R v Adrian Revill

For guideline categorisation, a victim who was asleep is particularly vulnerable. The guideline starting point may also reflect the recording of the offending. Those features should not then be counted again as separate upward adjustments. The totality principle requires a substantial uplift to the lead sentence where concurrent sentences would otherwise fail to reflect additional criminality. Youth and immaturity may justify a reduction greater than chronological age alone would suggest. Where immaturity contributed to the offending, it may also increase the weight given to positive character. The resulting sentence must remain just and proportionate.

The Attorney General referred under section 36 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988 a sentence imposed by the Crown Court at Nottingham after the offender was convicted of four serious sexual offences. The Recorder imposed an aggregate sentence of 42 months’ imprisonment, with concurrent sentences. He later declined to alter the sentences under the slip rule. The reference concerned the guideline categorisation of offences committed while the victim was asleep, the effect of recording, aggravating and mitigating features, and whether the sentence reflected the totality of the offending.

1. Leave was granted under section 36 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988. The sentence was unduly lenient.
2. The categorisation of counts 3 to 5 was wrong. For guideline purposes, a victim asleep for whatever reason was to be treated as particularly vulnerable. The recording of the offending also contributed to the applicable starting point. The appropriate starting points were 5 years for count 2, 8 years for counts 3 and 4, and 10 years for count 5.
3. Vulnerability and recording explained the high starting point for count 5 and did not justify a further upward adjustment. Although alcohol, ejaculation, the domestic context and manipulative conduct were properly identified as aggravating features, they did not require a further increase in the starting point.
4. The totality principle required a substantial adjustment to the sentence on count 5 to reflect the additional criminality in counts 2 to 4. For an adult of full age and maturity without personal mitigation, concurrent stand-alone sentences of about 6 years, 8 years, 8 years and 10 years would have been a reasonable minimum. An aggregate sentence below 15 years, or conceivably 14 years, would not have sufficiently reflected the totality.
5. The offender’s youth, immaturity, naivety and positive character justified a reduction greater than that allowed by the Recorder. A sentence in the region of 9½ years was appropriate. The sentences were substituted as 4 years on count 2, 4½ years on counts 3 and 4, and 9½ years on count 5, all concurrent. They were sentences of detention, not imprisonment.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division): On a reference under section 36 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988, leave was granted, the sentence was found unduly lenient, and concurrent sentences of detention were substituted: [2025] EWCA Crim 762.
• Crown Court at Nottingham: On 14 February 2025, the Recorder imposed an aggregate sentence of 42 months’ imprisonment following conviction on four counts. On 31 March 2025, he declined to alter the sentences under the slip rule.