R v Bradbourn
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | LORD JUSTICE LAWTON |
| Judgment Date | 23 May 1985 |
| Judgment citation (vLex) | [1985] EWCA Crim J0523-1 |
| Court | Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) |
| Docket Number | No. 2502/B/85 |
| Date | 23 May 1985 |
[1985] EWCA Crim J0523-1
IN THE COURT OF APPEAL
CRIMINAL DIVISION
Royal Courts of Justice
Lord Justice Lawton
Mr. Justice Mars-Jones
and
Mr. Justice Simon Brown
No. 2502/B/85
MR. R. GRIFFITH-JONES appeared on behalf of the Appellant.
On 14th February 1985 in the Crown Court at Wolverhampton this appellant, after a two day trial, changed her plea to guilty on a count of an indictment which charged her with the theft of £2. She was remanded on bail for a social enquiry report until 18th April 1985, when she was sentenced to 3 months' youth custody. She now appeals against sentence by leave of the single judge.
The appellant worked as a sales assistant at Messrs. Holland and Barrett, a health food shop, in Dudley. The business was suffering from unexplained losses. Security officers were called in to test the systems in the shop. On 15th October 1984 a security officer purchased items to the value of £2.15, using marked £1 notes. At the same time her colleague made purchases using marked £1 coins. The appellant served one of the security officers. She only recorded 15p on the till for the £2.15 purchase. The security manager who was accompanying the security officers then questioned the appellant and discovered a marked note and a marked coin in her handbag. The appellant at first denied the offence, but then told the security manager that she needed £140. She gave various ex-planations for needing this sum, all probably untrue. She declined to make a statement.
She is a single woman, residing with her parents, who are respectable people. She is 20 years of age. This was her first job. Various character references were available, all of which described her as an honest young woman. She clearly is not. But all that she has admitted to doing, and all that was ever proved against her, was stealing £2. She had no previous convictions.
The learned judge when sentencing her referred to the general background of the case. He also referred to the fact that the shop appeared to be losing a lot of money without any obvious reason for it, and then he said this:
"Having then pleaded guilty you told the probation officer that you pleaded guilty only because your then counsel put pressure on you. In short you are a thief and a liar and some one who is prepared really to blame anybody but yourself. I think it is serious when employees steal from their employers, and this is a case which in my view demands a sentence of youth custody. Because you are young and have not been in trouble before I am able to make that a short one, but it will be one of three months."
The learned judge did not specifically say whether he had in mind the provisions of section 1(4) of the Criminal Justice Act 1982, which provides as follows:
"Subject to subsection (2) below, no court shall pass a sentence of imprisonment on a person under 21 years of age or commit such a person to prison for any reason" Subsection (4) is in these terms: "Where a person under 21 years of age is convicted or found guilty of an offence, the court may not - (a) make a detention centre order in respect of him under section 4 below; (b) pass a youth custody sentence on him under section 6 below; or (c) pass a sentence of custody for life on him under section 8(2) below," –...
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