Clarifying “Particular Vulnerability” and Deliberate Targeting in Kidnapping Sentencing: Commentary on R v Greenaway [2025] EWCA Crim 1568

1. Introduction

This Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) decision in R v Greenaway [2025] EWCA Crim 1568 is an important authority on the meaning of:

• “particularly vulnerable” in the Sentencing Council’s guideline on kidnapping; and
• “deliberate targeting of a particularly vulnerable victim” as a high culpability factor in that guideline.

The case came before the Court as an unduly lenient sentence reference by His Majesty’s Solicitor General. The trial judge had treated the kidnapping as a category 2C offence (limited planning and duration; serious psychological harm) and imposed a sentence of 3 years 9 months’ imprisonment on that count, leading to an overall term of 4 years 3 months.

The Solicitor General argued that the judge misapplied the kidnapping guideline: the complainant (“V”) was said to be “particularly vulnerable”, and the offender had deliberately targeted her because of that vulnerability. On that basis, the kidnapping should have been sentenced as at least a category 2B case, if not category 2A.

The Court of Appeal:

• accepted that V was “particularly vulnerable” at the point of kidnap;
• held that the offender deliberately targeted her because of that vulnerability;
• re-categorised the offence to reflect both the high culpability factor (targeting) and the countervailing feature (limited planning); and
• substantially increased the sentence on the kidnapping count.

The decision sits alongside R v BN [2021] EWCA Crim 1250, R v Sabato [2021] EWCA Crim 940 and R v Boltaev [2025] EWCA Crim 207, and significantly refines the jurisprudence on intoxicated and isolated complainants as “particularly vulnerable” victims in serious non-fatal offences.

Anonymity for the complainant is strictly preserved pursuant to the Sexual Offences (Amendment) Act 1992, and the Court expressly declined to lift or waive that statutory reporting restriction.

2. Overview of Facts and Procedural Background

2.1 The offences and trial outcome

The offender, aged 60 with a history of prior convictions including a 2002 offensive weapon offence, was tried (on retrial) at Wood Green Crown Court and convicted of:

• Count 1 – Kidnapping
• Count 3 – Sexual assault
• Count 4 – Assault occasioning actual bodily harm (ABH)
• Count 5 – Possession of a bladed article

He was acquitted of Count 2, kidnapping with intent to commit a sexual offence.

The sentencing structure was:

• Count 1 (kidnapping): 3 years 9 months’ imprisonment (lead offence).
• Count 3 (sexual assault): 1 year, concurrent.
• Count 4 (ABH): 1 year, concurrent.
• Count 5 (bladed article): 6 months’ imprisonment, consecutive (mandatory minimum under s.315 Sentencing Act 2020 due to the 2002 conviction).

Total sentence: 4 years 3 months’ imprisonment.

2.2 Factual outline

In brief:

• V had been at a friend’s flat for a social gathering, consuming alcohol (by her account, three or four whisky-and-cola drinks, plus food). She described herself as drunk but still able to converse and be physically active.
• Her memory of leaving the party was fragmentary. She recalled being alone on a busy street with her belongings when she was approached by the offender, who offered her a lift home in his van – they had not met before.
• Instead of taking her home (which was nearby), the offender drove her to his address. Phone and cell-site data corroborated their movements and the timing.
• At his home, she was taken to a bedroom. Feeling uncomfortable, she rebuffed his sexual overtures, saying she did not want sex and had a partner.
• He then restrained her (holding her wrists, pinning her legs with his own), touched her thigh and attempted to move his hand up her dress. V was crying, repeatedly begging him not to rape her, and felt very scared. She described her head being “smashed” against something, causing bruising.
• V managed intermittently to send urgent messages to friends: “I’ve got myself in a situation”, “I am not in a safe situation at all”, “Help me”, “He’s pinning me down”. A friend called the police.
• Police soon encountered V and the offender together on the street. V was distressed, crying and alleging assault and theft. The offender was holding her items, described her as “crazy”, attempted to walk away and was arrested. A kitchen knife with an 11cm blade was found in his jacket.
• In the van, police found Viagra, condoms and disposable gloves together, consistent with an intention to facilitate sexual activity.

