Factual and Procedural Background
On 30 July 2025 the Applicant pleaded guilty before a Magistrates' Court to one offence of making a threat to kill contrary to section 16 of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861 and was committed for sentence to the Crown Court pursuant to section 14 of the Sentencing Act 2020. On 25 September 2025 the Applicant was sentenced to 28 months' imprisonment with ancillary orders. The Applicant renewed an application for leave to appeal after leave was refused by a single judge.
The Applicant lived in a ground-floor flat in The Town and was involved in a long-standing dispute with the neighbour living above. On 29 July 2025 the Applicant made emergency calls stating he had turned the gas on, cut the gas pipe and would cause a "big explosion" affecting the block of flats; he also said he would place metal in a microwave and stated that his neighbours were "going to die soon." Emergency services attended, detected dangerously high gas levels, evacuated neighbours and shut off the supply. The Applicant was found in the flat with self-inflicted injuries and taken to The Hospital for treatment for gas inhalation and self-harm.
The Applicant gave a full comment to police in the presence of his solicitor, stating he had been very intoxicated, had intended to harm himself and could not recall making threats against neighbours. A victim personal statement from the affected neighbour described significant psychological trauma, including flashbacks, nightmares and panic attacks.
The Applicant had eleven convictions for nineteen offences, including a 2017 conviction for causing grievous bodily harm with intent for which he received an eight-year sentence. The sentencing judge had pre-sentence and liaison-and-diversion reports noting long-standing self-harm, suicidal ideation when intoxicated, anxiety and depression, substantial alcohol use and deficits in emotional regulation.
Legal Issues Presented
- Whether the sentencing judge gave excessive weight to aggravating factors, producing a disproportionate uplift from the guideline starting point.
- Whether the sentencing judge failed to give sufficient weight to the Applicant's mitigation, principally poor mental health history and alcohol dependence.
- Whether, if a lower sentence had been reached, the sentence should have been suspended rather than immediate custody.
Arguments of the Parties
Appellant's Arguments
- Attorney Cawkwell submitted the sentencing judge placed too much weight on aggravating factors, resulting in a disproportionate uplift beyond more than double the guideline starting point.
- She argued the neighbour's distress (the object of the threats) did not justify increasing the sentence to that extent because the legal victim was the call handler, not the neighbour.
- She submitted that the single relevant previous conviction and the Applicant's intoxication did not justify a near one-third uplift and that insufficient account was taken of the Applicant's mental health problems, history of self-harm and alcohol dependency.
- She contended that a more proportionate sentencing assessment might have produced a sentence of such length that suspension could have been considered.
Table of Precedents Cited
No precedents were cited in the provided opinion.
Court's Reasoning and Analysis
The court (Judge Norton) accepted that for guideline purposes the victim was the person to whom the threats were made (the call handler) and that the sentencing judge correctly categorised the offence as culpability level A and harm category 3 (A3). The court emphasised, however, that when determining movement within the sentencing range it was highly relevant to assess the seriousness of the threats and the extent of the Applicant's preparedness to carry them out.
The court noted the sentencing judge's factual findings: the Applicant had filled his flat with gas to dangerously high levels, the evacuation of neighbouring addresses and the timely intervention of emergency services averted an explosion, and the Applicant had gone a considerable way towards achieving the threatened result. These facts justified placing the offending at the top of the A3 range.
The sentencing judge considered aggravating and mitigating factors. Although she did not discount the Applicant's mental health difficulties, she concluded that self-inflicted intoxication by alcohol was the predominant factor, a conclusion supported by the pre-sentence and liaison-and-diversion reports. The Applicant's violent antecedents, including the 2017 section 18 offence, were properly treated as aggravating. The court found the combined aggravating features against the background of the ongoing neighbour dispute warranted an uplift before applying the one-third reduction for the guilty plea.
The appellate court examined whether the uplift produced a manifestly excessive sentence. While acknowledging the sentence was severe, the court concluded it was within the permissible range that the sentencing judge could impose given the exceptional seriousness of the context, the Applicant's intention and steps towards imminently carrying out the threat. The court further observed that the Threat to Kill Guideline did not specifically address the degree of intent or imminence here, but those factors were plainly relevant and properly taken into account by the sentencing judge.
Holding and Implications
Application for leave to appeal refused.
Direct effect: the sentence of 28 months' imprisonment remains in force. The opinion does not establish a new legal precedent; it affirms that appellate courts will defer to a sentencing judge's assessment where factual findings about intent, imminence and steps taken towards carrying out threats justify movement to the top of the guideline range and where the resulting custodial sentence is within the range the judge could reasonably impose.