This week’s Digest considers four judgments of the Court of Appeal (Criminal Division). In R v Wood the court considers the proper approach to sentencing an offence of encouraging or assisting the commission of an offence believing it would be committed, contrary to section 45 of the Serious Crime Act 2007. In R v Osinski the court considered the sentence imposed on an on an offender who had been in a controlling and coercive relationship with his girlfriend during which he had imprisoned her against her will for four days, repeatedly raping and assaulting her. In R v Yuel the court considered whether there was a need for an extended determinate sentence where the offender had received a determinate sentence with a hospital and limitation direction. In R v Bupa Care Homes (BNH) Ltd the court considered the extent to which a parent company’s turnover can be considered at Step Two or Step Three of the Sentencing Council’s guideline for Health and Safety Offences.

R v Wood [2019] EWCA Crim 1633

The judgment, available here, was handed down by Simon LJ on 03/09/19.

The Court of Appeal declined to hold that a sentence of 2 years’ imprisonment suspended for 18 months for encouraging or assisting the commission of arson with intent to endanger life was unduly lenient. On the facts the assistance provided had been under threat and there was little if any encouragement. Although the seriousness and potential scale of the reference offence was a factor in sentencing the seriousness of the instant offending was not simply to be measured by reference to it.

 

R v Osinski [2019] EWCA Crim 1686

The judgment, available here, was handed down by Simon LJ on 03/10/19.

A sentence of eleven and a half years’ imprisonment imposed on an offender who had been in a controlling and coercive relationship with his girlfriend during which he had imprisoned her against her will for four days, repeatedly raping and assaulting her was unduly lenient. An extended sentence of fifteen years, comprising a custodial term of thirteen years and an extended period of licence of two years would be imposed for the rapes, to run consecutively to a sentence of 18 months’ imprisonment for the controlling and coercive behaviour.

 

R v Yuel [2019] EWCA Crim 1693

The judgment, available here, was handed down by Simon LJ on 04/10/19.

Where an offender with a history of sexual offending had committed a violent and prolonged stranger rape a sentence of eleven years’ imprisonment had been unduly lenient. The offending should have been placed in Category 1 harm, not Category 2 and the offender was so dangerous that an extended sentence was necessary even though his schizophrenia meant that a hospital direction and a limitation direction had been imposed. An extended sentence consisting of a custodial term of fourteen years, with an extended period of licence of five years would be substituted.

 

R v Bupa Care Homes (BNH) Ltd [2019] EWCA Crim 1691

The judgment, available here, was handed down by Julian Knowles J on 11/10/19.

The sentencing judge had erred in considering the turnover of the parent company when sentencing a company for breach of a health and safety offence. That one company may be the wholly owned subsidiary of a larger parent (with larger financial resources) does not mean that the resources of the parent can be treated as available to, or as part of the turnover of, the subsidiary company, either at Step Two or at Step Three of the Sentencing Council’s guideline for Health and Safety Offences in the absence of special factors justifying doing so.

 

UK and US sign Data Access Agreement

 

Public consultation on sentencing guidelines for firearms offences

 

Independent Review of the Metropolitan Police Service’s handling of non-recent sexual offence investigations alleged against persons of public prominence

 

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