R v Beesley (Ricky Liam) and Another
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | Lord Justice Thomas |
| Judgment Date | 18 April 2011 |
| Neutral Citation | [2011] EWCA Crim 1021 |
| Date | 18 April 2011 |
| Court | Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) |
| Docket Number | Case No: 2009/03936/A9, 2009/03952/A9 & 2007/00772/A3 |
[2011] EWCA Crim 1021
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
COURT OF APPEAL (CRIMINAL DIVISION)
ON APPEAL FROM THE CENTRAL CRIMINAL COURT
HHJ WORSLEY QC & HHJ MORRIS QC
T20087354 & T20087075
Royal Courts of Justice
Strand, London, WC2A 2LL
Lord Justice Thomas
Mr Justice King
and
His Honour Judge Wide QC
Case No: 2009/03936/A9, 2009/03952/A9 & 2007/00772/A3
Mr G Carter-Stephenson QC for the Appellant (Beesley)
Mr J Kelsey-Fry QC for the Appellant (Coyle)
Miss F Williams for the Appellant (Rehman)
Mr B Altman QC and Ms P Cheema for the Respondent
Hearing date: 7 December 2010
Introduction
These two appeals were heard together as they raised issues as to the evidence or other information which a sentencing court and this court should receive and take into account when the issue of dangerousness is being considered for the purposes of imprisonment for public protection under the Criminal Justice Act 2003 ( CJA 2003). Rehman was sentenced under the unamended provisions of the Act in 2006, but, as he was only 17 at the time, the judge had a discretion whether to impose the sentence; Beesley and Coyle were sentenced in July 2009 under the provisions as amended by the Criminal Justice Act 2008. It is necessary to explain how these appeals arose before turning to the issues raised.
The appeal by Beesley and Coyle: the evidence
(i) The offence
On 25 February 2008 a 21 year old man, Lilley, was severely injured in a flat in Mitcham, South London, by the appellant Coyle, the appellant Beesley and a third defendant, Cotter. He died four days later from those injuries. They were charged with his murder. On the first day of the trial, just before the jury were empanelled, the Crown accepted pleas to manslaughter. They were each sentenced on 23 June 2009 by HH Judge Worsley at the Central Criminal Court to imprisonment for public protection; a period of eight years less time on remand was specified for each. Coyle and Beesley appeal against sentence with the leave of the single judge.
It appears that the deceased, Lilley, was asked by Beesley to go to the address in Mitcham. He arrived about 7 p.m. in a mini cab; he told the driver he was meeting a friend and would be no more than 5 minutes. He went to a flat which belonged to Cotter. There Cotter, Beesley and Coyle were waiting for him. Once he was inside the flat, Lilley was attacked. He suffered a number of injuries, including a deep stab wound to the leg, linear cuts to his face and his ear was severed. About 10 minutes later Lilley stumbled down the stairs from the flat drenched in blood. The emergency services were summoned and he was taken to hospital. He died four days later from a series of complications brought about by his injuries. The actual cause of death was, on the medical evidence, a deep stab wound to his left thigh which struck a major blood vessel, causing massive blood loss and this in turn led to cardiac arrest.
When the police arrived at the flat, Cotter was still at the flat trying to remove the blood; in interview, he gave an account that he had been inside the flat when two men he refused to name attacked the deceased. The deceased's severed ear was found in the rubbish in the kitchen. When Coyle and Beesley were arrested, they made no comment interviews.
(ii) The basis on which Beesley and Coyle were sentenced
At an initial hearing of this appeal, it was not clear to this court on what basis the plea to manslaughter had been accepted, as there was no written basis of plea. At our request, therefore, counsel for the Crown and for the appellants set out for us what had happened in notes provided to the court. From those notes and assistance given by counsel in the course of the appeal, it appears that the basis upon which the pleas to manslaughter were accepted were as follows:
i) It was never the Crown's case that any of the appellants intended to kill the deceased.
ii) The Crown was not able to attribute a precise motive to the offence except that it was to be a punishment attack. The deceased had been lured to the flat. The Crown had put forward an explanation that the appellants had sought a meeting with the deceased in relation to some kind of debt. Beesley and Coyle provided an explanation recorded by the writer of the pre-sentence reports that Lilley had sexually assaulted and harassed Cotter's partner. Beesley had talked about this with Cotter and Coyle and, as he had known Lilley since they were 11, he had asked him to meet at Cotter's flat. That account was shown to be false by a statement taken from Cotter's partner.
iii) The injury to the leg which led to the death was not inflicted with the intent to cause really serious bodily injury. The deceased had been tortured prior to his death; he had been held in a restrained position while the linear cuts were made to his face and his ear cut off by controlled and deliberate action.