V later provided video-recorded and written statements describing severe psychological sequelae, including PTSD, panic attacks, an attempt on her life and the need to move home.

2.3 Sentencing at first instance

The judge (HHJ Aaronberg KC) did not obtain a pre-sentence report. His core factual findings included:

• The offender had taken Viagra in anticipation of sex with his girlfriend earlier in the evening; when that did not occur, he later went out driving “looking for company” in the early hours.
• He parked near a bar, either because he had seen V or in the hope of meeting someone willing to go with him, and offered V – who was “the worse for wear” – what amounted to a fraudulent lift home.
• She got into the van believing she was being driven home; in fact she was driven to his address, amounting to kidnapping by fraud.
• At the flat, further alcohol was consumed, V became “substantially inebriated” and the offender then tested “what [he] could get away with,” leading to the sexual assault and ABH.
• The court accepted the offender’s own description in his prepared statement that V had been “heavily intoxicated”.

On categorisation, the judge found:

• Kidnapping (Count 1): Category 2C – limited planning/duration, serious psychological harm. Starting Point (SP) 2 years, range 1–3 years. He selected a notional sentence of 2 years 6 months on Count 1 as a standalone.
• Sexual assault (Count 3): Category 2B – because V was “particularly vulnerable through drink”. SP 1 year, range up to 2 years. He added 1 year to Count 1 to reflect this.
• ABH (Count 4): Category B2 – SP 9 months, range up to 18 months. He added a further 12 months to reflect this plus the fact the offence was committed under the influence of alcohol.

The judge then applied the totality principle, reducing the resulting term from 4 years 6 months to 3 years 9 months on Count 1, to avoid “over-punishing” conduct occurring over a short period. The 6-month knife sentence was then made consecutive, giving the aggregate of 4 years 3 months.

3. Summary of the Court of Appeal’s Decision

The Court of Appeal (Lord Justice Stuart-Smith giving the judgment) granted leave and allowed the reference in part.

3.1 Key legal questions

The Court identified two central questions on the kidnapping count:

1. At the time of the kidnapping, was V “particularly vulnerable” within the meaning of the kidnapping guideline?
2. If so, did the offence involve “deliberate targeting of a particularly vulnerable victim”?

Affirmative answers to both questions would mean the judge miscategorised the offence by placing it in culpability Category C and failed to reflect an available Category A factor.

3.2 Findings

The Court held that:

• V was indeed “particularly vulnerable” at the time of the kidnapping. Although not comatose and still able to converse and function to some degree, the combination of:
  • her level of intoxication (accepted by the judge as “heavily intoxicated”);
  • her isolation (alone on the street in the early hours); and
  • her lack of means of transport home
  met the “high threshold” for particular vulnerability.
• The offender’s conduct constituted deliberate targeting of V because of that vulnerability: he recognised that her state meant she “might be willing to succumb” to his fraudulent offer of a lift and chose her on that basis.
• At the same time, the case involved limited planning and duration, a Category C factor, which had to be weighed against the Category A factor.
• On that balance, the appropriate categorisation of the kidnapping was effectively Category 2B: a case where factors from both A (targeting of a particularly vulnerable victim) and C (limited planning) are present.

3.3 Re-sentencing

The Court concluded:

• Standing alone, the least sentence that could properly be passed for the kidnapping (Count 1) was 4 years’ imprisonment.
• No separate criticism was made of:
  • the 2-year increase used by the judge to reflect the sexual assault and ABH; or
  • the 9-month reduction for totality; or
  • the consecutive 6-month sentence on the bladed article count.
• Replicating those adjustments, the math was:
  • 4 years (proper minimum for Count 1 alone)
  • + 2 years (uplift for Counts 3 and 4) = 6 years
  • – 9 months (totality) = 5 years 3 months on Count 1
  • + 6 months consecutive (Count 5) = 5 years 9 months total

The Court therefore:

• quashed the sentence of 3 years 9 months on Count 1;
• substituted a sentence of 5 years 3 months on Count 1; and
• left the other sentences unchanged.

