Summary of Judgment

Factual and Procedural Background

Judge [Last Name] delivered the opinion. On 13 May 2025 a trial in the Crown Court at The City before Judge Hammerton and a jury resulted in the Defendant's conviction for sexual assault contrary to section 3 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 (count 2) and an acquittal on a kidnap charge (count 1). On 18 July 2025 the Defendant was sentenced to 14 months' imprisonment, placed on the Sex Offender Register for two years, subject to a five-year restraining order and a two-year licence period following custody.

The Defendant, of Country A origin, entered the country illegally in 2021 and has leave to remain as an asylum seeker until 2028. He was 26 at the time of the offending and his first language is Tigrinya. The Victim was 19, assessed with an IQ of 63 and significant learning difficulties.

On 21 June 2024 the Defendant engaged the Victim near a food bank, touched and kissed her without consent, including touching her naked breasts under clothing and oral contact; the Victim perceived the Defendant to be under the influence of alcohol and reported the assault after returning home. The Defendant was arrested approximately two months later.

At trial the Defendant represented himself after counsel withdrew. The judge had a pre-sentence report assessing the Defendant as posing a high risk of serious harm to vulnerable females, noted substantial personal mitigation including psychological trauma, and placed the offence in category 2B of the Sentencing Council Guideline with a starting point of 12 months' custody and a category range up to two years. The judge identified multiple harm factors, uplifted to the top end of the category range, applied mitigation and imposed 14 months' custody. A Sexual Harm Prevention Order was not imposed; a subsequent slip rule hearing did not alter the outcome.

The Solicitor General applied under section 36 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988 for leave to refer the sentence as unduly lenient.

Legal Issues Presented

1. Whether the 14-month sentence imposed for the Defendant's sexual assault was unduly lenient such that a reference under section 36 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988 should be upheld and the sentence increased.

Arguments of the Parties

Solicitor General's Arguments

• The 14-month sentence did not adequately reflect the seriousness of the offending.
• There was no challenge to categorisation or identified factors, but the uplift to the starting point and the subsequent mitigation reduction resulted in an ultimately substantially too low sentence.
• A determinate sentence substantially higher than 14 months was merited before mitigation.

Defendant's Arguments

• The Defendant stated he had already served 11 months in custody and had been on probation for six months, asserting he had effectively "done his service" and that this was an isolated mistake.

Table of Precedents Cited

Court's Reasoning and Analysis

The court began by reiterating the narrow purposes of references under section 36 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988 and the high threshold for interference. It accepted that the judge had not erred in principle in categorising the offence as category 2B and that the sentencing remarks were careful and structured.

The central issue was the sentence prior to mitigation. The judge indicated a starting point at the top end of the category range to reflect multiple category 2 harm factors. The court accepted it was reasonable to infer the judge selected a term at the top end of the category range and then made a substantial downward adjustment for mitigation. The court found insufficient aggravating features to justify a sentence above the category range, particularly given the need to avoid double counting the victim's vulnerability.

The court considered a hypothetical term of 22 months reduced by mitigation (illustratively eight months) and concluded that, while such a sentence would be lenient for the serious offending, it could not be characterised as unduly lenient. On that basis the court was unable to conclude that the sentence fell below the high threshold required for appellate intervention under s36.

Holding and Implications

Reference dismissed.

Although leave to refer was granted, the Reference under section 36 was dismissed. The immediate consequence is that the sentence of 14 months' imprisonment (with the ancillary two-year licence period, two-year placement on the Sex Offender Register and five-year restraining order) remains in force. The court did not set a new precedent; it applied established principles concerning the scope of s36 references and the high threshold for finding a sentence unduly lenient.