“Shiels Clarification”: Balancing Consecutive Sentences and the Principle of Totality in Domestic Coercive-Control Cases

Introduction

The Court of Appeal’s decision in Shiels, R. v ([2025] EWCA Crim 972) revisits the sentencing architecture for domestic coercive and controlling behaviour where multiple victims suffer overlapping periods of abuse. The appellant, James Shiels, persistently intimidated and exploited his mother and grandmother, extracting money to fund alcohol and drug dependency. He received consecutive terms of imprisonment which he challenged as manifestly excessive.

Key issues on appeal:

Whether separate consecutive sentences were justified when the conduct formed what could be characterised as a single overarching course of misconduct.
How the totality principle should temper the aggregate sentence where multiple domestic-abuse victims are involved.
The correct calibration of Category A1 coercive-control offending under the Sentencing Council’s Definitive Guideline.

Summary of the Judgment

Lewes Crown Court had imposed 54 months’ total imprisonment: 22 months for coercive control over the grandmother (Clarke) and 32 months for identical behaviour towards the mother (Shiels), made consecutive. The Recorder treated ancillary counts of theft and common assault as aggravating features.

The Court of Appeal (Criminal Division)—Lewis LJ, Dove J, and HHJ Reeds QC—upheld the principle of consecutive sentencing because discrete victims experienced qualitatively different harm. However, the court ruled that the Recorder:

Over-pitched the notional starting points, placing one offence “right at the top” of the guideline range.
Insufficiently stepped back to evaluate overall totality.

The appellate court therefore:

Substituted 24 months (18 months after plea) for the grandmother.
Substituted 36 months (24 months after plea) for the mother.
Left the sentences consecutive, yielding 42 months (3 years 6 months).

Analysis

1. Precedents Cited & Guideline Framework

Although the judgment does not rely on a large canon of earlier authorities, it situates itself firmly within:

Sentencing Council, Coercive and Controlling Behaviour Guideline (effective 1 April 2018) – categorisation A1, starting point 2 years 6 months.
Overarching Principles: Domestic Abuse (2021) – stresses lasting trauma and aggravation in familial contexts.
The Totality Guideline (update 2023) – directs courts to stand back and ask if the aggregate sentence is just and proportionate.

Past case law on totality—R v Fawcett [2021] EWCA Crim 153, R v Manning [2020] EWCA Crim 592—implicitly informs the court’s reasoning, emphasising that consecutive sentences for multiple victims are permissible but must still produce a proportionate whole.

2. The Court’s Legal Reasoning

Categorisation: Both offences were properly placed in Category A1 (highest culpability & harm) because they were prolonged, involved emotional blackmail, and caused severe psychological impact.
Separate Victims, Separate Courses: The mother endured daily domestic oppression, involving physical intimidation and theft; the grandmother suffered episodic but intense fiscal coercion. The differences justified distinct sentences.
Totality Cross-Check:
- Recorder’s approach: 32 m + 22 m = 54 m.
- Court of Appeal’s recalibration: start at 36 m (mother) + 24 m (grandmother) = 60 m; then apply pleas = 42 m.
- Thus, although sentences remain consecutive, the top end of the guideline range was moderated to allow room for combined mitigation.
Mitigation Weighed Heavily:
- Light antecedents, historic cautions only.
- Genuine remorse & constructive custodial behaviour.
- Background of neglect and abuse at boarding school.
Ancillary Counts as Aggravation: Theft and assault were folded into the maternal coercion count to avoid artificial inflation through additional consecutive sentences—consistent with the offence-course-conduct approach.

3. Impact of the Decision

The ruling provides fresh guidance in a rapidly developing area (coercive control was criminalised only in 2015). Practitioners and trial judges should note:

Consecutive sentences remain available for multi-victim coercive control, even with overlapping time frames.
However, courts must explicitly demonstrate their totality assessment—articulating how guideline ranges are moderated to reach a proportionate aggregate term.
Factors such as addiction, remorse, and minimal criminal record carry real weight in adjusting the notional sentence before plea reductions are applied.
Offences ancillary to coercive control (minor assaults, thefts) may be treated as aggravating rather than charged separately, preventing double counting.

In practice, Shiels will likely be cited where defence advocates argue that consecutive sentences have produced an unduly harsh combined tariff. Conversely, prosecutors may rely on it to demonstrate that separate victims warrant discrete penalties.

Complex Concepts Simplified

Coercive and Controlling Behaviour – A pattern of acts that make a victim subordinate or dependent by isolating, exploiting, or regulating their everyday life. Criminal offence under s.76 Serious Crime Act 2015.
Category A1 – Under the guideline, the most serious band: persistent, prolonged offending (A) causing very serious harm (1).
Totality Principle – The sentencing judge must ensure that the overall sentence for multiple offences is not excessive relative to the total criminality, even if each individual sentence is correct when viewed in isolation.
Consecutive vs. Concurrent – Consecutive sentences run one after another; concurrent run at the same time. Choice turns on whether offences involve distinct victims/events.
Notional Sentence After Trial – The term the court would have imposed had there been no guilty plea; reductions for plea are then applied from that “starting point.”

Conclusion

Shiels crystallises an important nuance in domestic-abuse sentencing: separate victims justify separate penalties, yet the arithmetical sum must still be moderated to achieve a just aggregate. The Court of Appeal affirmed the legitimacy of consecutive terms for dual victims of coercive control, while re-emphasising that totality can demand downward adjustment of headline figures. Consequently, future sentencers dealing with multi-victim domestic coercion must (a) perform a granular analysis of each victim’s experience but (b) step back to ensure the composite sanction remains proportionate. The judgment thereby strengthens consistency, transparency, and fairness in a sensitive and evolving area of criminal law.