R v Chakiah Leon Lambert

In a sentence appeal, a planned commercial robbery may properly be placed in the highest culpability and harm category where the enterprise involved prepared vehicles, a group of offenders, weapons and a credible threat of violence to obtain a very large sum of cash. A participant who helped prepare such offending may be sentenced on that basis even if he was not physically present at the principal robbery.

The appellate question remains whether the total sentence was manifestly excessive or wrong in principle. An alleged error in the categorisation of one part of a course of offending will not require a reduced total sentence where the sentencing judge has adjusted the component sentences to achieve a just and proportionate overall term.

The appellant appealed against a sentence of 14 years’ imprisonment imposed at the Crown Court at Wolverhampton on 25 March 2022 for conspiracy to commit robbery.

The conspiracy involved the robbery of a car from a woman with her young children, the use of false number plates and the subsequent armed robbery of a cash machine. The appellant was not present at the cash-machine robbery, but his palm prints were found on the false plates fitted to the stolen vehicle used in that robbery. He was later detained after travelling in another stolen vehicle used in the criminality.

The sentencing judge treated the cash-machine robbery as a category A1 professional, planned commercial robbery. He imposed 12 years for that offending and added two years to reflect the associated robbery and use of the other vehicle. The appellant challenged both the A1 categorisation and the treatment of his non-presence at the cash-machine robbery.

1. Appeal dismissed. The total sentence of 14 years’ imprisonment was neither manifestly excessive nor wrong in principle.

2. The judge was entitled to apply the guideline for professional, planned commercial robberies and to categorise the cash-machine robbery as A1. The offending was sophisticated. It involved the acquisition and concealment of two vehicles, a group equipped with a hammer and knife, and the theft of more than £70,000. A person who planned and prepared that robbery had to contemplate a significant and credible threat of violence against the security guards.

3. The appellant’s role in obtaining the Volkswagen on the preceding day supported the conclusion that he appreciated the contemplated violence, notwithstanding that he had an alibi for the cash-machine robbery itself. The starting point of 16 years was justified, but the sentencing judge properly adjusted it to the bottom of the category range to reflect the nature of the offending, the appellant’s participation and his age.

4. Even if a lower categorisation might have produced a shorter component sentence for the cash-machine robbery, that would not assist the appellant. The additional two years reflected his participation in the exceptionally serious robbery of the car from its driver and children, but had already been substantially adjusted to ensure that the overall sentence was just and proportionate.

5. It might have been preferable for the judge expressly to address the appellant’s alibi for the cash-machine robbery. However, the judge’s approach to the appellant’s involvement in the totality of the criminality could not be faulted.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) — The appellant’s earlier conviction appeal was dismissed in R v Morgan and Lambert [2022] EWCA Crim 1554. Leave to appeal sentence was granted, but the sentence appeal was deferred pending the retrial of the co-defendant.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) — The present court dismissed the appeal against the 14-year sentence.

• Crown Court at Wolverhampton — On 25 March 2022, the appellant was sentenced to 14 years’ imprisonment for conspiracy to commit robbery.