The final aggregate sentence was held to be the lowest sentence that could properly be passed for the totality of the offending, especially given the serious and lasting impact on V.

4. Analysis

4.1 Precedents and Guidelines Considered

4.1.1 R v BN [2021] EWCA Crim 1250

In BN, the Court discussed when a complainant is “particularly vulnerable” for sexual offences. It noted that victims who are asleep, unconscious, comatose or “powerless to resist or to protest” due to intoxication or other factors are classic examples of particular vulnerability.

Greenaway invokes BN to mark the upper end of the vulnerability spectrum: those cases where the complainant is effectively defenceless. The present case, though less extreme, is assessed against that spectrum.

4.1.2 R v Sabato [2021] EWCA Crim 940

In Sabato, the complainant had been drinking and became separated from her friends in the early hours, going down a dark side street to urinate. The Court overturned a finding that she was a “particularly vulnerable victim” for the purposes of deliberate targeting:

“whilst [the victim] was in a vulnerable position due to the location and timing of the offence, she was not a particularly vulnerable victim. For example, she was not herself so much under the influence of alcohol as to be incapable of looking after herself.”

Greenaway uses Sabato as a contrast case on the “more difficult end of the spectrum” where vulnerability is arguable either way. The Court emphasises, however, that Sabato does not establish a rule that a person must be “incapable of looking after herself” before she can be “particularly vulnerable” due to intoxication. Rather, that formulation simply described why the victim in Sabato did not meet the high threshold on those facts.

4.1.3 R v Boltaev [2025] EWCA Crim 207

Greenaway relies most directly on Boltaev, which contains two key strands of guidance:

1. Interpretation of “particularly vulnerable”:

   “The Sentencing Council guidelines are to be interpreted in accordance with the ordinary meaning of the words used. It is clear that a female who is alone at night and is intoxicated can be ‘particularly vulnerable’… That will not be so in every case… Everything will depend on the particular circumstances.”

2. Appellate intervention in evaluative sentencing findings:

   “Further, the Court of Appeal Criminal Division will not interfere with findings of fact, including evaluative findings of fact, made for the purposes of sentencing by judges who have conducted trials, except in limited circumstances. One such circumstance where the court will interfere is where the judge has failed to reflect uncontroverted facts in findings and evaluative findings.”

In Boltaev, the complainant had been unusually drunk, had fallen over at the bar, left without her belongings and walked to a remote, unfamiliar location. Although she could still walk and eventually escape, the Court held that the trial judge had erred in failing to recognise her as “particularly vulnerable” given those uncontroverted facts.

Greenaway adopts this reasoning:

• confirming that “particularly vulnerable” has a “high threshold”, but
• emphasising that the Court of Appeal will intervene if a trial judge’s evaluation does not reflect the uncontroverted factual matrix.

4.1.4 The Sentencing Council guidelines

The Court conducts a careful cross-guideline analysis, contrasting how vulnerability is treated in:

• Kidnapping guideline:
  • Step 1 culpability: “deliberate targeting of a particularly vulnerable victim” = high culpability (Category A).
  • Step 2 aggravating factors: “victim was particularly vulnerable (where not taken into account at step one)” – no requirement of targeting.
• Sexual Assault guideline:
  • Harm Category 2: “victim is particularly vulnerable due to personal circumstances” – vulnerability affects harm, not culpability.
  • Aggravating factor: “victim was specifically targeted due to vulnerability” – deliberate targeting appears as an aggravator, separate from harm categorisation.
• ABH guideline:
  • Step 1 culpability: “victim obviously vulnerable due to age, personal characteristics or circumstances” – vulnerability here increases culpability.
  • Vulnerability not separately listed as an aggravating factor at Step 2.

This comparative exercise underpins two key points:

• “vulnerability” and “particular vulnerability” are context-dependent within different guidelines; and
• for kidnapping, the law distinguishes sharply between:
  • a victim who is simply particularly vulnerable; and
  • an offender who deliberately targets the victim because of that particular vulnerability.

