New 8–15 Year Sentencing Range for Multiple Hijackings, Article 6 Delay Not Mitigation, and Prosecutorial Duty to Indicate Sentencing Range — Commentary on R v Collins & Mateer [2025] NICA 50

Case: Collins & Anor, R v [2025] NICA 50 (Court of Appeal in Northern Ireland, Keegan LCJ, McCloskey LJ and Fowler J)

Dates: Decision announced 10 September 2025 (oral), written reasons 3 October 2025

Procedural posture: Reference by the DPP under section 36 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988 (as amended by section 41 of the Justice (Northern Ireland) Act 2002)

Introduction

This commentary examines the Court of Appeal in Northern Ireland’s judgment in R v Collins & Mateer, a Director’s Reference addressing unduly lenient sentencing for a high-harm, multi-incident hijacking spree between Newcastle and Belfast on 1 June 2019. The case presents three major developments:

First, the Court establishes a sentencing range of 8 to 15 years for cases involving multiple hijackings and associated offences, anchored to the statutory maximum of 15 years for hijacking.
Second, it restates the structured sentencing methodology and clarifies that Article 6 ECHR “reasonable time” issues are not matters of mitigation; any downwards adjustment for breach of the reasonable time guarantee is a distinct step after credit for plea.
Third, it clarifies the prosecutorial duty at first instance to assist the Crown Court by indicating an appropriate sentencing range grounded in relevant authorities, thereby promoting transparency and consistency and reducing the need for Director’s References.

The respondents, Declan Collins and Sean Mateer, pleaded guilty to three counts of hijacking and four counts of attempted hijacking, among other offences (with additional dangerous driving and driving while disqualified counts for Collins). The DPP challenged the sentencing judge’s starting point of six years for the hijacking offences as too low. The Court of Appeal concluded the sentences were unduly lenient and substituted determinate custodial sentences of nine years (Collins) and eight years (Mateer), each split equally between custody and licence.

Summary of the Judgment

Nature of offending: A concentrated series of violent hijackings and attempted hijackings within roughly one hour, involving over 50 victims/eyewitnesses, multiple collisions, injuries (including a fractured wrist), threats to shoot, and extreme driving dangerously while intoxicated.
Error in sentencing methodology: The trial judge fixed a starting point before completing a proper analysis of mitigating factors and then layered mitigation and plea “discounts” in a manner inconsistent with established methodology. The Court restates the correct sequence: identify aggravating factors; identify mitigating factors; set the starting point; apply plea discount; then consider Article 6 ECHR delay adjustment (if any); and pronounce sentence.
Article 6 ECHR: The Court holds that delay adjustments are not mitigation. The trial judge’s evaluative conclusion that Article 6 was not breached stood. The Court underscores the appellate “restraint principle” for such evaluative assessments.
New guidance: For multiple hijackings, the appropriate sentencing range is 8–15 years (pre-plea), with placement within the range depending on the number of incidents and harm caused. This is contrasted with single-incident guidance (R v McCullough [2023] NICA 36), where a 4-year starting point was considered for a single hijacking.
Totality: The case calls for a totality assessment across multiple offences. Concurrent sentences were appropriate in principle, but the headline starting point was unduly low, rendering the total sentence disproportionate to the overall criminality.
Prosecutorial duties: Prosecutors should assist the sentencing court at first instance by indicating a sentencing range grounded in relevant authorities and comparable Court of Appeal decisions, even where no formal guideline exists, to avoid late-on-appeal range advocacy.
Orders substituted: Collins — 11 years before plea, reduced to 9 years (50% custody, 50% licence); Mateer — 10 years before plea, reduced to 8 years (same split).

Factual and Procedural Background

The respondents embarked on a spree of hijackings and attempted hijackings on 1 June 2019. Key features included:

Violence against elderly and tourist victims; threats of shooting; assaults; pulling drivers from vehicles; and injuries including a displaced distal radius fracture requiring surgery referral.
Extreme dangerous driving over a significant area and time, with deliberate ramming, high-speed manoeuvres, and “joyriding” conduct while intoxicated, causing extensive property damage and endangering scores of road users, including children.
Collins had additional culpability: driving while disqualified and distinct dangerous driving offences.

