The Pearl Willis Law Site

Rape R v Millberry http://www.lawreports.co.uk/crimdecc0.1.htm

Burglary R v McInerney http://www.lawreports.co.uk/crimdecc0.4.htm

R v Oliver - Making indecent images of children 2003 1 Cr Ap Rep 28 Find a summary at The Legal Practitioner

Kefford Relevance of increase in prison population [2002] Crim. L. R 432

Offensive weapon R v Celaire and Poulton [2003] 1 Cr App R (S) 61

Stewart Benefit Frauds [1987] 9 Cr App R (S) 135
Clark Breach of trust [1998] 2 Cr App R (S) 95 A 21  18 (up dating Barrick) Tolera Basis of plea

Handling stolen goods Webbe [2002] 1 Cr App R (S) 82 Professional smuggling : R v Czyzewski; http://www.lawreports.co.uk/crimjulc0.2.htm
 
 
A large number of cases in criminal sentencing
 

Woman bringing class A drugs into prison

R v Witten 2003 2 Cr. App R (s) 8 2 years
R v Hamilton 2000 1 Cr App R (s) 91 2 years
R v Young 2000 2 Cr App R (s) 248 2 1/2 years
R v Batt 1999 2 Cr App R (S) 223 2 years suspended
R v Slater 1998 2 Cr App R (S) 3 years detention in YOI



R v McKenzie, CA, 13 January 2004. This appellant is 46 years old. She appeared before the Crown Court at Birmingham on 15 December 2003, having been committed there for sentence by the magistrates' court. She pleaded guilty to three offences of making false statements so as to obtain benefits, which were specimens of a course of conduct which was also reflected in 41 other offences which she asked the judge to take into consideration in sentencing her. The sentence passed was one of nine months' imprisonment concurrent on each of the three offences. She appeals against that sentence with the leave of the single judge. She is of previous good character. A pre-sentence report was available to the sentencing judge which indicated that this was not a case where the dishonesty had started primarily because of financial need, but rather had been triggered by some traumatic events in her personal life, including an unstable relationship with her partner (now her husband) who had a serious life-threatening condition which requires repeated surgery. The appellant had worked throughout her working life as a nurse, in recent years looking after terminally-ill children. References from her employers spoke of her good conduct in such work. Personal circumstances are of great importance in relation to this sort of offending, particularly where (as here) the court is concerned with a woman who is the primary carer of a young child aged 5. If reinforcement for that general principle were needed it is to be found in R v Mills [2002] 2 Cr App R(S) 229 and R v Kefford [2002] 2 Cr App R(S) 449. The appellant has now served four weeks in custody, including the Christmas holiday period. In our judgment, that length of time in custody is almost equal to the appropriate sentence in this case which is one of two months' imprisonment on each of the offences to which she pleaded guilty.

Sentencing – Doing an act tending to pervert the course of justice –

The offender was a 34-year-old female with two dependant children. Whilst she was disqualified from driving, she was apprehended by police after having driven over the speed limit. The offender had a level of alcohol in her blood in excess of the legal limit for driving. She gave police a false name and her identity came to light only as a result of further police investigation after another person was charged with the offences. She pleaded guilty and was fined £100 for perverting the course of justice and disqualified from driving for three years in respect of the other offences.
On behalf of the Attorney General it was submitted that a number of aggravating features were present in the case, including that the offender had recently been disqualified from driving; that the offender had deliberately given a false name in order to avoid detection; that the offence had led to the prosecution of another person, and that the offender would have avoided prosecution altogether had it not been for the fact that she was traced by way of a fingerprint because her prints had been on record as a result of a previous conviction. In mitigation, it was accepted that the offender had pleaded guilty and was the sole carer of two teenage children.

The application would be refused.

Whilst a short prison sentence was normally appropriate for perverting the course of justice, the court would, in general, be slow to send a female offender to prison if she was the sole carer of dependent children.

In his first interview for two years Lord Irvine also revealed plans for modernising the justice system, including a wide public consultation this summer on wigs and court dress. He said that wigs should no longer be worn in the civil courts, but that there was a powerful argument for retaining them in the criminal courts because they gave advocates a degree of anonymity.

“What is really necessary in 2002 is to strike a sensible, modern balance between having a proper dignified court environment which is also user-friendly and not intimidating in atmosphere, particularly for victims and witnesses,” he said.

There would be widespread consultation, but it would then be down to the profession to decide what to do. “I have done more to get rid of fancy dress than any of my predecessors,” he said.

Lord Irvine also outlined plans for a huge expansion of his department, bringing all the different tribunals scattered across Whitehall under a new tribunals umbrella. The tribunals hear more than a million cases a year on employment, immigration, tax and social security claims. A White Paper is expected by the autumn.

Twice ministers have been defeated over plans to remove a defendant’s right to elect jury trial from 18,500 cases a year after hard-fought opposition from the Bar and the Law Society.

