R v Roe
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | THE VICE PRESIDENT |
| Judgment Date | 18 February 2010 |
| Neutral Citation | [2010] EWCA Crim 357 |
| Date | 18 February 2010 |
| Docket Number | No: 2009/2210/A4 |
| Court | Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) |
[2010] EWCA Crim 357
IN THE COURT OF APPEAL CRIMINAL DIVISION
Before: The Vice President
(Lord Justice Hughes)
Mr Justice Mackay
Mr Justice Lloyd Jones
No: 2009/2210/A4
Mr M Rickard appeared on behalf of the Appellant
Mr G Curtis-Raleigh appeared on behalf of the Crown
: This is an appeal with leave against a sentence of imprisonment for public protection with a minimum term of four years based on a notional determinate term of 12 years. The sentence was imposed for an offence of robbery committed with some violence when the defendant and a co-accused broke into the home of a single woman living on her own in the evening.
We have had the advantage of some general discussion. It is not necessary to analyse sentences for this kind of offence in any detail, but we do draw attention to this. When framing its definitive guideline for offences of robbery, the Sentencing Guidelines Council deliberately abstained from attempting any guideline for what it called categories 4 and 5 of robbery which included “4. Violent personal robberies in the home” - see page 3 of the definitive guideline. At page 15 of the same document the Council referred to a sub-group of offences of such a kind for which a general range of something like 13 to 16 years after trial will be appropriate involving high levels of violence. The passing reference in the footnote was to the case of R v O'Driscoll (1986) 8 Cr.App.R (S) 121. That was a very serious case in which a sentence of 15 years’ imprisonment after trial was upheld as long ago as 1986. The victim was 80 years of age. He had plainly been targeted as a vulnerable and potentially profitable victim. He was attacked by two men in his home. He was tortured by having a lighted gas poker applied to his face. He was tied up and gagged and by the time he was eventually released he had injuries which included fractures to the skull and to his right leg.
Not all cases of robberies committed in the home approach that level of gravity or that level of sentence. It seems to us there is very good reason for the Council abstaining from any attempt to pigeon hole offences of this kind because the range of conduct which can be described as robbery in the home is so wide that any guideline would be likely to be so broad as to be of very little assistance to courts. Moreover, offences involving in due course some theft and violence in the home may sometimes involve other offences differently charged. They may involve offences of violence to the person, they may be originally burglaries or they may be the pursuit of some kind of underlying personal dispute. Those are but examples; there are many others.
It follows that judges must in this field be left to assess each case individually. That is after all the function of a sentencing judge and it is not to be expected that the provision of guidelines will provide in every possible situation a substitute for the essential exercise of judgment which is rightly committed to experienced trial judges.
It is certainly clear that the fact that a robbery takes place in the victim's home and that his home has been invaded makes the offence worse. It is undoubtedly true that the record of the defendant, if significant, will make the offence worse. It is plainly true that repetition of offending needs to be marked by increased sentencing. Beyond those very general observations it is very difficult to say more. At the lower end of offences of robbery within the home there are plainly some in relation to which a court can properly look for some kind of appropriate relationship to the prevailing level of sentencing for street robberies or other robberies. That was the approach adopted by this court in Attorney General's Reference Nos 38 to 40 of 2007 (Crummack and others) [2007] EWCA Crim. 1692, [2008] 1 Cr.App.R (S) 56. That, however, was a case of very limited violence. There were punches (two), in effect pushing the householder back into a chair. Attorney General's Reference No 124 of 2008 (Doran) [2008] EWCA Crim. 2820, was case of targeting the elderly but also one in which the violence was negligible. At the upper end of the scale are cases such as O'Driscoll itself, cases such as Purcell [2008] EWCA Crim. 894 and, strikingly, only two days ago, cases such as Morris and Long decided by this court differently constituted on 16th February 2010. In that case there were no less than eight particularly violent robberies, four of which took place through the invasion of the victims’ homes, the previous record of the defendants was considerable and in due course the appropriate starting point after trial, this court ruled, would have been as much as 20 or 22 years. That demonstrates the kind of range which these cases may demonstrate. We refer further in passing to the case of Attorney General's Reference Nos 81 and 82 of 2009 (Butler and Taylor) decided by this court, again differently constituted but led by the Lord Chief Justice, on 10th February. That was a case of two robberies for one defendant and the single for another. A baseball bat was taken and threats were made. The background to the invasion of the house was not an attempt at theft but some kind of running dispute between the defendants and the householders, although robbery ensued. The defendants had bad records. There was no actual violence involved. The starting point after trial for the man who committed two offences was nine years and for the other a little less.
Whilst it is true that at the lower end the approach of the court in Crummack of looking for guidance to some kind of relationship with other offences of robbery will be appropriate, it is impossible to say that it is always helpful to look for any such relationship. In cases at...
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