

The applicant pleaded guilty in the Crown Court at Chester to causing death by dangerous driving and causing serious injury by dangerous driving. While driving a tractor and field roller, he struck two cyclists. One died and the other sustained a serious leg injury.

He received a total sentence of eight years and six months’ imprisonment and was disqualified from driving for ten years and seven months, subject to an extended retest. He contended that the judge had wrongly placed both offences in the highest culpability category and that the custodial sentence was manifestly excessive.

The appeal also raised the lawful calculation of the disqualification period, including the effect of release on licence and an erroneous assertion that the statutory minimum discretionary disqualification was five years.

1. The appeal was allowed only as to disqualification. The custodial sentence remained unchanged.
2. The applicant’s driving did not involve a deliberate decision to ignore road rules, a prolonged deliberate course of dangerous driving, or mobile-phone use at the critical moment. However, he drove more than 50 per cent above the applicable limit, failed to take adequate measures against severe sun glare, and wholly failed to see two vulnerable road users ahead. Those features placed the causing-death offence at the top of category B or the bottom of category A.
3. The Court took account of the applicant’s good character, remorse and mental-health difficulties. It also recognised that the later increase in the maximum sentence could not increase the appropriate range for offending committed in 2020. A total of ten years after trial, reduced by 15 per cent for the guilty pleas, properly produced eight years and six months. There was no arguable basis to challenge that term.
4. Applying Rex v Barnes, Berouain [2024] EWCA Crim 1548, a sentence of seven years or more imposed after 28 June 2022 required release after two-thirds of the custodial term under the Criminal Justice Act 2003. The corresponding mandatory extension under the Road Traffic Offenders Act 1988 was therefore five years and eight months.
5. The original discretionary disqualification of five years had been selected because counsel wrongly said it was the statutory minimum. The applicable minimum was two years. Under section 11(3) of the Criminal Appeal Act, the Court could correct the mandatory extension only if the overall sentence was no more severe. It was satisfied that a two-year discretionary period would have been imposed absent the error. The disqualification was consequently varied to seven years and eight months, with the extended retest requirement remaining in place.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) — Allowed the sentence appeal to the limited extent of reducing the driving disqualification to seven years and eight months; otherwise dismissed the appeal.
• Crown Court at Chester — On 10 November 2023 imposed concurrent sentences producing a total of eight years and six months’ imprisonment, with a ten-year-and-seven-month driving disqualification and an extended retest requirement.