Under a manifesto pledge, ministers are committed to tackling what they see as the abuse of minor cases going to trial by judge and jury.

Lord Irvine said that some 6,000 trials a year took place in the Crown Court because defendants chose to be tried there. But some 15,000 took place there because they were sent by magistrates on the basis that their sentencing powers were unlikely to be sufficient to match the gravity of the offence.

“One projection is that if you increased the sentencing powers of magistrates from six to 12 months, then the magistrates would retain those cases for trial by themselves, some 6,000 cases a year which otherwise they commit to Crown Court,” Lord Irvine said.

He also indicated that ministers would ditch a second controversial proposal put forward by Sir Robin Auld in his review of criminal justice last year, giving the prosecution the right to challenge “perverse” jury verdicts.

He stopped short of giving a view, but said that “fashioning a ground of appeal based on the perversity of a jury verdict would be creating a wholly new class of litigation in which the evidence, the summing up, the legal submissions at every stage have to be rehearsed in the Court of Appeal”.

The Bar said, however, that it would oppose any curtailment of the jury trial system as forcefully as it had fought the plans to end a defendant’s right to elect as jury trial.

Jon McLeod, a spokesman, said: “We will maintain a vigorous lobby to any Bill which proposes an extension of the jurisdiction of JPs which results in reducing the right to trial by jury.”

If, as appeared, ministers had ditched the idea of an intermediate court that would take on 18,000 cases now going to jury trial, that was welcome, Mr McLeod said, but the battle was not finished.

On wigs and court dress, Lord Irvine said that he had removed his wig and cuffs for every-day duties as Speaker in the Lords and now dealt with legislation from the dispatch box, as any other minister did.

He was caught after police traced a link between the incidents and released his name and photograph. They found him sitting in a car shortly after attacking his sixth victim in three months.

Smith admitted five charges of robbery, three of kidnap and two of false imprisonment. Judge Richard Bray told him he was a danger to the public.

“These offences involved carefully targeted women who were alone and vulnerable,” he said. “I appreciate no injury was caused and not a great deal of money was taken but one can only imagine the terror caused to the victims.”

Leicester Crown Court was told that one of Smith’s victims was Tanya Nolan, a doctor and mother of two, who was waiting to enter a hospital car park when Smith climbed into her passenger seat, telling her: “Your car is not worth your life.”

He forced her into the boot, seized her credit card and drove in search of a cashpoint machine.

Gregory Dickinson, for the prosecution, said: “He told her he was not a sex offender. He ordered her to stop the car a short distance away and to climb into the boot.”

The court was told that Smith drove her to a petrol station, demanded her pin number and withdrew £200 from a cashpoint machine. “At that point she was able to put her face to the rear window and mouth the word ‘help’ to a passer-by,” Mr Dickinson said.

“He contacted the police, but in the intervening time Smith returned and drove off. He told her: ‘Next time you get out will be when I bury you’.”

When Smith made another stop-off Dr Nolan was able to clamber out through a rear passenger door.

Smith’s first victim, Mr Dickinson said, was Jane Johnson, 60, whom he assaulted as she sat in her car in Braunstone, Leicester. Shirtless and carrying a kitchen knife, he made off in her car after holding the blade to her throat.

A few days later Catherine Parnell, 34, was in her car outside a Safeway store in Leicester when Smith targeted her.

He climbed into the vehicle and told her he would not sexually assault her, but said: “If you scream I will stab you.”

He forced Miss Parnell to drive around in search of deserted cashpoints but could find none. He made her return to Safeway, where he withdrew £50 from the store’s cashpoint and took £32 from her purse. Smith, of Leicester, then dumped his victim and her shopping and left in her car.

Less than a week later he was seen to wave a knife at security staff while leaving Leicester Crown Court.

He had been looking for Emma Watson, 30, a clerk with a local firm of solicitors, and later found her at her office. He burst in, telling her: “Get your coat and bag and tell the receptionist you are going out.”

She eventually convinced him to look at his legal file in the building’s basement, at which point he lost interest and escaped.

Days afterwards Smith attacked Lyndsay Ayling, 21, as she sat in her car at the Watford Gap services on the M1. He ordered her into the boot before driving to a cashpoint and withdrawing £200, after which he released her.

His final victim, Win Shoebridge, 60, had just returned to her car at the same Safeway store in Leicester when Smith punched her twice and made off in her car.

MAGISTRATES and judges should reduce prison overcrowding by not sending white collar and petty criminals to jail unnecessarily, Lord Woolf, the Lord Chief Justice, said yesterday.

Lord Woolf, sitting with two of his most senior Appeal Court colleagues, used the case of a building society worker who defrauded his employers to give guidance to lower courts in the light of warnings that the prison population was about to reach its maximum sustainable level of just over 70,000.

