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	England and Wales Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) Decisions
You are here: BAILII >> Databases >> England and Wales Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) Decisions >> Attorney General's Reference No. [2005] EWCA Crim 455 Tuesday, 22 February 2005 URL: http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Crim/2005/455.html Cite as: [2005] EWCA Crim 455 Tuesday, 22 February 2005

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IN THE COURT OF APPEAL
CRIMINAL DIVISION

		Royal Courts of Justice Strand London, WC2
		Tuesday, 22 February 2005

1. LORD JUSTICE LATHAM: On 1st November 2004 at the plea and directions hearing the offender pleaded guilty to an indictment containing four counts of robbery. Sentence was then adjourned. On the 2nd November 2004, at the North Worcestershire Magistrates' Court, the offender pleaded guilty to two offences of burglary and was committed to the Crown Court for sentence. Those matters then came before Her Honour Judge Fisher for sentence together on 22nd November 2004 at the Birmingham Crown Court. The judge sentenced the offender to four-and-a-half years' imprisonment for each of the robberies and three years' imprisonment for each of the burglaries. Those sentences were ordered to be served concurrently, making a total of four-and-a-half years' imprisonment. At the sentence hearing the offender asked for 35 other offences to be taken into consideration.
2. The facts of the offences were as follows; and it was the burglaries which came first in time. At 7.30 am on 8th June 2004 the occupier of a ground floor flat left his home locked and secured, came back that evening to find that the front door had been forced and about £590 worth of goods had been stolen.
3. On the morning of 25th June 2004 the occupier of another flat in the same road in the same town left his flat locked and secured and returned that evening to discover a side window had been broken and £238 in cash had been stolen.
4. The first of the robberies took place on the evening of 6th September 2004, when the offender entered an off-licence in Sutton Coldfield. After a few minutes he asked the male shop assistant whether there were any smaller bottles of vodka than were on display. The shop assistant then went to the counter, where the cash register was situated, and was followed by the offender, who then produced a screwdriver and told the shop assistant to open the till. The first till which was opened only contained a £5 note. The offender took that and demanded that the second till be opened. There was difficulty in opening the till. However, the offender eventually managed to open the till and took the contents. There was only a relatively small float of £137 or thereabouts there. The incident was captured on the internal CCTV video and the offender was capable of being identified from the stills from that video.
5. The next robbery was on 1st October 2004, when the offender entered a sub post office and store in the afternoon. He was wearing dark sunglasses. The postmistress and her female assistant were present. The offender asked about shampoo and then left the store. He came back, selected a bottle of shampoo and then, when the postmistress went to the till, he came behind her, placed an arm round her neck and began to pull her back towards him. She was, not surprisingly, thoroughly frightened. She felt an object against her left arm which the postmistress's assistant saw was a spanner. Because the postmistress was not opening the till quickly enough the offender became aggressive. Eventually the postmistress opened it. At the same time the offender demanded that the post office area be opened up. As a result he let go of the postmistress, who went into that section. She managed to close the door behind her and press the panic button. Meanwhile the offender was taking between £200 and £250 worth of cash from the till in the shop area. He left and got into a motorcar. Once again the incident was captured on CCTV and the offender was identified from the stills.
6. As the offender left those premises and drove away and was trying to negotiate a bend too fast, he struck another car; and his own car became immobilised. He left his car with an unidentified female. An 85-year-old man who was mowing his lawn was approached by the two of them. The offender told the man that he had run out of petrol and asked for a lift to the nearest garage. The man agreed and as he took out his car keys from the pocket of his trousers the offender grabbed them. In the struggle the offender knocked off the man's glasses, put his hand to his mouth to stop him shouting for help and pushed him to the ground. Then, using the keys, he and the female with him drove off in his Nissan Micra.
7. The next robbery was on 3rd October 2004 at the Odeon Cinema in Sutton Coldfield. A female assistant was carrying the bagged-up takings through the foyer and up the stairs to the main office when she was approached from behind by the offender, who grabbed her round the neck, told her not to say anything and snatched the money bags from her. He ran out of the building with the bags, estimated to contain about £250 in cash. Not surprisingly that girl was frightened and continues to be affected by that incident. Once again the offender was caught on the CCTV and identifiable from the footage.