Procedurally, the case progressed slowly: initial interviews in June 2019, file to PPS in June 2021, committal in February 2024, guilty pleas in November 2024 (with counts amended/left on the books), and sentence in March 2025. The trial judge set a six-year starting point for the hijacking offences, applied mitigation and plea discounts, and imposed additional consecutive months on Collins for driving while disqualified. The DPP referred the case as unduly lenient on the discrete ground that the hijacking starting point was too low.

Analysis

1. Precedents Cited and Their Influence

R v Ali [2023] NICA 20: Reiterates the nature of DPP references—no general right of appeal; interference only where sentence is wrong in principle or outside the reasonable range; “unduly” not merely “lenient.” This framed the threshold for intervention here.
R v McCullough [2023] NICA 36: Addresses single-incident hijacking; confirms custody is almost inevitable; underscores fact-sensitivity and warns against rigid guidance. The present court builds on this by identifying a separate range for multiple-incident cases.
Historic hijacking authorities: R v Blaney [1989] NI 286; R v Townley [1999] 5 BNIL 70; R v Conway [2001] NIJB 27; R v O’Neill [2005] NICC 2. These show sentencing varied significantly with context, often involving firearms or threats. Their vintage and factual heterogeneity limited direct transposition, prompting the need for fresh guidance.
R v Hyde [2013] NICA 8: Referenced for the step addressing assistance to the Crown in the sequencing of sentencing decisions.
R v Dunlop [2019] NICA 72: Detailed analysis of Article 6 “reasonable time” guarantee, underpinning the present court’s structured treatment of delay issues and how adjustments should be approached.
R v Jack [2020] NICA 1 and R v McGinley [2025] NICA 11: The court clarifies that characterising Article 6 delay as “mitigation” (a formulation appearing in Jack) was fallacious and has been corrected/recalibrated; McGinley is cited for methodological correction of Jack.
R v Hutton [2024] NICA 19: Recent rearticulation of the totality principle (albeit in a sexual offending context), with general principles applicable across criminal cases: consider sentence per offence; concurrency vs consecutivity; test overall justness and proportionality.
R v Anderson [2025] NICA 33; R v CD [2024] NICA 9; R v Edward Corr [2019] NICA 64; and AG’s Ref No 8 of 2004 (Dawson): These authorities inform the court’s discussion of prosecutorial obligations and the impropriety of leaving sentencing range advocacy to appellate stages. Dawson is quoted in the Code for Prosecutors and emphasises counsel’s duty to engage with the judge’s indication by drawing attention to relevant authorities.

2. Legal Reasoning: Methodology Restated and Applied

The Court finds the trial judge’s methodology did not comply with established jurisprudence. It restates a mandatory structure:

Identify aggravating facts and factors.
Identify mitigating facts and factors.
Set the “starting point” only after steps one and two.
Apply any appropriate downwards adjustment for the guilty plea.
Then consider any Article 6 ECHR “reasonable time” downwards adjustment, or reduction for assistance to the Crown (Hyde), as a distinct step.
Pronounce sentence.

This structure enhances coherence and transparency, reduces double-counting, and permits clearer advice to defendants. The court emphasises that the trial judge chose a starting point before fully integrating mitigation and treated issues (like delay) in a manner that blurred their proper categorisation—leading to a starting point that was too low.

3. Article 6 ECHR Delay: Not Mitigation, and Appellate Restraint

The Court clarifies that a breach of the Article 6 reasonable time guarantee is not “mitigation.” Mitigation concerns features that reduce culpability or gravity; Article 6 delay is a distinct legal factor that, where established, may call for a separate downwards adjustment after plea.

