R v Mustapha Eniola Aminu

Sentencing guideline categories are not watertight compartments. Courts must assess culpability and harm holistically, weighing all relevant factors and avoiding artificial dissection of a connected event.

Force or threats used immediately after a robbery may form part of the seriousness of the whole incident. A lead sentence may be enhanced for other offences, provided totality is respected and sentences are not simply added together. An extended licence period is directed to public protection, not calibrated solely by reference to treatment-programme duration.

The appellant pleaded guilty to robbery and three counts of assault occasioning actual bodily harm after two episodes of violent offending. On 7 May 2025, the Crown Court at Woolwich imposed an extended determinate sentence of 10 years under section 279 of the Sentencing Act 2020, comprising five years’ custody and a five-year extended licence period.

With leave of the single judge, the appellant challenged the robbery guideline category, the weight given to aggravating and mitigating features, totality, and the length and necessity of the extended sentence. The central issues were whether the robbery had been categorised correctly and whether the sentence was manifestly excessive.

The appeal was dismissed. The court accepted that the robbery had been placed in the wrong guideline category, but held that the error did not make the sentence manifestly excessive.

1. Robbery category. Guideline categories are not hermetically sealed. The sentencing judge must assess culpability and harm holistically, weighing factors from more than one category and selecting the category that most resembles the case. Artificially dissecting a fast-unfolding event is inappropriate. The connected sequence of taking the telephone, attempting violence, threatening the victim with an object in the bag, and causing the telephone to be destroyed placed culpability in category B and harm in category 3. The correct category was therefore B3, with a two-year starting point and a range of one to four years. The victim’s age, the threat, the deliberate destruction, the existing community order and previous convictions justified moving upwards from the starting point.
2. Totality. A judge who adopts a lead offence may enhance its sentence to reflect other offences, provided there is no simple addition and the principle of totality remains clearly in view. The two earlier assaults were separate, serious attacks on two victims, while the later assault was a separate and determined attack. A total sentence of seven and a half years before guilty plea credit was justified, and the judge’s concurrent-sentence structure was permissible. The second and third grounds therefore failed.
3. Extended sentence. The extended licence period exists to protect the public from further serious offending. It is not determined by the time needed to complete treatment or offender programmes. In light of the appellant’s previous and current offending, erratic engagement with mental health services and drug-related problems, a five-year extension was just and proportionate. The fourth ground failed.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division): In [2026] EWCA Crim 637, the court dismissed the appeal against sentence. It upheld the sentence notwithstanding the corrected robbery categorisation.
• Crown Court at Woolwich: On 7 May 2025, His Honour Judge David Miller imposed an extended determinate sentence of 10 years, comprising a five-year custodial term and a five-year extended licence period.