B v Leeds Crown Court Crown Prosecution Service (Interested Party)
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | Mr Justice Leggatt,Lord Justice Simon |
| Judgment Date | 24 February 2016 |
| Neutral Citation | [2016] EWHC 1230 (Admin) |
| Court | Queen's Bench Division (Administrative Court) |
| Date | 24 February 2016 |
| Docket Number | CO/6355/2015 |
[2016] EWHC 1230 (Admin)
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION
DIVISIONAL COURT
The Courthouse
1 Oxford Row
Leeds
West Yorkshire
LS1 3BG
Lord Justice Simon
Mr Justice Leggatt
CO/6355/2015
and
Mr De la Poer appeared on behalf of the Claimant
Mr Douglas-Jones appeared on behalf of the Interested Party
This appeal by way of case stated from the Leeds Crown Court raises a question about the implications for the sentencing of youths of restrictions on the powers of a magistrates' court to sentence adult offenders.
The appellant was sentenced by Leeds Youth Court on 10 September 2015 for the following offences: first, an offence of aggravated vehicle taking, committed on 24 July 2015, for which the sentence imposed was a 4 month detention and training order; second, an offence committed on the same occasion of driving without insurance, for which no separate penalty was imposed; third, an offence of aggravated vehicle taking committed on 18 August 2015, for which the appellant received a 4 month detention and training order consecutive to that imposed for the first mentioned offence; fourth, an offence of handling stolen goods, committed on the same occasion, for which a concurrent 4 month detention and training order was imposed; fifth, a Public Order Act offence, committed on 19 July 2015, for which there was no separate penalty. The sixth and seventh offences for which the appellant was sentenced were offences of criminal damage for which again in each case there was no separate penalty. In relation to all the offences the appellant pleaded guilty at the first reasonable opportunity.
The appellant was born on 5 May 1998 and was 17 years old at the time when all the offences were committed except one of the criminal damage offences which was committed when he was still 16 years old. Prior to sentence the appellant had served 3 weeks in custody on remand, equivalent to 6 weeks for an adult.
He appealed against sentence to the Leeds Crown Court and the appeal was heard on 2 October 2015. After hearing submissions and retiring to consider them, the court began to announce its decision. The court indicated that all three detention and training orders would be quashed and replaced by detention and training orders of 3 months' duration. It was pointed out, however, by the representative for the appellant that under section 101 of the Powers of Criminal Courts (Sentencing) Act 2002 the minimum duration of a detention and training order is 4 months. Having retired again to reconsider the matter, the court concluded that in those circumstances the appeal would be dismissed.
On the appeal to this court Mr De la Poer, who has argued the case most ably for the appellant, puts at the forefront of his submissions the principle reflected in the Overarching Principles for Sentencing Youths, issued by the Sentencing Guidelines Council, that generally a young person should be dealt with less severely than an adult offender albeit that the distinction diminishes as the offender approaches 18. In reinforcement of that principle, Mr De la Poer has cited the case of P v Leeds Youth Court [2006] EWHC 2527 (Admin). In that case the district judge had imposed a detention and training order of 4 months when sentencing a 17-year-old defendant for an offence of criminal damage. Under the applicable legislation the maximum sentence which an adult could have received for the offence was one of 3 months' imprisonment. It was held by the Divisional Court that in those circumstances the imposition of a 4 month detention and training order was unlawful. Bean J, with whom Maurice Kay LJ agreed, referred in his judgment to section 101(2) of the Powers of Criminal Courts (Sentencing) Act 2000 which provides:
"The term of a detention and training order may not exceed the maximum term of imprisonment that the Crown Court could (in the case of an offender aged 21 or over) impose for the offence."
Bean J said (at para 6 of the judgment):
"Strictly speaking, this section does not apply in the present case since the offence was only triable summarily. But the section reflects the view of Parliament, in accordance with long-standing elementary principles of sentencing, that it cannot be right to impose on a young offender a more severe sentence than could have been imposed on an adult who had committed the same offence. As Mr Southey for the appellant puts it, the youth of a defendant before the criminal courts is a mitigating factor, not an aggravating one."
Mr De la Poer submitted that a similar analysis is applicable in the present case. The sentence should be tested, in his submission, by considering the maximum sentence that an adult offender might have received in similar circumstances or, to put the point another way, the maximum sentence that this appellant might have received had he been a year older at the time when the offences were committed.
Mr De la Poer referred to section 133 of the Magistrates' Court Act 1980, the effect of which is that, in the case of an adult offender, a magistrates' court can impose a sentence of more than 6 months in aggregate only where there are two or more offences triable either way which fall to be sentenced. In this case, Mr De la Poer submitted, only one of the offences for which the appellant was sentenced was an offence triable either way, namely the offence of handling stolen goods. All the other offences could be tried summarily only. In those circumstances the...
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