[2025] EWCA Crim 1467

While we tend to the view that the aggravating features in the case outweigh the mitigating features, we are not persuaded that a sentence of 8 years for a single offence of rape as committed by the offender, when viewed in isolation, was outside the range that could reasonably be imposed. We see no justification for going significantly lower than 8 years for a single offence because at best for the offender the aggravating and mitigating features more or less cancel each other out.

However, the judge was not sentencing the offender for a single offence of rape but for four. We can see no justification for imposing an aggregate sentence of 8 years for the four rapes committed by the offender. The only question in our mind concerns how great an uplift was required to reflect the fact that the judge was sentencing the offender for four offences of rape, committed on separate occasions as we have described above.

Clearly on totality grounds, we do not simply aggregate the appropriate sentence for one rape times four. But in our judgment, the uplift from 8 years must be significant and, in our judgment, must be not less than a further 4 years to reflect the seriousness and persistence of the offender's conduct, which did not stop until V disclosed what was happening to others. We accept that there being four separate incidents suggests the possibility of consecutive sentences in respect of each offence. However, in circumstances where we consider that the essential complaint is that the aggregate sentence is too low and all the offences were committed against V, we propose to address the issue by weighting the sentence on count 1 so that it reflects the overall criminality of the offender's conduct. We do that by quashing the sentence on count 1. We then substitute a sentence of 12 years on count 1 and direct that the sentences on counts 2, 3 and 4 are unchanged save that they shall be concurrent. For these reasons we grant leave and order accordingly.