The overcrowded prison system was "a matter of grave concern for the criminal justice system as a whole", he said.

Those who committed "offences involving violence or intimidation, or other grave crimes" should go to prison for the appropriate period, particularly when these offences were committed against vulnerable members of the community.

But "in the case of economic crimes, for example obtaining undue credit by fraud, prison is not necessarily the only appropriate form of punishment".

Lord Woolf took the unusual step of sitting with Lord Justice Rose, Vice President of the Court of Appeal's criminal division, and Lord Justice Judge, senior presiding judge for England and Wales, to demonstrate the importance of what he was saying. Appeals against sentence are not normally heard by so many senior judges.

David Blunkett, the Home Secretary, welcomed the court's approach and supported "community-based sentences for those who do not need to be in prison".

The Court of Appeal issued its guidance to magistrates and Crown Court judges while granting an appeal against sentence by Mark Kefford, 26, of Southampton, who was sentenced to 12 months in prison last November for stealing £11,120 from dormant accounts at a building society where he worked. He had pleaded guilty at the first opportunity to theft and false accounting.

Lord Woolf said a 12-month jail term should have been the starting point in sentencing him. Given credit for his immediate confession, repayment of all the money and the fact that he had stopped offending some time before the thefts came to light, the term should have come down to four months, allowing his immediate release.

Unaware that his case was to become a guideline ruling, Kefford had waived his right to attend court yesterday.

The prison population yesterday was 69,969. Lord Woolf said the latest available figures showed a prison population worrying close to the "maximum overcrowded capacity" of 70,834. The "uncrowded" capacity is 63,653.

Overcrowding was a matter of grave concern for the Prison Service because it affected its ability to rehabilitate inmates and reduce reoffending, and for the criminal justice system as a whole. The use of police cells to relieve overcrowding was "wholly unsatisfactory", he said.

The present situation had arisen despite a significant prison building programme, with £465 million spent over the past three years and a £240 million budget for next year.

"It is to be hoped that the planned programme of prison building in the future will alleviate the situation," said the Lord Chief Justice. "However, any relief will be short-lived if the prison population continues to grow."

Lord Woolf said courts had to accept the realities of the situation and take into account the impact of overcrowding. It was of the greatest importance that only those who needed to be sent to prison were sent and not for any longer than necessary.

In cases of economic crime, a community punishment or a fine could sometimes be more appropriate. Commenting on the ruling, the Home Secretary said he wanted tougher and longer sentences and proper supervision for those committing dangerous, violent and sexual offences.

Mr Blunkett said: "I am backing the police in tackling violent street crime and the criminal justice system must support that, but I believe that we need to put sense back into sentencing.

"Short custodial sentences provide little or no opportunity for rehabilitation, reparation to the victim, or to change the behaviour and problems which put offenders in prison in the first place."

He said the National Probation Service had been reformed to provide an effective enforcement approach to community supervision.

The Home Office is working on alternative sentences to full custody, such as forms of intermittent custody and a new suspended sentence called custody minus, which allows prison sentences to be suspended on condition that the offender follows a programme of supervision in the community.

Harry Fletcher, of the probation officers' union Napo, said: "It's essential that the judges and magistrates only send serious offenders to prison. However, the probation service must be resourced in order to cope with any increase in community sentences."

Frances Crook, director of the Howard League for Penal Reform, said: "I want to hear the Home Secretary saying short sentences are damaging and expensive. It's no use hiding the message amongst lots of other verbiage."

The crime reduction charity Nacro published new figures yesterday showing that the rate of imprisonment in England and Wales was now as high as that in Portugal, previously the highest in Europe.

The rate of imprisonment reached 131 per 100,000 population, compared with a European Union average of 97 per 100,000 and EU median of 88 per 100,000.

The Telegraph
By Joshua Rozenberg, Legal Editor, and John Steele, Crime Correspondent
(Filed: 30/01/2002)

MOBILE phone muggers will be jailed for at least 18 months under tough new sentencing guidelines laid down yesterday by Lord Woolf, the Lord Chief Justice.

The new minimum will apply even to young, unarmed, first-time offenders. Those who use weapons or violence can expect sentences of five years or more.

Robbery of mobile phones has doubled, bringing a surge in inner city street crime. Teenage members of the text-messaging generation are the usual victims.

A girl of 19 is recovering after being shot in the head in east London recently by a mugger who stole her phone.

Lord Woolf said phone theft from the vulnerable young and elderly was rife and the courts had no alternative but to adopt a "robust" sentencing policy.

"They have got to understand they are going to be punished severely and custodial sentences will be the only option available to the courts, unless there are very exceptional circumstances," he said.

"This will apply irrespective of the age of the offender and irrespective of whether the offender has previous convictions," he added.

While the lowest sentence would be 18 months, up to three years would be imposed for offences involving no weapons and up to five years or more when weapons and violence were involved.

