Anonymized Summary of the Opinion

Factual and Procedural Background

This is an appeal (a Reference) brought by the Appellant seeking leave to refer a sentence considered unduly lenient. At first instance, Judge Spencer in the Crown Court sentenced the Defendant to life custody with a minimum term of 17 years and 6 months for murder, and imposed no separate effective determinate sentence for an associated aggravated burglary because the judge took that offending into account when setting the minimum term.

The relevant offences occurred over a period in 2023–2024. When the aggravated burglary occurred the Defendant was a youth (aged 17 years and 3 months). The murder occurred in custody at The Prison when the Defendant was 18 years and 8 months old. A co-defendant was convicted at the same trial of manslaughter and sentenced to a determinate term.

The factual matrix includes: (i) a violent aggravated burglary at student accommodation in which the Burglary Victim was threatened with knives and a machete, assaulted, and humiliated; (ii) two separate shop robberies in which the Defendant was armed with a meat cleaver; (iii) a firearms arrest at the Defendant's home leading to a prior custodial sentence for weapons offences; and (iv) the fatal attack on the Victim in The Prison where the Defendant stamped on the Victim's neck, causing fatal brain injury.

At trial the Defendant was convicted of murder (convicted 28 May 2025) and then pleaded guilty to the earlier aggravated burglary (29 May 2025). The Appellant applied for leave to refer the sentence as unduly lenient; leave was granted. The court below (this court) considered whether the minimum term starting point, the assessment of aggravating factors, and the adjustment to the aggravated burglary sentence were wrong.

Legal Issues Presented

1. Whether the minimum term starting point for the murder should have been 25 years (paragraph 4 of Schedule 21 of the Sentencing Act 2020) rather than 15 years (paragraph 5), on the basis that the Defendant took a weapon to the scene—specifically, sturdy, lace-up footwear used as a weapon.
2. Whether, irrespective of the starting point, the trial judge should have increased the minimum term further for aggravating factors before applying mitigation (i.e., whether the judge erred in taking the minimum to 18 years and then discounting back to 15).
3. Whether the trial judge erred in reducing the aggravated burglary determinate sentence so substantially (from a 12-year starting point down to an effective 2-year term to be added to the minimum term), including the application of plea credit, youth reduction and further mitigation adjustments.

Arguments of the Parties

Appellant's Arguments

• The starting point for the murder minimum term was wrongly taken as 15 years; paragraph 4 of Schedule 21 applied and required a 25-year starting point because the Defendant brought a weapon to the scene — namely sturdy lace-up footwear which was used as a weapon.
• The judge should have moved further up from the notional 18 years for the combined aggravating factors before applying mitigation (even if the starting point remained 15 years).
• As to the aggravated burglary, while a 12-year starting point was appropriate, the judge reduced the term too far when accounting for age, plea, totality and mitigation.

Defendant's Arguments

• The appropriate starting point for the murder was 15 years; the judge had properly considered all relevant aggravating and mitigating factors.
• The judge properly gave credit for the plea to aggravated burglary and properly reflected mitigation (including youth and personal mitigation) and issues of totality when imposing the life sentence.
• Overall the sentence was not unduly lenient because the Defendant is young, was beginning to show some insight, and the life sentence with a substantial minimum term addresses public protection and punishment.

Table of Precedents Cited

Precedent	Rule or Principle Cited For	Application by the Court
R v Deeprose & Ors [2024] EWCA Crim 1431; [2025] 1 WLR 1190	Interpretation of the phrase "knife or other weapon" in paragraph 4 of Schedule 21 — confirming that "other weapon" can extend beyond knives to include items such as a car, stick, bottle, hammer, rolling pin.	This authority supported the proposition that sturdy footwear could in principle amount to "another weapon" taken to the scene. The court accepted the legal proposition but declined to increase the starting point here because of procedural and fairness concerns about whether that factual basis had been properly put and explored at trial and sentence.

Court's Reasoning and Analysis

The court proceeded in several analytical steps:

1. Legal proposition on weapons: The court agreed with the Appellant's legal submission (supported by R v Deeprose) that "other weapon" in paragraph 4 can encompass non-knife items and that sturdy, shod footwear may in principle be a weapon.
2. Procedural fairness and factual findings: The court emphasised that the crucial factual distinction between paragraph 4 (25-year starting point) and paragraph 5 (15-year starting point) required clear exploration and adversarial testing at trial and sentencing. The court noted there had been no clear prosecution case advanced at trial or sentence that the footwear was a weapon attracting paragraph 4, and the experienced trial advocates and trial judge had not treated the case on that basis.
3. Assessment of the available findings: Although the trial judge did make a finding that the defendants had deliberately donned sturdier footwear and had used their feet during the attack, the appellate court was concerned that the specific allegation that the footwear was taken to the scene as a weapon had not been properly pleaded, argued and tested so as to allow the higher starting point to be imposed fairly.
4. Application of appellate powers vs fairness: The court acknowledged that it is not strictly bound by what happened at trial, but placed emphasis on fairness: a 10-year difference in starting point is material and, where the basis for the higher starting point was not developed at trial, it would be unfair to increase the starting point on a Reference without that prior confrontation and findings beyond doubt.
5. Second issue — degree of uplift before mitigation: The court reviewed the trial judge's assessment of aggravating factors (relevant previous convictions, planning, location, history of abuse of the Victim) which had taken the minimum to 18 years before reducing to 15 for age and lack of intent to kill. While other judges might have imposed a higher increase, the appellate court could not find that the trial judge's approach was unduly lenient or constituted a gross error.
6. Third issue — aggravated burglary reduction: The court accepted the judge's application of the Sentencing Council guideline starting point of 12 years, accepted the agreed reductions for youth and plea, and acknowledged the additional adjustments required because the determinate term would form part of an overall minimum term. The court considered the trial judge's further 2-year reduction for mitigation to be generous but not so clearly wrong as to be categorised as unduly lenient under the Reference principles.
7. Reference principles emphasised: The court reiterated that (i) the trial judge is well placed to weigh competing factors, (ii) a sentence is only unduly lenient if it falls outside the range a reasonable judge might adopt, and (iii) References should be reserved for cases of gross error. Applying those principles, the court found no basis to allow the Reference.

Holding and Implications

HOLDING: The court granted leave to bring the Reference but ultimately REFUSED THE REFERENCE.

Implications:

• The life sentence with a minimum term of 17 years and 6 months imposed by the trial judge remains in force; the appellate court declined to increase the starting point from 15 years to 25 years.
• The court accepted the legal proposition that sturdy footwear can amount to "other weapon" under paragraph 4 of Schedule 21 in principle, but declined to apply that higher starting point on this Reference because the necessary factual basis had not been properly advanced and tested at trial and sentencing.
• No finding was made that the trial judge's decisions on uplift for aggravating factors or the reductions applied to the aggravated burglary sentence constituted an unduly lenient sentence falling outside the permissible range; the court emphasised deference to the trial judge's assessment and the high threshold for successful References.
• The decision does not establish a new, expanded factual application in this specific case; rather it preserves the existing sentence and signals that prosecution and sentencing advocacy must clearly frame issues (such as taking a weapon to the scene) if a substantially higher starting point is to be relied upon.

This summary is strictly confined to the information contained in the provided opinion. All personal names, institutions and locations have been anonymized in accordance with the instructions accompanying the assignment.