No separate count under s.18 of wounding with intent in respect of the severance of the ear was preferred. This is because the case was originally charged and indicted as an allegation of joint enterprise murder. It emerged in the discussion before this court that when the plea to manslaughter was accepted the case should proceed on the basis that no count should be added to reflect the severance of the ear. The case therefore proceeded on the basis that there was no count to reflect the deliberate severance of the ear.
(iii) Their previous offending and the pre-sentence reports
Beesley was born on 8 October 1985 and was 22 years old at the time of the offence. He had two previous convictions for violence – assaulting a police constable in 2007 and assault occasioning actual bodily harm in 2007 committed with Coyle for which he received 20 months imprisonment. Whilst in prison, Beesley received a number of adjudications including two for assault on staff. It was Beesley's case as put to the judge in mitigation that he had contacted Lilley and asked him to meet him at Cotter's flat. He did not rely on the explanation we have set out above that Lilley was lured there to discuss allegations of sexual abuse against Cotter's partner or on the detailed, but contradictory and inconsistent, account he gave about the attack on the deceased to the writer of the pre-sentence report. The pre-sentence report writer considered that his behaviour in prison showed he was violent and aggressive to staff, and although his OASys assessment showed that he had a medium risk of reconviction, the writer thought that, given the pattern of offending in prison and in the community and the nature of the offence for which he was to be sentenced, the risk of reoffending and of causing significant physical harm was high.
Coyle was born on 5 December 1984 and was 23 at the time of the manslaughter and had three previous convictions, one of which was under s.20 of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861 committed in 2004 but for which he was not sentenced until 2008; the other was assault occasioning actual bodily harm committed with Beesley in 2007 for which he received 10 months imprisonment. It was Coyle's case put to the judge, on the basis of what he had said to the writer of his pre-sentence report, that he had been there to provide back-up to the others when Lilley was confronted; he accepted that violence was planned, but not as serious as occurred. As none of the others was prepared to identify the actions of any of the others, there was, it was submitted, nothing to contradict his account that he was there to provide back-up and played a secondary role. The writer of the pre-sentence report concluded that, although the OASys assessment showed that he had a medium risk of reconviction, the risk of harm posed by him was likely to be serious and was escalating; his pattern of offending had demonstrated that he was willing to plan acts of violence with others, including violence with the use of a weapon as had been used against Lilley.
Apart from the pre-sentence reports, no other reports were before the court.
(iv) The sentence passed by the judge
The judge sentenced the appellants on the basis that it was a very grave offence of manslaughter with a considerable degree of pre-meditation. Each had decided that painful punishment was to be inflicted upon the deceased. He was lured to the flat. The deceased was subjected to torture by the use of a knife. When he fled from the flat it was obvious he was in need of medical attention but none of the appellants had summoned an ambulance. Each then made a determined attempt to clean the flat of all traces of the attack, disposing of the weapons and the severed ear. In the light of their previous convictions and information contained in the pre-sentence report he considered that each was dangerous.
The judge allowed a credit of 10 per cent for their late plea; he took into account their youth; he accepted that they showed remorse by their plea. He concluded that after trial the appropriate determinate sentence would have been 18 years, reducing it to reflect their plea to 16 years. He considered that their responsibility was joint.
(v) The grounds of appeal
Beesley initially conceded in the grounds of appeal submitted on his behalf that the imposition of a sentence of imprisonment for public protection was not wrong in principle but appealed against the length of the minimum term. Coyle appealed on the basis that the judge erred in concluding that he was dangerous and therefore a sentence of imprisonment for public protection should not have been passed; he also appealed against the length of the minimum term.
(vi) The fresh information in relation to Beesley
In early 2010 Beesley...
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