4.2 Legal Reasoning in Depth

4.2.1 The structure of the kidnapping guideline

Under the Sentencing Council guideline for kidnapping:

• Harm is classified into Categories 1–3 (with Category 1 most serious). This case fell within Harm Category 2 because of the serious and long-lasting psychological harm, including PTSD and a suicide attempt.
• Culpability is classified A–C:
  • Category A (high culpability) includes, among other things, “deliberate targeting of a particularly vulnerable victim”.
  • Category B (medium culpability) reflects cases where A and C factors are absent or balanced.
  • Category C (lesser culpability) includes “limited planning and duration”.

The combination of harm and culpability yields matrix categories such as 2A, 2B, 2C with set starting points and ranges. For example:

• Category 2A: SP 7 years, range 5–10 years.
• Category 2B: SP 5 years, range 2–7 years.
• Category 2C: SP 2 years, range 1–3 years.

The original sentencing treated the kidnapping as 2C. The Solicitor General contended it should have been at least 2B, if not 2A.

4.2.2 Two-stage inquiry: vulnerability and targeting

The Court’s approach is explicitly two-stage.

(a) Was V “particularly vulnerable” at the time of the kidnapping?

The Court makes three key general observations:

1. There is a spectrum of vulnerability:
   • At one extreme: victims who are asleep, unconscious, comatose or otherwise incapable of protest or self-defence.
   • At the other: victims who are simply in less than ideal circumstances but can largely protect themselves.
   Where on this spectrum a victim falls is highly fact-specific.
2. A person’s vulnerability can change over time. For example, being:
   • drunk in a familiar environment with friends;
   • then alone on the street in the early hours with no transport;
   • then isolated in a stranger’s home, possibly with further alcohol consumption.
   Each step can increase vulnerability. The Court stresses that, for the kidnapping count, the relevant point in time is when the kidnapping occurred, i.e. when V was induced to get into the van.
3. Different guidelines deploy vulnerability for different purposes (harm, culpability, or aggravation), and it is necessary to attend carefully to the specific wording and context in each.

Turning to the facts, the Court balances:

• Factors indicating significant vulnerability:
  • the judge’s acceptance that V was “heavily intoxicated” (using the offender’s own description);
  • her being alone, late at night/early morning, in a public place having left a party;
  • her having no obvious means of transport home, and thus dependent on others to get home safely.
• Factors tending to moderate that assessment:
  • her own self-assessment of being at “4 out of 10” on a scale of drunkenness;
  • evidence she could converse and walk unaided, including at the party and in later conversation with the offender;
  • the fact that some of her memory loss might be attributable to trauma/PTSD rather than intoxication alone.

The Court acknowledges the difficulty and the apparent similarity to Sabato, but ultimately concludes:

“we consider that the combination of her intoxication, her isolation and the absence of any means of transport to get her home in the early hours of the morning tip the balance in favour of a finding that the high threshold is met and she was particularly vulnerable.”

This is a key doctrinal development: it recognises that a complainant can be “particularly vulnerable” even if not rendered helpless or incapable of self-care, where a combination of situational factors (isolation, time, location, lack of transport) and intoxication create a markedly heightened risk profile.

(b) Was there deliberate targeting of that particular vulnerability?

The Court then addresses “deliberate targeting of a particularly vulnerable victim” as a distinct, higher-threshold concept. It explains:

“We consider it to be plain that this factor is addressing circumstances where the offender deliberately targets the victim because of an appreciation that they are particularly vulnerable. It is the causative nexus between appreciating the victim's particular vulnerability and the decision to target them that affects the culpability of the offender.”

Two points are crucial here:

• The offender must not merely notice that the victim is there and vulnerable; he must choose the victim because of that vulnerability.
• The threshold is “high”, as shown by the very substantial increase in starting point and range when this factor elevates the case into Category A culpability.

