R v Fayaz Ahmed & Ors

In sentencing for rape, marked personal vulnerability and entirely foreseeable serious psychological harm may require a substantial upward adjustment to the starting point, even where the offence remains within the relevant guideline category. The category range does not itself limit the sentence where the gravity of the offending warrants a higher sentence.

Each rapist contributes to the overall harm caused by sustained sexual exploitation. Responsibility is not reduced because other offenders also inflicted harm. Sentences for multiple rapes must properly reflect their number and comply with totality. Youth and immaturity may mitigate, but cannot improperly cancel the additional seriousness of further offences.

The Solicitor General referred, as unduly lenient, sentences imposed at Bradford Crown Court on 17 January 2025 after three offenders were convicted of raping V when she was aged 14 or 15 in the mid-1990s.

Two offenders each received concurrent sentences for two rapes, producing total sentences of six-and-a-half years and seven-and-a-half years respectively. The remaining offender received nine years for one rape. The references accepted the sentencing judge's Category 2B classification but challenged the adjusted starting points, treatment of aggravating features, and treatment of multiple offending.

The central issue was whether the sentences were unduly lenient despite the trial judge's advantages and his attempt to maintain consistency with an earlier related trial.

1. The references were allowed. Although the court gave proper weight to the trial judge's advantages and the care taken to achieve consistency, the sentences resulted from a significant error of approach and fell below the least acceptable range.

2. Assuming the offences were properly categorised as Category 2B, V's marked vulnerability and the wholly foreseeable psychological harm required an upward adjustment of about one-and-a-half to two years to the eight-year starting point before aggravation and mitigation. The narrow Category 2B range was not determinative, particularly where Category 1 harm would also have been open. Each rapist contributed to the overall outcome. It would be perverse to reduce an individual offender's responsibility merely because numerous rapists had harmed the victim.

3. For Ibrar Hussain, supplying heroin as part of the grooming was a serious aggravating feature. His comparative youth did not justify treating two rapes as equivalent to a single rape by another offender. The court quashed the sentence on count 4 and substituted ten years' imprisonment, concurrent.

4. For Imtiaz Ahmed, the adjusted sentence should have been at least ten years, with a further significant increase for the identified aggravating features. The court quashed the nine-year sentence and substituted eleven years' imprisonment.

5. For Fayaz Ahmed, generous allowance for youth still required proper recognition of two rapes. Historic sentencing practice, considered in light of R v Billam and others [1986] 1 WLR 249 and R v Millberry and others [2002] EWCA Crim 2891, [2003] 1 WLR 546, did not justify the original sentence. The reference to Ahmed [2023] EWCA Crim 281 did not alter that conclusion. The court quashed the sentence on count 10 and substituted ten years' imprisonment, concurrent.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) On references under section 36 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988, the court gave leave and quashed the sentences, substituting sentences of ten years, eleven years, and ten years respectively.
• Crown Court at Bradford On 17 January 2025, following convictions after trial, the court imposed total sentences of six-and-a-half years, nine years, and seven-and-a-half years respectively.