R v Blackall (Neal)
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | RECORDER OF BIRMINGHAM,LORD JUSTICE MAURICE KAY |
| Judgment Date | 29 April 2005 |
| Neutral Citation | [2005] EWCA Crim 1128 |
| Court | Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) |
| Docket Number | No: 05/431/A6 |
| Date | 29 April 2005 |
[2005] EWCA Crim 1128
Lord Justice Maurice Kay
Recorder Of Birmingham
His Honour Judge Saunders Qc
No: 05/431/A6
IN THE COURT OF APPEAL CRIMINAL DIVISION
Royal Courts of Justice
Strand
London, WC2
MR GARY RUTTER appeared on behalf of the APPELLANT
On 5th November 2004 at Croydon Crown Court the appellant pleaded guilty to possessing a prohibited firearm and possessing ammunition without a firearms certificate. He was sentenced to a term of five years' imprisonment for possessing a prohibited firearm and to one year concurrently for possession of ammunition without a firearms certificate. By virtue of section 51A of the Firearms Act 1968, as amended by section 287 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003, the judge had to impose a minimum sentence of five years' imprisonment for the offence of possessing a prohibited firearm 'unless he was of the opinion that there were exceptional circumstances relating to the offence or the offender which justified him in not doing so'. The judge's opinion was that there were no exceptional circumstances and he therefore imposed a sentence of five years' imprisonment. The facts of this case are therefore critical to the outcome of this appeal.
On 11th February 1995 the appellant was shot and wounded by an unknown gunman. He was rendered paraplegic by the shooting. He has no movement or sensation from the chest down. He suffers from a high degree of disability, which very seriously affects his daily life. The person who attacked him has never been caught, nor has the reason for the attack ever been ascertained, although the matter was reported to the police and they investigated it. Since the date of that attack, for a period of nine years, the appellant has kept a revolver gun in his house to protect himself from future attack. He says —and there is no reason to doubt this because he has always been frank with the authorities —that until four months before this offence was discovered he had always kept it unloaded. But he says that he was subject to a further attack in about July 2004, when a man knocked on the front door and when he answered it the man put a gun to his head. This incident was also reported to the police, but the perpetrator was not apprehended. Since this second attack the appellant has kept the gun loaded with six rounds of live ammunition for fear that the attacker will return and come back and shoot him.
The loaded revolver was discovered by the police when they called at the appellant's house on 7th September 2004. They told the appellant they had come to search for firearms and the appellant told them where the gun could be found and that he had kept it for his protection since he was shot nine years ago. It was recovered fully loaded from a kitchen drawer.
The appellant was arrested and interviewed. He gave the account which I have already described, which was not disputed by the prosecution.
It was argued before the learned judge that there were exceptional circumstances relating to both the offence and the offender. In relation to those matters the learned judge said this in passing sentence:
"I cannot be totally dismissive of your particular condition. But, Mr Rutter, you might like to make a note of this authority: it is the case of Stark. It is of relevance to this extent and it is pure...
To continue reading
Request your trial
- R v Amar Ali
-
HM Advocate v McGovern
...2003 SLT 1237; 2003 SCCR 640 Evans v RUNKUNK [2005] EWCA Crim 1811; [2006] 1 Cr App R (S) 64; [2005] Crim LR 876 R v BlackallUNKUNK [2005] EWCA Crim 1128; [2006] 1 Cr App R (S) 22; [2005] Crim LR 875 R v Jordan, Alleyne and RedfernUNKUNK [2004] EWCA Crim 3291; [2005] 2 Cr App R (S) 44; [200......
-
R v Evans (Peter)
...in Jordan, Alleyne and Redfern [2004] EWCA Crim 3291, stated that cases where "real exceptional circumstances" arise will be rare. In R v Blackall [2005] EWCA Crim 1128, this court found that there were exceptional circumstances relating to the offender where the defendant was a paraplegi......
-
Stanford Pinder v The Director of Public Prosecutions
...Counsel for the DPP denies its applicability. Mr. White further furnished the court with the authority of R v Neal Blackall [2005] EWCA Crim 1128. He uses this to assert that Pinder's paraplegia does not only require him to have special accommodations but also that it may be factored into ......