England and Wales Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) Decisions

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Cite as: [2007] EWCA Crim 3046

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		Neutral Citation Number: [2007] EWCA Crim 3046
		No: 20070947 A5

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL
CRIMINAL DIVISION

Royal Courts of Justice
Strand
London, WC2A 2LL

30th November 2007

B e f o r e :

MR JUSTICE WILKIE
RECORDER OF CHESTER
(SITTING AS A JUDGE OF THE COURT OF APPEAL CRIMINAL DIVISION)
____________________

	R E G I N A
	v
	KEITH LEONARD JEGGO

____________________

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____________________

Mr A Johnston appeared on behalf of the Appellant
____________________

HTML VERSION OF JUDGMENT
____________________

MR JUSTICE WILKIE: This is the appeal of Keith Leonard Jeggo, aged 43, with leave of the Single Judge against sentences passed on him at the Crown Court at Stafford on 23rd August 2007. On 16th February 2007, the appellant pleaded guilty to the first indictment, which contained one count of possession of a class C drug, for which he received no separate penalty. On 27th June 2007, he appeared charged with a second indictment which contained three counts, one of attempted robbery, which was ordered to remain on the file in the usual terms in the light of the fact that on count 2, having an article with a blade or point, he pleaded guilty and on count 3, he pleaded guilty to threatening behaviour, as an alternative to the count on the indictment of affray. That plea to count 3 was accepted. In relation to count 2 on that indictment he received a sentence of 20 months' imprisonment. On count 3 of that indictment, he received a sentence of four months' imprisonment to run consecutively with that on count 2, thereby giving a total sentence of two years' imprisonment.

The facts of the matter shortly are that, at about 10.00pm on 24th September 2006, a man called Ashley Smith was talking on his mobile phone as he walked to a friend's house to Tamworth. He saw the appellant riding a bicycle, apparently in circles. The appellant followed Mr Smith a short distance before dropping his bike on a verge, approaching him on foot and asking him if he had a cigarette. When Mr Smith fumbled in his cigarette packet the appellant, for that is who it was, pulled a lock knife from his pocket with a blade of about three and-a-half to four inches, sharpened over the last third or so and serrated for the first third of the blade. The appellant told him to hand over his mobile phone but Smith ran to his friend's house and asked his friend to open the door because he was being chased by a man with a knife. Clearly very frightened, his friend recalled him being white and shaken when he got in the house. The appellant was found within the hour. He was still on his bicycle, still riding round in circles. He had a bottle of vodka with him. When arrested, he denied having committed any armed robbery.

When interviewed the next morning, the appellant said that he had argued with his ex-wife the previous night. He was drunk. He left the house on a bicycle, remembered someone asking him for a cigarette but could not remember any incident with Mr Smith and could not remember getting the knife out of his pocket. He claimed that the knife was part of the tools of his trade and had forgotten that it was still in his pocket. He entered his plea of guilty on a certain basis, which included his assertion that the knife was a work tool which he had forgotten was there.

The trial judge conducted what has been called an informal Newton Hearing, in the course of which Mr Jeggo gave evidence in respect of the provenance of the knife. The judge formed an adverse view of his credibility on that matter and said in terms that he did not believe him and therefore was not going to sentence him upon that basis.

The appellant was born on 4th July 1964. He has a bad criminal record: 16 previous convictions, involving 52 offences. Those offences involved two offences of possessing an offensive weapon in public and one of threatening behaviour. The sentencing judge in sentencing him made reference to those previous occasions, one in 1988 and a more recent one in 2006. A few months after that latter matter had come to court, he had committed the index offences. As we have indicated, the judge stated that he rejected completely the account of how he came by the knife. He said that the appellant was entitled to some credit for a guilty plea but that was much diminished by the fact that he told the judge a completely untrue story. The judge then went on to say that the maximum sentence for having a bladed article is two years. The maximum sentence for using the knife, producing the knife in a threatening way, as he put it, was six months. He therefore gave him a sentence of 20 months in respect of the bladed article and for the threatening behaviour four months consecutive, making two years in all.

A number of points have been taken in the grounds of appeal. We do not accept the grounds which criticise the judge for failing to give credit for a guilty plea or for conducting a Newton Hearing. Plainly the judge did give some credit for the guilty plea and was entitled to form the view which he did from the evidence which was before him and rightly took the view that that reduced the amount of credit for the guilty plea which he imposed. However, the points which we think are of merit are that the judge erred in principle in passing consecutive sentences in respect of the one and the same incident. In our judgment that is precisely what the judge did and he was wrong in principle in so doing. It gave rise to a sentence being passed being the maximum permissible for having a bladed article. The sentence which was passed in respect of the bladed article of 20 months' imprisonment, even giving a reduced discount for the fact that he had pleaded guilty late in the day but had failed under the quasi-Newton Hearing, was so near to the maximum that it was a manifestly excessive sentence, even though the appellant had some previous convictions relating to that kind of offence.

In our judgment, the appropriate sentence for that offence, count 2, upon a trial would have been 18 months. Giving him limited credit for the guilty plea. In our judgment the appropriate sentence should have been one of 15 months. The sentence of four months for threatening behaviour was an entirely proper one in itself but should have run concurrently rather than consecutively. Accordingly the total sentence which should have been imposed by the judge on Mr Jeggo should have been one of 15 months rather than 24 months. To that extent this appeal is allowed. We quash the sentence of 20 months and substitute one of 15 months. We quash the sentence of four months' imprisonment consecutive and substitute for it a sentence of four months to run concurrently.