[2025] EWCA Crim 1467

The judge accepted that the offences fell within category 2 because V was a particularly vulnerable person. However, he rejected a submission by the prosecution that these offences fell within category 2A because he was not satisfied to the criminal standard of proof that the offending involved "significant planning" within the meaning of the relevant guideline. His finding that the offences fell within category 2B is not challenged by the Solicitor General, who accepts that the judge was entitled to reach that conclusion. That would mean that the starting point for a single offence was 8 years with a category range from 7 to 9 years.

The judge identified two potentially aggravating features. His first was that there were four separate occasions, his second was the fact of ejaculation, which he considered to be an aggravating feature even though it did not put his victim in fear of conception or infection. As mitigating features, the judge identified that the offender had no convictions of a similar type before. No other personal mitigation of great substance was advanced save that the prisons are full. There was no victim personal statement from or on behalf of V. On this basis the judge concluded that the least sentence he could impose was one of 8 years' imprisonment structured as we have set out above.