The Court outlines three common appellate scenarios for delay complaints: (i) punishment manifestly excessive for failure to recognise breach; (ii) error of law in failing to make the assessment; (iii) inadequacy of allowance where breach was recognised. It refers to Dunlop for the substantive principles and places emphasis on the evaluative nature of delay assessments.
The “restraint principle” applies to appellate review of evaluative judgments. Counsel challenging a trial judge’s delay assessment must engage with that threshold, not simply invite substitution of view.
Here, the judge made an evaluative finding of no Article 6 breach and hence no remedy. The Court sees no actionable legal flaw. Moreover, it corrects the conceptual error of treating delay as mitigation and notes its earlier recalibration of Jack in McGinley.

4. New Guidance: Range for Multiple Hijackings (8–15 years)

For multiple-incident hijacking cases, the Court sets a range of 8–15 years’ imprisonment (pre-plea). The position within that range depends on the number of incidents and the harm caused. This range recognises the statutory maximum (15 years) and the aggravated nature of multi-incident offending. It complements McCullough, which dealt with a single hijacking (starting point four years), reaffirming that sentencing in hijacking is fact-sensitive but now supplying a principled bracket for multi-incident sprees.

Application to the present case:

Collins: Mid-range 11 years before plea; after credit for plea, 9 years; determinate custodial sentence split equally between custody and licence. Additional driving offending and weaker mitigation justified the higher pre-plea figure than Mateer.
Mateer: 10 years before plea; after plea, 8 years; equal custodial/licence split, reflecting some greater mitigation (efforts at abstinence and rehabilitation supported by expert evidence).

The Court also underlines the limited scope for personal circumstances (e.g., addiction, chaotic lifestyle) to mitigate serious public protection offending of this kind, a point it felt was under-emphasised below.

5. Totality, Concurrency, and the Headline Offence

While the judge correctly appreciated the relevance of totality and opted for concurrency, the headline starting point for the hijacking offences was too low, producing an overall sentence that was not just and proportionate to the scale and harm of the offending. The Court reiterates three cross-cutting principles (from Hutton):

Assess each offence with reference to relevant guidance.
Determine concurrency or consecutivity; combinations may be appropriate.
Test the overall sentence for justice and proportionality to the whole offending.

Here, the concurrency decision was unobjectionable; the defect lay in setting a starting point that failed to reflect the gravity of the spree.

6. Prosecutorial Duties: Indicating Sentencing Range at First Instance

The Court addresses a recurring problem in DPP references: the prosecution refrains from indicating a sentencing range at first instance and then, on appeal, argues that a significantly higher range applies. Interpreting the Bar of Northern Ireland’s Code of Conduct (para 20.9) and the PPS Code for Prosecutors (paras 5.20–5.22), the Court states:

Prosecutors must assist the sentencing judge with all relevant statutory provisions and Court of Appeal guidance and be prepared to indicate the appropriate sentencing range “in line with relevant authorities.”
Purposively construed, this authorises prosecutors to identify an appropriate range grounded in analogous authorities, even if there is no formal guideline for the exact offence constellation.
This practice should be adopted moving forward to enhance transparency, reduce inconsistency, and diminish avoidable Director’s References based on arguments that could and should have been made at first instance.

7. Accuracy in Criminal Records and the Limited Mitigatory Force of Personal Circumstances

The Court notes that the formulation of both respondents’ criminal records at first instance involved a substantial understatement, for reasons unknown. This error reinforces the case for undue leniency and underscores the duty of accuracy upon all parties, especially in high-harm public protection cases. The Court also highlights the well-established and “intrinsically limited” scope for personal circumstances to mitigate serious offending of this nature: addiction or chaotic lifestyle rarely reduce culpability or the need for deterrent and protective sentences.