The judge had characterised the case as involving “limited planning and duration” and had (implicitly) rejected a finding of deliberate targeting. However, the Court carefully re-examines the judge’s own factual findings, particularly this passage:

“it is evident to me that you were aware that she was somebody who might be willing to succumb to what in effect was a fraud that you practised upon her, because you offered her a lift home in your van.”

The Court interprets this as amounting to a de facto finding that:

• the offender recognised V’s compromised state (heavily intoxicated, alone, needing to get home); and
• chose to offer her a lift in order to exploit that state – she was selected because her vulnerability made her likely to “succumb” to the fraud.

Thus, although the judge did not explicitly say “you deliberately targeted a particularly vulnerable victim”, the uncontroverted factual findings compelled that conclusion. This is a direct application of the principle from Boltaev that the appellate court may intervene when a sentencing judge’s evaluative classification does not reflect his or her own factual findings.

The Court does, however, recognise that the targeting here is not the most egregious variety (such as lurking near shelters to prey on homeless individuals, or systematically seeking out youths leaving nightclubs in a blackout state). It therefore treats this as a less serious instance of the targeting factor, relevant when choosing the specific sentence within the range.

4.2.3 Reconciling targeting with “limited planning and duration”

One might argue that “limited planning” and “deliberate targeting” are inconsistent – if the offender deliberately targeted a vulnerable victim, was there not significant planning? The Court expressly rejects that conflation:

• Planning, in the guideline sense, concerns how far ahead the offender organised and orchestrated the offence (e.g., abducting someone at a pre-chosen time and location, prepared restraints, accomplices).
• Targeting, by contrast, focuses on the selection of the victim at the moment of decision, and whether that selection was made because the victim was particularly vulnerable.

Thus a case may involve:

• limited or opportunistic planning (favouring Category C); but
• nonetheless deliberate targeting of a victim whose vulnerability is apparent and exploited (favouring Category A).

The Court holds that both features are present here and that they effectively “balance out”, justifying placement in Category 2B (medium culpability with Harm Category 2), albeit with a sentence reflecting the relatively less extreme nature of the targeting compared with paradigmatic A cases.

4.2.4 Recalibrating the sentence

Moving from principle to disposal, the Court:

• accepts that the judge’s step-by-step mechanics (uplifts for other offences, application of totality, mandatory minimum for the knife) are not separately flawed;
• concludes that the sole error lies in the starting assessment of the kidnapping itself.

For a Category 2B kidnapping, the guideline SP is 5 years. However, the Court does not mechanically adopt that SP. It reasons that this is a relatively less serious 2B case (because the deliberate targeting is at the lower end of seriousness), and so fixes the minimum proper sentence for Count 1, viewed alone, at 4 years’ imprisonment.

The Court then “imports” the trial judge’s approach to the remaining elements:

• Adds 2 years to reflect the sexual assault and ABH (Counts 3 and 4) – the same overall uplift the judge used.
• Applies the same 9-month totality reduction for the fact that these offences formed part of one incident over a few hours.
• Retains the 6-month mandatory consecutive sentence for the bladed article (Count 5).

The Court then stands back and assesses the overall proportionality of the resulting 5 years 9 months. Given:

• the calculated exploitation of a lone and intoxicated woman in the early hours;
• the fright and physical assault she suffered;
• the grave and enduring psychological harm, including PTSD and a suicide attempt;

it concludes that 5 years 9 months is indeed the lowest sentence that can properly reflect the total criminality.

4.3 Impact and Significance

4.3.1 Clarifying “particularly vulnerable” in non-fatal offences

Greenaway is a major addition to the case law on “particular vulnerability” where the complainant is:

• intoxicated but not comatose;
• functioning to a degree (walking, conversing); and
• in a situationally risky context (alone, late at night, without transport).

The Court confirms:

• The threshold is high, and not all intoxicated victims will be “particularly vulnerable”.
• However, a combination of:
  • moderate-to-high intoxication,
  • isolation,
  • time-of-day factors and absence of safe transport
  can together reach that high threshold, even if no single factor alone would suffice.

