Factual and Procedural Background
This opinion concerns an appeal against sentence imposed on the Appellant on 29 January 2025 at The Crown Court by Judge Reeds. The Appellant, aged 35 at the time of sentence, was given a total custodial term of 34 months for multiple violent offences. A single judge initially refused the Appellant permission to appeal on the basis that the sentence was not manifestly excessive; on renewal the Full Court granted permission to appeal on the narrow ground that the sentencing judge had failed to have sufficient regard to the Appellant's personal mitigation.
The offending arose from a series of incidents between the Appellant and a former romantic partner (referred to in this summary as the Victim). The Victim attended the Appellant's flat following an argument by text message, notwithstanding that her attendance at the flat put her in breach of bail conditions. The Appellant did not answer the door, whereupon the Victim knocked and then left. The Appellant then left his flat carrying a knife, went into a communal hallway where the Victim was standing, placed the knife against her throat and then returned to his flat.
The Victim reacted by throwing eggs at the Appellant's front door and running down the stairs. The Appellant pursued her, kicked her feet as she ran down the stairs causing her to fall, kicked her once she was on the ground and stood over her before returning upstairs. The Appellant later poured milk over the Victim as she walked down the stairs.
The Victim left, showered and later attended a friend's birthday party. Messages were exchanged between the Victim and the Appellant at that event. The Appellant attended the party, argued with one of the Victim's friends, and the Victim voluntarily entered the Appellant's car. They returned to the Appellant's property where the Victim found messages on the Appellant's telephone referring to another female. The Victim grabbed the Appellant's telephone and slapped him; the Appellant responded by punching and repeatedly kicking the Victim, leaving her with multiple injuries, and then threw her out of the property.
A neighbour (referred to in this summary as the Witness) heard the disturbance and the Victim went to the Witness's flat. The Appellant returned armed with a knife, held it at head height and came towards the two women; the Witness said she believed the Appellant was going to stab her and took protective measures. The Appellant subsequently returned to his flat.
Police attended at about 6:00am on 12 October and forced entry when the Appellant refused to open the door. The Appellant was arrested, cautioned and a knife was recovered near him in his flat. He resisted being placed into a police van, kicked at van doors and officers required assistance. While being conveyed to custody he spat at an arresting officer (Officer Whitton), connecting with the officer's trousers and boots. After further arrest and caution the Appellant stated that he would assault officers again if they opened the cell door or if he saw them off duty. In interview the Appellant remained silent.
The Victim attended The Hospital (Accident & Emergency) and was recorded as having a superficial cut to the left leg, a swollen right eye, swelling to the left side of the jaw, bruising to both shoulders and tears to the gum and lower left side of the lip.
The Appellant has an extensive criminal record: 22 convictions for 43 offences between 2005 and 2024. These include historical convictions for possession of an offensive weapon and having a bladed article, and numerous subsequent violent offending convictions including robbery, violent disorder, wounding with intent, assault occasioning actual bodily harm and two offences of assault against emergency workers.
On sentencing there was no pre-sentence report prepared by The Probation Service because the Appellant refused to attend the arranged video-link interview. A psychiatric report was prepared for the defence by Psychiatrist Prosser.
Psychiatrist Prosser's report concluded that the Appellant had a confirmed diagnosis of mixed anxiety and depression, met criteria for post-traumatic stress disorder said to be linked to a disruptive childhood in The State and subsequent domestic violence witnessed in the UK, but was not suffering from a mental disorder and showed no concerns about cognition or intellectual impairment. The report suggested the Appellant's early experiences were likely to have affected personality development and tendencies to anti-social behaviour.
When sentencing, Judge Reeds noted the Appellant's serious violent record and recent offending, including a September 2024 conviction for assaulting an emergency worker which meant that the instant offending was in breach of a conditional discharge. For the two counts of threatening with a knife the judge applied the guideline for threatening with a knife in a public place, adopted a starting point of 3 years and 6 months, and reduced that to 31 months to reflect the Appellant's pleas of guilty. The count of assault on the Victim attracted 18 months' imprisonment to run concurrently with the threats; a separate 3 month term was imposed for assaulting an emergency worker on the basis that the victim was different. The judge considered personal mitigation but stated that he could see little mitigation and expressed doubt as to any connection between the Appellant's mental difficulties and the offending.
