England and Wales Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) Decisions

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL
CRIMINAL DIVISION

		Royal Courts of Justice The Strand London WC2A 2LL
		15 October 2008

Wednesday 15 October 2008

THE LORD CHIEF JUSTICE: I will ask Mr Justice Sweeney to give the judgment of the court.

MR JUSTICE SWEENEY:

1. On 27 August 2008, in the Crown Court at Bradford, the applicant pleaded guilty to an offence of doing acts tending and intended to pervert the course of justice. The following day she was sentenced by His Honour Judge Scott to twelve months' detention in a young offender institution. Her application for leave to appeal against that sentence has been referred to the full court by the Registrar.
2. The facts in summary are as follows. The applicant is aged 20 and of previous good character. She was a student at Huddersfield University studying hospitality management. By the summer of 2008 she had completed two years of a four year course and as part of the course was due to take up a work placement at Disney World in Florida on 4 September 2008. She was the only student on her course to obtain such a prestigious placement.
3. On 12 August 2008 the applicant attended the first day of a trial of a close friend, Gavin Conroy, in the Bradford Crown Court. The trial was before Mr Recorder Berry and a jury for an offence contrary to section 18 of the Offences against the Person Act 1861. The applicant sat in the public gallery throughout the day and in the process recognised one of the jurors, Katie Walker, whom she knew through a mutual friend, Samantha McSheffery. The juror also recognised the applicant, having seen her at the public house where Conroy was alleged to have committed his offence.
4. Having recognised the juror, and without thinking through the consequences, the applicant decided to ask Miss McSheffery to contact the juror with a message to the effect that Conroy was not guilty. To that end at 2.48pm the applicant sent the following message to Miss McSheffery:

"Sam, please do a favour and text Katie that you have brought into spinks before. Just text her saying not guilty. I will call and explain later but please do this for me."

5. As a result of that message, Miss McSheffery sent a text message to the juror saying that she had received a text from the applicant saying:

"Please tell friend he is not guilty. He did not do it."

6. When the court rose that afternoon the Recorder gave the usual direction to the jury as to what to do if anyone approached them. It was at that point that the applicant began to realise the potential seriousness of what she had asked Miss McSheffery to do. She tried to contact Miss McSheffery to ascertain whether she had sent the message and, if not, to prevent it being sent. However, the text message had already been sent and was later received by the juror.
7. The following morning, 13 August, the juror responsibly reported the matter to the court. Fortunately, she did not tell any of her fellow jurors about the message that she had received. The Recorder was therefore able to discharge her and to continue with the trial, which eventually resulted in Conroy being acquitted of the section 18 offence, but convicted instead of a section 20 offence.
8. The applicant was arrested and interviewed on 13 August, the same day as the juror had reported the approach. The applicant fully admitted arranging the sending of the message. She said that she had very little knowledge of the court process, and thus did not realise the seriousness of her action in attempting to influence the juror, until the Recorder's warning. She fully accepted that her actions were wrong.
9. Two weeks later, on 27 August 2008, the applicant pleaded guilty. The particulars of offence made clear that she accepted that she had sought to influence the juror's adjudication.
10. In view of the pre-existing arrangements for the applicant to travel to America a few days later to take up her job placement, sentence was adjourned overnight so that a fast delivery pre-sentence report could be prepared. In the result, the following day the judge had available to him a pre-sentence report which recommended a community order or a suspended sentence order with one or more requirements. The report also indicated that there was a low risk of re-offending and that the applicant was remorseful. The judge also had before him five character references from responsible individuals at the university and a family friend, all of whom spoke well of the applicant. The judge was also referred to a number of authorities in relation to sentence in this type of case, namely R v Bowen [1996] 1 Cr App R(S) 63, R v Mitchell-Crinkley BAILII: [1997] EWCA Crim 2323, [1998] 1 Cr App R (S) 368, R v Baxter [2002] 1 Cr App R(S) 50 and R v Hardy [2004] EWCA Crim 3397.
11. The principal matters raised in mitigation were as follows:

(1) although custody was inevitable, it could be of such a length as to permit a suspended sentence;

(2) the applicant had made full admissions and had pleaded guilty at the very first opportunity;

(3) the applicant was clearly naive about the criminal justice system and as soon as she realised the potential seriousness of what she had set in train she tried to stop it, albeit she did not succeed; if she had appreciated the seriousness of her actions she would not have taken them in the first place;

(4) the juror was discharged so that the trial was not aborted and as such disruption was minimised;

(5) the applicant was genuinely remorseful;

(6) she was of previous good character; and

(7) her personal circumstances, in particular the disastrous consequences on her proposed job placement of a custodial sentence.

12. In passing sentence the judge indicated that he was inclined to accept that the applicant had been naive and stupid, but he rightly emphasised the paramount need for jurors to perform their public service without outside interference. He pointed out that the case law had repeatedly made plain that custody (and sometimes substantial periods of custody) is inevitable in cases of this type. Against that background he said that in his view there could not be a suspended sentence, and thus he passed an immediate sentence of twelve months' detention in a young offender institution. He made it clear that he had reduced the sentence by one-third to reflect the early guilty plea.
13. Miss Batts, on the applicant's behalf, submits in documents before the court that the sentence was manifestly excessive. She has referred us to the material authorities that were before the judge, to the various points that were made in mitigation, and to the additional penalties that the applicant has already suffered in the light of her immediate custodial sentence, most particularly the loss of her work placement in the United States, an inability to continue with her degree to date, and the uncertainty as to whether she will ever be able to travel to the United States in the future.
14. To state the obvious, and as the authorities to which we have made reference underline, it is the very foundation stone of our system of jury trial that jurors are able to carry out their duties uninfluenced and unaffected by outside interference; most particularly that they are able to do so absent any threat or encounter, direct or indirect, designed or having the tendency to persuade them from the proper performance of their task in accordance with the oath that they have taken. The naive and indirect approach to a juror may be just as disturbing for the juror as a more calculated one, and the consequences may be disastrous. That is why, to deter others, custody is inevitable for those who interfere with jurors, and sometimes substantial periods of custody.
15. That said, in passing sentence regard must be had to the facts of the particular case, and especially to the nature and the degree of the interference. Here a custodial sentence was, as we have indicated, inevitable. The length of the sentence imposed by the judge was within the general range indicated by the authorities. The real question on this application as it seems to us is whether, given the exceptional facts of this case, the custodial sentence should have been shorter.
16. In the end we are persuaded that it should have been. As we have indicated, the applicant is 20 years of age and of previous good character. She acted out of naivety. The moment she appreciated the gravity of what she had set in train she tried to prevent the juror from being contacted. The message that was passed to the juror was delivered indirectly and was not a threatening one. Fortunately for the applicant, the juror behaved entirely responsibly and thus the trial was able to continue to a conclusion with little disruption. The applicant made an immediate and full confession. She pleaded guilty at the first available opportunity. She has lost already her prime job placement in the United States and as a result of this conviction may not be able to travel there in the future to take up any similar opportunity.
17. In those circumstances we grant the application for leave, and reduce the sentence to one of four months' detention in a young offender institution.
18. In closing, we would emphasise that this is a case decided entirely upon its own exceptional facts. It should not be regarded as providing any sort of sentencing guideline. Against that background, and to the extent that we have indicated, the appeal against sentence is therefore allowed.