This nuanced approach moves beyond a simplistic binary between “inebriated but coping” and “unconscious or helpless”, and articulates a more refined understanding of how contextual risks can elevate vulnerability.

4.3.2 Distinguishing vulnerability from deliberate targeting

Perhaps the most important doctrinal contribution is the explicit articulation of the “causative nexus” required for deliberate targeting:

• Vulnerability is a state of the victim.
• Deliberate targeting is a state of mind of the offender, namely selecting the victim because of that vulnerability.

For kidnapping:

• A victim may be particularly vulnerable without being deliberately targeted as such (in which case vulnerability is an aggravating factor, but not a Category A culpability factor).
• Only where the offender exploits that vulnerability as the reason for choosing the victim does culpability escalate into Category A territory.

Greenaway shows how appellate courts will infer that nexus from the sentencing judge’s own narrative where:

• the offender recognises the victim’s compromised state; and
• deliberately uses that state to induce the victim into the offending situation (e.g. accepting a fraudulent “lift”).

4.3.3 Interaction between guidelines and appellate review

The decision underscores:

• The need for judges to apply guidelines transparently, ensuring that factual findings translate appropriately into categorisations (harm and culpability) and aggravating factors.
• The willingness of the Court of Appeal to revisit evaluative findings (like “particular vulnerability” and “deliberate targeting”) when those findings appear inconsistent with uncontroverted facts found at trial.
• The importance of maintaining coherence across guidelines: the Court’s comparative discussion of kidnapping, sexual assault and ABH guidelines encourages practitioners to think carefully about vulnerability’s role in harm versus culpability versus aggravation.

4.3.4 Practical implications for prosecution and defence

For prosecutors:

• Greenaway provides strong support for submitting that lone, intoxicated complainants with no safe means of getting home can be “particularly vulnerable”, especially in kidnapping, sexual assault and analogous offences.
• Where evidence suggests the offender chose such a complainant because of their state (e.g. circling near bars at closing time, offering lifts, drawing on their own statements about “heavily intoxicated” victims), there is a clearer basis to argue deliberate targeting.

For the defence:

• The decision emphasises that descriptions of a complainant as “heavily intoxicated” – particularly when coming from the defendant’s own mouth in interview or prepared statement – may be a double-edged sword, underpinning a finding of particular vulnerability.
• Submissions minimising vulnerability will need to grapple directly with contextual factors (time, location, transport, isolation), not merely with the complainant’s self-assessed drunkenness.
• Arguments that an offence was “opportunistic” and involved “limited planning” are not, by themselves, sufficient to exclude deliberate targeting where the victim selection clearly hinges on vulnerability.

4.3.5 Unduly lenient sentence references

The case also illustrates the Court’s approach in unduly lenient sentence references:

• The Court will not interfere merely because it would have passed a different sentence; it must find the sentence unduly lenient – i.e., one which falls outside the range of sentences that a judge, properly directing themselves, could reasonably pass.
• Here, once proper categorisation of the kidnapping as involving deliberate targeting of a particularly vulnerable victim was recognised, the original starting point (2 years 6 months for Count 1 alone) became untenable, justifying substantial upward revision.
• Nevertheless, the Court preserved the trial judge’s structure for:
  • uplifts for associated offences;
  • totality reduction; and
  • mandatory minimum consecutive sentences.
  This reflects respect for the judge’s legitimate evaluative space, intervening only where misapplication of the guideline distorted the entire framework.

5. Complex Concepts Simplified

5.1 “Unduly lenient” vs “lenient” sentences

An unduly lenient sentence reference is not a simple appeal. The Attorney General (or Solicitor General) may ask the Court of Appeal to review certain sentences that are said to be “unduly lenient”. The Court then considers:

• Was the judge’s sentence wrong in principle or outside the range of sentences reasonably open on the facts and law?
• Is the sentence not just lenient, but unduly so – i.e. markedly below what a properly directed judge could impose?

Only if that threshold is met will the Court substitute a higher sentence, which cannot exceed what would have been passed if the case had come before it at first instance.

