Ultra-High Quantity Cocaine Conspiracies: Justifying 20+ Year Starting Points and Limiting Guilty Plea Credit Where Quantity Is Contested Late

1. Introduction

R. v Sajad & Anor ([2026] EWCA Crim 125) concerns sentence appeals by Mohammed Sajad and Kulvir Shergill following guilty pleas to a single count of conspiracy to evade the prohibition on the importation of cocaine, arising from an NCA investigation (“Operation Debating”) into a West Midlands organised crime group.

The factual core was a high-volume importation and distribution operation, using apparently legitimate delivery locations and encrypted EncroChat communications. The sentencing dispute centred on:

  • the proper role categorisation (leading/significant) under the drug sentencing guideline;
  • the permissibility of a substantial uplift above category 1 quantities given the scale (250kg cocaine);
  • guilty plea credit, including whether disparity between co-defendants mattered; and
  • totality where Sajad had already served part of an earlier firearms sentence.

2. Summary of the Judgment

The Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) (Foxton LJ) refused Shergill’s renewed application for leave to appeal against sentence and dismissed the limited appeal on guilty plea credit. It also refused Sajad’s renewed application for leave.

Key outcomes:

  • Shergill: the judge’s 25-year pre-plea sentence (leading role; 250kg cocaine) was not manifestly excessive; 15% guilty plea credit was not wrong in principle.
  • Sajad: a 20-year starting point (significant role; uplift for scale), reduced to 16 years after credit and adjustments, was within the proper range; totality with an earlier firearms sentence was adequately addressed.

3. Analysis

3.1 Precedents Cited

The judgment does not cite prior case authorities by name. The Court’s approach is instead anchored in the applicable sentencing guideline for drug importation/conspiracy and, in particular, the guideline statement that: Where the operation is on the most serious and commercial scale, involving a quantity of drugs significantly higher than category 1, sentences of 20 years and above may be appropriate, depending on the offender's role.

The absence of cited authorities is itself notable: the Court treated the guideline text and orthodox appellate tests (manifest excess; principled approach to plea credit; totality) as sufficient to resolve the challenges.

3.2 Legal Reasoning

(a) “Manifestly excessive” and the legitimacy of very high uplifts for scale

Both applicants relied on the guideline structure (category 1 anchored to an indicative 5kg) to argue that the judge’s uplifts were too steep. The Court rejected that framing. It held that where the proven quantity is extraordinary (here, 250kg cocaine—around 50 times the category 1 indicative quantity) and the operation is “most serious and commercial,” the guideline expressly contemplates 20+ year sentences, and the appellate court will not interfere merely because the uplift is substantial.

Importantly, the Court assessed proportionality both:

  • “in the round” (major conspiracy; multiple warehouses; national distribution; scale), and
  • granularly (what each offender actually did, knew, and directed).

(b) Role classification: “leading” versus “significant” on the facts

Shergill was upheld as leading because he was the UK-end senior figure: direct contact with Dutch importers, principal point of contact for wholesale customers, organiser of premises and logistics, and director of others’ actions (including instructing destruction of phones after an arrest). The Court also emphasised that leadership is not confined to being the ultimate owner/buyer/seller; facilitating buying and selling “in a very meaningful way” at scale can suffice.

Sajad was upheld as significant, not “on the cusp.” The Court pointed to repeated receipt of consignments, processing/unpacking and photographing blocks, courier communications, trips to London, handling downstream deliveries, and trusted use of the shared EncroChat handle. These features supported inference of knowledge of scale and expectation of gain.

(c) Financial gain: expectation can matter more than proven receipt

Shergill challenged the judge’s reference to a commission figure that appeared to have been calculated by reference to a higher total drug figure. The Court treated the numerical point as non-material: even on 250kg, the commission remained substantial, and (crucially) the guideline factor is expectation of substantial gain, not the precise sum proven to have been received.

(d) Guilty plea credit: timing, the sliding scale, and “disparity” between defendants

Shergill argued he should have received 20% credit (as Ali and Mohammed did) rather than 15%. The Court endorsed the judge’s 15% as consistent with the usual sliding scale: 25% at PTPH; 10% at trial; midpoints depending on when the plea is entered. A plea about one month before trial was squarely within a 15% outcome.

The Court additionally observed that Shergill’s late acceptance of the drug quantity (only conceding 250kg after evidence began at a Newton hearing) could justify treating him differently from Ali and Mohammed—although it noted that if this factor influenced the judge, it ideally should have been stated. Even without it, 15% was not wrong in principle.

On disparity, the Court held that even if co-defendants received a generous allowance, that does not itself establish legal error in Shergill’s credit; the difference did not approach the kind of disparity that would justify appellate intervention.

(e) Totality and the earlier firearms sentence (Sajad)

Sajad’s totality argument (that the drug sentence should have been moderated because he had already served a firearms sentence) failed for two reasons:

  • Practical/procedural reality: the NCA did not know of the conspiracy at the time of the firearms sentence, and Sajad did not plead in the conspiracy until 2023, making a “single sentencing event” unrealistic.
  • Substantive totality: if the offences had been sentenced together with the fuller picture (firearms held in a context of organised drug offending), that could have been more aggravating. The Court accepted the judge’s limited adjustment (including a one-year reduction for remand after the firearms custodial term) as a rational way to avoid double counting while still reflecting the overall criminality.

3.3 Impact

The decision reinforces several practical sentencing propositions likely to influence future large-scale drug conspiracy cases:

  • Guideline flexibility at extreme quantities: where quantities massively exceed category 1, appellate courts will endorse 20+ year starting points if role findings are sound and the operation is demonstrably commercial and serious.
  • Leadership is functional, not formal: an offender need not be the ultimate owner of drugs to be “leading” if they direct others and control key nodes (importer contact, premises, customers, money flow).
  • Plea credit is not equalised across defendants: disparity alone rarely founds an appeal; the question is whether the individual allowance was lawful and within the permissible range.
  • Late quantity disputes can have consequences: while the Court did not require an express penalty, it signalled that taking a contested Newton hearing path on quantity can legitimately distinguish co-defendants when assessing plea credit.

4. Complex Concepts Simplified

  • EncroChat: an encrypted messaging system used by criminals; the conspirators’ confidence in its security produced unusually direct evidence (photos, instructions, price discussions).
  • Newton hearing: a fact-finding hearing held after a guilty plea where prosecution and defence dispute facts that materially affect sentence (here, the drug quantity).
  • Manifestly excessive: the appellate threshold is high—an appeal succeeds only if the sentence is outside the range of sentences properly open to the judge, not merely because another judge might have sentenced differently.
  • Basis of plea: a written statement of facts the defendant asks the court to sentence upon; if disputed, it may trigger a Newton hearing.
  • PTPH (Plea and Trial Preparation Hearing): an early hearing where pleas are entered and the trial is managed; the maximum guilty plea discount is typically available here.
  • Totality: the principle that overall punishment for multiple offences should be just and proportionate, avoiding an unfairly crushing aggregate sentence while still reflecting overall criminality.

5. Conclusion

R. v Sajad & Anor confirms that in exceptionally large cocaine importation conspiracies, the guideline’s category structure does not cap sentencing outcomes: where scale is extreme and roles are properly assessed, starting points in the mid-20s for leading participants and 20+ year brackets for significant participants can be fully justified. It also underscores that guilty plea credit remains a discretionary, timing-based assessment, and that differences between co-defendants—particularly where one contests key sentencing facts until very late—do not, without more, establish appealable error.