Lord Woolf, sitting with Mr Justice Aikens and Mr Justice Pitchford, made his comments after hearing three test cases. These are occasionally taken together so that the Court of Appeal can issue guideline rulings which are binding on the lower courts.

In two cases, the court accepted the view of the Attorney General that the sentences on the 19-year-old robbers were "unduly lenient".

One had a non-custodial sentence increased to two-and-a-half years' detention. The other had a six-month sentence increased to three-and-a-half years.

The third youth's four-year sentence was cut to three years, but only because of his age and the fact that no violence was used.

BAD behaviour during air travel has landed many people in jail.

Oct 1998 Ian Brown, former lead singer of the Stone Roses, jailed for four months for threatening and abusive behaviour on a BA flight from Paris to Manchester.

He threatened to "chop off the hands" of a stewardess when she mistakenly offered him duty free; he later tried to enter the flight deck, banging repeatedly on the door. Brown, then 35, claimed he was only joking.

August 2000 Patrick Connors and Francis Coyle, from Lewisham in South London, given a year's jail, with six months suspended, and three months, with six weeks suspended, respectively.

Flying from London to Jamaica, they were in a group of 12 involved in a "bar room brawl at 36,000ft". They had continuously ordered drinks, including vodka and champagne, until cabin staff refused to serve them.

The Boeing 767 had to be diverted to Norfolk in Virginia where they were arrested by the FBI. Coyle insisted he had merely reacted in fear to a man who had thrown two drinks over Connors. Both found guilty of endangering an aircraft.

June 1999 Neil Whitehouse, an oil worker, from Mansfield, Notts, jailed for a year when convicted at Manchester Crown Court of endangering an aircraft by repeatedly refusing to turn off his mobile phone on a BA flight from Madrid to Manchester.

May 1999 Ian Bottomley, from Witham, Essex, jailed for three years for injuring three stewards and causing £30,000 of damage on a BA jumbo jet from Johannesburg to Heathrow.

He attacked crew and threatened to kill other passengers after being told to stop looking at pornography on a laptop computer. He was given sedatives and strapped to his chair.

He was found guilty of being drunk on an aircraft, endangering a plane and its passengers and assault and affray, having claimed he was not drunk and had acted in self-defence.

Law Report
The Times
Life sentence 'exceptional circumstances'
COURT OF APPEAL, Criminal Division
Regina v Offen; Regina v McGilliard; Regina v McKeown; Regina v Okwuegbunam; Regina v Saunders (Stephen)
Before Lord Woolf, Lord Chief Justice, Mrs Justice Steel and Mr Justice Richards
Judgment November 9, 2000

The policy and intention of Parliament in enacting section 2 of the Crime (Sentences) Act 1997, under which an automatic life sentence could be imposed on a defendant who had committed two serious offences, was to protect the public.
Accordingly, if an offender did not constitute a significant risk to the public that was an exceptional circumstance which would justify a court in not imposing an automatic life sentence.

If the two offences were of a different kind, or if there was a long period which had elapsed between the offences during which the offender had not committed other offences, that could be a very relevant indicator as to the degree of risk to the public that an offender constituted.

If an offender was a significant risk to the public, the court could impose a life sentence under section 2 without contravening the European Convention on Human Rights.

The Court of Appeal, Criminal Division, so held in a reserved judgment when: (i) Allowing the appeal of Matthew Offen against an automatic life sentence imposed pursuant to section 2 of the 1997 Act following his plea of guilty at Lewes Crown Court (Judge Hayward) on May 28, 1999 to robbery. A sentence of three years imprisonment was substituted.

21.11.00: Sentencing for having pornographic photographs of children
COURT OF APPEAL
Regina v Toomer
Regina v Powell

Regina v Mould

Before Lord Justice Kennedy, Mr Justice Bell and Mr Justice Hooper

Judgment November 6, 2000

The appropriate sentence for offences of downloading and distributing pornographic photographs of children ranged between three years imprisonment and a fine, depending on whether there was evidence of large scale commercial distribution or exploitation or whether the offence consisted merely of an isolated instance of possession.

Where, between those extremes, any particular offence fell depended upon all the circumstances of a particular case The Court of Appeal, Criminal Division, so held in dealing in each case with offences under section 1 of the Protection of Children Act 1978, when: (i) allowing an appeal by Martin Charles Toomer against a total sentence of 24 months imprisonment imposed in July 2000 by Judge Darlow at Southampton Crown Court; (ii) allowing an appeal by Michael Edmund Powell against a total sentence of three years imprisonment, imposed in July 1999 by Mr Recorder David Aubrey, QC, at Cardiff Crown Court and (iii) allowing an appeal by David Frederick Mould against a sentence of three months imprisonment imposed on October 10, 2000 by Judge Anthony at Hove Crown Court.