[2025] EWCA Crim 1113

For the offender, Mr Byrne effectively repeats the submissions he made in mitigation, placing considerable weight on the fact that the judge had heard the trial and observed the offender throughout and was therefore in the best position to assess the seriousness of his offending and the prospects for rehabilitation. If it was open to the judge to pass a suspended sentence, he also relies upon a pre-appeal report which records that the offender has engaged throughout. He relies upon that report as providing a degree of retrospective support for the judge's approach.