The Court of Appeal (the “CoA”) largely rejected a recent appeal against sentence brought by a young person convicted of a series of violent offences, clarifying the factors that the courts should consider when assessing a child’s dangerousness under the Criminal Justice Act 2003. The judgment itself is unique in that the CoA attempted to write the judgment in a way that the child defendant would be able to understand.
Details
Trial Judge Sentencing
Over a two year period aged 13-15 years old, “TJ”, already subject to a referral order for possession of a machete, committed a number of offences which were ultimately dealt with together, including: grievous bodily harm and intentional strangulation, robbery of a 16-year-old victim, robbery of a worker at a mobile phone shop, assault occasioning actual bodily harm and possession of a knife on school premises.
On sentencing, the trial judge stated that this case presented a difficult exercise and reminded himself of the principles in the guidance for judges on sentencing young people. The sentence was focused on the assault of Mr Hood, which would have resulted in 13 years’ imprisonment for an adult offender, but after a reduction by half for TJ’s age and a further reduction by a third for his guilty plea, resulted in a sentence of 4 years 4 months’ detention.
TJ was additionally sentenced to 7 months’ detention for the strangulation, 8 months’ detention for the robbery of the schoolboy, 8 months’ detention for possession of a bladed weapon, 18 months’ detention for the robbery at the phone shop, and 4 weeks’ detention for assault in 2022, all to run concurrently with his sentence for grievous bodily harm.
The trial judge also decided that the appellant was a dangerous offender as his behaviour suggested a significant risk of him continuing to pose a threat to the public in the future. Consequently, the trial judge also ordered that TJ be monitored on release for an additional period of 3 years, for a total sentence of 7 years, 4 months.
CoA Decision
The CoA held that the trial judge adopted the correct approach to sentencing a child, carefully referring to relevant guidance and the key principles that apply. The judge ensured that they kept what they had learnt about TJ at the forefront of their mind to avoid treating sentencing as a mathematical exercise.
Likewise, the CoA rejected the argument that TJ was too young to be a dangerous offender. In doing so, the CoA emphasised that the focus of categorising an offender as dangerous is to protect the public. Whilst recognising that particular caution is required when dealing with young offenders, the CoA cited the seriousness, level of violence, and unprovoked nature of TJ’s offences, his prior conviction for possession of a machete, and the opinion of a probation officer as relevant factors in justifying the trial judge’s decision to find that TJ was a dangerous offender.
The CoA did allow the appeal with respect to certain technical issues with the sentence imposed at trial. TJ’s sentences were erroneously referred to as imprisonment, when they should have been described as detention. The 4 weeks’ detention for the assault in 2022 was below the statutory minimum of 4 months for a detention and training order. Further, the other concurrent sentences which should have been detention and training orders cannot lawfully be made to run concurrently with the extended sentence for TJ’s assault on Mr Hood. To rectify these issues, the Court quashed the concurrent custodial sentences and instead ordered “no separate penalty” for these counts. However, this had no effect on TJ’s overall sentence as the main sentence for the assault of Mr Hood remained in place.
Commentary
This case clarifies the approach taken by the courts to assessing the dangerousness of child offenders. Although the court recognised that particular caution should be made in finding children dangerous, they found that in this case there was sufficient evidence to suggest that his risk to the public was significant enough to be deemed as such. The CoA also reaffirmed the principles that youth sentencing requires the application of the correct statutory provision appropriate to the defendant’s age, sentences for children must be correctly described, and detention and training orders should not be made that are less than 4 months.
However, that a trial judge who appears to have made some effort to apply the youth sentencing principles and guidelines properly can still make these kinds of technical errors demonstrates the courts’ ongoing struggles in satisfying these principles in practice. Practitioners should be alert to such issues and raise them with the sentencing judge where possible.
Beyond the facts of the case, the CoA’s decision to address the judgment directly to TJ himself and use plain language in doing so to try to help the child concerned understand the CoA’s decision is a positive development. Similar approaches in other cases could help children and young people have better and more understanding interactions with the youth criminal justice system.