[2025] EWCA Crim 1172

During the course of the defence submissions, there was an exchange between the solicitor advocate and the judge about credit for the guilty plea. The solicitor advocate pressed for a 33 per cent discount, and suggested that the form had not been completed properly, which it had not been, and that issues of involvement, which had been noted, had been generated only by the solicitor advocate's analysis of the fact that this was a conspiracy case. The exchange does not indicate that the solicitor advocate had given clear advice to the applicant about a guilty plea and its effect.

When sentencing. the judge found that the applicant was highly trusted to organise and manage all aspects of the wholesale cocaine business, including the storage of firearms and ammunition and that he was most likely to be involved with somebody even higher than him. His role straddled that of both "leading" and "significant".

The drug offence was a "Category 1+" case, where there was no written guideline. Regard was therefore had to a number of authorities and the difficulties of "crowding" or "bunching". The judge said that in crimes as serious as this, remorse and personal circumstances could only play a limited role. At the time of the sentencing exercise there were no sentencing guidelines for the firearms offences, but the judge had regard to relevant case law. He concluded that the availability of ammunition for each of the weapons led to the conclusion that they could be used to endanger life, even though that was not the applicant's intention. Regard was had to the relevant statutory provisions.

The judge noted that the aggravating features were the purity of the cocaine and, to a limited extent, the applicant's previous convictions, albeit that they were for relatively minor offences.

The judge found that the mitigating features were: that the applicant had been out of trouble since 2011; that he had held down good work; and that he had never previously served a custodial sentence. In addition, the judge had numerous letters in relation to the applicant's good qualities, and a psychological report.

The judge found that the sentence for the drug offences should be 21 years' imprisonment and for the firearms offences it was nine years' imprisonment. The sentences for the drugs and firearms offences had to be consecutive to one another, with a reduction for totality, which meant that rather than there being an overall figure of 30 years' imprisonment, the sentence was reduced to 26 years' imprisonment before credit. 25 per cent credit was given for the applicant's guilty plea, as already indicated, which led to the sentence of 19 years and six months' imprisonment.