Custodial sentence - Young offenders - Detention and Training order

R v T: Court of Appeal, Criminal Division: 16 September 2011

The defendant, aged 16, was in a city centre with friends following a football match between Wales and England. The victim, who had consumed alcohol, was walking in the same city centre with a group of friends. They came across the defendant and his friends. The two groups got into an argument, The defendant walked past the victim.

He confronted him and they started arguing. Suddenly, the defendant threw a punch at the victim that knocked him to the ground. The victim hit his head causing him to sustain severe head injuries, including swelling to the brain. He fell unconscious and was taken to the hospital. The victim fell into a coma, with a coma scale score of 3 out of 15. The victim eventually regained consciousness and underwent a course of therapy. However, his chances of making a full recovery were poor.

The defendant pleaded guilty to inflicting grievous bodily harm. At the time of the offence, he had been on licence for another offence and liable to recall. The judge referred to the guidelines of the Sentencing Guidelines Council and acknowledged that the defendant was entitled to credit for his guilty plea. He noted that the maximum permissible Detention and Training Order under section 101 of the Powers of Criminal Courts (Sentencing) Act 2000 was two years.

However, the judge noted that an older defendant would receive a greater sentence and that the appropriate sentence for the offence was substantially more that the maximum of two years. The judge took account of the defendant's youth and his plea. However, given the seriousness of the offence, the fact that it was the third occasion that the defendant had committed a violent offence, and that he had been subject to a licence at the time of committing the offence, the judge declined to give a discount for the guilty plea.

The judge further declined to give the defendant credit for time spent in custody on remand and he sentenced him to a two-year detention and training order. The defendant appealed against sentence.

He submitted that it was wrong in principle not to give a discount for his timely plea. He further submitted that the sentence, being the maximum sentence available for the offence, was manifestly excessive and failed to take account of his age and guilty plea. The judge ought to have given credit for the plea and imposed the next available sentence, namely 18 months' detention and training.

The issue was whether the judge had been entitled to impose the maximum sentence for the offence on a young offender who had committed a serious offence with grave consequences, notwithstanding his guilty plea. The appeal would be allowed.

It was settled general principle that a plea of guilty attracted some discount from the sentence that would have been imposed in the event of a conviction following a not guilty plea. That principle plea remained. The exceptions to the general rule included: (i) where the imposition of the maximum term was necessary for the protection of the public; (ii) where the plea was of a tactical nature; (iii) cases where a plea was practically speaking inevitable; (iv) where the count was a specimen count. The existence of an exception did not automatically mean that the maximum sentence was to be imposed regardless of a plea of guilty; all the circumstances fell to be considered.

In the instant case, the judge had erred in failing to reduce the sentence to take account of the defendant's guilty plea. The maximum sentence for the offence was 24 months' detention and training and the fact that an older defendant would receive a substantially longer sentence was not relevant.

None of the exceptions to the general principle of reducing a sentence to take account of a guilty plea applied in the instant case and it was not possible to say that a departure from that principle, and allowing for a short period of six months (three months of which would be in custody) was necessary in order to achieve the protection of the public. In all the circumstances, there was no justification for allowing more than the minimum reduction.

The sentence of two years' detention and training order would be quashed and substituted by an 18-month detention and training order.

R v March [2002] EWCA Crim 551 considered. Daniel Williams (assigned by the Registrar of Criminal Appeals) for the defendant.