[2025] EWCA Crim 1240

This was, it was agreed by both sides, a murder which involved sexual conduct. It fell into a category where the seriousness is described in Schedule 21 as "particularly high". This means that the starting point when determining the minimum term is 30 years. That was the basis on which the judge acted.

The Schedule then requires the court, when determining the minimum term, to identify aggravating factors and mitigating factors. This was the subject at the hearing of careful submissions by both sides. The judge ultimately found that the aggravating factors and the mitigating factors balanced each other out, so that the minimum term before credit for the guilty plea would be assessed at 30 years.

The aggravating factors which the judge identified were as follows:

By way of explanation of that last comment by the judge, we observe that when identifying aggravating factors in a particularly serious murder, the court has to bear in mind that a murder of that kind will always have substantial aggravating factors and that to an extent they are taken into account in the selection of a starting point which is double that which applies to less serious murders. The judge knows what factors he has taken into account in that way, and therefore is able to identify what additional factors there are relevant to this case which justify or require an increase in the starting point above and beyond that 30 year level.

The judge identified four matters of mitigation as being relevant:

The Solicitor General submits, through Mr Jonathan Polnay KC, first, that we should interfere with the sentence because the judge erred in holding, as he did, that those aggravating and mitigating factors balanced each other out.

The second submission which the Solicitor General advances through Mr Polnay is that the judge gave excessive credit for the very late guilty plea. It will be recalled from the account we have given of the proceedings that the plea was entered in December 2024, prior to a trial in March 2025, but that trial date was the second trial date which this case had been given. The first trial had been intended for June 2024. The guilty plea was, therefore, entered very late. Mr Polnay accepts that it was reasonable in the circumstances of this case for psychiatric and psychological reports to be obtained and that the exception to the general rule about the credit for very late pleas, contained in paragraph F1 of the Sentencing Council's guideline on that subject, applies to a degree in this case. The degree to which it applies is dependent upon the judgment which had to be made by the sentencing judge and which has to be reviewed by us about the complex reasons why the guilty plea was entered as late as it was. The prosecution submitted that the credit should be reduced to something near the level which is conventionally allowed for pleas at the door of the court. They suggested that a level of ten to 15 per cent credit in non-murder cases would have been appropriate, which is reduced under the rules because this is a case of murder, to half of that level.

The defence submitted that full credit should be given because it was only in November 2024 that Dr Brown reported finally in the terms we have identified above. It was only at that point that it was clear to the offender and his advisors that a defence of diminished responsibility was not available to him. The judge said this: