Exceptional Circumstances Disapplying the Seven-Year Minimum for Repeat Class A Supply Where the Minimum Would Be Arbitrary and Disproportionate

1. Introduction

This sentence appeal concerned the statutory minimum term regime for repeat “class A trafficking offences” under s.313 Sentencing Act 2020, as amended in its application to post-28 June 2022 offences by s.124 Police, Crime, Sentencing & Courts Act 2022.

The appellant pleaded guilty to supplying a class A drug (a single wrap of diamorphine) to another user on 1 November 2023. Because he had at least two prior convictions for class A supply/trafficking offences, the Crown Court treated the case as engaging the seven-year minimum in s.313(1) and concluded there were no “exceptional circumstances” under s.313(2) to justify not imposing it.

The appeal turned on a narrow but practically important question: what amounts to “exceptional circumstances” in a low-level, addiction-driven supply case where the Sentencing Council guideline sentence (absent the minimum term) would be dramatically lower, and the offender can show sustained rehabilitation.

2. Summary of the Judgment

The Court quashed the sentence of 2,045 days’ immediate custody (seven years less the maximum 20% guilty plea reduction), and substituted 20 months’ imprisonment suspended for 12 months, with supervision and 10 Rehabilitation Activity Requirement days. The Court considered punitive requirements unnecessary given time already served.

3. Analysis

3.1 Statutory framework and guidance applied

The Court proceeded on the agreed basis that s.313(2A) Sentencing Act 2020 applied, because the index offence post-dated the commencement of the relevant amendment (28 June 2022). The statutory structure is:

• Default rule: the court must impose at least 7 years’ custody for a qualifying repeat class A trafficking offender.
• Escape clause: the court may impose less only if it is of the opinion there are “exceptional circumstances” relating to the offence(s) or the offender which justify not imposing the minimum.

The Court anchored its assessment in the Sentencing Council principles on exceptional circumstances (quoted in the judgment), including the core test: circumstances are exceptional where imposing the minimum would result in an “arbitrary and disproportionate sentence”, and courts should not too readily treat mitigation, lower culpability, or a guilty plea as exceptional.

3.2 The Recorder’s approach and the appellate correction

The Recorder (i) correctly identified the guideline position absent s.313: category 3 harm, lesser culpability, with an adjusted outcome of 20 months’ custody after credit; but (ii) concluded that the mitigation, though “good”, was not “exceptional” even cumulatively.

The Court of Appeal held that this conclusion was wrong in principle because it understated the combined force of:

• Offence features: a single supply, of a very small quantity, to another entrenched user, in circumstances consistent with “close circle” supply to support the appellant’s own habit.
• Temporal features: almost 10 years since the last drug offence before the index offence, and no further offending in the lengthy period between arrest and sentence.
• Rehabilitation evidence: sustained, externally-supported progress through a structured opiate substitute programme (Buvidal), engagement with psychological therapy addressing long-standing trauma/PTSD, and professional evidence of meaningful stability and recovery steps.
• System and disposals context: a strong, favourable pre-sentence report assessing low likelihood of reconviction, and a realistic, supported community pathway (including Tier progression) that the minimum term would extinguish.

The Court’s key evaluative move was to treat “exceptional circumstances” not as requiring a single rare feature, but as capable of arising from a combination which makes the statutory minimum sentence disconnect from culpability, harm, and current risk to an extent that becomes arbitrary and disproportionate.

3.3 Precedents cited

The judgment does not cite by name any prior appellate authorities interpreting s.313 (or analogous minimum term regimes). Instead, it relies directly on:

• the text and structure of s.313 Sentencing Act 2020 (including s.313(2A)); and
• the Sentencing Council guideline principles on exceptional circumstances and on suspension of custodial sentences.

Practical note: although not framed as a “new test”, the Court’s application provides a concrete appellate exemplar of how the guideline’s “arbitrary and disproportionate” concept operates in a repeat class A supply case with strong rehabilitation evidence.

3.4 Legal reasoning: why exceptional circumstances were made out

The Court’s reasoning is best understood as a proportionality-based synthesis:

• Step 1 — Baseline proportionality: absent the minimum term, the correct guideline outcome was 20 months. That provided the benchmark for assessing whether a mandatory 7-year term would be grossly out of scale.
• Step 2 — Cumulative assessment: the Court evaluated all relevant circumstances together, as the guideline requires, emphasising that while individual factors may be common (addiction, mitigation, guilty plea), their collective impact here was not.
• Step 3 — Forward-looking penal aims: the Court treated the appellant’s realistic prospect of rehabilitation, low assessed risk, and demonstrable engagement with treatment as central to whether the minimum term would be unjustly blunt. The minimum term was said to “remove those chances”.
• Step 4 — Error of principle and manifest excess: because the Recorder’s “not exceptional” conclusion failed to account for the disproportionality generated by these combined circumstances, the resulting sentence was wrong in principle and manifestly excessive.

3.5 Suspension: the Court’s approach to the substituted sentence

Having agreed that 20 months was the correct custodial term under the guidelines, the Court then addressed whether it should be suspended. Applying the Sentencing Council guideline on suspension, the Court indicated that at least three suspension-supporting factors were present:

• a realistic prospect of rehabilitation in the community;
• no high risk of reoffending or harm; and
• strong personal mitigation rooted in long-standing trauma and addiction history.

Conversely, it found no countervailing factors requiring immediate custody: no significant risk to others, punishment did not demand immediate custody, and there was no reason to think the appellant would not comply. This underpinned the substitution of a suspended sentence with supervision and rehabilitative requirements.

3.6 Impact

The decision’s significance lies in how it operationalises “exceptional circumstances” under s.313 in practice:

• Rehabilitation evidence can be outcome-determinative: well-documented treatment engagement (medical and psychological), corroborated by professionals and a strong PSR, may justify disapplying the minimum where it makes the minimum term arbitrary/disproportionate.
• Low-level, addiction-linked supply is not treated as automatically “exceptional”, but it may become so when combined with a long offence-free gap and sustained post-arrest change.
• Proportionality remains central even within a minimum term framework: the Court explicitly ties “exceptional” to avoiding an arbitrary and disproportionate sentence, inviting structured comparison between guideline outcome and the statutory floor.
• Sentencing courts must give real effect to the cumulative assessment: dismissing multiple factors as merely “good mitigation” may be vulnerable on appeal where the combination compellingly demonstrates disproportionality.

4. Complex concepts simplified

• “Statutory minimum term” (s.313): a legal rule requiring a judge to impose at least a set number of years’ custody for certain repeat offences, unless a narrow exception applies.
• “Exceptional circumstances”: not simply “strong mitigation”; it means circumstances making the minimum sentence so out of proportion to the case that it would be unjust to impose it.
• “Arbitrary and disproportionate”: a sentence is disproportionate when it is far more severe than the seriousness and risks of the offence/offender justify; it is arbitrary when the statutory rule produces a result detached from the case’s real gravity.
• “Suspended sentence”: a custodial sentence that is not immediately served; the offender remains in the community under requirements. If they breach, they may be ordered to serve the custodial term.
• Buvidal programme: a long-acting buprenorphine (opioid substitution) treatment; here, it functioned as objective evidence of sustained recovery engagement.

5. Conclusion

[2026] EWCA Crim 495 illustrates that “exceptional circumstances” under s.313 Sentencing Act 2020 can be established where the combined features of (i) very low-level supply linked to addiction, (ii) a lengthy gap since prior offending and no post-arrest offending, and (iii) strong, professional, sustained rehabilitation evidence make the seven-year minimum arbitrary and disproportionate.

The Court of Appeal’s intervention emphasises that sentencing courts must undertake a genuinely cumulative and proportionality-sensitive assessment of exceptionality, and that where rehabilitation prospects are real and well evidenced, a suspended sentence with rehabilitative requirements may be the appropriate alternative to a statutory minimum term.