R v Martyn Johnson

On an Attorney General’s Reference under section 36 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988, a sentence is unduly lenient only if it falls outside the reasonable range open to the sentencing judge. In domestic abuse cases, seriousness, not the victim’s wishes, determines sentence. Time spent in custody and on qualifying tagged curfew must be considered at the proper stage. Leave may be granted to correct a sentencing message that wrongly treats the victim’s wishes as determinative, even where the sentence itself is not unduly lenient.

The Solicitor General referred the sentence imposed by the Crown Court at Cambridge on 19 December 2025. Martyn Johnson had pleaded guilty to two offences of stalking involving serious alarm or distress, committed in a domestic context and involving breaches of bail. After spending about nine weeks in custody and receiving credit for qualifying curfew, he was given concurrent conditional discharges for one year.

The Solicitor General argued that the sentence was unduly lenient because the sentencing judge had placed excessive weight on the victim’s personal statement and time served. The respondent relied on mitigation, rehabilitation and the appropriateness of avoiding further custody. The central issue was whether the conditional discharges fell outside the reasonable sentencing range.

1. The court granted leave for the Reference but dismissed it. The governing principles were that the first-instance judge is particularly well placed to assess competing sentencing factors; a sentence is unduly lenient only if it falls outside the range reasonably open to that judge; leave is exceptional and is not granted in borderline cases; the jurisdiction addresses gross error; and the court retains a discretion whether to intervene even if undue leniency is established.
2. For offending committed in a domestic context, sentence must be determined by the seriousness of the offence rather than the victim’s express wishes. Sentencing is a function of the court, and no victim is responsible for the sentence. This approach also reduces the risk of offenders pressuring victims to seek leniency. The judge was therefore wrong to suggest that the victim’s second personal statement could determine whether custody should be imposed.
3. The offence-specific guideline required credit for qualifying tagged curfew to be considered at step 10, after the sentence had otherwise been assessed. Although the offences crossed the custody threshold, the custodial element had effectively been served: the starting point was 12 weeks for each offence, the range extended from a high-level community order to 35 weeks, and the respondent had served the equivalent of about 20 weeks. A community order could therefore remain appropriate after consideration of the purposes of sentencing, particularly where a suspended sentence would add little because breach would lead to a sentence already served.
4. The court noted R v SA [2022] EWCA Crim 1790 and R v Mohamed [2025] EWCA Crim 235 as unreported cases involving immediate custody and establishing no new principle. Many judges might have imposed a high-level community order with unpaid work, but the conditional discharges were not outside the reasonable range. The Reference was accordingly dismissed.

1. Court of Appeal (Criminal Division): On an Attorney General’s Reference under section 36 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988, leave was granted but the Reference was dismissed. The sentence was not unduly lenient: [2026] EWCA Crim 550.
2. Crown Court at Cambridge: On 19 December 2025, His Honour Judge Enright sentenced the respondent, after guilty pleas to two stalking offences involving serious alarm or distress, to concurrent conditional discharges for one year.