England and Wales Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) Decisions

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL (CRIMINAL DIVISION)
ON APPEAL FROM CROWN COURT AT INNER LONDON
HHJ BISHOP
T20127545

		Royal Courts of Justice Strand, London, WC2A 2LL
		23/03/2016

Mr Justice Cooke:

1. This is a renewed application for permission to appeal against a sentence of 8 years' imprisonment imposed in December 2013 following a trial. The applicant was convicted of conspiracy to supply a controlled drug of class A.
2. At the time the applicant was serving an eight year sentence imposed in May 2013 for perverting the course of justice by burning a car used in a drive-by shooting on 11th June 2011, during the same period as the drugs conspiracy.
3. The applicant was 22 at the time of offending and 24 at the date of sentence. He had previous convictions for supply of cannabis to a prisoner and wounding with intent before the May 2013 conviction.
4. Between spring of 2011 and February 2012 a class A deal line was operating in the Banbury area of Oxfordshire. Addicts were able to purchase crack cocaine, heroin and ecstasy by contacting a mobile telephone number provided by members of the conspiracy. Nathan Deacon and the applicant, who lived in Camberwell, London, supplied the drugs to runners who sold them on behalf of the conspirators in Banbury. The drugs were stored at addresses in London, such as Elizabeth Cox's home in Paulet Road opposite Nathan Deacon's address. The drug suppliers travelled to the Banbury area by car or dropped runners at Marylebone who made the journey to Banbury by train. The police arrested one runner on 31st March 2011 in possession of 21 deals of crack cocaine but that runner was swiftly replaced by another, Aaron Melchor.
5. The judge, in his sentencing remarks, said that he was satisfied that the deal line was run by the applicant with his associate Nathan Deacon with Aaron Melchor as the runner who sold the drugs ordered through the deal line on their behalf. He found that the applicant had a leading role in the conspiracy inasmuch as he was involved in directing and organising the purchase of the drugs in an uncut state, arranging for them to be cut and prepared for dealing and then supervising the deal line and controlling the activities of the runners. The judge accepted that he came a little below Nathan Deacon in the hierarchy but was still firmly in the leading role category.
6. The judge also said that he was satisfied that the applicant was close to the original source of the drugs because of the 70-80% purity of the uncut drugs found in Elizabeth Cox's bedroom on 10th October 2012. He also referred to other evidence of the applicant's leading role at pages 7 and 8 of his sentencing remarks. He found that the amount of money generated by the activities must have been substantial, based on the drugs which were found, the purity of them, the purity of the drugs distributed and the duration of the conspiracy. He was entitled to conclude, as he did, that the amount was of the order of 1 kg. Based on that, this was a category 2 leading role case.
7. The judge referred to the aggravating features, including the applicant's prior offending, the fact that the index offence was committed partly whilst on police bail and the fact that the applicant had drawn a 17 year old person of previous good character, Elizabeth Cox, into the conspiracy.
8. In such circumstances the judge was justified in taking a starting point after a trial of 10 years, before reducing it on the grounds of totality in the light of the 8 year sentence that the applicant was already serving.
9. He concluded that the court should impose a consecutive sentence for the conspiracy, given its seriousness and, the fact that it was unrelated to the perversion of the course of justice for which the applicant had already been sentenced. No link has been put forward or established.
10. On 13th March 2014, the Court of Appeal considered the position of a co-defendant Tafari Deacon who had also received an eight year sentence for perverting the course of justice in the same incident as the applicant. On an Attorney General's Reference, in respect of a sentence for conspiracy to possess firearms with intent to endanger life, a ten year concurrent sentence was increased to 15 years concurrent and it was submitted that, since the arms offences were so serious, the totality of 15 years highlighted a disparity between Deacon's sentence and that of the applicant which totalled 16 years for the same offence of perverting the course of justice and the drugs conspiracy.
11. We do not agree. The judge who sentenced the applicant in December 2013 for the drugs conspiracy looked at the totality of the applicant's offending and reduced his 10 year starting point for the drugs conspiracy to 8 years. Given the seriousness of all the offending we do not consider that an eight year consecutive sentence beyond the sentence already being served was manifestly excessive. The Court of Appeal decision in Deacon related to an Attorney General's Reference in circumstances where there had already been 10 years concurrent sentences imposed by the first instance judge and, regardless of 'double jeopardy' the Attorney General's Reference cannot be taken to set the bar. The applicant had received consecutive sentences but this was the result of proper consideration by the sentencing judge and the total cannot properly be challenged. The application must therefore be dismissed.