8. He was arrested on 5th October 2004 and made full admissions in interview of the robberies and expressed disgust at the way he had behaved. He was interviewed a fortnight later in relation to the two burglary offences to which we have referred and once again he fully admitted those offences. Indeed he went further in that interview and admitted a large number of other offences which, at the sentencing hearing, he asked to have taken into consideration. As we have indicated, they were 35 in number. They were all committed between the end of May 2004 and the early part of October 2004. They comprised ten robberies, one assault with intent to rob, fourteen burglaries or attempted burglaries - some being of residential premises - eight thefts or attempted theft, and two offences of making off without payment. The victims of the robberies included four females and a 75-year-old. A significant number of the robberies took place at small retail premises such as off-licences. One of the robberies involved tying up a victim in his own flat and the other involved using a screwdriver to threaten a garage assistant. The total amount stolen was £30,000, but that included two motor vehicles which were recovered each valued at about £7,000. So that the total sum in value other than those was about £16,000.
9. It will be clear from what we have said that this offender accordingly fell to be sentenced for a significant number of robberies which he had committed when in possession of a weapon. In all or almost all he had put his victims in fear. He fell to be sentenced for a substantial number of burglaries, which included burglaries of residential properties. On the other hand, he had the benefit of the early pleas of guilty to which we have referred, the fact that the substantial number of offences which formed the basis for the other offence forms which he signed was the refusal of his own admission of involvement in those offences. He expressed remorse.
10. He is 26 years of age. He had a substantial number of previous convictions, including one previous conviction for robbery when he was in his teens, and others for burglary. It is plain that the offences were committed to fund the drug habit of both him and his partner; and the sentencing judge was provided with a letter that he had written in which he sets out the background to the offences, his remorse and his determination to rid himself of his drug habit. It was clearly in the light of those matters, which were undoubtedly the basis for an effective mitigation by Mr Jackson who has appeared for him before us today, that this experienced judge was persuaded that she could impose what Mr Jackson accepts to have been a lenient sentence. The judge clearly hoped that a combination of his admissions and his pleas of guilty suggested that what he was expressing as a hope and expectation in the letter of being able to rid himself of his drug habit was something which could indeed be at the very least a real chance of change for the future and accordingly that she could mitigate the sentence that would otherwise have been appropriate.
11. On behalf of the Attorney General, however, it is submitted that the sentence simply does not adequately reflect the seriousness of these offences. Mr Rees has referred us in particular to Attorney-General's Reference No 9 of 1989 (R v Lacey) 12 Cr App R (S) 7, where Lord Lane then made it plain that this court's task is to protect, so far as it can, those in small businesses who are targets for robberies of this sort. The Lord Chief Justice in that case indicated that, where there is a robbery of a small business, even on a plea of guilty, a sentence of five years' imprisonment is appropriate and that that is intended to be a deterrent sentence. That particular authority has undoubtedly informed sentencing practice since then. Mr Rees has submitted that, in those circumstances, if five years' imprisonment is appropriate on a plea of guilty for one offence of robbery, then four-and-a-half years for the number of robberies involved in this case, even leaving aside the burglaries is manifestly unduly lenient.
12. It is not necessary, it seems to us, to labour the principle for which he contends by reference to any further authorities. We accept it. The fact is that, despite the mitigation, which is clearly present and which should undoubtedly have affected the sentencing judge in this case, the minimum that one would have expected to have been an appropriate sentence in this case would have been one of eight years' imprisonment.
13. We, however, have to take into account double jeopardy; and in order properly to reflect that and indeed the mitigation which influenced the judge, we consider that the appropriate sentence at this stage is one of six years' imprisonment.
14. Accordingly, we give leave to the Attorney General to refer the sentence. We substitute a sentence of six years' imprisonment for the sentences that were imposed for the robbery offences. There is no need for us to say any more about the other sentences.