Legal Issues Presented
- Whether the custodial term of 34 months imposed on the Appellant was manifestly excessive.
- Whether the sentencing judge failed to have proper regard to the Appellant's personal mitigation (principally as set out in the psychiatric report).
- Whether the Victim's breach of her bail conditions by attending the Appellant's flat was relevant to the sentencing exercise (this ground was raised but not pursued at the hearing by Attorney Edusei).
Arguments of the Parties
The opinion does not contain a detailed account of the parties' legal arguments.
Table of Precedents Cited
No precedents were cited in the provided opinion.
Court's Reasoning and Analysis
The court's analysis proceeded from the primary appellate question of whether the total sentence was manifestly excessive. The panel set out the factual features of the offending, the Appellant's criminal history, the sentencing exercise conducted by Judge Reeds, and the contents of the psychiatric report prepared for the defence.
Key elements of the court's step-by-step reasoning were:
- Seriousness and duration of the offending: the incident was prolonged over many hours and involved two different women being threatened with a knife (one a stranger), a physical assault on the Victim and an assault on an emergency worker. Those facts, taken together, indicated a high level of culpability.
- Appellant's antecedents: the Appellant's "appalling" record for violent offending and multiple previous custodial sentences meant that the Appellant had not responded to prior sentences. The court observed that repeated offending and repeated custodial sentences diminish the weight that can be given to some forms of personal mitigation.
- Weight to be given to psychiatric mitigation: the court acknowledged that Psychiatrist Prosser's report contained particulars of personal mitigation (diagnoses of mixed anxiety and depression and PTSD). The Full Court had been correct to identify that the sentencing judge had said there was no personal mitigation and that this needed closer consideration. However, the panel doubted that the psychiatric matters would have produced any significant reduction in sentence in the overall circumstances, in part because of the Appellant's extensive record.
- Absence of a probation report: the Appellant's refusal to attend the pre-arranged video-link interview with the Probation Service meant there was no pre-sentence report. The Appellant did meet with the psychiatrist instructed by his solicitors, but the court regarded the absence of a probation report as affecting the weight that could be given to the psychiatrist's conclusions and as carrying at least the appearance of an intention to manipulate the system.
- Unaddressed aggravating features: the court identified several aggravating factors that the sentencing judge had not taken into account and that, in the court's view, would have cancelled out the personal mitigation identified by the psychiatrist. Those factors included:
- the commission of the instant offences put the Appellant in breach of a conditional discharge previously imposed for a violent offence, which the court viewed as an aggravating feature tending to increase the overall sentence;
- the fact of two separate victims in relation to the counts of threatening with a knife, which the court considered could have justified a starting point at the maximum term for the offence (4 years) rather than 3½ years;
- alternatively, the two victims could have justified two separate starting points (for example, two-year starting points) to be served consecutively; the court observed that the judge had properly treated the assault on the emergency worker as a separate consecutive term because it involved a different victim.
- Balancing: having identified both mitigating material and aggravating factors that the sentencing judge had not fully reflected, the court concluded that the aggravating features would have balanced out the mitigation so that the overall sentence of 34 months would not be shown to be manifestly excessive.
On that basis the court accepted that, although the sentencing judge had understated or not fully articulated the relevance of the psychiatric report, any error in failing to give personal mitigation more weight did not produce a sentence that could be characterised as manifestly excessive in all the circumstances.
Holding and Implications
APPEAL DISMISSED.
Holding: The court dismissed the appeal against sentence and upheld the total custodial term of 34 months imposed by Judge Reeds.
Implications: The direct consequence for the parties is that the Appellant's sentence remains undisturbed. Although the Full Court granted permission to appeal on the ground that the sentencing judge had not had sufficient regard to the psychiatric material, the appellate panel concluded that any failure to give mitigation greater weight did not render the sentence manifestly excessive. The opinion does not purport to establish any new legal precedent; it addresses the application of existing sentencing assessment to the specific facts, balancing mitigation against significant aggravating features in a case of repeated violent offending.