R v Simon Samuel Adeojo and Ronald Mugambwa
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | THE RECORDER OF BIRMINGHAM |
| Judgment Date | 27 June 2008 |
| Neutral Citation | [2008] EWCA Crim 1552 |
| Docket Number | No: 2008/1008/A8 & 2008/1423/A8 |
| Court | Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) |
| Date | 27 June 2008 |
[2008] EWCA Crim 1552
IN THE COURT OF APPEAL
CRIMINAL DIVISION
Lady Justice Hallett
Mr Justice Mackay
The Recorder of Birmingham
His Honour Judge Chapman
(Sitting as a Judge of the CACD)
No: 2008/1008/A8 & 2008/1423/A8
Mr J Gubbay appeared on behalf of Adeojo
Mr P Douglas appeared on behalf of Mugambwa
Miss J Osborne appeared on behalf of the Crown
On 17th January 2008 at the Crown Court at Inner London, both these appellants pleaded guilty to a single count of robbery and on 7th February they were sentenced. Adeojo was sentenced to four years' detention in a young offender institution and Mugambwa to five years' imprisonment. Each was allowed credit for 120 days already served on remand pursuant to section 240 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003. They had a co-accused called Michael Benson, who was only 16 at the time of the offence and 17 when sentenced. He also pleaded guilty and was sentenced to a two year community rehabilitation order with a six month curfew and 60 days' attendance at an ISSP programme. The two appellants appeal with the leave of the single judge.
The facts of the case are unremarkable, but we must keep in mind that the offence we are dealing with is one of robbery of cash in transit by a gang.
At 11 o'clock on the morning of 8th October 2007 a Loomis security van made a cash delivery to replenish some ATM machines outside a branch of Asda in Charlton, South East London. A stolen car with an altered numberplate containing these two appellants, Benson and a fourth man who was never captured, arrived in the car park soon after the security van. Three of them got out of the car. One of them then confronted the security guard making the delivery. He grabbed hold of the cash box, saying to the guard “Give me the box, give me the bloody box” and tried to pull it from the guards' grasp. There was a struggle, at which point two of the other men involved approached and joined in wrestling the box from the grasp of the security guard. They ran back to the car and made their escape.
The police were called and given the registration number of the car which was circulated. The car was spotted a few minutes later. Police officers gave chase and ultimately the car was abandoned by the robbers and the four men exited and ran off. Three of them, namely these two and Benson, were arrested nearby. The fourth succeeded in escaping capture. The cash box was found in the footwell of the car. It contained £25,000 and although attempts had been made to open the box those attempts had been unsuccessful.
In opening the case in the lower court the Crown accepted that they could not ascribe any particular role to any of the defendants, but the learned judge made it clear that in terms of exact roles in his view it made no difference to sentence; all of them were present and participating. He took the view that it was a very amateurish cash in transit robbery but there must have been a degree of advance planning. There were no weapons produced and no violence used beyond that necessary to wrest the cash box from the security guard.
Adeojo is now 20 but was 19 at the time of the offence. At that time he had not previously appeared before the courts but on 19th February, after he had been sentenced for the robbery, he was sentenced to four months' detention for an offence of threatening words and behaviour committed before the robbery.
Mugambwa is 24. He has two previous court appearances. In 2005 he was conditionally discharged for theft. In 2006 for a further theft he was sentenced to serve two months' imprisonment and for breaching the conditional discharge received a further two months.
By contrast, Benson, who was only 16 at the time of the offence, had not previously appeared in court at all. A pre-sentence report had been ordered in the case of Benson but there were no reports in respect of Adeojo or Mugambwa.
The learned judge in passing sentence correctly in our view described the offence as one where the security guard had been robbed of a large sum of money, although weapons and excessive violence were not used, had those factors been present the sentences would have been much greater. He took the view the offence was extremely serious and that the security guard had been terrified. He drew a distinction between Mugambwa and Adeojo as contrasted with Benson because Benson was so much younger. He had pleaded guilty at the very first opportunity and was being sentenced on the basis of less involvement because of his basis of plea.
The grounds of appeal claim that the sentence was manifestly excessive, that the judge failed to have regard to the...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
R v Richardson (Reuben)
...fitting offences of this kind. That reflects comments that have been made in a number of cases including some recent ones such as R v Adeojo and Mugambwa [2009] 1 Cr App R(S) 66 and R v Mills & Baxter [2009] EWCA Crim 1694. There was a degree of sophistication about these robberies. That is......
-
R v Navis Ahmed Chowdhury and Others
...the appropriate starting point was about eight years' imprisonment. In this context attention was drawn to the decision of this court in R v Adeojo [2009] 1 Cr App R(S) 66, where a gang of four young men robbed a security guard of a cash box by wrestling it off him. They escaped in a stolen......
-
R v Gavin Walters
...had become a committed and serious professional criminal. 38 The Recorder considered the sentencing guidelines for robbery and the cases of R v Adeojo [2008] EWCA Crim. 1552 and R v Shabaaz [2011] EWCA Crim. 2648. He took as his starting point eight years' imprisonment, to which he added a ......
-
R v Sharp (Mark)
...as he fell to be sentenced for the offence as a youth, and we have had our attention drawn to the following cases: R v Adeojo [2008] EWCA Crim 1552; R v Baiden [2010] EWCA Crim 1329; R v Headlam [2008] EWCA Crim 2578; R v White [2010] EWCA Crim 621 and lastly R v Yarboi [2009] EWCA Crim 276......