Complex Concepts Simplified

DPP Reference vs Appeal: A Director’s Reference is not a general appeal; it is confined to reviewing sentences that are wrong in principle or unduly lenient. Even then, the Court can choose not to alter the sentence (a discretion reserved for exceptional situations).
Starting Point and Reductions: The “starting point” is the sentence the court considers appropriate after weighing aggravating and mitigating features, before applying reductions for plea (and then any Article 6 delay adjustment). It must be set after a full evaluation of facts.
Article 6 ECHR “Reasonable Time”: If criminal proceedings take too long, there may be a breach. Any remedy (e.g., a sentence adjustment) is not “mitigation” but a distinct step after the plea discount. Trial judges make evaluative assessments; appellate courts show restraint unless a legal error or misapplication is shown.
Totality: When sentencing for multiple offences, the court must ensure the overall sentence is just and proportionate, which may involve a mix of concurrent and consecutive terms.
Determinate Custodial Sentence Split: In Northern Ireland, a determinate custodial sentence is typically split between time in custody and time on licence (supervision in the community). Here, both substituted sentences were split 50/50.
Dangerousness (CJO(NI) 2008): A separate statutory assessment that can lead to extended sentences if a significant risk of serious harm is found. The judge found the test not met for either respondent; the Court did not disturb that conclusion.
Hijacking Maximum: The offence of hijacking carries a maximum of 15 years; the Court’s 8–15 year range for multiple incidents is aligned with that statutory ceiling and calibrated to harm and multiplicity.

Practical Implications and Guidance

For Sentencing Judges

Follow the structured methodology: aggravation, mitigation, starting point, plea credit, Article 6 delay/Hyde assistance, sentence.
In multiple hijacking cases, select a position within the 8–15 year range (pre-plea) by reference to the number of incidents, harm, risk created (e.g., dangerous driving while intoxicated in public areas), and criminal records.
Apply totality principles and record clear reasoning for concurrency or consecutivity. Test the global sentence for proportionality.
Keep Article 6 delay conceptually distinct from mitigation. If a breach is found, make a discrete adjustment after plea credit and explain the rationale.
Ensure accuracy of criminal records and all factual matrices that materially bear on culpability and harm.

For Prosecutors

At first instance, indicate an appropriate sentencing range grounded in statutory maxima, relevant Court of Appeal authorities (including analogous cases), and established principles, even absent formal guideline judgments.
If the judge signals a range that appears inconsistent with authority, draw attention to relevant cases and the new 8–15 year range for multiple hijackings. Dawson underscores your duty to do so.
Prepare accurate summaries of criminal records and aggravating features (e.g., dangerousness indicators, intoxication, threats) and address dangerousness assessments under the 2008 Order where applicable.

For Defence Practitioners

Engage with the 8–15 year multi-hijacking range by focusing on factors that justify placement lower in the range: fewer incidents, lower harm, meaningful rehabilitation, and better records relative to co-accused.
Distinguish diligently between mitigation and Article 6 delay. If advancing delay, frame and prove it as a discrete legal issue, engaging with the evaluative standard and restraint principle on appeal.
Ensure that personal mitigation is presented realistically, recognising its limited weight where public protection and deterrence are prominent.

Systemic Impact

Sentencing for multi-incident hijacking will now be more consistent, with a clear pre-plea range against which to calibrate individual cases.
The clarified prosecutorial duty should improve the quality of first-instance sentencing submissions, reduce the incidence of DPP references, and promote fairness to trial judges.
The explicit separation of Article 6 delay from mitigation will standardise judicial reasoning and minimise double-counting or conceptual confusion in complex, delayed prosecutions.

Conclusion

Collins & Mateer is a significant sentencing decision in Northern Ireland. It provides much-needed guidance by setting an 8–15 year pre-plea range for multiple hijackings, reasserts the structured sentencing method to avoid error and opacity, and settles the doctrinal point that Article 6 “reasonable time” remedies are not matters of mitigation. Equally important is the Court’s clarification of prosecutorial duties: counsel must assist first-instance judges by indicating an appropriate range derived from relevant authorities and principles, even when formal guideline judgments are absent.

Applied to the serious public-protection facts here—prolonged, violent, intoxicated hijacking and driving across a busy urban corridor—the Court concluded that the six-year starting point was manifestly too low. Substituted sentences of nine years (Collins) and eight years (Mateer), each split equally between custody and licence, recalibrate proportionality and deterrence to the gravity of harm and risk created. Going forward, this judgment should foster more coherent, transparent sentencing in hijacking cases, sharpening the roles of judges and counsel alike and ensuring that totality, delay, and mitigation are each addressed in their proper analytical place.