Clare Ashcroft success in the Court of Appeal.

Following Clare’s success in securing the only suspended sentence for her client in a multi-handed sexual offences case, the Attorney General sought to refer all 10 sentences imposed in the case as “unduly lenient.”  The “unduly lenient” referral scheme applies to all sentences for indictable only offences and offences included by subsequent Order pursuant to the Criminal Justice Act 1988.

 

During a 2 day hearing this week, the Court of Appeal considered and gave judgment in favour of Clare’s submission that the “unduly lenient” scheme did not apply to her client’s circumstances.  Clare’s client was sentenced for offences which fell outside of the scheme, but the Attorney General argued that because he was sentenced with many others all of whom had committed offences which did qualify, s.36 of the 1988 Act extended to Clare’s client as part of the over-all “case.”   Clare argued that the scope of s.36 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988, although sufficiently wide to include cases where an offender was sentenced for a mixture of qualifying and non-qualifying offences, was offender specific.  Court of Appeal (Edis LJ giving judgment) agreed with Clare’s analysis of the legislation, namely that reference to “the case” was limited to the specific offender. A literal construction of the entirety of s.36 made this plain.

 

Accordingly, the Court of Appeal dismissed the Attorney General’s application regarding Clare’s client.  The remaining cases were heard. The Court of Appeal declined to interfere with all but one of the sentences imposed.