5.2 Sentencing guideline structure: harm, culpability, SP and range

Most Sentencing Council guidelines operate on similar lines:

1. Step 1 – Categorise offence:
   • Assess harm (impact and seriousness of the outcome) into categories (e.g. 1–3).
   • Assess culpability (blameworthiness of the offender’s conduct) into categories (e.g. A–C).
   • Cross-reference to find the starting point (SP) and category range.
2. Step 2 – Adjust for aggravating/mitigating factors:
   • Consider any other features that increase or decrease seriousness.
   • Move upward or downward within the category range accordingly.
3. Later steps:
   • Apply reductions for guilty pleas, totality, time on remand, etc.

In Greenaway, the crucial error lay at Step 1 for the kidnapping count – miscategorising culpability as Category C instead of recognising a Category A factor (deliberate targeting of a particularly vulnerable victim), balanced by a Category C factor (limited planning).

5.3 “Particularly vulnerable” vs “vulnerable”

Many guidelines use both “vulnerable” and “particularly vulnerable”. The distinction is qualitative:

• Vulnerable: The victim has characteristics or is in circumstances that make them more susceptible to harm than a typical person (e.g. elderly, isolated, modestly intoxicated, in a dark area).
• Particularly vulnerable: The victim’s ability to protect themselves or avoid harm is markedly compromised – the threshold is high and will usually require:
  • a higher degree of intoxication, incapacity or dependence; and
  • situational factors amplifying that risk (e.g. being alone, no transport, unfamiliar environment).

Greenaway confirms that assessment is holistic: one must look at all the circumstances together, not in isolation.

5.4 “Deliberate targeting”

“Deliberate targeting” means the offender:

• recognises a specific vulnerability in the victim; and
• chooses that victim because of that vulnerability, in order to facilitate their criminal purpose.

It is not enough that:

• the victim happened to be vulnerable; or
• the offender merely took advantage of whoever was present.

In Greenaway, the Court infers targeting from:

• the offender’s behaviour (driving around near bars in the early hours, approaching a lone intoxicated woman);
• his appreciation of her state (“heavily intoxicated”, “might be willing to succumb”); and
• using a fraudulent offer of a lift to exploit that state.

5.5 The totality principle

The totality principle requires that when sentencing for multiple offences, the overall sentence:

• adequately reflects the total offending behaviour; but
• is not “crushing” or disproportionate when viewed as a whole.

Courts often:

• fix appropriate sentences for each count; then
• make some concurrent and some consecutive; and
• sometimes reduce the headline sentence slightly to reflect the fact that all offences arose from a single incident or closely related conduct.

In Greenaway, the judge’s 9-month reduction on Count 1 was a totality adjustment for the fact that the kidnapping, sexual assault and ABH all occurred within a short window as part of one sequence of events. The Court of Appeal accepted that approach and reused it after re-categorising the kidnapping.

6. Conclusion

Greenaway is now a leading authority on:

• what amounts to a “particularly vulnerable” victim where intoxication, isolation and lack of transport intersect; and
• what constitutes “deliberate targeting” of such a victim for the purposes of kidnapping sentencing.

The Court:

• affirms that the threshold for particular vulnerability is high, but that it can be met where a complainant is alone, in the early hours, “heavily intoxicated” and with no safe means of getting home;
• clarifies that deliberate targeting requires a causative link between the offender’s appreciation of that vulnerability and the choice of victim;
• demonstrates that this high culpability factor can coexist with limited planning, placing cases into Category 2B where A and C factors balance; and
• illustrates how the Court of Appeal will correct misapplications of sentencing guidelines where trial judges’ factual findings are not properly translated into guideline categorisations.

From a broader perspective, Greenaway underscores the criminal justice system’s recognition of the acute risks faced by lone, intoxicated individuals in public spaces at night, and the heightened culpability of offenders who identify and exploit those vulnerabilities. It reinforces the need for sentencers to engage closely with the factual matrix and the structure of the guidelines, ensuring that the seriousness of such exploitative conduct is properly reflected in sentence.