R v Rhys Baker & Ors

Sentences for false imprisonment or kidnap are highly fact-specific. Duration alone is not a reliable measure of seriousness. The court must assess factors including restraint, violence, weapons, threats, demands on others, effects on victims, planning, number of offenders, humiliation, criminal context and vulnerability. Comparable cases should not be used mechanically where the factual combination differs. A sentence of 10 years before guilty-plea credit was appropriate for planned and violent false imprisonment involving weapons, ransom demands and serious criminality. A driving-disqualification uplift must reflect relevant remand time.

Four appellants pleaded guilty to false imprisonment and, on the day fixed for trial, to causing grievous bodily harm contrary to section 20 of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861. They received sentences of eight years’ custody, except that Maketo received seven years. Jackson also received a consecutive sentence for dangerous driving, a discretionary four-year driving disqualification and an extension to reflect custody.

They appealed against the false-imprisonment sentences and, in Jackson’s case, the disqualification. Leave was limited to those issues. The central questions were whether the false-imprisonment sentences were excessive and whether the disqualification extension properly accounted for Jackson’s remand custody.

1. False imprisonment sentences. The appeals against the sentences were dismissed. The seriousness of false imprisonment or kidnap cannot be assessed principally by duration. A shorter detention may involve more serious violence and threats than a longer detention. Each case is highly fact-specific.
2. The sentencing judge was required to consider the factors identified in Attorney-General's Reference No 92 of 2014, [2014] EWCA (Crim) 2713, including the length and circumstances of detention, restraint, violence, weapons, demands or threats to others, effects on the victim and others, planning, number of offenders, torture or humiliation, criminal context and vulnerability. The judge had properly considered the circumstances of both the offences and the offenders.
3. The offending involved pre-planning, repeated violence over three-and-a-half hours, weapons, threats to the complainant’s family, substantial ransom demands, serious criminal behaviour and likely continued detention but for police intervention. The appellants acted jointly and equally. A 10-year sentence before guilty-plea credit was appropriate and was not excessive or wrong in principle.
4. Jackson’s disqualification. The four-year discretionary disqualification was not excessive for the particularly serious dangerous driving. The appeal was nevertheless allowed to the limited extent that the 70-month extension reflecting custody had to be reduced by 15 months for time spent on remand. The extension was therefore reduced to 55 months.
5. The record was corrected so that Smith’s and Maketo’s custodial sentences, including concurrent sentences, were expressed as detention in a young offender institution under sections 227 and 262 of the Sentencing Act 2020.

• Crown Court at Bolton: On 10 June 2024 HHJ Walsh sentenced the appellants for false imprisonment and causing grievous bodily harm, with additional sentences and driving orders in Jackson’s case.
• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division): The false-imprisonment appeals were dismissed. Jackson’s appeal concerning disqualification was allowed only to reduce the custody-related extension from 70 to 55 months. The record was corrected in relation to Smith’s and Maketo’s young offender institution sentences.