Fielding, R. v

Factual and Procedural Background

This is an appeal from a sentence imposed by the Crown Court. The Appellant pleaded guilty in the Magistrates' Court on 12 December 2023 to multiple offences involving indecent images of children and was committed for sentence to the Crown Court. Subsequent trials in the Crown Court resulted in convictions on 26 June 2024 for assault on an emergency worker and exposure, and on 28 March 2025 for arranging or facilitating the commission of a child sexual offence. On 8 September 2025 the Appellant was sentenced to an aggregate term of six years and eight months' imprisonment made up of concurrent sentences for the sexual and image offences and an eight-month consecutive sentence for the exposure offence. The Appellant (represented by Attorney Simmons) appealed only the sentence imposed for the exposure offence. The judgment in the Court of Appeal was delivered by Judge Cutts sitting with Judge Dove and Judge Chambers.

Legal Issues Presented

1. Whether the eight-month custodial sentence imposed for the offence of exposure (ordered to run consecutively to other terms) was manifestly excessive.
2. Whether the exposure offence fell within the relevant sentencing guideline and, if so, what sentence within that framework was appropriate taking account of aggravating factors and the principle of totality.

Arguments of the Parties

Appellant's Arguments

• A medium-level community order (or non-custodial outcome) would have been appropriate under the applicable guideline absent other constraints, but a community order was not feasible given concurrent custodial sentences on other matters.
• If a custodial sentence was required, the exposure sentence should have been made concurrent with existing terms; if consecutive, it should have been substantially shorter than eight months.

Table of Precedents Cited

No precedents were cited in the provided opinion.

Court's Reasoning and Analysis

Judge Cutts summarised the facts briefly: the offending arose from an undercover operation (an undercover officer using a profile on Website A), planned sexual abuse discussions concerning a nine-year-old child, and the Appellant's possession and distribution of numerous indecent images across Categories A, B and C and an extreme image. The exposure offence occurred during a police attendance at the Appellant's home while he was under arrest/subject to notification requirements; during that attendance he exposed himself to an officer after having physically restrained one officer and attempted to hide a laptop.

The court analysed sentencing in two linked respects. First, it addressed the proper categorisation and overall sentence for the lead sexual offending. The court observed that the arranging/facilitating offence should have been referenced to the substantive offence of rape of a child under 13 (section 5 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003), which would attract a substantially higher guideline category than was relied on by the sentencing judge; nevertheless, the Appellant did not challenge the primary sentence and the Court found the six-year term not manifestly excessive in context.

Second, the court considered the exposure sentence in isolation and in aggregate. The sentencing judge had been wrong to say there were no guidelines for exposure: the offence fell within category 3 of the relevant guideline (no elevated harm or culpability factors), which normally attracts a non-custodial starting point. The Court accepted, however, that aggravating factors here—namely that the Appellant was under arrest, was subject to notification requirements, that officers were attending his address, and that there was associated assault conduct—justified departing from the guideline's non-custodial range and making a custodial sentence appropriate. The Court emphasised the need to treat the assault and exposure together and to apply the principle of totality when assessing the appropriate consecutive sentence.

Balancing these considerations, the Court concluded that the eight-month consecutive sentence for exposure was so far outside the guideline range as to be manifestly excessive. Taking into account the three-month sentence already imposed for the assault and the totality principle, a sentence in the region of three months' imprisonment for the exposure offence (to run consecutively) would meet the justice of the case. The Court therefore substituted a consecutive three-month sentence for the exposure offence, producing an aggregate term of six years and three months' imprisonment.

Holding and Implications

Outcome: The appeal is allowed in part. The Court quashed the eight-month sentence for the exposure offence and substituted a sentence of three months' imprisonment, to run consecutively to the other terms, resulting in an overall sentence of six years and three months' imprisonment.

Implications: The direct effect is a reduction of the exposure sentence from eight months to three months, consecutive to existing terms. The Court noted the appropriate guideline reference for the arranging/facilitating offence (the substantive offence of rape of a child under 13) but did not disturb the primary sentence; no broader legal precedent was established beyond these sentencing corrections in this case.