R v Christopher Brooks

For an adult offender whose sentence is no more than 12 months and is capable of suspension, section 277A of the Sentencing Act 2020 requires a suspended sentence unless exceptional circumstances justify otherwise. That regime does not apply where the offence constituted a breach of an existing court order.

The court must then apply the ordinary law and the Table in the Imposition of Community and Custodial Sentences guideline. Recent similar offending while subject to a community order may carry substantial weight. Completion of the order's requirements does not make the breach merely technical. A judge may reject a pre-sentence report's assessment of manageable risk where the report is equivocal. The appeal was dismissed.

The appellant, aged 67, pleaded guilty on re-arraignment to burglary, contrary to section 9(1)(b) of the Theft Act 1968. The Crown Court at Preston sentenced him to 279 days' imprisonment and ordered compensation of £580.

He appealed with leave, challenging only the refusal to suspend the sentence. He argued that offending while subject to a community order was a technical breach because he had completed its requirements, and relied on his pre-sentence report, mitigation and later statutory reforms. The central issue was whether the judge had erred in applying the suspension principles to a sentence under 12 months.

Decision

1. The appeal was dismissed. The categorisation of the offence, the 279-day custodial term and the guilty plea credit were not challenged.
2. Section 277A of the Sentencing Act 2020 applied only where the statutory conditions were met. The exclusion in subsection (3) applied because the offence was committed while the appellant remained subject to a community order. The mandatory suspended-sentence regime therefore had no application. Later legislative changes which would have applied only to offences committed from 11 May 2026 could not alter that conclusion.
3. Applying the approach in R v Morgan [2026] EWCA Crim 886 at [38], the court was required to apply the ordinary law and consider whether suspension was appropriate by reference to the Table in the Imposition of Community and Custodial Sentences guideline.
4. The sentencing judge had considered the appellant's compliance with the earlier order, the pre-sentence report, his age, health and personal mitigation. She was entitled to give substantial weight to his recent pattern of similar offending and to the fact that the new offence was committed ten months after the community order was imposed, while he knew that it remained in force. The breach was not merely technical because the offending indicated that the order had failed to deter him. The judge was not obliged to accept the report's assessment that risk was manageable in the community, particularly as the report was equivocal when read as a whole.
5. The decision not to suspend the sentence was not wrong in principle. The seriousness of the offending and the likelihood of re-offending entitled the judge to conclude that suspension was inappropriate.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division): On 17 September 2026, the appeal against sentence was dismissed: [2026] EWCA Crim 1235 .
• Crown Court at Preston: On 7 August 2026, His Honour Judge Gunn sentenced the appellant to 279 days' imprisonment and ordered compensation of £580 for burglary.