England and Wales Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) Decisions

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL
CRIMINAL DIVISION

		Royal Courts of Justice Strand London, WC2A 2LL
		Thursday, 12 April 2018

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MRS JUSTICE MAY:

1. This is a renewed application for leave to appeal sentence.
2. On 11 July 2017, in the Crown Court at Manchester, the applicant pleaded guilty to one offence of offering to supply a controlled drug of Class A to another, contrary to section 4(3)(a) of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 and a further offence of supplying a controlled drug of Class A to another under the same provision. Both offences concerned supply to undercover officers operating in the Rusholme area. On the first occasion 2 September 2016, the applicant sold the officer a bag which purported to be filled with cocaine but in fact contained paracetamol. On the second occasion, six days later, he sold the same officer a further bag, this time containing 0.1 gram cocaine at 80% purity. He was sentenced to 2 years for each offence, sentences to run consecutively, giving a total sentence of 4 years. Allowing full credit for his pleas, as the judge did, this equates to a sentence of 6 years after trial.
3. The applicant is now aged 21. He was just a few days short of his 20th birthday at the time of committing the offences in September 2016. He was not of good character, having eight previous convictions relating to drug offending, albeit none before which had resulted in a custodial sentence.
4. The pre-sentence report deemed him to be at a high risk of re-offending given his continued use of Class A drugs. The nature of the offences placed them within category 3 "significant" role in the Sentencing Council Guideline, which gives a starting point of four-and-a-half years with a range of up to 7 years.
5. The grounds of appeal are that the sentencing judge failed to take into account the applicant's age, the small amount of drugs supplied, the lack of antecedent history for any previous supply offence and the fact that this would be his first sentence of imprisonment. Further, that insufficient account was taken of totality.
6. In refusing leave the single judge (Spencer J) said this:

"The high purity of the cocaine was an aggravating factor, as was your poor record and commission of the offences during a community order. Your age and the impact of the accident you had suffered afforded some mitigation, but the judge was entitled to take the view that, before credit for plea, each offence individually merited 3 years and that a total sentence of 6 years' custody was appropriate. It is not arguable that such a sentence was other than just and proportionate. The judge specifically had regard to totality. You were afforded full credit for your early guilty pleas. Though severe, it is not arguable that your sentence of 4 years' detention was manifestly excessive."

7. We respectfully agree and refuse this renewed application for leave.
8. Before leaving this case there are however two administrative matters with which we must deal. The first is that the sentence was wrongly expressed as a "custodial" sentence when, given the age of the applicant, it should properly have been expressed as "detention in a youth offending institution". The second matter is that the court record has noted the wrong figure for the victim surcharge order, which should be £170. We direct that the record be amended to reflect both these changes.

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