[2025] EWCA Crim 1173

Three proposed grounds of appeal are advanced on the renewed application. First, it is said that the sentence of six years' imprisonment was manifestly excessive because the judge had placed the offending into the wrong and higher category; secondly, that insufficient adjustment was made to reflect personal mitigation; and thirdly, that the finding of dangerousness was wrong because the judge had taken into account information contained in an indictment on which the applicant had been acquitted.

So far as the first point is concerned, in oral submissions this morning Miss Jones drew attention to the fact that the judge had referred to the information from the victim personal statement about the applicant being able to stand up to the co-defendant on occasions. That was only part of the picture and, in our judgment, the trial judge was entitled to place the applicant's offending into high culpability because of a combination of culpability B factors of prolonged and/or multiple incidents of serious cruelty, including serious neglect, the deliberate disregard for the welfare of the victim, as is apparent from the facts, and a failure to take any steps to protect the victim from offences in which the above factors were present. The judge had also rightly noted that there was one lesser culpability factor, which was that the applicant was a victim of domestic abuse. The judge did not find any other lesser culpability D factor. Although Miss Jones addressed us on that, in our judgment, the judge, who had heard the trial (albeit only up to a submission of no case to answer involving the applicant) was the person best able to make those sort of assessments. We can see no failure in finding that this was category 1A offending.

So far as the complaint about insufficient adjustment for personal mitigation, there were numerous aggravating factors which would have taken this sentence very substantially up within the range. The judge found that the personal mitigation balanced that out. It is apparent that the judge must have reflected all that mitigation to have considered that the mitigation was balanced out the aggravating factors. In our judgment, the judge was entitled to find that the mitigation did not reduce the sentence beyond what must have been a sentence of seven years and five months, before considering aggravating and mitigating factors and discount for plea.

That leaves the issue of dangerousness. It is common ground that the court may take account of any information before it. What was submitted was that, first, there was insufficient regard to the passage of time because the offending took place ten years ago. It is however apparent that it continued over a very long period of time. In our judgment, the judge was not prevented from making a finding of dangerousness because of the passage of time.

The second complaint was that the judge had taken into account the sexualised conversations about sexual child abuse which were attributed to the applicant, it being the applicant's case at the trial where the judge upheld the submission of no case to answer, that she was not responsible for the messages. However, the judge fairly dealt with the question of these messages. It does not appear that there was any contest before the judge on sentencing that the applicant was responsible for the messages. There was no request for a Newton hearing. Having regard to all of the circumstances of the offending, the judge, who had been the trial judge in another trial concerning the applicant (albeit only up to a submission of no case to answer), was best placed to make the assessment dangerousness. It was not, in our judgment, a particularly surprising assessment in the light of the facts which we have outlined.

Accordingly, notwithstanding the skill with which the renewed application has been pursued before us this morning, we refuse the renewed application for leave to appeal against sentence.