British Telecommunication PLC (BT) v Crown Court at Carlisle

When a Crown Court re-sentences an offender on appeal, it must use the applicable sentencing framework and give reasons sufficient to show how the principal issues were resolved. Where no offence-specific guideline exists, the general sentencing guideline may still provide the required structure.

The court must assess culpability and harm, consider the purposes of sentencing, address aggravating and mitigating factors, apply any guilty-plea reduction, and explain any departure from the guidelines. Reasons must enable the offender to understand why the sentence was imposed. A court which approaches the appeal using the test of whether the sentence was manifestly excessive adopts the wrong legal approach.

British Telecommunications Plc sought judicial review of a Crown Court decision reducing, on appeal, a fine imposed for breach of section 65 of the New Roads and Street Works Act 1991. The Crown Court reduced the magistrates’ fine from £50,000, itself reduced from £75,000 for a guilty plea, to £24,000.

The challenge alleged inadequate reasons, failure to take relevant matters into account, an erroneous approach to the Crown Court’s appellate jurisdiction, and excess of jurisdiction or error of law. The Administrative Court upheld the first three grounds and considered whether to remit the matter or substitute a sentence.

1. Judicial review allowed on Grounds 1–3. The Crown Court failed to explain how it had discharged its duty under section 59 of the Sentencing Act 2020 to follow relevant sentencing guidelines, contrary to section 52(6). The absence of an offence-specific guideline did not mean that the general guideline and the guilty-plea guideline were irrelevant.
2. The sentencing exercise required a structured assessment of culpability and harm, consideration of the purposes of sentencing, adjustment for aggravating and mitigating factors, and application of the guilty-plea reduction. The Crown Court did not adequately address culpability, harm, previous convictions, mitigation, or the substantial disparity between the fine imposed and comparable fines. Its reasons therefore failed both the statutory duty under section 52 and the common law duty to give reasons, causing procedural unfairness.
3. The Crown Court also failed to take relevant factors into account. The paucity of its reasons justified that inference and amounted to unreasonableness or irrationality in public law.
4. The correct approach to a Crown Court appeal against sentence is a rehearing to identify the appropriate sentence, compare it with the magistrates’ sentence, and allow the appeal if there is a significant difference. The test of whether the sentence was manifestly excessive is associated with an appeal to the Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) and was not the correct approach here.
5. Those errors were errors of law. Under section 43(1)(c) of the Senior Courts Act 1981, the High Court could therefore substitute a sentence. Applying the stepped guideline approach, the offence involved the lowest level of culpability and harm. Previous convictions were aggravating, but the Claimant’s extensive compliance systems, remedial action, co-operation, remorse, lack of financial gain and absence of later convictions were mitigating. Comparable fines were considered only as a broad pattern, not as precedent.
6. A fine of £6,000 after trial, reduced by one third for the guilty plea, was substituted. The statutory surcharge was reduced to £1,600.

The claim was a judicial review of the Crown Court at Carlisle’s decision on 28 June 2024, which allowed the sentence appeal and reduced the fine to £24,000.